Note: Unless otherwise specified, all tropes pertain to the characters, not the content creators that play them.
General
Fridge Brilliance- By the end of Season 1, less than half of the contents of The Book Of Prophecies, Past & Future had been revealed, and most of the prophecies were still yet to be fulfilled, implying a Sequel Hook. Though it turns out most of those pages are blank, there's a fairly obvious in-universe reason for the book being irrelevant to Season 2 — the two seasons take place many years apart from each other, possibly over a millennium. Since about a dozen prophecies have taken place over the course of Season 1 alone, the remaining prophecies have most likely already taken their course in the time gap between the seasons.
- The cycle of Aeor and Exor and their Champions has continued for centuries, possibly even millennia, before even Season 1 — the relevant prophecy even describes it to be "an endless battle since the beginning of time". As Season 1 marks the end of another life-cycle, what's to say that the two gods wouldn't have new Champions in the years to follow? And while the characters of Season 2 are distanced to the events of Season 1, the cycle might be continuing into the new season as Heroes and Villains of Another Story.
Season 1
Fridge Brilliance- Jimmy using cod as a food source in his earliest episodes might be chalked up to a case of Early-Installment Weirdness, but cod are cannibalistic in the natural world, which might help explain whatever ethics are involved in the issue.
- Lizzie's youthful appearance despite being allegedly Really 700 Years Old can be attributed to the fact that she's a blue axolotl. Axolotls have neoteny
, i.e. mature adults never go through metamorphosis and retain gills under normal circumstances. This possibly applies to Jimmy as well, as the two are Sea-blings even if he is associated with cod rather than axolotls. - While attempting to emulate Elsa in building an ice castle during his Self-Imposed Exile, Scott remarks that "Elsa made [it] look much easier in the film"... which actually makes sense.
- First, Elsa has had her powers for presumably her entire life of 21 years, and once had mastery over them as a child before the trauma hit. The ice palace was also not the first thing she built, having experimented with bursts of magic to a staircase before that. Meanwhile, Scott does none of that, and has only recently unlocked the powers after literal centuries without them.
- Second, and perhaps a funnier reason, Elsa is seen analyzing the ground around her before building up and refers to her magic as "fractals", and is clearly Good with Numbers enough to use her skills in the construction process. While Scott makes up for it partially in already being a Minecraftian builder, he's self-professedly not good at mathematics, which might also explain why his iteration of an icy castle is much less intricate than Elsa's (excluding Minecraft in-game rendering limitations, that is).
- One may argue the fact that in spite of prophecies having a recurring intricate connection to the season's plotlines, it is odd that no one actively attempts to defy them. However, it's subtly suggested in Scott's perspective of events that Empires takes place in the same continuity as Tolkien's Legendarium, and one of the quintessential elements of that series is that only Men, and by extension, Hobbits, are able to forge their own destinies as mortals. In Empires, upon closer examination, the characters whose arcs are defined by prophecies are all non-humans, most notably a pair of demigod/sea monster siblings and a pair of Elf siblings. Is it any wonder that You Can't Fight Fate is mandated for them, to the point no one brings up the possibility of telling destiny to shove it?
- The tenth prophecy in The Book of Prophecies, Past & Future reads that "An Empire that commemorates the fallen will be blessed by bountiful luck." As of Season 1, Pixandria is home to The Vigil, which is indeed used as a monument to the fallen... and also happens to be the only Empire spared from the Apocalypse How in the season finale — or at least never had its fate revealed, meaning there's still hope that Pixandra might have been spared while all the other empires were devastated.
- It's revealed by Word of God after the season that Sausage, for some reason, doesn't exist in Scott's Personalized Afterlife. With the revelation of Sausage's post-Season 1 fate in Season 2, it makes perfect sense — Sausage went to a different Afterlife and technically never died between Empires Season 1 and the ALSMP, so he'd have no reason to end up in the afterlife Scott ended up.
Fridge Horror and Sadness
- Jimmy's perspective of the Rapture ends with him fleeing from his empire with his pets, declaring himself unworthy of his titles. Since Lizzie lost her memories after the oceans drained as a result of a certain prophecy, and the swamp similarly drained itself of most of its water, it's entirely possible that unless he made it to deeper water, Jimmy succumbed to the same Death of Personality as his older sister off-screen.
- In the finale, since a majority of the Empires rulers end up fleeing from their lands, forcibly or voluntarily, they may never know that several among them died during the Rapture even if they survive After the End.
Season 2
Fridge Brilliance- One of Lizzie's defenses for Critter City is a moat as she considers water to be "a powerful way to keep evil at bay". This works five-fold — it can be playing on how Cats Hate Water; moats historically being used as measures of defense around castles as protection from siege weapons; the traditional belief that supernatural beings Cannot Cross Running Water; and a possible reference to the fact that the Ocean Empire, being built in the middle of the sea, was the most spared from Xornoth and his Corruption back in Season 1, enough for Lizzie the Ocean Queen to go about her business and personal character arc without dipping her toes into the wider server lore. The latter may double as a nod to Lizzie's Season 1 incarnation.
- While Pix's "60 Seconds of Winchester Doing the Stampy Feet Dance" short is both hilarious and adorable, some of the scenes where the player-character is portrayed riding Winchester tie in well with the character in question.
- "Sun is shinin' in the sky": Gem, whose empire practises solar worship.
- "There ain't a cloud in sight": GoodTimesWithScar; cloudless skies are typically storytelling shorthand for happiness.
- Pearl's scene is set in a sunflower and wheat field; remember her Season 1 counterpart's empire? The agrarian Gilded Helianthia.
- A Freeze-Frame Bonus in Empires-False's scene: Hermit-False can be seen distantly behind her, riding a different dodo.
- At the very end, Grian, in a quintessentially Grian move, rides the dodo off the Greatbridge.
- In the duel between the two iterations of Sausage, Dark Sausage is seen using a version of the Staff of Sanctuary made from dark oak wood. It's possibly just a Dark Is Evil shorthand, but Dark Sausage is a Literal Split Personality of Season 1 Sausage, who ruled over a kingdom in the dark oak forest. Meanwhile, Protector Sausage's staff of lighter wood could be jungle wood, and Sanctuary is located in the depths of a jungle biome.
- Sausage Speaks Fluent Animal. He also has few qualms killing livestock for food and other resources... which implies he might understand what the livestock animals are saying before he kills them. Let's hope that livestock allow and are okay with their bodily resources being used by humans, à la the Circle of Life or something.
- He probably realizes this soon afterward, since he's quickly revealed to have become vegetarian and no longer kills his own livestock.
- Shelby's expulsion from the Great Witches Academy caused the Council of Witches to revoke her ability to officially use magic. Is that the central authority on magic-users? Are there no other magic schools that can accept her, or no Great Witches that are willing to take her on as an apprentice of sorts? How can witches' society be structured so that the moment someone gets kicked out of school, the moment they're no longer allowed to use their abilities?
- Shelby has also confirmed after the episode that witches who continue to practise magic without the Council's permission are to be "sent to witch prison".
- With the finale's revelation that the main antagonistic authority figure was secretly evil, it's likely that the Soot Witches pulled some strings in policy-making, especially since the sequel WitchCraft SMP depicts witches' society without some of the aforementioned traits, e.g. some characters are self-taught witches.
- The story of the jeweled skull: Scott heard about the ancient temple containing it, and that there were many other adventurers that have tried to tackle the temple but failed to so. That in itself is already pretty terrifying, since the presence of booby traps there implies that some people have died trying to retrieve the artifact. And then there's the skull itself — while whatever sources Scott heard about it from claimed the skull has two jeweled eyes, it actually only had one, which begs the question: did someone else get their hands on the skull before him? If that happened, did they lose or gain an eye in the process?
