- Considering how Square Enix has fallen in love with titles where all the main words have the same number of letters (Bravely Default, Octopath Traveler, OT: Champions of the Continent), I think Triangle of Judgment is a good bet if Triangle Strategy isn't the final title.
- Jossed as Triangle Strategy is the final name.
- Alternately, the pretexts he gives for invading Glenbrook (that King Regna extorted the iron mines and had his cousin murdered when he found out) are actually Cassandra Truths, which will result in a brutal Broken Pedestal moment for Roland.
- Given the history of the developers' games, Gustadolph could be a Well-Intentioned Extremist. After all, while he does kill King Regna, he actively seems to be wanting the support of the other houses of Glenbrook, and shows disappointment if the heroes refuse to hand over Roland. He could be trying to unite the land against a common threat, and believes that he must conquer the other nations.
- Jossed, Gustadolph is a textbook sociopath. That said, he has a nuanced set of virtues and principles, and he has a sympathetic goal of breaking Hyzante’s salt monopoly over the continent, but nonetheless goes to ruthless extremes in achieving it.
Pretty obvious one, but while it looks like he might be dead, the nature of his character and how he is presented leave it too suspicious to say he died that early. Not only is he The Ace, but he has a mask for some reason. Both of leave the idea that Maxwell has a mysterious role in the plot, perhaps being someone more important or even as a secret antagonist.
- As for the "that early" remember that the demo takes place in Chapters 6 and 7 — midway through the game.
- Partially Confirmed; he's not dead and can in fact rejoin the party with the right decisions, though his mysteriousness turns out to mainly just be a way for Roland to easily adopt Maxwell's identity. He does elaborate on his mask in his Character Stories, noting that he was using it as a way to distance himself from his past.
As the trailer has shown us, the Holy State of Hyzante is heavily depicted to be a very religious country and quite possibly is this game's Theocracy. They control the large salt-lake seen in the demo, which gives them access to a huge supply of salt, a resource that is very vital for the setting. Thus, it would not be unreasonable to claim, that their religion is centered around the importance of the salt. So maybe they have a deity that is the personification of the salt central to life.
- Appears to be confirmed as a minor character in Hyzante says "Goddess forbid" in reaction to hearing tragic news. So it's very likely they worship a salt goddess.
- Confirmed. Also, it's a false goddess whose main reliquary contains, in complete irony, evidence that the religion's main tenets are false.
Her siblings have silver hair and light eyes, while she has red hair and dark eyes. And they have much more menacing facial features and designs compared to her. Since sexism doesn’t appear to be an issue in this game’s setting, it would be reasonable to assume she wasn’t married off to Serenoa because she was a woman, but because she wasn’t seen as a legitimate royal.
Her personality is also at odds with the rest of her siblings - being focused on peace and compassion and being a magic user instead of a warmongering physical combatant. It can also be assumed this made her the Unfavorite growing up. Building on the above WMG about Gustadolf, he was probably the only royal sibling to treat her with some kindness, which is why she still believes in him.
- The second demo more or less confirms this. Her mother was a Rosellan from Hyzante, who escaped and married into the royal family on her own merits leading an uprising, which made her a royal badass in the eyes of Aesfrost, which is why she has pink hair.
Since there was peace for years before everything went down, it can be safe to assume that Frederica and Serenoa met at least once before being betrothed - most likely at feasts or tourneys. Frederica’s personality type would make her prone to Single Woman Seeks Good Man. And it happened to be just her luck that she was betrothed to someone she was already infatuated with. This would also be a subversion of the usual trappings of the Arranged Marriage trope where it is portrayed as a negative thing and one or both parties actively oppose the arrangement.
Of course she would be aware that while Serenoa is amicable towards her, he isn’t exactly head-over-heels in love with her. So she keeps her feelings inside and supports him, whether he learns to love her or not.
As for if that actually happens, it depends on the player’s choices. If the player makes Serenoa choose more compassionate choices, he will grow to love Frederica and her feelings will evolve from infatuation to loving the real him. If the player makes more ruthless choices, she will leave and join with Gustadolf. When that happens, she will tell him that she realised she loved the idea of him, rather than what he actually was.
- This last point may have been confirmed with a piece of dialogue from the latest trailer suggesting such [link[1]
] - Jossed. The second demo makes it clear this is the first time they've met, though the later points are still possible.
Both are described as taking place on continents (Norzelia for Triangle Strategy, Orsterra for Octopath Traveler) rather than planets, so they can easily be on the same planet.
- Lyla naming a gem that explodes in a burst of flame "Aelfric", reminiscent of Octopath's Aelfric the Flamebringer, lends some credence to this theory.
As the trailer has shown us, he is the one for the pragmatic choices for the coming game and thus is the personification of "Utility", whereas Roland represents "Morality" and Frederica "Liberty". The last two came from different countries with Roland from Glenbrook and Frederica from Aesfrost, thus it's not unreasonable to assume that Benedict has his origins in Hyzante. As we have seen in the game, the Holy State of Hyzante is pretty corrupt and one of the saints let a patient die for being not a believer. This caused Medina to leave the Capital, so maybe something similar made Benedict defect to Glenbrook during the Salt-Iron war.
My guess is that Serenoa will end up developing a case of Black-and-White Insanity based on what conviction he decides to blindly follow, becoming either a head-up-their-ass Principles Zealot (morality), a Omnicidal Neutral with a hatred towards all authorities or even principles (liberty), or a Totalitarian Utilitarian who will do anything for the greater good (utility) by the time this happens.
Of course, an alternative might be that he ends up inflicting something similar upon his allies or even the world in general - he is able to change people's minds with ease, after all.
- Jossed; none of the endings are perfectly happy, but Serenoa's overly strong conviction is used to convince most of his council from defecting due to an extreme decision. Balancing out convictions while completing special challenges in combat allows him to take a fourth option, but this is a non-standard ending.
- Partially confirmed: The Liberty ending involves going for broke and using a combination of Aesfrost's armies and indignant backstabbing to dominate Norzelia - Aesfrost and Hyzante sign peace treaties in Glenbrook's favor. Serenoa creates a new empire that has begun the path to industrialization but screws up on social justice, which leads to an age of Robber Barons.
- Alternatively, they are a Puppet King figurehead with no real power beyond whatever Idore advises.
- Confirmed. The Hierophant is an Aelfric-powered automaton Idore uses to kill anyone who realizes he runs the country.
