Tear Jerker / Fire Emblem: Three Houses

In developing the game, the designers pulled inspiration from Genealogy of the Holy War, and it shows. Many see Three Houses as one of the darkest games in the series since Genealogy, with deconstructions of several character archetypes from the past games, a sobering Grey-and-Gray Morality conflict, and unlike the last game, there is no Golden Ending to make up for it.

Per troping policy, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

---

In General

• Just the solid fact that there is no Golden Ending. No matter which route you choose, at least one of the main lords will die. At least one of the main lords dies a worthless death at another's hands because by the time the war begins, nobody can trust each other; Edelgard's gone full Knight Templar and can't admit when she needs to dial it back, Dimitri's a Shell-Shocked Veteran who thinks victory is the only thing that will ease the deaths on his conscience, and Rhea can be driven insane and have to be put out of her own misery. Even Claude has to assume a war footing because the others will likely have to go through Leicester to get at each other.
  • Edelgard gets it the worst; not only does she die in all the other routes, she is capable of dying even if you picked her house at the beginning if certain requirements are not met. Worse? By the end of it, everyone on Byleth's route agrees with her to some extent or another. If one of the other lords would otherwise spare her, she believes she has come too far and willingly lets herself be killed. Even on her own route, because of the experimentation forced on her (and Lysithea), she's still quite possible to die an early death.
  • As for Dimitri, in a few epilogues on his own route, he falls victim to a Deadly Distant Finale. On his own and other routes, he still becomes varying levels of a broken man. On all routes except Edelgard's, including his own, Dimitri is deposed, imprisoned, loses his eye, and takes on his worst mental state, for years. And of course, on her route, he dies.
  • Even in endings where she's alive, Rhea doesn't get the one thing she wanted most, to be reunited with her mother. Mitigated in that she acknowledges in her S-support how unhealthy her obsession with Sothis was, that it was partly a selfish and misguided coping mechanism for everything else she lost, and she apparently does get to speak with her during her near death experience.
  • The only respite is that Word of God confirms Claude is meant to survive all routes, meaning that offing him in Crimson Flower is not considered the true choice, and that he truly does make it out of Silver Snow alive. However, outside of Edelgard's stated intention to improve foreign relations, we can't be certain that Claude saw his desired reforms happen in Almyra.
• The Lords directly express their sadness if you don't pick their routes, and Edelgard and Dimitri in particular become their worst selves on routes other than their own. The voice-acting sells it and if you have played any of their routes before, this will hurt. Imagine knowing the other lords personally by playing their routes, but you can't reach out to them in another route, and they fall to their tragic end.
  • On Edelgard's Crimson Flower route, with you alongside her, she doesn't have to rely as much on the cult she despises in order to begin her reforms. On other paths, she does need them, and since she doesn't have other options or an ability to restrain them as much, the war becomes more brutal. Because of this, on all other routes, she practically insists she be killed as penance. If you pick a non-Crimson Flower Route, Edelgard laments how she wished to have Byleth by her side, when Byleth confronts her in chapter 12.
  • Dimitri, on every route except Crimson Flower, is deposed, imprisoned, loses an eye, and is presumed dead. In Crimson Flower, Dimitri wonders why Byleth would ever side with Edelgard. On every route, Dimitri becomes completely obsessed with violent revenge, which can and does lead to his death. Only on his own Azure Moon route does his mental state recover.
  • Outside his own route, Claude laments how he wanted Byleth at his side. He does fare better than the others, as he can be spared, and canonically survives every route. If you chose to kill him in the Crimson Flower route (or beat him with anyone other than Edelgard or Byleth), you'll hear how shaken he is under his attempt to Face Death with Dignity. You can ask Edelgard if it was necessary to kill him, but she sounds happier if you don't kill him. Given their pre-fight relative friendliness, the decision to kill him was entirely yours, both in and out of story. You Bastard!
• Another sobering fact that, for the first time in the Fire Emblem franchise, the main conflict is entirely man-made. There's no grand villain pulling the strings, no dark dragon or god orchestrating the conflict, and while there is an evil cult, they're only the secondary antagonists. The entire war, all the deaths, all the torment — are largely because of differing ideals (none completely right or wrong) over who should rule Fódlan and how it should be run, ideals they seek to implement or maintain no matter what the cost may be. From a school setting to a plot similar to A Song of Ice and Fire.
  • Adding to the tragedy of the war is the fact that, unlike in other Fire Emblem titles where the war was inevitable despite some of the protagonists trying to reason with the villains, Three Houses goes out of its way to show you that, if Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude had chosen to talk during their days as students, the whole thing might have been averted. But, all of the principal players had very good reasons to either not trust others, or not be too open. So even with their best efforts, some conflict may have been inevitable.
  • Likewise, one conversation in Part 2 suggests that one reason why the monastery had students from the three main powers of Fódlan attend school together was so that they'd talk with and befriend each other, thereby possibly preventing war. It's a noble concept, but sadly, in this case, it never became reality.
  • Even though Rhea was a dragon in a position of authority, she wasn't intentionally looking for conflict, but her obsession was played more tragically.
  • Even though the evil cult (those who slither in the dark) are secondary antagonists, they're still either directly or indirectly responsible for the tragedies suffered by Dimitri, Edelgard, Rhea, and Seteth and Flayn. They're also part of why Dimitri and Edelgard can't even trust their own allies fully. So the war is inevitable not because the player wants it, not even because the lords leading the parties want it, but because of a shadowy group that forced their hand, who may not even be directly confronted, depending on the outcome of the war.
  • A sad reality of it all is that when you look at the state of Fódlan and all of the problems surrounding it, some form of war was inevitable. Too many were feeling the pressure from the Crest-based society, oppression from certain nobles started rebellions, and outsiders were in many places treated like second class citizens. Add in the fact that those who slither in the dark would still be trying to instigate the destruction of the Church, Nabateans and the destabilizing of the continent, and a war would have started sooner or later. The game even suggests that the war was pretty much required to unite Fódlan, whoever "wins" it, and each of these particular lords at least lead to the reformation of the Church and continent for the better, not its destruction. So diplomacy was never an option then?
• In order to save Byleth, Sothis willingly performs a Heroic Sacrifice by fully merging herself with Byleth. This means that she has to give up her individuality and will no longer be able to directly interact with Byleth, effectively making her dead (though we later find out she was exaggerating and can still talk to Byleth if she thinks she really needs to).
• Jeralt's death. He's stabbed in the back by a seemingly nice young lady (really Kronya in disguise) who berates him for being a foolish old man who dared to get in the way of her plans. Byleth's Hope Spot of using Divine Pulse to save their father is fruitless when an invisible Thales blocks Byleth's defense. As Jeralt dies being held by Byleth, Byleth cries over him, with Jeralt noting that this is the first time Byleth has ever cried and he's touched that he's who his child's first tears are for before passing away. Cue Gray Rain of Depression as Byleth continues to mourn over their father's corpse. The fact that Jeralt is able to die peacefully is one thing to soften the blow.
  • What makes it worse is how subdued it is. Jeralt doesn't get a dramatic death like other Fire Emblem parents and parental figures get. No valiantly throwing himself off a cliff like Emmeryn. No sacrifice like Mikoto, Xander or Ryoma. No getting a good shot in at the person who killed him like Elbert. No battle to the death and promises for a better future like Rudolf or Berkut. Not even being a flat-out Greil Expy lets him die fighting against a Worthy Opponent and protect his child. The strongest Knight of Seiros is taken down by a cheap shot, shares a few last words with Byleth, then quietly passes away.
  • Just as bad is the aftermath. The students and teachers giving their condolences, the sad expression on Byleth's face, the solemn music...
  • Everyone isn't just offering empty platitudes either as they all admired Jeralt and are shocked, angered, and depressed over a living legend like him dying so suddenly. Even the normally optimistic gatekeeper struggles to hold back his tears.
  • Leonie in particular is utterly gutted by her hero being callously murdered and can barely talk without being reduced to tears. The worst part is she admits for as much as it hurts for her, it can't possibly be as bad as what Byleth feels, being Jeralt's own child.
  • And from this point, it's basically the end of the happy times at the Monastery. Right after this, Byleth undergoes their transformation into the Enlightened One, Edelgard launches her invasion on the Church, and regardless of which route you take a war that spans five years breaks out.
  • If you speak with Sothis at the monastery, she offers Byleth the chance to let their feelings out. The screen then does a Fade to Black if you accept, implying that Byleth cried even more in her company.
  • Just the idea that Byleth truly loved Jeralt, but could never show him how they felt until the end. Every Sunday of the month immediately afterward doesn't show them pondering how to go about the day. They simply stand there, hunched over, looking despondent and broken by it all.
  • And to top this depression sundae off with a sour cherry, Byleth doesn't even get to actually avenge their father because Solon killsteals Kronya before they can finish her off. The only comfort they can gain from her demise is that it was a Karmic Death.
• Edelgard's Protagonist Journey to Villain in all routes except the Crimson Flower route. Crimson Flower sees you as her Morality Pet keeping her sane during what she has to do — and unless you see her coronation, and even if you do see her coronation, you can end up opposing her as well, pushing her further into this direction. By the end, she has nothing left except a bloody-minded need to see it all through and prove to herself it wasn't pointless. Before it begins, she knows she could become a monster driving away from her closest friends in the world, but as she goes further out of necessity, she comes to believe I've Come Too Far and doubles down more and more on her actions.
  • On her Crimson Flower route alone, the instrumental credits song "Color of Sunrise" plays. As a much brighter theme than the alternative, it signifies that she made it through the dawn, and you saved her.
  • This becomes all the more gut-wrenching if you listen to the credits song "The Edge of Dawn", which plays at the end of non-Crimson Flower routes, and puts this trope to song. The lyrics perfectly capture Edelgard's feelings and the soft piano music make it a beautiful, yet heartbreaking, piece. It's from Edelgard's perspective, set during her time at the academy. She sings about the fun she's having at the monastery with everyone, how she feels she can finally be herself, and how she fears the edge of dawn because it means an end to these happy days... But also how she knows this time must end if her ideals are to be realized. There is an extra poignant irony that it is within the walls of an institution whose leader she opposes that she finds genuine peace and happiness as a student.
    Here in cherished halls
    In peaceful days
    I fear the edge of dawn
    Knowing time betrays
  • In the game's story whenever she is confronted Edelgard almost always seems self-assured that her path is the only right one. Yet certain lines in the song reveal a fair amount of self-hatred over the lies she is telling, the vows she breaks, and just what sort of person she has become compared to who she was as a young girl. Her singing of times of regret and moments of quickly quashed desire to do things differently only underscore just what a tragic antagonist she is.
    Yet still I hide
    Behind this mask that I have become
    My blackened heart scorched by flames
    A force I can’t run from
    
  • And later...
    Then you turn to me
    And I stop before I know
    And the lie upon my lips
    I let it go
    
    Cross my heart
    Making vows I know will be betrayed (Know will be betrayed)
    A sad girl’s pleas
    Live only for a breath and then they fade
    
  • One part of the credits version particularly stands out. Considering this song only plays on routes where she dies, it's possible this segment is both a posthumous My God, What Have I Done? and a "Don't end up like me" plea:
    Don’t ever take
    Back your kind hand
    Lest precious love
    Slip away like time’s sand
    
    Only we will know
    All that was lost
    Scars that we can’t erase
    Show us life’s true cost
• Edelgard and Dimitri's relationship.
  • Dimitri and Edelgard were childhood friends and stepsiblings due to Edelgard's mom becoming queen consort to Dimitri's dad. The two became friends, with Edelgard even teaching Dimitri how to dance. When she returned to the Empire, Dimitri gave her a dagger as a gift.
  • Because of the tragedies she faced, Edelgard forgot about Dimitri, while Dimitri remembered. Talking with Edelgard shows that her first love was a noble in the Kingdom: Dimitri. Her positive memories were just taken from her.
  • During the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, Dimitri is shown hesitating to battle Edelgard. Sadly, in his own route, Edelgard is the final boss.
• Though they're in an officers academy, actual combat can severely wear the students. In the first real battle, some of the students (such as Linhardt) will experience some nasty first-kill jitters.
  Bernadetta: I don't care if they're stealing! Can I please go home now?!
  Linhardt: I-I killed them. What have I done? The blood...
  Marianne: Please, forgive them, Goddess... And save their souls...
  Ignatz: I'm so sorry... I didn't have a choice...
  • Dorothea is also incredibly shaken and remains so for pretty much the rest of the game at the horrors of war. She spends a lot of time alone, staring out over the lake or the Goddess Tower. She's especially distraught after facing her former housemates, referring to them by her Affectionate Nickname for them (especially Edelgard on the Church of Seiros route). She goes from flirty and spontaneous to Broken Bird in the time skip, and the war continues to wear on her.
  • Linhardt is another character who never gets over his revulsion towards bloodshed, with battle quotes and downtime dialogue making it clear how much he hates having to kill.
  • There's Ferdinand. Usually starting out the battle introducing himself with a proud tone of who he is. By the time the time skip hits, he drops it. Even on the Crimson Flower route. Outside the Crimson Flower route, Ferdinand had the worst time among his Black Eagles peers if recruited as he is essentially on the run with his loyal subjects after Edelgard started the war. The events leading to the war are such a Break the Haughty moment to him and highlights one of the moments in the post-timeskip where the child-like innocence the characters had as students are no more.
  • Catherine also makes note of how the students have changed, and while she knows they've gotten stronger, she laments that they are becoming "hardened killers."
  • After the timeskip, your recruits' voice lines in battle all change to reflect how worn down and weary they are by the five years of war. Level-ups have them wondering at what cost this new power is coming from, or how fighting seems to be all they do anymore, or how used to it they're becoming. For example, during the school portion of the game, Dorothea has a level up line where she cheerfully declares "all roses have thorns!" as a Badass Boast. After the timeskip, it turns into a more bitter-sounding, resigned "Only thorns left on this rose." The Japanese dub for Dorothea's victory quote is even more heart-wrenching, pondering "If there are only thorns left, can it still be called a flower?"
• In the post-skip route, most students from the other houses that you did not recruit will appear as enemies at some point. You've probably gotten to know most of the other students just from walking around the monastery and talking to them. With very limited exceptions, you cannot save them and may be forced to kill them.
  • And when you do, the battle music doesn't keep going like it does with normal enemies and bosses. It stops, with the only sound being the student's scream, along with the sad music that plays when saying their final words, just like when you lose a unit in Classic mode. Yes, even playable characters that aren't recruitable in the route you are playing (such as Hubert and Dedue) get this treatment as well. It really drives the point home that they could have been your allies in another time.
• If you have enough points in a stat and proficiency in one field, you can recruit students from other houses. At first, this sounds nice and heartwarming, as it prevents the deaths of the other students, thus minimizing the heartbreaking casualties. But if you do that, you practically made the other Houses' Lords spend their academy time alone with probably only their Number Two to accompany them (even worse for Claude: he could be left ALONE, worsening his previous issues). This can be slightly mitigated by recruiting them all a few chapters before the time skip hits but the other lords would have to experience having a Dwindling Party as their classmates are off to another class, one by one.
  • This isolation can reach its peak during the Blue Lions route, given that it has the most possible recruits, and only three people are completely guaranteed to die: Jeritza, Hubert and Edelgard. But they, and Claude, have their loneliest fates here:
    • Unlike Crimson Flower, here Hilda is recruitable, meaning Claude is even more isolated.
    • While the sting of watching her classmates pick Byleth over her is something also seen on the Church of Seiros route, here Edelgard is put against what may as well be everyone she's ever known and loved or respected, including the people she was trying to help, never mind what the members and subjects of her former friends' noble houses are likely to do once they see the chance for revolt. Because Byleth isn't with her, she has to rely more on Those Who Slither in the Dark, who she despises. This cannot be good for what little is left of her sanity at this point, especially given she becomes desperate enough to turn herself into a Demonic Beast...
    • On Verdant Wind, Hubert can inform Claude about Those Who Slither in the Dark, to make sure they're fully defeated. Here, Hubert and Edelgard have no such assurance their true enemy will finally be defeated.
    • Jeritza sided with Edelgard because she took him in and kept him safe. Jeritza became the Death Knight in order to keep Mercedes safe. On this route, one of them has to die, and you can easily make brother and sister kill each other. This can be avoided on the Crimson Flower route by recruiting Mercedes.
  • Each house has a pair of best friends (Annette and Mercedes for Blue Lions; Ignatz and Raphael for Golden Deers; Linhardt and Caspar for Black Eagles). You can potentially separate them and then force one to kill the other.
  • There's also Felix, Ingrid, and Sylvain, all three of whom are childhood best friends and all of whom were close with Dimitri. You can separate them as well (very easy to do for a female player, who can automatically recruit Sylvain — who, if forced to fight Felix, will lament he can't keep their promise of dying together).
  • The former Black Eagles don't have a very good time on the non-Empire routes. Like the other poached students, they can be forced to fight against former schoolmates, and inevitably end up having to go up against Hubert and Edelgard. Their allies don't fully trust them, and while they do give their all for the war effort, they also have to come to terms with the fact that their homeland will have to fall, as Ferdinand laments the collapse of the Adrestian Empire in one late-game monastery conversation. This might be slightly mitigated in the Verdant Wind route with the army's morale being relatively higher than they were in other routes, but who's to say that they did not get discriminated against by other soldiers (sans the main playable students, knights and teachers) for their origin?
  • In Chapter 16 of non-Crimson Flower routes, Linhardt remarks that since he's from the Empire, people don't trust him with important tasks if you talk to him in the monastery. Considering that this is Linhardt we're talking about, it says a lot that he wants to help out, but is a bit hurt that people don't trust him.
• Conversely, not poaching a student can sometimes be worse than normal.
  • Unless you play Crimson Flower and recruit Mercedes, she will end up on opposite sides of the war from her brother Jeritza, who is not recruitable on any other route. If they meet in battle, they will lament that neither could stand down, since Mercedes can no longer change sides, and Jeritza is staying with Edelgard, who was the only person who would take him in and keep him relatively safe.
  • If you recruit Dorothea but not Ferdinand and kill the latter, talking to Dorothea after the fact reveals that she's actually really upset about it. Keep in mind this is someone Dorothea openly hates, yet she cannot help but mourn. Moreover, if the two meet each other in battle, Dorothea strongly hints that she actually wanted to be his friend and move past the incident that made her hate him. She never gets the chance in this case.
    Dorothea: And Ferdie was there. We killed Ferdie, Professor. He was our friend. Do you still remember those days?
• While Miklan was, by all accounts, not a good person, his descent into evil and death come across as tragic. As Edelgard points out, the only reason he was denied his birthright was because he didn't have a Crest, and his starting a band of thieves shows that he does actually have leadership skills. Even Sylvain, who hates Miklan for, among other things, trying to kill him, feels pity for Miklan when he dies.
  • Their confrontation isn't easy, either. Sylvain tries to simply convince Miklan to return the relic, pointing out that he's already lost, and Miklan simply demands that Sylvain hurry up and die. It's clear that there's little, if any, love lost between the two.
• The fate of Remire Village. After hearing of a series of the villagers acting strangely, you, your class, and your father are sent to investigate. First, keep in mind this is where you met the lords, meaning your entire adventure started here, so it's at least a little special to you. Now, when you arrive, you find the villagers have gone insane and are killing each other, to everyone's horror. You try to save as many as you can, but at best, you can keep casualties to a minimum. In the aftermath, it's noted Remire Village may never recover from such gruesome carnage. And why did it happen? Because Solon wanted to see what would happen if he experimented on them.
  • In the month after, if you explore the monastery, you can talk to a certain child in the dining hall. She's from Remire Village and is completely shell-shocked as she murmurs about how her entire life is gone. Then she asks you this, not even in anger, just in genuine heartbreak:
    Girl: Why couldn't you have gotten there just a little bit sooner?
  • If you haven't saved all the NPC villagers by the time Solon makes his appearance with the Death Knight, he'll kill off the ones left. Which makes it even more heartbreaking. Each of the lords will have something to say when that happens.
    Villager: Goddess... have you abandoned us?
    • While Edelgard and Dimitri will declare murder on Solon for killing off the villagers, Claude, instead, is furious, lamenting that the team could have saved one of the villagers. It sounds less like he's talking to his housemates or to Solon, but more like he's talking to you.
      Edelgard: Solon, what have you done?! You will NOT escape punishment!
      Dimitri: ...I WILL CUT YOU TO SHREDS!!!
      Claude: You Monster! We could have saved them!
• After facing some former schoolmates in battle, Annette once wonders if she should never have tried to befriend anyone from the Empire or the Alliance.
• Bernadetta's various Supports show that the reason she's a reclusive and paranoid wreck is all because of her abusive father punishing her for her interests that wouldn't make her proper "wife" material and harming any commoners she befriended. She didn't have any true friends until she came to the Academy, and she constantly lives in fear that she'll end up hurting them or be hurt by them just by interacting despite her buried desires to get to know them better. Worse, in some of her endings, her issues never get any better. Burn in hell, Count Varley.
• Dorothea's Supports reveal just how badly she had it as an orphan and why among her dislikes she includes arrogant nobles and herself. She was the daughter of a maid who had an affair with a noble but, when Dorothea was born without a Crest, she and her mother were thrown out. When her mother died, she lived as an orphan who grew up in the alleys of Enbarr, begging for coins, eating scraps, and drinking water from drains. She only got lucky because the right person heard her singing and brought her into the opera, being praised for her looks and voice by people who not even a year ago would kick her for so much as begging. Even then, sometimes she had to fend off some who would pursue her to the extent of kidnapping. Her desire to marry into money can sometimes come off as selfish and hypocritical, but it's mostly motivated by the fear that once her voice and looks fade, she'll end up alone and destitute again.
  • On top of that, in the end she had to still "curry favor" with one of those same nobles to get into the Academy, which bothers her even after the Time Skip. Add in five years of war on top of that, no wonder she's a Broken Bird.
• Flayn and Seteth's backstory reveals that Flayn is actually Seteth's daughter, but they are forced to pretend to be siblings in order to protect Flayn's identity as a descendant of Sothis. Otherwise, she'll never be safe from anti-Church forces who may seek to kill or exploit her for her divine heritage.
• Lysithea's backstory. Holy shit. Just like Edelgard and her siblings, Lysithea and many other children in House Ordelia were taken for Crest experimentation by Those Who Slither In The Dark, and she mentions that her parents were Forced to Watch as they did all sorts of horrible things with the children's blood and seeing how they all died. Lysithea was the Sole Survivor of this incident, having a second Crest successfully implanted into her, but at the cost of severely shortening her lifespan. As a result, she doesn't have long to live, and unless supports with certain characters are achieved to save her life, she will die at the end of the game. And did we mention she's only 15 years old?!
  • Her solo ending makes it worse, as the way it's written states that she went back to her home to help her family and then just... was never heard from again.
  • In her supports with Lorenz and Hanneman, she bluntly asks them not to plan their future with a person who has none. Resigned acceptance of this fact is particularly heartbreaking coming from a teenager.
• Marianne's A support reveals that all those times you saw her in the Cathedral before the timeskip, she was praying for her own death. And outside of the Golden Deer route, should you not recruit her, she doesn't appear at all after the timeskip. Which possibly means...
• Mercedes has one of the more depressing backstories, even without getting into her half-brother being the Death Knight. She lost her father before she was even born, resulting in her and her mother falling on hard times. Her mother remarried into House Bartels, but once she gave her husband a son with a Crest, both she and Mercedes were considered no longer useful, and sought refuge in a church in the Kingdom. Mercedes eventually got adopted (but not by choice, as her supports with Ferdinand reveal) by a merchant who intends to marry her off for his own benefit. It's especially tragic that, with the possible exception of her mother and brother, Mercedes has never known a loving family, and one way or another would be used for her crest.
• Just before the final battle with the Alliance at Deirdru (or alternatively, coming to the Alliance's aid on the Blue Lions route), Bernadetta realizes that she doesn't actually remember what Claude looked like when they were at school together, due to the fact that they were in different classes and never really interacted much, if at all. It's a small moment, but it highlights just how long ago those carefree school days are for all of them now.
• Ferdinand's paralogue, if you managed to recruit Lysithea before the timeskip hits in a non-Black Eagles route. He first learns of his father's distress, and later, murder. Then, he learns the full story of the Hrym territory; his father enacted cruel taxes on the people, with things going from From Bad to Worse when Edelgard's uncle Arundel took over and imposed not only even worse taxes, but forced the citizenry to war and killed those who refused all under Duke Aegir's name, which is what got the man killed in the first place. Lysithea said it best:
  Lysithea: Duke Aegir is not perfect, but he's not the villain in this.
• If you talk to Dorothea and Caspar at the monastery after the conquest of the Empire, they'll reveal that Count Bergliez, Caspar's father, performed a Heroic Sacrifice to save the lives of his men. While Caspar had dreaded the prospect of fighting his father, he's heartbroken over the loss, while Dorothea is sad about the death of an honorable man.
  • In the Verdant Wind version, Caspar adds this bit when talked to.
    Caspar: This whole time I fought side by side with you and Claude... But did I ever get any stronger? Will I ever be as strong as my father?
• In a conversation with Shamir just before the endgame, she'll remind you that Fódlan used to be united under the Empire, before the Kingdom won its independence and the Alliance formed. While these events were helped by Those who slither in the dark (thanks to DLC info), once you succeed in uniting Fódlan at the end of the route, the player might have doubts about if this peace might ultimately give way to the same fate in the future, even without the evil cult around...
• Felix in the non-Azure Moon routes. His arc in Crimson Flower is detailed below, but while his arcs in Silver Snow and Verdant Wind are marginally better, they're still not better by much. Despite now fighting for what he feels is a much better cause than Edelgard's conquests, after the Battle at Gronder, he becomes consumed with rage over Dimitri's death and becomes obsessed with avenging him, ironically adopting the exact same philosophies of living for the dead he chastised Dimitri so much for having. In almost all of his endings in the two routes, it's explicitly stated that he spends the rest of his life brooding over Dimitri's death, unable to move on even decades later.
• Flayn's solo ending if Seteth died.
  Flayn disappeared soon after the war, and after a time, proof of her very existence faded from memory. Many years later, a young woman appeared at the monastery, which had been restored to its former glory. Speaking to no one in particular, it is said that she gazed at the entrance and reverently whispered, "I am home."
• Some unrecruited characters are put directly in your path, or must be killed to complete an objective. Sometimes you can fully avoid a character you didn't or can't recruit, but to do so you may have to go significantly out of your way, almost as if the game wants the playable characters to die. Even if you avoid or spare them, they may still get No Ending.
  • For example, on Crimson Flower, it's possible to only have to kill Judith, Dimitri, Dedue, and Rhea for this route's own version of an Everybody Lives ending. But to do so, you have to spare Claude, convince Seteth and Flayn to retreat, avoid Hilda, and then avoid Gilbert, Catherine, and Cyril, as Rhea burns the city around them — and you'll have to recruit almost the entire Blue Lions class in time.
• If a character was recruited pre-timeskip but fell in battle, they will not reappear after the timeskip, with the exception of Seteth on Silver Snow, Hubert on Crimson Flower, and Hilda on Verdant Wind. When the ending cards roll, what happened to them is revealed. Only Petra is exempt from this, due to her simply returning to Brigid:
  • Lorenz, Hilda, Bernadetta, and Annette will all succumb to an illness. Lysithea is in a similar boat, likely dying due to her double Crest-inflicted lifespan.
  • Raphael, Sylvain, Felix, Leonie, and Caspar will all fall on the battlefield. It's a particularly nasty case of Yank the Dog's Chain for Raphael, who is able to achieve his dream of becoming a knight, only to die young.
  • Catherine and Hanneman are caught up in Imperial attacks and killed as a result.
  • Ignatz is killed in an accident while working in the merchant business (likely from monsters), much like Raphael's parents.
  • Cyril is killed by monsters looking for Rhea, before he even reaches the age of twenty.
  • Ashe, Ingrid, Ferdinand, and Linhardt all return to their home territories, but vanish, leaving it unclear if they were killed or not.
  • Alois simply vanishes during a battle between Imperial and Alliance troops.
  • Dorothea and Manuela, while at least having each other, will likely never see their friends again.
  • Mercedes is married off by the wishes of her adoptive father. With the release of Jeritza in the third wave of DLC, it's likely Mercedes ends up being used to pop out Crest babies after all.
  • Marianne at least does not disappear alone, stealing a single horse that is strongly implied to be her friend Dorte as she flees, but she certainly is never again seen by humans.
  • Even the Ashen Wolves aren't safe from this, Yuri gets assassinated, Balthus gets killed by bounty hunters, Constance kills herself in a lab accident, and Hapi vanishes forever.
  • Fridge Horror: If a character isn't recruited during the timeskip and fails to appear after, chances are, this is what happened to them, especially for the "married off" characters. Hopefully they somehow managed to completely avoid the war.
• In past Fire Emblem games, characters who appear in cutscenes had Plot Armor and would only retreat when they reach 0 HP, even on Classic. And generally, their epilogue entries would reflect this, stating that they survived. While Plot Armor retreating still occurs in this game... the character's epilogue will state that they died of their wounds after the war ended. It's sobering knowing that anyone who reaches 0 HP after the timeskip will die. What's worse, only a handful of characters are actually plot-protected in Part 2: Hubert, Gilbert, Hilda and Seteth (Byleth and the three main lords cannot fall in battle on Classic). If anybody else falls, they're gone for the rest of the game. And in Seteth's case, not only is he only plot-protected on the Silver Snow route, if Flayn falls in Part 1 of a BL or GD playthrough he will desert your army after Part 1.
• Even the monthly artwork has a sad story hidden in it. The early scenes depict a family of deer and a young blond man. Eventually the man becomes a hunter who kills the father deer, leaving the mother and son to be protected by a woodsman. The final monthly art has the hunter dressed in armor beside his weeping family, including a pregnant wife. The reason for this is revealed in the art depicting the war, the hunter was drafted on the side of the empire. The deer and woodsman are also included, about to meet the hunter in a charge.
• The promise made on the night of the Garreg Mach ball becomes extremely bittersweet on second playthroughs. The students are hopeful for the future and make a promise to meet again at the millennium festival, happily unaware that their peaceful days will soon be over and the next five years will be hell as they try to survive.
  • On top of that, the music that played during the dance, "The Night of the Ball", also plays during the end credits of each route. A sobering reminder of when everyone was happy and relatively carefree.

Crimson Flower

• Chapter 15 has the Church launch a surprise assault on the monastery, and the interactions are painful to listen to.
  • Before the battle, Flayn admits feeling guilt about fighting Byleth after being saved by him/her. Seteth admits the same, noting that they're in a no-win situation with a strained tone.
  • If you didn't recruit him, Alois is furious at Byleth, yelling that Jeralt must be rolling in his grave. It's clear that the death of his mentor/friend and the "betrayal" of the child of his mentor has nearly broken him. He also has to be killed to win the level, and as he dies, he can only pathetically say to Jeralt that he died defending the monastery, even though he obviously wasn't able to.
    • Even more tragic? By this point, the player knows that Jeralt lost faith in Rhea for what he believes she did to his child, meaning Alois died pretty much for nothing.
  • Seteth practically loses the will to live if you kill Flayn (which happens if you defeat her with any unit other than Byleth). Given how close Flayn spawns to your army, this is incredibly likely as well.
    Flayn: Father, please forgive me... I am returning to Mother now... before you do...
    Seteth: FLAYN! Please, no! NO!!!
    • The reverse scenario is no better. Flayn doesn't react well to Seteth dying.
      Seteth: I'm sorry, Flayn... I couldn't protect you...
      Flayn: FATHER! Father, why?! WHY?!
    • Rhea's reaction after the battle if they are spared is very subdued. But if they are both killed, well... Just listen to her unbridled despair and rage.
      Rhea: Seteth... Flayn... First my mother, and now those two have been stolen away as well?! MUST YOU TAKE EVERYTHING FROM ME?!
  • If you have Manuela, after the battle, she is overcome with guilt at how many died and talks about how she tried her best to save as many people as she could, but the injured just kept piling up.
  • Both Randolph and Ladislava are killed. Ladislava died during the battle while Randolph was mortally wounded at some point. Edelgard tries to reassure him he'll be fine, at which point he simply refuses, knowing he will die, and Edelgard can only thank him for his services before he dies. Fleche resolves herself to make him proud afterwards, but it's clear she's devastated by his death.
    • Dorothea also mentions him, commenting that they knew each other before the timeskip, and that she genuinely can't believe he's dead. Her tone and dialogue heavily imply they may have been more than just friends for a short time.
  • If you recruited Leonie before the timeskip and did not complete the "Legend of the Lake" paralogue before the chapter is finished, said paralogue becomes inaccessible regardless of character requirements and expiration dates if you kill Flayn and Seteth. The reason for this is likely that the boss of that paralogue is Saint Indech, which makes him Flayn's (Cethleann) uncle and Seteth's (Cichol) brother (and he can come close to revealing this on other routes). Indech would probably be too furious to let his family's killers even try to challenge him.
• Taking out the Alliance will very much leave you with a bad taste in your mouth. They're completely uninvolved in Edelgard's war with the Kingdom, trying to stay neutral and not fall apart from infighting. But because, strategically, annexing them is safer than trying to invade the Kingdom first, you have no choice but to invade them.
  • Along the way to invading Derdriu, you have to kill Judith. Claude's reaction to it will hurt. To say nothing of how he takes it if/when you kill Hilda at Derdriu.
    Claude: Hilda! Why didn't you retreat? I was counting on you retreating...
    • Most of the times when you kill a classmate while their house leader is present, they'll somberly express regret over the loss, or vow to not waste that person's sacrifice, so it says a lot that Claude gets openly upset.
  • The final battle between Edelgard and Claude. If the right conditions are met, Claude will surrender to Edelgard in an effort to spare the rest of the alliance, though Byleth may opt to have him executed anyways. The surprise and regret in Claude's voice is clear when he realizes he's greatly miscalculated how Byleth and Edelgard would behave. Word of God says Claude survived, and if you listen closely, Edelgard sounds happier if Claude is spared, so this one's on you. You Monster!
  • Even if Claude survives this route, his story still ends on on a somber note. He does say he has ordered his remaining forces to stand down and work with Edelgard, but that's not entirely seen. His classmates may have died on Gronder Field. His closest friend, Hilda, can die (there was a programmed ending for her on Crimson Flower, but it was removed). One of the few Alliance lords he trusted, Judith, died trying to protect him. So while he may be escaping to Almyra with his life, he is doing so after unintentionally leaving his friends and comrades behind. And while he parts with Edelgard and Byleth on amicable terms, you may then remember that Claude has been described as hiding his true emotions behind a smile. Hopefully he was actually genuine here.
  • The same battle where you kill Judith, Ignatz will also be on the map as well (provided he wasn't recruited before the timeskip). You can, if you recruited Raphael, make him fight Ignatz during this battle. Before the war broke out, Raphael and Ignatz were best friends (they even have a paired ending where they become brothers in law when Ignatz marries Raphael's little sister), and Ignatz speaks highly of Raphael's kind nature if you do their dual Paralogue. But their pre-fight dialogue shows how utterly broken that friendship is when Ignatz angrily refuses to forgive Raphael for siding with the Empire or stand down, just as Raphael refuses to relent. It's almost a certainty that Raphael will kill Ignatz in the ensuing battle, and if you kept him in the Brawler/Grappler line that he naturally gravitates to, he essentially beats his former best friend to death with his bare hands. You Monster!
    Raphael: Outta my way, Ignatz! I don't wanna have to fight you!
    Ignatz: Stop deluding yourself. You joined the Empire. Didn't you consider the consequences? I don't want to fight you either, Raphael! But this is war.
    Raphael: Ignatz...
• Rodrigue is stationed in Arianrhod, and the game forces you to kill him in order to proceed. You can, in fact, have Felix fight him if you recruited him, and much like with Raphael and Ignatz before them, their pre-fight dialogue demonstrates just how broken their relationship has become due to Felix abandoning Faerghus. It's highly likely that Felix will kill him in battle, and if he does, Felix ends up noting afterwards how far he has fallen if you talk to him in the monastery afterwards.
  Rodrigue: So, my foolish son... You took it upon yourself to leave your family behind.
  Felix: I'm not coming back. I won't serve the boar.
  Rodrigue: It's a father's duty to settle a child's failures. Felix... You must die, here and now!
  • It's possibly even worse if you didn't recruit Felix, as he fights alongside Rodrigue in this battle instead, and also must be killed to win. Regardless of which of the two are killed first, the other will mourn their death before swearing to avenge them. It's particularly cruel if you kill Felix first, as it means Rodrigue ends up outliving not one, but both of his sons. And tragically, unlike with Seteth and Flayn, there is no way to avoid either scenario.
    Felix: (If Rodrigue was killed first) Father... I will fight in your stead.
    Rodrigue: (If Felix was killed first) Felix, I'm so sorry! I swear to avenge you!
• The final confrontation between Edelgard and Dimitri. Now at Edelgard's mercy, Dimitri can do nothing but spit insults and rage at his former friend. Edelgard can only express pity and regret that if not for his thirst for vengeance, Dimitri would have been a magnificent ruler. The scene fades to black and it's left unclear whether Edelgard finishes Dimitri off or if he just drops dead from from his wounds.
  • Dimitri's death (should you defeat Dedue before he transforms) is even more tragic, as a wounded Dimitri on the verge of death laments his inability to avenge his fallen friends and family. Dedue (on the verge of tears) refutes him, telling him that he was able to live on because of Dimitri, and that he was proud to serve by his side for the past 9 years. Dimitri expresses gratitude before finally passing on.
  • Before Dimitri dies, he calls Edelgard by her Affectionate Nickname, "El." While he can never forgive her, he also never forgot what she once meant to him.
  • If Dedue dies after transforming, Dimitri murmurs "Dedue… you fool...", which starkly contrasts with the somber yet composed reactions to his other friends' deaths.
  • If Felix is recruited and faces Dimitri, they have a short but pointed exchange:
    Dimitri: You killed Rodrigue... your own father, Felix!
    Felix: I said I'd cut down any who stood in my way. Even my father. Even my friends.
    Dimitri: I see... that was all I needed to hear to finally work up the resolve to kill you.
  • After the Church has retreated the scene will cutaway to Edelgard regrouping with Hubert and Byleth, Edelgard is musing about how she's devastated how the Tragedy of Duscur had driven Dimitri to so much despair. Byleth will ask if Edelgard was crying, but she quickly denies it. The fact that the scene is playing out in the rain implies that the rain was obscuring the brief moment her mask cracked.
• In the final battle, Catherine stands as one of the last remaining of Rhea's defenders. If you have recruited Shamir, you can make her fight her former partner to the death, and this is accompanied by a conversation in which the two women concluding that their differences always meant it would end like this. What makes this extra sad is that they totally could have made it work, as in their paired ending on other routes.
  • If you have done their Supports in other routes, then you can also realize that this was tragically foreshadowed. When presented with a Sadistic Choice or choosing between saving herself or Shamir, Catherine would choose Shamir, but if she had to choose between Shamir and Rhea, she'd always choose Rhea. Shamir countered by saying that if she had to choose between Rhea and Catherine, then she'd save Catherine, but if it came down to saving Catherine or herself, she'd choose herself. This is exactly what happens if the two are forced to come to blows in Crimson Flower.
• Ashe's presence as an enemy in the final battle at Fhirdiad in general if he is not recruited. Not only has the once kindhearted child now grown into a bitter knight that is part of The Remnant defending Rhea, but his generic boss quote in the final battle really hammers home how much you've destroyed in order to achieve Edelgard's ideals. Almost makes you wonder what the kid went through for him to become so bitter to the point that he chooses to only fight rather than try and save people from the flames?
  Ashe: Our pride, our people, our king. You've torn them all apart. Haven't you had enough?! What else is there for you to take?!
  • What's worse? Should Byleth engage Ashe in combat, Ashe comments how looking at them is throwing off his aim. Even after all this time passed, and all the destruction brought about by their support for Edelgard, Ashe still can't bring himself to hate his old professor and fight them properly.
• Just like Seteth and Flayn, and Felix and Rodrigue, Annette and Gilbert will react with despair if the other is killed. What makes this even more tragic than the other two, however, is that killing one will actively change the other's AI pattern. Rather than standing still until Rhea is attacked, they will follow through on their vow to avenge the fallen one and start charging directly through the flames to attack your units immediately, no matter how much damage they end up taking. It's particularly notable for Gilbert, however, as the flames severely slow down his already pitiful movement speed, so by the time he finally catches up to your units, he's more likely than not very low on HP and very easy to pick off. The implication that he doesn't care if he lives or dies anymore after his daughter's death is heartbreaking.
• Then there's Rhea. You steadily see her sanity breaking over the route due to the wielder of the Sword of the Creator turning it against her just like Nemesis. One who she personally created. By the end of the route, she's set a capital city on fire with civilians inside and until her dying moment she cries out for them to return her mother to her.
  • The very scene where you choose to take Edelgard's side can be rather painful if you understand why Rhea is so unusually angry even before you make your decision. Rhea saw her entire race slaughtered and their bodies forged into the Heroes' Relics. In the Holy Tomb, she sees the descendant of the first human she trusted enough to share her blood with order her men to raid the caskets in the Holy Tomb in order to take the Crest Stones - just as Nemesis and the Ten Elites once did. She's essentially reliving the worst memory of her life even before you choose Edelgard's side, and when you do, you're essentially becoming the new Nemesis from her perspective. It's no surprise she snaps. Later on, even in the depths of her madness and torment, she still looks back at Edelgard's ancestor fondly.
    Rhea: An ancestor of the Hresvelgs, who became Adrestia's first emperor... He saved me. Supported me. Gave his all to the cause of defeating Nemesis. That I should find myself here at Tailtean, striking down his scion...
    • To top it off, it is incredibly unlikely anyone will ever know why Rhea snapped. Depending on your choice Flayn and Seteth are either dead or gone into hiding (if not having left Fódlan altogether), Indech and Macuil aren't talking, and there's no other source for the truth unless there's an accurate accounting of events somewhere in Shambhala. Even if Edelgard and the rest of the Black Eagles learn the truth there is no guarantee that the public will ever know of it, meaning Rhea will go down in history as a monster while Dimitri will become known as her Unwitting Pawn.
• Recruiting any of the Blue Lions students. Sure, you spare them from being massacred with their homeland, but their dialogue around the monastery and when facing their kinsman shows that they're broken up about fighting for the Empire. Most don't know if helping Edelgard's conquest is the right thing to do, but believe they can't go back. While others are more resolute in walking this path, like Mercedes, who is disgusted with what the Church has become and agrees with Edelgard's plans for the Church, Sylvain who wants the Crest system abolished, and Ashe who wants justice for Christophe and Lonato, others are much more doubtful; Ingrid in particular is devastated that she must fight her own homeland, Annette fears the possibility of having to fight her father while just as torn at having to fight her own home, and Felix laments that he's become the same monster he called Dimitri.
• If the possibility of Annette fighting and killing her own father wasn't depressing enough, if they're pitted against each other in Chapter 18, Gilbert will ask the goddess if this is his "chastisement." He already hates himself for failing to protect Lambert, so having to fight against the daughter he abandoned (who might not have defected if he'd been there for her) does him no favors.
• If you recruited Mercedes or Annette, and didn't recruit the other one, their dialogue before fighting is heartbreaking. Best friends now forced to kill each other. For bonus points, it is totally possible to have them support even without recruiting both of them, which means it's entirely possible to get them to B-Support before the timeskip, which would mean that the last time they speak before fighting to the death is an argument.
• With Jeritza now available as a playable unit, we learn just what drove Emile to become someone as vile and bloodthirsty as the Death Knight. Turns out his father used Mercedes’ mother as a Baby Factory to create Crest children. When he was around 11 years old, Mercedes and her mother ran away, but he chose to stay in House Bartels in order to protect them. When his father found out where they were hiding years later, he initially planned to capture them and continue using Mercedes' mother, but she was already too old to have children. His solution? Marry Mercedes and use her instead. Emile, who would have been in his early teens, murdered his father in order to protect his big sister. He doesn’t even remember how he did it. The Death Knight was created out of Emile’s desperation to save his family.
  • What's worse, now he's a threat to the very person he hoped to protect due to the Death Knight. His alternate personality's desire for blood is so strong, it overrides his love for his sister.
  • Worse still, if you didn't recruit Mercedes, you can potentially force Jeritza to kill her. This leads to yet another unique dialogue, in which Jeritza, not acting like his usual cold self or the psychotic Death Knight, tries to convince Mercedes to stand down in vain, and can only apologize to his sister. Considering Jeritza's combat abilities and Mercedes' poor durability, it's likely that he'll end up killing her.
    • The tragedy of this cannot be understated: He willingly left himself behind at the abusive House Bartels, massacred his own family, and had to deal with trying to control the Death Knight, in order to protect her. Jeritza went through all that, all just to be forced kill her himself. All for Nothing doesn't even begin to describe that.
• After completing Edelgard's paralogue, where you had to drive back an Almyran invasion at Fódlan's Throat, you're treated to a cutscene where Edelgard confesses that one of her goals after the war is to reach out to other nations to make peace, because she believes that the Church has driven Fódlan to isolationism. The Tearjerker here that is you gain access to this paralogue after you had already defeated the Alliance and possibly killed Claude. The real kicker here is this is exactly what Claude wanted for Fódlan, further driving home how much of this conflict could have been avoided if the Lords actually sat down and tried to talk it out.

Silver Snow

• Edelgard's betrayal is especially cruel on this route. You're led to believe that the young woman you taught, befriended, and bled alongside is also a warlord who for all you know has been stringing you along so she could Take Over the World, and had your father murdered. The context entirely changes due to one single decision you make (or can't make, thanks to Permanently Missable Content).
• While the Battle at Gronder Field is horrific in all routes, here it is worse, with it happening offscreen and very suddenly, with Edelgard badly injured, Dimitri dead, and Claude missing. Byleth is heartbroken to learn this.
  • After learning about Dimitri's death, Byleth goes out to find him there, wanting to talk to him for a moment about how he couldn't understand what everyone was telling him about his quest for vengeance. Yet, before Byleth can answer him, Seteth appears and Dimitri vanishes. While Seteth believes that Byleth was dreaming, he says that if someone was indeed there to see them, that person must have only wanted Byleth to see their face.
• The reunion with Edelgard at the Goddess Tower after the 5 year timeskip. Unlike the Crimson Flower route it turns rather somber because while Edelgard is initially elated to see Byleth alive and well, it quickly dawns on her that the two are standing opposing sides of the conflict. It immediately turns into a fight as neither is willing to back down from their stances.
  • Even prior to Byleth's arrival, Edelgard showed up to the Goddess Tower in the vain hope that her classmates from the Black Eagle House have had a change of heart and would support her cause. Unlike the Crimson Flower route, all of her classmates with the exception of Hubert now directly oppose her. It further pushes the message the Edelgard has sacrificed literally everything in the name of her vision.
    Edelgard: Why am I even here? I know they won't come, but here I am anyway.
• After defeating Edelgard, she asks Byleth to kill her so she can die an honorable death and so the war can truly stop. Though initially reluctant, Byleth in the end listens to her pleading to end her life. The camera cuts to black as they strike Edelgard down with their sword. And when you take in the fact that she has been strongly interested in Byleth regardless of the path chosen, her last words come off closely as a Dying Declaration of Love.
  Edelgard: I wanted... to walk with you-(cuts to black)
• In her confession to Byleth regarding their history and her former intentions, Rhea is plainly struggling to not break down in tears of remorse.
• Byleth being forced to Mercy Kill Rhea when she loses control of her own powers. The Sad Battle Music as the Final Boss theme does not help. This can fortunately be averted if they reach A Support or higher with Rhea.
• For his part, Seteth is plainly in anguish at having to kill Rhea even as he gives the order. When he faces her in battle he gives what he likely assumes will be his final words to her. This is notably the only time in the game he refers to the Progenitor God as "Sothis," likely in recognition of how close Rhea was to her.
  Seteth: I will inherit the pride of Nabatea. Rest in peace by Sothis' side!
  • And despite these brave parting words to her, when Rhea is defeated Seteth still utters a final plea for her to come back. A wish that can only be fulfilled under certain conditions.
• As this gallery shows, it's possible for Byleth to end up completely alone in the Monastery on this route if you go out of your way to get everyone killed, since there are no Lord characters who can't be lost in battle.
• This route potentially ends with every existing power in Fódlan decimated (or at least their militaries). The Kingdom was crushed by the Empire, the Alliance is crippled at Gronder Field, the Empire crumbles when you invade Enbarr and finish off Edelgard, Shambhala and most of the remaining Agarthans are destroyed by Thales' Taking You with Me attack (not that anyone's shedding tears) and just when it looks like the Church of Seiros will remain to help rebuild, they lose Rhea (who dies or retires unless Byleth S ranks her) and much of their leadership due to dragon blood-induced insanity. Fódlan as it was is gone, leaving Byleth to build something new from the ashes.

Azure Moon

• Lonato's rebellion happens on every route, but here, Ashe is guaranteed to witness it, and his reaction is heartbreaking. He openly bemoans the deaths of the village militia, people he'd known for years, as they fight to the death for their lord. After the battle is over, he's in a state of shocked grief, mumbling that he's going to check on the village and make sure his brother and sister are alright.
  • If you really want to be mean, make him fight or kill Lonato. It gets even worse when you consider the possibility that Lonato never told Ashe about his plans so as to protect him, a possibility that some other characters mention.
  • The Mooks you kill while suppressing the rebellion often say lines expressing their loyalty to Lonato, including while they're dying. Not only are several characters appalled that Lonato's rebellion resulted in many of the common folk fighting and dying for him, but it also goes to show that Lonato was a good man who commanded respect and his people fought out of faith that his cause was just.
• After watching Dimitri meet with Arundel, depending on what Byleth chooses to say Sothis will muse wistfully about family and being linked to them. Its all rather sad if one knows the full story of her family and what has become of them.
  Sothis: I must have had a family too... I wish I could remember them. My family... I wonder who and where they are, and what they're doing now.
• Dimitri Laughing Mad when the unmasked Flame Emperor turns out to be Edelgard.
  Dimitri: Is this some kind of twisted joke?!
  • Worse, in the aftermath, he just snaps completely. When we see him after the timeskip, the Knight in Shining Armor he used to be is gone, replaced by a ruthless, somewhat Ax-Crazy Barbarian Hero who loathes Edelgard; there's still some good left in him, but no matter what happens, he will never stop hating her and everything she stands for. Thankfully, he starts to relent in this route after he realizes he's throwing his life away for empty revenge and that he wants to lead both church and kingdom into an era of reform... But until he gets to that point, it's hard to see him in such a broken state.
• Upon waking up from their five-year coma, Byleth finds Dimitri sulking in the shadows, with Dimitri cynically remarking that he's being haunted by another ghost again. They offer him their hand... to which he scoffs and turns his head away. You can clearly see how sad Byleth is at his state throughout the scene following.
• Morale is quite low for the first few missions after the timeskip, since Dimitri's unstable mental state is quite troubling to the Blue Lions. Some non-Blue Lions, like Lysithea, are disturbed by the fact that the man who will rule Faerghus is obsessed with revenge, while others, such as Dorothea, are troubled by the apparent lack of unity among the group.
  • Speaking of non-Blue Lions, any Black Eagle students you've recruited will comment on how Dimitri and the other Kingdom knights don't care too much for them—and that they've come to expect it, even though many of them left their families to join the Blue Lions' army. It's worse for Caspar in particular, who tells Byleth the mission after Randolph's killed that he was actually Caspar's uncle, and he suspects how Dimitri probably never trusted him to begin with. Thankfully, Dimitri apologizes to Caspar for his behavior off-screen after Rodrigue's death, but it's still disheartening to hear such distrust expressed amongst comrades-in-arms.
• Lord Rodrigue's Heroic Sacrifice and Dimitri's reaction to it as he breaks down and cries for losing yet another person he cared about after losing his father, his stepmother, Glenn and everyone else who died in the Tragedy of Duscur, not to mention that in the five-year timeskip, he lost his kingdom in a plot, he got imprisoned, he lost sight from his right eye and Dedue is presumed dead after sacrificing himself to make sure he could escape. If you don't follow the conditions to unlock Dedue's paralogue and complete it, you won't be able to recruit him again and he will die, leading to a slight difference in dialogue where he's mentioned too. It's especially tearjerking in the English dub due to Chris Hackney's superb performance.
  Dimitri: Rodrigue!
  Rodrigue: Your Highness... Are you safe? Please tell me... it wasn't in vain...
  Dimitri: This punishment... it was mine to bear.
  Rodrigue: There are no sins or punishments... on the battlefield...
  Dimitri: NO! Don't die...! Please, don't die! Father, Stepmother, Glenn... They all died and left me behind... Rodrigue... Are you to join the ghosts who shadow my every move?
  • The circumstances of his sacrifice are also tragic and highlight how horrible the effects of war can be. While celebrating a victory over Adrestia, Dimitri is suddenly attacked by Fleche, who turns out to be the sister of Randolph, an Imperial general Byleth and Dimitri killed in an earlier chapter. Rodrigue takes the dagger in Dimitri's place, giving Byleth enough time to strike the would-be assassin down. As Fleche dies, she tearfully begs for her brother to save her.
• In the scene following Rodrigue’s death, Byleth intercepts Dimitri as he’s making his way out of the monastery. He had intended to go to the Imperial Capital, alone, but Byleth eventually talks him down. Afterwards, Dimitri turns away from them and breaks.
  Dimitri: (sounding like he’s on the brink of tears) But you seem to have all the answers... So tell me, Professor. Please, tell me. How do I silence their desperate pleas? How do I... How do I save them...?
• Dimitri finding out from Cornelia that his own stepmother was primarily responsible for the massacre at Duscur. He now has to live with the knowledge that the only mother he had ever known never truly loved him.
  • Worse, the Tragedy of Duscur resulted in a near-genocide of the Duscur people who were literally framed for it. So not only was the stepmother he loved responsible for the death of his father and a good number of his family, but also the death of Felix's brother and Ingrid's fiancee, as well as Dedue facing discrimination.
  • Even worse? Thanks to the Cindered Shadows DLC, we learn from Hapi that Cornelia intentionally made it seem to Patricia that Lambert wasn't allowing her to see Edelgard period, and making it seem worse by preventing them from getting close, when in reality he was doing so to protect Edelgard during her exile. She never learned this, and eventually it drove her to the desperate choice of becoming involved with the Tragedy of Duscur just to see her daughter again.
• If you recruited Caspar and unlocked and completed Mercedes' paralogue, you are treated to a scene after the Death Knight is defeated, where she cradles the unmasked, dying Death Knight, Emile, her little brother, while tearfully apologizing for being such a terrible elder sister.
• During the final battle against Edelgard, the first time she and Byleth engage in a fight, she will remark on how facing them makes her grow weak. From that point on, she will refuse to initiate an attack, even if they are in range, confirming she never wanted to make an enemy of them.
  • Conversely, she will always target Dimitri regardless of who else is within her attack range if he is within her danger zone, hammering in how obliterated any friendship they used to have really is, on top of her adamant desire to kill him for the sake of her ideals.
• After defeating Edelgard in the final battle, she returns to her human form, defeated and on her knees. Dimitri offers his hand to her in a silent attempt at a truce, all while simply calling her "El". She quietly looks up and it seems she may accept... only for her to throw the dagger Dimitri gave her back at him. Immediately, Dimitri fatally impales her with his spear and she drops dead. As Byleth and Dimitri leave, Dimitri looks back at Edelgard's corpse and is about to go back to her before Byleth grabs his hand.
  • The finishing touch? It is implied that Edelgard made her final attack not so much out of defiance or spite... rather due to losing the remaining will to live after her defeat. That, and/or she's possibly admitting that she lost, giving him back the dagger to "cut a path to the future you wish for", and explicitly doing so in a way that will ensure she can't get in his way.
• Dedue's potential death during the Time Skip, if you didn't complete the bonus objective in his paralogue. Even if you did, you are still lead to believe he's dead for the first few chapters of Part 2, which makes the scene where he reunites with you and your party all the more heartwarming.
• In Dimitri's S support with Byleth, he admits that he will probably hear the voices that tormented him until the day he dies, and also expresses how he hasn't forgiven himself for everything he did. While Dimitri's Character Development over the route is impressive and touching, it's heartbreaking to see that he'll probably never fully recover from the Tragedy of Duscur.
• In cut content, it would have been possible for Felix to fight Dimitri, Sylvain and Ingrid, as well as Annette to fight Mercedes and Gilbert, as a result of a schism in the Blue Lions following Rodrigue's death. Luckily, this doesn't actually happen in the game, but if it had, the Blue Lions would have become the only faction that could end up killing each other without Byleth recruiting one of them to a different house.
• Cornelia having Dimitri framed for the murder of his uncle, the regent. He is presumed to have been executed, but Rodrigue never sees a body. However, Dimitri was still declared dead, which probably made Rodrigue believe he couldn't keep Lambert's promise to protect his son.
  • Dimitri is imprisoned, isolated, and innocent. Dedue frees him potentially at the cost of his own life, which only snaps Dimitri further. He spends the next 5 years broken and haunted by delusions.
  • This happens on every route except Crimson Flower, meaning Dimitri is spared this fate by the hand of the person he hates most, but can also die at her hand instead.

Verdant Wind

• Throughout the post-skip, Claude does his darndest to try and work together with first Dimitri and then Edelgard. However, since neither had Byleth’s guidance, they are both too far gone to listen, and both end up succumbing to their respective fatal flaws.
• Related to the above, while some may want to pick Claude because he's the best-adjusted of the three Lords, that also means that both Edelgard and Dimitri's own flaws lead to their downfalls, without Byleth to help them. It's especially hard if you've played either or both of their routes before and saw how they might have turned out with Byleth at their sides.
  • While Claude might be able to adjust fine in other routes not his own, the Golden Deer route and his support conversations reveal how he suffered under Half-Breed Discrimination as a child due to being Half-Almyran and by the time he arrived at Fódlan shortly before the start of the game, he is heavily guarded of himself and distrustful of others due to most of the mistreatment he endured, and would have likely remained such by the timeskip. Choosing the Golden Deer house is the only way Claude can learn to fully trust another person again through his relationship with Byleth.
• Dimitri's death is heartbreaking not because it's dramatic, but the fact that it happens offscreen. To see a major character like him just... killed in an anticlimactic manner like that really gets to you. Hilda actually cries over how cruel his death was, saying he didn't deserve to die like that. In the next chapter, each of the recruited Blue Lions (except Sylvain) will have something to say lamenting Dimitri's death when talked to during exploration. Special mention goes to Felix should you talk to him.
  Felix: Could I have saved him? Could I have stopped him?
  • Very late in Azure Moon, Dimitri and Claude at least get to patch up and part ways on good terms after the whole ordeal at Gronder Field. On Verdant Wind however, they do not get the chance to do so, since Dimitri dies before even having a chance to calm down and atone for his actions.
• After the Battle on Gronder Field, if you recruited Annette you learn that her father Gilbert managed to survive the battle, but was last seen carrying Dimitri's corpse from the battlefield. If you played the Azure Moon route and/or done any supports with Gilbert, you'd know that he also suffers a major case of Failure Knight complex and never got over his failure to protect the Royal Family at the Tragedy of Duscur. Gilbert was so driven to shame that he abandoned his wife and Annette, and his old life. So now imagine Dimitri dying such a disgraceful death and the Kingdom getting destroyed and you can only imagine the mental and emotional state Gilbert is now in.
• If Lysithea fights against Edelgard on this route, or the Silver Snow route, Edelgard will remark at how similar they are, and Lysithea realizes that they both have two Crests. Unfortunately, the ideals they both strive for are incompatible, and that means they won't hesitate to fight to the death, rather than cooperate like they did on the Crimson Flower route.
  Edelgard: Lysithea. You and I are so alike. We could have walked the same path.
  Lysithea: We're alike? You don't mean to tell me... It can't be!
  Edelgard: Yet now, we are at a crossroad. There's no turning back. Must we fight each other for the things we believed in?
  Lysithea: That's exactly what's going to happen. And I will defeat you, Edelgard!
  • The kicker? Outside the Crimson Flower route, Edelgard still cooperated with TWSITD in part 2 of these routes. Lysithea would have seen the fact that Edelgard helped them in any way despite said group being responsible for their state, for the sake of her own goals, as unforgivable. What alliance and potential friendship they could have is lost as Edelgard had driven them away for her ambitions.
• Edelgard's death plays out exactly the same way as it does in Silver Snow, which is sad enough on its own. But this time it's with the added context that she potentially led all of her Black Eagle friends to their deaths along the way if you didn't recruit them. So while Silver Snow has her melancholy asking for release, here it truly makes it feel like she's a Death Seeker with nothing else to live for.
• Though he initially tried to work with Dimitri, only after Edelgard and Hubert die does Claude realize his goals (if not methods or timeframe) were more aligned with theirs. But because of the two sides' very valid reasons not to trust each other, they can't actually communicate that until Hubert does a posthumous Take Up My Sword moment.
• Rhea's big reveal after she's rescued is this in spades. Her mother was taken suddenly and violently from her, and she missed her and just wanted to be able to see her again. It's such a pathetic, human motivation that even Claude, who up until that point was fine with her dying as it meant one less obstacle to his goals, is taken aback by the realization that she had to fight enemies wielding weapons made of her own siblings' bodies.
• While TWSITD are defeated and the truth uncovered, the path to get there is still hellish and not without sacrifice. The Adrestian empire has to fall, and the kingdom of Faerghus is practically gone as Dimitri died, and with him, the Blaiddyd bloodline. While the Alliance is still around, the church lost an authority figure in Rhea who either died from her injuries or went into a slumber to recover. Then there is all the carnage Nemesis inflicted, destroying every Alliance village his army passed through on his way to seek vengeance. The heroes have a lot to work out in order to restore Fódlan.

DLC

• Cindered Shadows:
  • One of the earliest conversations you can find in the Abyss is Edelgard and Dimitri. Dimitri however asks Edelgard if she changed her hair, causing her to be startled before admitting so. She questions how he knew, but Dimitri avoids the response. As reinforced in both of their routes, it's clear that Dimitri really does care for her, but Edelgard simply cannot remember him. Edelgard's surprised reaction is no doubt almost a Trauma Button for her.
  • While Cindered Shadows has a happy ending, the player is still left with the sobering realization that, despite everything they'd just been through together, the House Leaders will ultimately end up trying to kill each other in just a few months.
    • Cindered Shadows is a separate timeline from the other routes, as shown by how the Ashen Wolves on other routes never met anyone before there. But Edelgard is clearly still the Flame Emperor in the Cindered Shadows route too, as shown by her interactions with certain enemies like the Death Knight. Will the friendship forged between and outright declared by everyone at the end on this route be enough to prevent the upcoming civil war in this timeline? The player will never get to find out!
    • Related to the above is how Yuri pointedly states at the end of the side story that he considers all three lords (and Byleth) his friends and that he always will. A hopeful ending where they do all remain allies or a poignant wish that can't be fulfilled?
• The tragic life of Sitri, who only lived for 20 years. She was born to become Sothis' vessel, but the ritual was a failure. Despite that, Rhea still ended up loving and treating her like family. She was sickly and could never leave the monastery, so she learned about the outside world from Jeralt. And when the two fell in love and tried to start a life together, poor Sitri gave birth to a stillborn child and used what little life she had left to tell Rhea to give her heart to Byleth. Rhea couldn't even bear to bury her in a grave. Instead, she hid her body in Abyss and sometimes went to pay respects to the poor woman.
• The only reason why Baron Ochs stole Balthus' Hero's Relic was to save his daughter, Monica, from her kidnappers. What is sad is that at that point the real Monica had been dead for some time (the Monica you see at this point is a disguised Kronya), leaving his actions for naught.
  • Even worse is Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes reveals she died not too long before the fake one was set up. His hope really did have a basis, but without any serious help he had no hope of finding his daughter before it was too late.

---