YMMV / The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Nearly every major character in the game. Depending on Sir Brante's choices and the scenes he has (or has not) triggered, the same character can act and behave vastly differently in two separate playthroughs.
  • The Twins may be the prime example in- and out of universe. Are they an example of God Is Good, stern but benevolent teachers who want people to live good and virtuous lives? Are they Jerkass Gods who enforce a cruel and oppressive social system and make people live in suffering? Do they operate on Blue-and-Orange Morality and therefore don't really understand puny humans under their care? There is enough evidence for multiple theories about Them, and it all comes down to what you (and Sir Brante) believe in.
  • Sophia, again, in- and out of universe. A valiant fighter for freedom and dignity of the human race, commoners in particular? A batshit crazy mass murderer who only wants to spread misery and pain through the world? Or a Broken Bird who lost her way because of all the suffering, but deep down still a good person who can and should be redeemed?
  • Stephan Brante. A Big Brother Bully who only cares about his family when it helps him improve his social station? Or a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who just sees obtaining hereditary nobility as the best way to express his love and loyalty for the family?
  • Gloria. Smart, passionate and spirited young woman whose main desire is to be accepted by the people she loves most? Or an insufferable Soapbox Sadie with Holier Than Thou attitude who does not help her family or her social cause in any meaningful way? Or maybe, a well-meaning person who wants to do good but is simply too naive to achieve anything significant?
• Anti-Climax Boss: Father Ulrich in the Priest path. He presents himself as a ruthless and intimidating mystic who can crush you with his bare willpower, but if Sir Brante simply refuses to become his disciple and doesn't strengthen the Inquisition too much, he is taken out in a non-interactive scene by a non-player character (Jeanne). Most embarrassingly, Ulrich's glorified Mind Manipulation only allows him to barely escape with his life and go into hiding.
• Breather Level:
  • The kaleidoscope event. It's a moment to get easy willpower before two events where the best options cost that resource. From a roleplay perspective, it's a very low-stakes event shortly before a high-stakes one.
  • Many scenes with Tommas do not have stakes at all, just quiet moments of friendship and camaraderie where almost every choice is beneficial in some way.
  • More like a Breather Lifepath; some players find the Priest Lot the easiest of three. Firstly, it all but guarantees good relationships with Lydia and Nathan which makes it easier to maintain family unity. Secondly, the Priest very rarely comes under threat of death, and even his most powerful enemies rarely threaten to destroy his life completely. Thirdly, there is only one possible Deal with the Devil, and rejecting it doesn't cost you that much compared to similar deals in other paths. And, last but not least, the Priest can achieve good results in situations where it's flat out impossible in any other path (such as saving the life of Octavia Milanidas or avoiding the downfall of the Temple).
• Broken Base:
  • Who is morally superior in the conflict between The Empire and La Résistance? Some players think the Empire is such a travesty that everything is acceptable to destroy it, up to and including mass murder and a full-scale genocide. Others take the opposite stance and declare the Revolt an unjustified, violent uprising of crooks and thugs who go too far to see the world burn. Then there are those who commit to Grey-and-Gray Morality of the setting and think both sides have a point, or just like to explore different paths regardless of their personal opinions.
  • Should the Brantes get ennobled by Sword? Some players are so enamored with the idea of hereditary nobility that they try to obtain it in every playthrough, even when it doesn't really make sense for Sir Brante to care about it. Others do the opposite and see nobility of the sword as something utterly worthless, no matter the circumstances. And then there are those whose view on it changes depending on what kind of Sir Brante they're roleplaying.
• Complete Monster: Dorius Otton, the military commander of the province of Magra, is corrupt even by the depthless standards of the Arknian nobility. Before Brante even reaches adulthood, Dorius is a rapist and abuser who first meets the player attempting to reclaim his runaway slave, a young commoner named Sophia. Age only refines Dorius's cruelty; as military commander of Magra, Dorius goes from village to village collecting an exorbitant tax from the commoners, pillaging and razing at his own merriment while brutally putting down any resistance. Should Brante's Justice rating fall too low, Dorius will order a mob of hundreds of disaffected villagers put down by force, leading to a horrible massacre should Brante be unable to or unwilling to stop it. Dorius's endgame for Magra is the "Night of the Serpents", where on behalf of his benefactor Archduke Milanidas, Dorius will purge the province of any political rivals and their innocent families. Dorius also has a tendency to force people—mostly his own men—to participate in lopsided duels to the death, often repeatedly challenging them after their resurrection until they meet their True Death. Reviled not just by the peasantry but by almost all of his own Arknian allies, if convicted both sides will find Dorius Otton equally guilty of unremitting evil.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • The first three chapters - Childhood, Adolescence and Youth - are needed mainly to establish and develop your character's personality and skillset, and even "bad" choices don't cost you anything irreplaceable. But after them, comes the Peacetime chapter, and you discover that your decisions now matter HARD. Nearly every choice both in your career and family life now has lasting consequences, and it is painfully easy to fail in your goals and suffer devastating losses because you're one number short in some important stat. Moreover, you're now locked out of favorable options far more often, and conditions needed to unlock certain choices and trigger certain events become more and more demanding. Moreover still, you discover that you can't make certain "good" choices not because you've made a mistake in the Peacetime chapter itself, but because you did not grow into a right sort of person back in your childhood.
  • The last chapter, the Revolt, ups the difficulty even more. All the choices you've made through your entire life come to a head, and Twins help you if you regret some of them now. Also, the Peacetime chapter was at least long enough for you to balance your stats and make up for your previous mistakes. In the Revolt, there is next to no room for mistake or error of judgement. Make one rushed or foolish choice, and it may spell doom for your character, your family and, potentially, the whole world.
  • For many players, the Noble Lot proves to be much harder than other lifepaths. The Priest is well protected by his position in the Inquisition, and the Lotless path, while tense, can be pretty straightforward once you've decided whose side you are really on. A nobleman, though, is besieged from all sides by dangerous enemies, shady deals and life-or-death situations. Tellingly, while it is possible to play a priest or a commoner and suffer only one or two lesser deaths, it is very difficult to succeed as a nobleman without sacrificing all your "lives" and being one step away from True Death by the endgame.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Gregor Brante. Almost every scene he's in, the man uses every opportunity and then some to be an obnoxious, elitist, violent jerk, and only cares about those relatives who can fulfil his own ambitions. However, some players find said ambitions to be reasonable and worth pursuing, and some even declare that Gregor is justified in his hatred of Lydia and Gloria, because these two are the reason why the Brantes can't have nice things. To put it simply, while almost no one can say Gregor is a nice man, quite a few say that he is a wise and righteous one.
• Ho Yay: Even before the full game's release there were requests for Thommas to be a Gay Option. While there wasn't one in the final game, an optional oath of friendship that Thommas and Sir Brante make in Youth involves wearing matching rings. Additionally, if Sir Brante visits the Markian Society then he has an Almost Kiss with an unnamed man before the Inquisition busts the party.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • The game warns you right from the start, in the opening text, that Sir Brante can't and shouldn't live a perfect life and win every battle, and that Bittersweet Ending is the norm in this world. That doesn't stop some players from complaining how "good" endings are not good enough or how it's too hard to get a "perfect" lifepath.
  • The family plotline generally revolves around one conflict: Ambition vs. Family Bonds. No matter what you choose, you can't make all your relatives happy and give them what they want; even the happiest resolutions come down to one or two family members giving up on their dreams for the family's sake. Some players were so discontent with this dramatic development that they edited game files to reconcile the family, adopt Gloria and still pass conditions to be ennobled. Even in a game where tough choices and imperfect decisions are the main point, some people just have to get their Happily Ever After.
• Narm: The game might be somber and serious in tone, but that doesn't mean it has no unintentional hilarity within.
  • In chapter 3, on the commoner path, there's a possible choice to drink wine with Sophia before the march. If you do, you reflect on how she was trampled by horsemen in her childhood, feel ashamed, and she assures you that it's not your fault. The only problem with this scene is that it is the same even if you saved Sophia from the horses.
  • In Peace chapter, as a nobleman, you can kill your elder brother Stephan in a duel. However, if your Career drops to zero afterwards, it triggers a scene where Stephan takes you to a party where some stuffy nobles try to bully and intimidate you for your Crusading Lawyer ways. If you trigger the scene earlier in the game, it feels like a natural progression of your antagonism with Stephan. Trigger it that late, and you get a darkly hilarious implication that your elder brother spontaneously came back from the dead just to be a traitorous shithead to you once more.
  • Your love affair with Jeanne on the priest path can become this, as she is the only mandatory Love Interest in the game. It is highly possible not to care for Jeanne before, make every choice that lowers her opinion on you, vocally defend the New Faith (which she hates) and generally be on Very Bad Terms with her. That doesn't stop her from going full Judge Frollo and humping ever-loving beejesus out of you. Adding to hilarity, if your prior relationships were too bad, even Sir Brante himself can't properly answer why the hell he's just played nookie with the woman who despises him. All he can come up with is "I guess it was an illusion".
• Rooting for the Empire:
  • Although the game's title predicts the fall of the Empire, and the game encourages you to oppose the status quo in several subtle ways, many players find it more interesting and satisfying to rise above Sir Brante's humble beginnings and climb up the existing social ladder, e.g. getting an hereditary noble title. Justified again in that, while you do have to make moral compromises to achieve success in the Empire, you don't necessarily have to descend into full-blown villainy.
  • Also happens In-Universe. It is totally possible for Sir Brante to work and prosper within the Empire and to protect it from the rebellion (or die trying), either to preserve his own privileges, to avoid excessive bloodshed and/or the Wrath of the Gods, or because he genuinely sees the Empire as something worth saving. Justified in that the Blessed Arknian Empire, while corrupt and unjust, is not as clear cut "evil" as other fictional empires, and the rebels are not quite the plucky freedom fighters of modern pop culture.
    • In the Revolt chapter, Sir Brante can optionally convince his father Robert to root for the Empire as well. A noble Sir Brante can do the same to his boss, Augustine El Borne.
    • One scene set early in the Revolt offers Sir Brante several options to boost his military forces and people's support. Naturally, half of these options are to convince one particular estate (old nobility, Old Faith priests, or greedy commoners) to join your Imperial fandom.
• Ron the Death Eater: Gloria. While she is designed as The Load in family's quest for nobility, and while she can act somewhat selfishly and irresponsibly at times, she never does anything purposefully cruel to people around her, protects her friends and relatives from harm and generally just wants to be treated like an equal and do what she loves (write poetry). Yet if you read some fans' opinions on her, she is pictured like either a dumb entitled bitch who ruins everyone's lives because of her sheer stupidity, or a cunning monster who manipulates her relatives into killing the family heir. Arguably, some part of this animosity comes from players who tried to gain nobility without making an active effort to get rid of Gloria, lost because of one particular event and decided to blame Gloria for their failure.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: For some players, the romantic route with Octavia Milanidas in the Noble path is sort of underwhelming. It starts strong, as you make a choice if you should submit to existing social standards and be subservient to Octavia, or defy said standards and become her equal lover (or defy them even more and flat out deny her a romance). No matter what you choose, you get one or two interesting scenes with Octavia, and the bond with her unlocks several beneficial choices later. However, this is the only romantic route in the game where you can't change the general outcome in any way and are Railroaded to lose your beloved to a mystical cult as she turns into an ancient magical creature. To add an insult to injury, the La Tari subplot, which takes up a big part of the route, is so far removed from the main conflicts of the Noble path (fight for justice/career doesn't match that well with arcane mysteries of the world) that some feel the romance itself is largely disconnected from the main plot.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Gloria was written to be ultimately sympathetic, but a number of players found her to be too much of a Spanner in the Works for the family.
  • Some people go the opposite direction and declare all the Brantes with the exception of Gloria and Nathan "various shades of bad". The Brantes were written as flawed but ultimately decent people, but between Robert's timidity, Lydia's religious dogmatism and Stephan's egotistical pride, some find it too much to bear.
  • Augustin El Borne can be this for some. He was written as an honorable and caring civil servant, the best kind of nobleman the Empire can offer. However, without Sir Brante's help (especially in the Noble path), El Borne can act so sloppily and make so many errors of judgement that it is highly possible for him to die without making any lasting good in the world. More than a few players view El Borne as a highly incompetent politician, or at best, a decent man who is too naive to make his noble ideas a reality.

---