Headscratchers / Valiant Hearts

• Anna sure doesn't seem to mind dynamiting French troops that are pursuing her and Karl in the final driving scene. Shouldn't she be somewhat upset at having to kill her own French allies?
  • Those troops are likely military police (who tend to be quite merciless, especially towards escaped prisoners wearing stolen clothes). Those guys probably treated Anna very badly, as the French Army arrested her at bayonet point despite the Geneva Convention clearly outlawing intentional maltreatment/killing of law-abiding medics regardless of nationality! While the military police cars were chasing Anna's car, they were clearly trying to kill Anna along with Karl and Walt! There is no need to destroy a civilian car in order to arrest the occupants!
    • But in this case they are just honest military cops doing their jobs. Someone stole an officer's clothes so they have every right to try and arrest the perpetrators. For all they know, the clothes were stolen by a German spy who intends to impersonate a French officer. You'd think under those circumstances, Anna would go out of her way to avoid hurting them.
• Anna is explicitly stated to be studying to be a veterinarian before the war broke out. Armies of this era relied on a great number of horses and other animals, so it seems like a waste of her special expertise to have her run around treating wounded people. Would have made more sense to have her either be a medical student or having her start out tending to animals and then falling into treating people by circumstance.
  • It's likely that humans > horses to who ever is dispatching her. While she could be treating horses and possibly is off screen, soldiers were in such awful condition during the war that it likely seemed more moral and more efficient to have as many medics caring for them as possible.
• Anna is from Ypres (Ieper) Belgium. Ypres is located in Flanders. So why is Anna speaking French? Shouldn’t she be speaking Dutch/Flemish?
  • Bilingual Belgian citizen- Anna was probably required to learn French as part of her studies before going to France.
• When Emile rescues the German soldier that was hanging by his foot from a rope, you can clearly hear him say "How are you" in English. Considering the era and his circumstances, Emile is unlikely to have learnt the language and would also have little reason to expect the German to know English. Given that Emile has a German-speaking son-in-law and was a prisoner of the German Army for months, it would not be out of place to have him know how to say "Wie geht's?" or "Alles in Ordnung?". So why did they shoehorn in this phrase?
  • It was most likely directed toward the player to indicate that this particular German soldier didn't mean any harm. If it really was in German, would you expect a casual player that didn't know German to understand what the guy said and help, especially since you're fighting the German Army most of the time?
    • It was Emile who said it, the German spoke the usual mixture of actual German words and German-sounding gibberish. Come to think of it, you hear several of the French-speaking characters say "Oké", which is probably anachronistic. Emile utters a phrase in English simply because that is what a 21st century French speaker is likely to do when encountering a German speaker, even though it makes little sense for the era and the character's particular circumstances.
  • English was a neutral language, and English would’ve been a likely 3rd language. By the end of WWI, French as the “language of diplomacy” was slowly being replaced by English.
• Why doesn't the French Army give Emile a new uniform, pack, and rifle after reinstating him to duty?
  • The frontlines were notoriously undersupplied that late in the war. They probably just didn't have any spares.
• When writing letters, why does Emile's voiceover have an English accent?