Visual Novel / The House in Fata Morgana

The House in Fata Morgana is a Visual Novel by Novectacle that was released in Japan on December 27, 2012. Mangagamer released an English version on their store and Steam on May 12, 2016. In it, you explore the mansion and the four eras, learning about the masters of the mansion, eventually learning of the Witch who cursed the mansion and is responsible for the misfortune of the eras. Eventually, you must uncover the truth of the mansion that the witch seeks to hide.

A prequel called A Requiem for Innocence was scheduled to be localized in 2016, but was delayed to 2018, and ultimately released May 18, 2018. It follows a band of rebels from the Middle Ages as they rise up against the maniacal Lord Jean-François Barnier, and serves as a Start of Darkness for several major villains in the original VN.

A short story titled Our Home was released on the official japanese website, and takes place during A Requiem for Innocence's epilogue, but is narrated through another point of view. You can find a translated version of that epilogue here.

The Updated Re Release for PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch includes a sequel story titled Reincarnation, which features the characters in a modern day setting, as well as eighteen short stories, including the aforementioned Our Home under the title The Revenants' Dream.

Compare to The Letter, another horror VN about a cursed mansion and several characters who are connected to it.

Due to the nature of its story, all spoilers are unmarked for the main game and its prequel, as it is practically impossible to discuss the plot without spoiling the whole thing. If you are the type of reader who is bothered by them, do not read any further than this before playing the game. You Have Been Warned!

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The House in Fata Morgana contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: Michel is living in the titular house because his father ordered his execution. His mother, while not intending to be malicious, only continues to fuel his breakdown by insisting he's cursed and that he's 'still her daughter' in their correspondence.
• A Day in the Limelight: Arthur Baldwin, a very minor character in the first story told (he was Nellie's Jerkass betrothed), is the focus character of the A Slow-Killing Poison chapter in A Requiem For Innocence, which details the aftermath of Nellie's breakdown and Mell's flight. It shows him to be a more conflicted and sympathetic lad than the brief glimpse we had of him in the main game.
  • Georges also gets this treatment with his Requiem chapter The Painting's Soliloquy. Most of what we know of Georges from the main game comes from his Innocently Insensitive painting of Michel and that he was reincarnated as a painting in the mansion, but his chapter fleshes out his character much more and tells the reader what happened to the Bollingers after Michel's death.
• Age-Gap Romance: Jacopo and Morgana; the former was twenty-two when he fell for her at twelve. He's determined to keep his feelings in check until she's older, but theirs is a doomed romance regardless. Ceren and Lord Barnier also have a clear age gap between them in the prequel, but there's so much else wrong with these two twisted people that this trope is not the first thing that springs to mind when Jacopo tries to unpack it.
• Albinos Are Freaks: Subverted. Michel initially confirms Giselle's assumption that he was disowned by his family because of his albinism, but it turns out that Michel was lying and just went along with it because he didn't want her to know that the real reason was him being intersex.
• Amnesiac Hero: The protagonist wakes up with no memories and is referred to as "You" in the textboxes. If starting a new game after reaching the true end, this is changed to Destitute Soul.
• An Arm and a Leg: Morgana loses her left arm to The Swordsman, who cuts it clean. Michel almost suffered the same fate from the same man with his right arm.
• Arc Words: Our lives shall be forfeit to the witch's curse. Carved into the mansion's cellar floor by a dying medieval Maria, and found by her 1869 counterpart, which doesn't bode well for her either - she dies not too long after.
• Art Shift: In Reincarnation. The character sprites and background graphics lift much heavier from anime than the main game and Requiem.
• Assassin Outclassin': Maria indulges in a bit of Evil Gloating, fails to deal Jacopo a fatal wound, and gives him the time and opportunity to turn things around on his would-be assassin.
• Awful Truth: Each tragedy hides one which thoroughly destroys the characters involved.
  • In the first door, Nellie was in romantic love with Mell all along, and the White-Haired Girl was his half-sister.
  • In the second door, Bestia, the bloodthirsty, murderous beast, and Yukimasa, Pauline’s love who she searched for all this time, are one and the same.
  • In the third door, Maria, whom Jacopo Bearzatti and the White-Hired Girl trusted, was the one who sowed the discord in their relationship to get revenge on the Bearzattis for killing her father and grandfather.
  • In the fourth door, all the events were actually a fabrication by Morgana- none of it happened. The bonding between Michel and the White-Haired Girl never occurred.
  • In the fifth and sixth doors, Michel was killed by his own brother, Didier, on the orders of his family; and Giselle is the Maid, who spent a millennium waiting for Michel while being psychologically tormented by Morgana.
  • In the seventh and final doors, the brave peasant hero, Jacopo, who Morgana admired was the very same man who became the new lord and locked her up, turning on everyone he loved.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Bestia quickly cements itself as this, but is trying to refrain from succumbing to its urges. He fails in the end.
  • Lord Barnier from the Witch's era, responsible for the blood sabbaths. In A Requiem for Innocence, we finally discover how he looks like. Using the adjective "unhinged" to describe him is being generous.
• Badass Boast: In A Requiem for Innocence, Gratien is well-aware of how much of a badass he is, though he does point out that, despite how badass he is, he "aint a god".
• Bad Future: One of the short stories in Dreams of the Revenants is an elaboration of the A Moment of Hesitation Bad Ending. Michel is forever banished from the mansion by Giselle, spinning him back into fate's sphere to live unfettered by Morgana's curse or Giselle's own unresolved despair. Morgana can't quite understand this act, but Giselle is not done. She's determined to make Morgana lose everything too, and by the time she's finished her sorrow and despair and solitude have grown powerful enough to eclipse Morgana's own, leading usurping her mistress as the witch.
• Bait-and-Switch: It's implied that Ceren has a bit of a crush on Jacopo during his youth. Morgana certainly notices and disapproves. The man she's ''really'' in love with, though, none of them saw coming...
• Beast and Beauty: Interestingly enough, that trope shows up numerous times in Fata Morgana, and is used differently each time:
  • The second door's tale is a blatant re-creation of this, with the caveat that the beast, Bestia, is an actual Serial Killer. It turns out to be slightly more complicated in regards to the Beast, who was Human All Along and simply thought himself a beast due to his delusions.
  • Also applies to Michel and Giselle's relationship to a degree. Michel is a recluse man who barely holds himself together and has deep-rooted issues, while Giselle is sweet and kind but still there against her will, at least initially.
  • In "A Requiem For Innocence", Lord Barnier and Ceren. Barnier's "beast" status leaves no doubt for interpretation, but Ceren's case is more complicated. She is genuinely innocent to the core, but her inability to understand negative emotions is what makes Barnier interested in her in the first place, as he feels she is the only person with whom he can be completely honest, and in the end she becomes an instrument to his cruelty.
• Beautiful All Along: Due to the relentless mistreatment and abuse Morgana suffered since being sold off at a young age, both her face and body have numerous wounds and scars, resulting in her refusing to show her face to anyone during her teenage years. After her soul is healed in the true ending, it turns out her un-scarred face was quite a pretty one after all.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: There is rumored to be a witch who resides in the house and will grant wishes but also cause suffering at the same time. Of course, it turns out to be true.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Although Georges can be insensitive and thoughtless, he's nevertheless almost always nice, affable and forgiving to those around him. Then when he found out his wife was poisoning him in a side-story in A Requiem for Innocence, he accepted his fate as he felt he was deserving of it...and returned the favor, feigning ignorance and possibly murdered his wife in revenge using the paint he used in his final painting.
• Big Bad:
  • In the original story, The Witch, Morgana, is the one who cursed the titular mansion to bring misfortune on all its masters, making her responsible for all the conflicts of the four eras. Until the final chapter, where she stops opposing you- from then on, Lord Jacopo, the Fallen Hero who is indirectly responsible for Morgana becoming a witch, becomes the antagonist keeping Morgana locked in the tower for her holy blood.
  • In the prequel, A Requiem For Innocence, Lord Jean-François Barnier is the insane tyrant whom Jacopo seeks to overthrow in order to stop his cruelty and protect Morgana from him, at least for Part I and the Interlude. In Part II, Jacopo himself becomes the new tyrant ruling over the land and the one who locks Morgana in the tower.
• Big Damn Heroes: Mell, of all people, and Pauline arrive to save Michel from Yukimasa at a pivotal moment. Deconstructed with Yukimasa himself a bit later on, who, after pulling a Heel–Face Turn, can potentially cut down Jacopo before he can murder Michel; but killing Jacopo was not part of the plan, as his death robs the group of some essential information and leads to a Bad Ending.
• Bilingual Bonus: Of the many songs of the game, almost none of them are sung in English. Knowing some languages such as Portuguese, Italian or French will reveal the meaning of some. In particular, upon finally meeting Morgana's soul, right before the Final Door, the music which plays also contains spoken - not sung - lines in French, reflecting Michel's resolve.
• Birds of a Feather: Morgana and Michel, in the darkest possible ways. She's very proud of it; he rejects it with everything he has...until digging deep into her story and realising they have more in common than he'd ever thought.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing:
  • Maria from the third door pretends to be the White-Haired Girl's only friend and the only person that Jacopo can trust, but she's really doing everything in her power to destroy their marriage and gloats to herself about their suffering in private.
  • In Michel's backstory, the fiancee of his brother Georges, Aimee, develops into one, relentlessly torturing and bullying Michel after he is held prisoner due to his gender identity issues.
• Bittersweet Ending: While everyone's souls were able to find peace and move on to much happier next lives, it came with a great sacrifice: the White-Haired Girl's soul, which was removed from existence entirely in order to lift the curse and allow Morgana to be whole again.
• Blade Enthusiast: In the Witch's era, Maria has a certain fascination for knives. In future eras, she keeps a fascination for weapons.
• Blood Knight: In A Requiem for Innocence, Gratien, a former arena fighter, is quite fond of fighting, and is visibly disappointed when a guard runs away from him.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Didier to Michel. The first crack in his idolized vision of his brother was him having intimate time with Aimee, Georges' fiancee. The pedestal completely shatters when Didier himself comes to kill Michel. The betrayal is so powerful, so visceral, cuts so deep that it occults everything else, even Giselle.
  • Exploited by Michel himself a bit later. He has Nellie wait outside his room while he draws the truth of Morgana's imprisonment from a panicking Mell, which completely smashes the princely image Mell's sister had of him and comes close to destroying their relationship. He then helps Nellie to rebuild that pedestal into something more realistic, which ends Mell's involvement in Morgana's ordeal and completes his character arc.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Two examples: Nellie has un-sisterly romantic feelings toward her older brother Mell, while Mell himself falls in love with the White-Haired Girl...not knowing she's his half-sister due to his mother's infidelity.
• Brutal Honesty: In A Requiem for Innocence, Jacopo has no choice but to be frank with Morgana and explains to her that even if she was sold to become a prostitute, she would never get any work because of how her body looks after being cut and tortured by the lord.
• Burn the Witch!:
  • The White-Haired Girl is killed as a result of this in the second door.
  • Michel is also killed and then crucified and his corpse burned at the stake.
• But Thou Must!: Played with. In at least one instance, the game leaves you with only one choice. In order to proceed, the correct way is to not answer, as in let a few seconds elapse before the story can resume in the right direction, as picking up the choice would lead you on the wrong path. In other instances, you have to quickly pick your answer. And, finally, a character will leave you with no other choice but to do what they ask of you.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Mell. By the end of the main game and Requiem, you will be hard-pressed to not consider him pathetic. Michel wants to smack him quite a couple of times, including during the Backstage section, but he does come through during the final chapter.
  • Not in the game itself, but in the Backstage section (especially in A Requiem For Innocence), Jacopo spends half his screen time being called out for his actions, which he usually agrees with. The other half he spends hopelessly trying to get Morgana's affection, which is almost always met with a swift rebuke, making him look like a kicked puppy. Not that he helps his case by constantly mocking Michel and being jealous of his friendship with Morgana.
• Central Theme:
  • How both prejudice and good intentions can lead humans to do horrifying things to other human beings.
  • The incredible perseverance of the human soul even when facing total and utter despair.
  • Forgiveness, moving on and the distinction between them.
• Cessation of Existence: It is revealed that if your soul is too damaged while in the land of death, you risk this fate. And then one character directly asks Michel to willingly cause this to them: the White-Haired Girl, in order for her to reunite with Morgana's soul and put an end to the curse. She makes it clear nothing of her will survive, that her sense of self will be gone, that nothing will remain of her: she asks purely and simply for the eradication of her soul. Nonetheless, she asks of Michel to go through with it anyway. Depending on how you interpret things, Georges' soul may very well have suffered the same fate.
• Chekhov's Gun: Lord Barnier's diary, dismissed by Michel as the scribblings of a frustrated noble of no consequence, ends up being much more important than first assumed, and provides an important link between the differing time periods.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Ceren, in spades. The way she acts baffles absolutely everyone who meet her. Not helped by her first introduction to the story where she goes yelling "KNOCK KNOCK KNOOOOOCK" on the brothel's door. Morgana is confused beyond words by her actions.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Yukimasa does this to a few unfortunate victims. Aimee employs a more mundane, but no less evil version of this trope, offering to deliver the ostracised Michel his meals but giving his food to animals and making him drink his water from the floor, causing him to painfully deteriorate into emaciation. She takes it further and further, from emotional to direct physical abuse. Worse still, Aimee, who has no other experience in physical violence and believes herself to be weak, is thus lacking in restraint, making her all the more brutal and vicious when tormenting one even weaker than she is.
• Consummate Liar: Michel was really off the mark in his belief that Morgana never lies. She's frighteningly good at it, driving him to the brink of soul-crushing despair with an utter falsehood, and deceiving Giselle into giving up on Michel and accepting her fate as Morgana's maid. Michel himself is pretty good at it too, deflecting the swordsman's scrutiny with some skillful evasion and reasonable responses; Giselle is rather surprised at how good a liar the normally awkward, stuttering Michel can be.
• Continuity Snarl: In the main game, the recounting of Lord Barnier's death claims the lord begged for his life at the end. His final duel with Jacopo gets major focus in Requiem, and he's given a much better showing than the narration previously suggested. Barnier himself takes umbrage with this misrepresentation in the backstage extra.
  Barnier: One must be crying and clawing their attacker, wailing for mercy through a fit of panicked sobs in order to properly count as begging. I did none of that. Yet that was precisely the wording used in the main game... I would like to have a word with the author.
  Ceren: The main game was just the short version, so cut 'em some slack. Your character wasn't fully established at that point.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Prequel, but Jacopo is this to Michel. Michel was a huge Jerkass with no friends when we first saw him, whereas Jacopo, while a Jerk with a Heart of Gold was a very compassionate and idealistic young man with many friends. Michel came from a noble family and was exiled into a life of solitude. Jacopo came from the slum and pulled himself all the way up to be a lord. Michel pushed away Giselle despite her attempts to be friendly. Jacopo was unrelenting in trying to help Morgana despite her attempts to push him away. Michel is a non-action guy with a frail body. Jacopo is a badass second only to Gratien, besting the lord in single combat and fending off multiple assassination attempts, at least two of which he repelled with his own hands. Michel is ultimately responsible for pretty much everyone's salvation by the end (possibly except Jacopo), but namely Morgana, to the point where he is repeatedly compared to the angel he was named after. Jacopo is responsible for the death of pretty much every last character and is the one most responsible for Morgana becoming a witch and consequently Giselle becoming an undead spirit. And most of all, Jacopo's final appearance in the epilogue is very similar to Michel's first appearance as a destitute soul, where Michel's love interest leads him on the path of reclaiming himself and Jacopo's return to prevent him from extinguishing his soul in grief and regret despite her mixed feelings on the matter.
• The Corrupter: In A Requiem For Innocence, Odilon to Jacopo. While his intentions were good, and despite being a genuinely good consul, he nonetheless had a role in making Jacopo Lonely at the Top, and there are hints that he is clearly prejudiced against the common folk. Not that he wasn't right about Gratien.
• Couple Theme Naming: The protagonist's name is revealed to be Michel, which nearly rhymes with the name of his One True Love, Giselle.
• Creepy Housekeeper: The Maid. Also doubles as the Haunted House Historian.
• Crippling Castration: In his grief, when Michel, after demanding a male servant to strip, discovers what it was that he lacks and that other males have, he attempts to castrate the poor servant while shouting that, this way, he would be the same as him.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Mentioned repeatedly during the third door's story. Much of the tragedy could have been averted if only Jacopo had it in him to talk to his wife; the misinformation that destroys their relationship and thus gives Maria's vengeance an extra spice would have unraveled very quickly if he'd only been able to tell her how he really felt.
• Curse: An exceptionally powerful one at that: Morgana's supreme malevolence and desire for revenge led her to curse the souls of the three men. The mansion itself became warped, able to travel through time and space, and transformed into a prison for the souls of those that Morgana deemed responsible for her tragedy. As such, the mansion gained a magnetic property, allowing her to attract, led to their ruin and ultimately imprison the souls of the three men who all had a direct hand in her death and misery. Countless other people found their death inside its walls, as Bestia's wishes for carnage led many to come and be butchered.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Jacopo only truly became the cold-hearted Lord Barnier after one of his closest friends from the slums, Gratien, attempted to murder him in a fit of rage and jealousy, and his one Honest Advisor, to whom Jacopo was like a second son, ended up dead from the fallout, leaving the new lord alone with a lot of grief and a much colder disposition towards his people.
• Damsel in Distress: When she regains her identity, Morgana kidnaps Giselle, leading Michel to go after her to save her.
• Damsel out of Distress: To Morgana's surprise, Giselle manages to escape her and to join Michel in his time of need after the door to his soul is forced open. Michel and Giselle discover that as much as the mansion is Morgana's domain, it is also theirs.
• Deadpan Snarker: One of Morgana's main characteristic, being quite sharp-tongued. That aspect of her is further explored during the A Requiem for Innocence spin-off.
  • Michel himself has his moments, particularly when he travels back to Morgana's time.
• Death Seeker: In A Requiem for Innocence, upon seeing what happened to her face and in the depths of despair, Morgana asks Jacopo to kill her. Killing herself would be a grave sin, so she has no choice but to ask for someone else to do it for her. Of course, he vehemently refuses.
• Defrosting the Ice Queen: Morgana, in the main game and especially in the A Requiem for Innocence spin-off. Her trauma, her vision of herself and her scars led her to distance herself from others, as she refuses to accept the mere possibility that she may be a normal girl, as it would destroy her identity. It takes the efforts and godly patience of many to finally make her open up just a little.
• Despair Gambit: Morgana's bread and butter, used to terrifying effect. Michel proves very resistant to her efforts, although he would have broken too had Giselle not been there to shine the truth on her venom.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Lord Barnier in A Requiem for Innocence; Jacopo then takes over his role in the story both literally and figuratively.
• Distant Finale: The epilogue of the true ending shows how the various characters from the period settings of the visual novel meet each other again in the 21st century. Specifically, all of them are reborn and live in the city of Paris, France, in the same country where it all began.
• Diving Save: Georges saves Michel from a fatal wound to his soul by jumping in the way of Didier's sword. This heroic act remains slightly incongruous when you remember that Georges does that as a painting. However, such act bears the real possibility that Georges' soul may have been extinguished, by the end of his own brother no less.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Morgana's reaction when the awful truth dawns on her: She cursed the man she once cared about, along with the soul of what was once herself, the White-Haired Girl, whom she thought was Michel's reconstruction.
• Downer Ending: A Requiem For Innocence ends in one: Morgana's cruel fate, Dying Alone atop her tower; Jacopo's Dying Dream of what could have been, had he only made the right choices; and Maria painfully succumbing to plague, trapped within the cellar and unfairly bound to Morgana's Dying Curse. Of course, you probably already knew the prequel would go this way.
• Dying Alone:
  • In the most gut wrenching way, Michel dies alone, killed by his own brother, Didier. While his body is long dead, his soul was still attached to it, unable to pass on, witnessing being nailed to the cross by his brother and spat on and burned by his mother. It is not until his body has completely rotted that his soul is finally set free.
  • Morgana was completely alone during her final moments, with only her fragmented mind keeping her company. Preventing her death was Michel's mission in the past, and when he realizes he is too late he holds her in his arm and comforts her until the inevitable. He then orders the others to give her body a proper funeral, remembering all too well how his life ended and how his soul was still tethered to his body until it decayed beyond recognition.
  • In A Requiem For Innocence, Maria is imprisoned by the mob in the mansion's cellar, left to famish. She soon contracts the curse's disease, and slowly succumbs to despair. She manages to write a message on the cellar's floor, which is discovered by her future self, and either dies of her disease or hunger and thirst, with her consciousness fading away in an illusion crafted by her delirious mind in which everyone is alive and well and lives happily ever after.
• Dying Curse: Morgana's vengeance upon the three men who ruined her life, condemning them to be reborn again and again, only to suffer a horrible fate in each of their lives. The curse also extends to the important women in their lives.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Lord almighty! It took nearly a millennia for every character involved to finally reach their happy ending, and even this happy ending has a bittersweet aspect to it. After centuries as a pawn of Morgana, Giselle is finally able to meet Michel again. Michel, after helping Giselle to reclaim her true self, decides to do everything in his power to save her from the mansion, leading Morgana to take action, kidnapping Giselle. What follows is a long and arduous quest for the truth, in which everyone's soul is lay bare, revealing for all to see the ugliest truths, but also the very tragic aspect of everything that transpired. After a tenuous travel through an illusion of the past, Michel is able to reveal to Morgana the circumstances surrounding her imprisonment and her death, and is forced to eradicate the White-Haired girl's soul in order for the curse to be lifted. Michel is able to genuinely empathize with Morgana and to assuage her hatred. Morgana's hatred is finally quelled, and she releases the souls she captured inside the mansion, but not without making a point that she doesn't forgive them. Michel reunites with both his brothers and forgives them, their souls being able to move on to their next lives. In the 21st century, a new Giselle remembers everything and looks for Michel where the mansion was once built. Michel shows up, his memories intact despite the fact that his soul was nearly annihilated, and he embraces Giselle.
• Eldritch Location: The manor itself. Not only is it able to move through time and space, it also allows people inside to observe its former masters' past lives. The curse draws people to it, leading to their misery or their death, and Morgana has full control over it, or so she thought. While her curse played a part, the mansion itself merely attracts people through the wishes of its masters, and while they are people who ended up inside to become pawns in the tragedies orchestrated by Morgana, they are also people who came there to find their redemption. And while the mansion was a core aspect of the curse, it is not Morgana who led to the birth of that anomaly: it is the White-Haired Girl.
• Eternal Love: Michel and Giselle's love, which transcends time and space, and allowed them to endure many hardships.
• Et Tu, Brute?:
  • In the main game, behind the Fifth Door, Michel is horrified to discover that his own elder brother is leading the band of Church Militant knights out to kill him. The true ending reveals that the brother deeply regretted his actions and was haunted by them to the point of becoming another phantom of the mansion.
  • In A Requiem For Innocence, Jacopo is betrayed by Gratien, who poisons him and tries to finish the job.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: While "love" is a strong word, Barnier has a soft spot for Ceren, as she is probably the only person he ended up liking in his whole life, so much that he did try to save her. It didn't stop him from killing her in cold blood in order to harm Jacopo, although he does this knowing that Ceren approves.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The bandit who murdered Ceren's parents is a bit disgusted when one of his dregs develops a thing for the five-year-old girl. In his turn, that bandit is appalled by the degrading abuse Ceren is subjected to by the others.
• Everyone Dies: By the end of Requiem, all the main characters are dead.
• Everyone Has Standards: Jacopo will use anything as ammunition to mock Michel no matter how petty, whether it be his sensitivity to sunlight or just the mere fact that he's French. However, in the backstage section of Requiem, when he found out that Michel is an intersex individual, he awkwardly tried to confirm it with Michel and wanted to be more "careful with his words". Though Michel found the attempt awkward and unneeded, he nevertheless appreciated the sentiment.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Played with when Morgana attempts to convince Michel to curse his family. She understands where his reluctance comes from, but was literally brought back to life by the depths of his hatred, and knows how badly he burns for vengeance no matter what his conscience tells him. Michel, for his part, comes to question whether refusing her offer was truly down to love for his family or fear of crossing that line. Morgana spends years trying to tempt him into following this path, as it is unfathomable to her that he might genuinely simply not wish them ill.
• Evil Gloating: The Lord has a habit of looking down on everyone, calling them cur, maggot, worm and the likes. In A Requiem for Innocence, it turns out that the Lord Barnier was the one who originally talked like this, with Jacopo merely mimicking him once he becomes the new Lord.
• Evil Is Petty: Played for Laughs in the Golden Ending. Morgana is a bit annoyed at how easily Michel forgave his brother Georges, the painting, and tells him to scribble all over him first. Georges agrees with her and says it's a great idea.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: The very pretty, outwardly kind Aimee is revealed to be an absolutely despicable person. Michel outright refers to her as a demon at the climax of a beating she gives him.
• False Friend: In A Requiem For Innocence, Imeon was supposed to be this to Michel, as per his deal with Morgana in order to curse his family for abandoning her. Instead, she genuinely became Michel's first friend and vice versa, choosing to forsake both her revenge and life in order to give Michel a shot at happiness.
• Fate Worse than Death: The extent of the Witch's vengeance amount to inflict this: by attracting the men who wronged her in the mansion, she can then make their life as miserable and painful as possible, and ultimately keep their souls imprisoned for all eternity. While Giselle wasn't the one initially cursed, she became a tool for her vengeance, transforming into an undead maid, an accessory to her hatred, doomed to centuries of captivity and ultimately almost completely forgetting who she really was.
• Featureless Protagonist:
  • The player is introduced to You without a physical description or any sort of sprite. This only lasts until his true identity is revealed.
  • Several times over behind the second door. Bestia has a black, formless sprite. Bestia is first presented as a name, when it's really just a word for "beast". And then it turns out that Bestia isn't a "beast" at all, and we finally see his real appearance: a Japanese man named Yukimasa, and the merchant lover of Pauline that showed up in her flashbacks.
• Final Speech: The White-Haired Girl gives a heartbreaking one to Michel when he, reluctantly, ends their existence at their own request:
  White-Haired Girl: Thank you, Michel, for having the strength to do what must be done. If it wouldn't be too much to ask...for you to keep just a little bit of me in a corner of your soul, Michel...to remember me. To remember the life I lived...that would make it...all worthwhile...Thank you, Michel, you may very well be... a genuine -"
• Fingore: An innocent man is on the receiving end during the second door's tale. Unsurprisingly, The Swordsman repeats this behavior when he has Michel at his mercy.
• First-Person Smartass: Behind the last door, Michel's inner thoughts are very, very snarky.
• Foil: Due to the similarities of their fates, Michel and Morgana are each other's foil, something that is underlined by the White-Haired Girl:
  White-Haired Girl: Your life bore many similarities with Morgana's. You were both abused, imprisoned, called a witch. But while Morgana sought vengeance...you watched your own mother burn your crucified body...and you wished for release, rather than vengeance.
• Foreshadowing: All over the place, although there are quite a few red herrings too:
  • Every story told foreshadows Michel and Giselle's story, as many details and parallels can be made between their story and the previous ones, with a lot of recurring themes all coming together for their chapter. When you reach the final door, it turns out that every story also foreshadows the very first one which happened chronologically, i.e. Morgana's story.
  • Michel being born intersex is hinted several times behind the fifth door, such as a mention of his mother having a daughter, the man watching over him nearly asking him if it is true he does not have male genitalia, the torn portrait of a white-haired girl, his deep fear of rejection and how he avoids Giselle's advances, and so on.
  • The existence of the Witch, Morgana, as a real being distinct from The Maid.
  • It can be surprising to suddenly need 3 keys, each kept by a different soul, to access the observatory tower. It foreshadows the circumstances behind Morgana's imprisonment and why they were cursed in the first place.
  • During Michel's last talk with his brothers before being exiled to the mansion, he asked his brothers whether they consider him their brother. Georges quickly answered in a nonchalant manner that he does, whereas Didier was visibly silent. This signals the fact that Didier may not have fully accepted Michel's identity despite everything, which may be one of the contributing factors in him leading the knights to murder Michel later.
• Forgiveness: One of the story's major themes, as the characters eventually learn to forgive others and, above all, themselves for what tragedies they were responsible for:
  • Michel ultimately forgives his brothers for their betrayal, and also Morgana once her story is revealed. Giselle follows suit.
  • Georges' and Didier's souls find their way to the mansion, out of their desire to apologize to Michel.
  • In the case of Jacopo, he is unable to forgive himself for all the suffering he caused. Without Morgana's help, his soul may very well have completely disappeared after being freed from the mansion.
  • This trope is played with regarding Morgana: She makes it perfectly clear that she doesn't forgive the men responsible for her misfortune. She acknowledges that the situation was more complicated than she thought, and that the torture she inflicted upon them has lasted long enough. Discovering that she cursed the wrong person (and her Precocious Crush, on top of that) and being reunited with the part of her soul which was missing played a major factor in her decision.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Implied in the Boy Meets Girl short story. A ten-year-old “Michelle” gets lost in town with Georges and runs into a bubbly little girl several years his junior, looking for her father. Her unquestioning acceptance of his cover story (“Michelle” had dressed in male clothing to avoid harassment) is the first instance of validation his budding turmoil surrounding his identity receives. The story ends with “Michelle” musing on a possible reunion with the girl someday, and he makes a note of her eye color – the same jade as Giselle's.
• For the Evulz: Aimee's torture of Michel has shades of this. She claims that it's because he insulted her in front of his family, but keeps it going out of sadism and the sheer enjoyment of a power trip. When Michel stops resisting entirely, she gets bored and gives up.
• Freudian Excuse: Lord Barnier was nearly assassinated by his father and younger brothers, as while he had a talent for leadership and was next in line, he was not at all obsequious and thus not fit to rule, in their eyes. He paid them back by killing them and seizing his birthright, and the realities of power soon turned his heart to darker things, leading him to develop a perverse fetish for inflicting fear and pain on others. He reflects that all the time he spent trying to be a good ruler was a waste, as better results were produced by the far less taxing application of dread.
• Future Me Scares Me: Behind the final door, Michel reveals to The Swordsman what he will become in his next life. The unsettling revelation elicits this reaction from him. Made all the more striking by the fact that even in this era this soul already has Ax-Crazy tendencies and well-aware of them.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Becoming a recluse man with almost no contact with the outside world did a number on Michel. While not becoming crazy, he nonetheless became incredibly depressed and jaded. Then he unwittingly resurrected Morgana, thus gaining a new companion, but one that made his situation worse.
• Gothic Horror: In the backstage extra, Morgana actually grills Yukimasa a little for wanting to discuss the game's setting, as he, a far-eastern man, is probably the most out-of-place character in what was meant to be gothic horror/suspense game.
• Gratuitous Portuguese: Several songs in the game are in Portuguese, but it is very broken, with noticeable grammar mistakes, nonsensical sentences and a few wrong pronunciations.
• Green-Eyed Monster: In A Requiem For Innocence, Gratien turns into one, resenting Jacopo for becoming the new lord while he could have taken his place. While his actions are partially motivated by Jacopo's neglect for the poor, it is made abundantly clear that his main motivation is pure jealousy.
• Groin Attack: Aimee is morbidly fascinated to learn that doing this to someone even lacking in junk still produces the desired effect.
• Gut Feeling: In Assento Dele short story, Georges and "Michelle" both get a bad feeling about the Castagnier family heiress whose portrait they observe. The girl in question ends up being Imeon, Michel's first real friend, and he never learns her true identity.
• Hard Truth Aesop: In the last door, when Michel hears the Swordsman's story and is asked what Yukimasa should do with his life now, he states that he had always believed that people should be themselves no matter what but after listening to his tale, he says that sometimes your true self is something that will harm others and if it can't be changed, then it should be at least kept at bay and not indulged in.
• Hate Sink: Most villains are shown to have once been good people before being Driven to Villainy, but these nobles were not:
  • Antonin Bollinger is the abusive father to Michel Bollinger. Raising his Intersex child as a daughter, he declares him cursed when Michel comes out as a trans male, and has him locked up. Allowing Aimee Joubert to torture him, Antonin also repeatedly rapes Giselle, a servant of his, and carves the word HARLOT into her crotch. Eventually ordering Michel executed and sending Michel's own beloved brother Didier to do the job, Antonin shows no love or concern for anything but his own reputation.
  • The aforementioned Aimee Joubert is the one mainly responsible for Michel's trauma. The fiancee of Georges Bollinger who created on him with his brother Didier, Aimee shows disgust towards homosexuality when the female-presenting Michel kisses her. When Michel is locked up, Aimee gleefully tortures him, depriving him of food and water, ritually humiliating, him and taking great pleasure in all of his pain. Later, she slowly poisons Georges to death to gain all his property. When she reappears in the backstage interviews, she smugly gloats about how she went on to live a life of comfort and security and faced no justice for her crimes.
  • Amadee is the leader of a local village who initially befriends Giselle. When she is falsely accused of stealing from the village, Amadee refuses to listen to her, subjecting her to Cold-Blooded Torture instead, and it is later implied that he was the one who framed her. When Michel is set to be executed, Amadee takes his corpse and humiliates him in front of the whole village, calling him a demon. Like Aimee, Amadee is never shown having paid for his crimes.
  • Lord Jean-François Barnier is the one responsible for driving Morgana and Jacopo into villainy. A tyrant who torments everyone around him for fun, he buys Morgana and organizes the blood sabbaths where he and other nobles drink her blood. Even his care for Ceren, his spy, is subverted when he kills her and shows no remorse. Even after death, his actions continue to torment Jacopo and turn him into a tyrant as well, and lead to Morgana becoming a Wicked Witch, thus making him responsible for all the tragedy in the series.
• Haunted House: The eponymous mansion. What began as a noble's second home and then a makeshift church was warped into the demesne of a spectral witch, who died there in life, and whose undying vengeance has made the mansion the anchor of each of our tragic stories.
• Heroic Sacrifice: When the knights come to the mansion to kill them, Michel asks a wish from Morgana: to keep Giselle safe and alive. Morgana, expecting him to curse his own family, is disappointed, and asks him to perform a sacrifice in exchange for her protecting Giselle, demanding from him to forfeit his life. Michel responds that he was doing to do that anyway, in order to be sure that they wouldn't go after Giselle, and steps outside the observation tower, barring the door with his own body (door which couldn't be opened by anyone, thanks to Morgana's power) in order to protect her. Michel is then killed by the knights, with none other than Didier, his own brother, amongst their ranks.
• Hero of Another Story: Jacopo in the distant past, when he led the revolt against the Lord. His story is explored in the "A Requiem for Innocence" prequel.
  • Discussed by the Maid- she points out that the infidelity of Lady Rhodes with a painter implies another tragic story that occurred before Mell and the White-Haired Girl's own suffering. Since the story isn't about them, so Lady Rhodes' affair is but a story that ripples into Mell's.
• History Repeats: The main theme of Reincarnation, but with a positive twist in each story told. Nellie falls for her full-blooded brother once again, and tries to begin a sexual relationship with him, but Mell musters the courage to face the problem and Nellie is able to start overcoming her feelings. Yukimasa is once more plagued by a desire to inflict violence, but the vow he engraved upon his soul is keeping him from crossing the line. He admits these feelings to Pauline after nearly strangling her in a stupor, and her love for him is such that she's happy to be either his tether – or, if it comes to it, his first and only victim. Jacopo rescues a runaway Morgana and takes her in, but as they grow closer and feelings begin to develop, their memories resurface and the relived trauma drives them apart. However, this time Jacopo is able to make things right and save the day, and their story ends on a high note – together again, setting off for the homeland they only knew in the illusion that saved his soul.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: In the Witch's era, Maria. That aspect of her becomes much clearer in the A Requiem For Innocence spin-off, in which she pretty much runs the brothel and does everything in her power to make it a safe place for the girls and Morgana.
• Hope Spot: You, or Michel, and Giselle have regained their memories and are getting ready to escape the house. Cue Morgana showing up.
• Horrifying the Horror: What can possibly scare a seasoned killer without remorse who enjoys the thrill of killing? Himself. Once The Swordsman hears from Michel what he is going to do in his future life, he is completely taken back, as despite his urges not even he himself wants to become this.
• Identity Amnesia:
  • "You," the protagonist, not knowing who they are. The doors are shown in the hopes of their jogging memories.
  • The Maid has forgotten that she was once Giselle.
• I Hate Past Me:
  • Michel absolutely can't stand the man he was before Giselle entered his life, and doesn't want Giselle to see what is hidden behind his door.
  • In a roundabout way, Morgana can't stand the White-Haired Girl, finding her sickeningly nice and too pure of heart. The irony is two-fold, as she thought she was Michel's reconstruction and she couldn't understand how he could come back with such a different personality, while in fact the White-Haired Girl is a part of her own soul which she discarded and came to have a life on its own. She is effectively hating herself and everything she was while she was alive.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: A core part of Mell's character, as it is this desire which drives many of his actions.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Several characters in the story are very lonely, downtrodden people who yearn for companionship. Explored at length with Michel and Imeon's chapter in A Requiem For Innocence. Surprisingly, this is even implied of Lord Barnier in one of the interludes; it's suggested that finding people like himself was one of the reasons he threw his bloody banquets.
• Incorruptible Pure Pureness: In all three stories, the White-Haired girl appears to be this at her core. Because she is this at her core: she is everything that was pure, good and selfless in Morgana. Lampshaded in-game:
  Michel: So that's why you always seemed so...abnormally pure-hearted...
• Insistent Terminology: Michel's mother firmly identifies him with female pronouns, and will hear nothing else of it. A few servants also follow this example. A crueler example in Aimee, who also only refers to Michel as a girl, but entirely in derision because she knows how much it bothers him.
• Interface Screw: After entering the fourth door, text in the backlog starts getting obscured and text that never showed onscreen appears in the backlog. This is to foreshadow the fact that most of the story is a fabrication.
• Irony: Morgana led Giselle to lose her identity, claiming she was remembering her life wrong. It is revealed later that Morgana herself exactly did that, by confusing the Lord who traumatized her with Jacopo, and cursed the man she loved to an eternity of suffering. As Michel points out, her mistake was understandable, as she was in an excruciating amount of pain from the loss of her left arm and she didn't see even once the face of the Lord. Between the blood loss, her distress and her panic at the face of who she thought was the same man who bought her years ago, it is no wonder she made that mistake.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Morgana lists off the themes of his story arc in the backstage extra, Yukimasa sits through the unflattering litany like a good sport, but takes umbrage with "faithfulness and infidelity", as he was always faithful to Pauline. The witch points out that by his standards – a man who wants a woman to be his tether to humanity, not a romantic or sexual partner – he was unfaithful through his interactions with the White-Haired Girl in Chapter 2, whom he transferred this role to.
• I've Come Too Far: Lord Barnier confides this to Ceren in A Requiem For Innocence, feeling that redemption is impossible for him and resigning himself to whatever awaits. It's also implied that he he could have made a greater effort to avoid his looming fate, but didn't bother. Jacopo himself has a similar epiphany not long after seizing power.
• The Jailbait Wait: Jacopo is determined to keep his uncomfortable feelings for the eleven-year-old Morgana in check until she's sixteen.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Nellie's betrothed, Arthur, is easy to dislike, what with his antiquated views on marriage and cruel remarks, but it's not like any of the criticism he levels against Nellie is wrong. He seems no more happy than she is at being married off to someone they dislike, he simply tries to take the hit with a bit of dignity. He gets A Day in the Limelight in the spinoff, which makes it clear that he's not a bad person at all, and that there was a time when he did genuinely want to earn Nellie's affection...which was focused entirely on her brother.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Jacopo. Deep down, he is pure of heart, but he is incapable of communicating his feelings correctly, and in the end he hurts the ones he cherishes the most.
• Karma Houdini: Aimee and Amadee. Not only do they receive no comeuppance in the story itself, but they both reappear later on (the former in the backstage interviews and the latter at Michel's crucifixion) and smugly gloat about getting away with it. In Requiem for Innocence, it is revealed that Aimee may have paid for it off-screen, as it was strongly implied that Georges intended to poison her himself with the paint he used for his last painting.
• Last Villain Stand: Lord Barnier in A Requiem For Innocence, with a bit of Villainous Valour thrown in too.
  Lord Barnier: I am the lord of this land. I was born to be the lord. I murdered my own family to keep my claim to this title. And I will not abandon it until my final breath.
  Lord Barnier: I was a fool and a tyrant, neither a great leader nor a great man, but still I bear the responsibility of my role. Fleeing is not an option.
• Literal Split Personality: The true identity of the White-Haired Girl, as she's essentially a manifestation of Morgana's forsaken compassionate and selfless tendencies.
• Lonely at the Top: Jacopo suffers a great deal from this.
• Love Redeems: An interpretation of The Swordsman's story in the final chapter – you can be an utterly reprehensible human being, a monster, even, completely lacking in moral agency, but still have someone close enough to your heart to do the right thing and face the music for. All the more interesting in this case, as Yukimasa privately confides to Michel that as much as he admires Pauline, and as important as she is to him, he doesn't think he loves her – he doesn't think he's capable of love at all.
• Love Theme: "The House in Fata Morgana" is a story about tragedies, but also about love. As such, some characters have their dedicated love themes, which will replace the usual title music once you complete the respective games:
  • For Michel and Giselle: the eponymous "Giselle".
  • In "A Requiem for Innocence", for Jacopo and Morgana: the heartwrecking "Serie de fragmento", playing the first time both characters truly connect and during the hidden epilogue.
• Mad Love: Between Yukimasa and Pauline in Reincarnation – a nascent Serial Killer repressing his urges with the strength of a Heroic Vow made to "angel" in his past life, and a hopeless Love Martyr willing to be his lover and murder victim both.
• The Mafia: Jacopo from the third door is all but stated to be a member.
• Manipulative Bitch: Aimee. Exaggerated in A Requiem For Innocence, where it's strongly implied that she learned of Michel's survival while looking after Lydia Bollinger and was the one who set his death into motion. Morgana is also quite deceitful, carefully melding Giselle into her ideal minion over the course of several centuries.
• Manly Tears: Michel, despite all the ordeals he has to go through, refuses to cry, seeing it as a sign of weakness. The dam bursts when Didier, his own brother whom he idolized greatly, comes to kill him in person. This very act shatters Michel's heart, and he is no longer able to hold back his tears. Unbeknownst to Michel, Didier himself was crying all the while.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Michel is named after the archangel Michael. This is brought up several times, much to his annoyance.
  • Morgana is presumably named after Morgan le Fay.
• Meaningful Rename: In admiration for Michel's sacrifice to save Giselle, The White-Haired Girl takes on the name "Michelle" during all of her lives.
• Moment of Weakness: After years in isolation and upon seeing the portrait painted by Georges at his mother's request and reading the letter she wrote him, Michel snaps. Overcome with feelings of betrayal, grief and anger, he became the spark necessary for Morgana's rebirth, with all that it entails.
• Monster Fangirl: Ceren, for Lord Barnier.
• Morality Chain: Exaggerated for the Bestia: Without the White-Haired Girl he completely loses all of his humanity. Played straight with The Swordsman, who uses Pauline as his tether, and is very well aware that he doesn't love her and effectively uses her solely for that purpose. Ultimately this trope is discussed by Michel and The Swordsman.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Happens to a lot of characters throughout the story. In fact, very few of them don't have the realization that, at some point, their misguided actions caused an excruciating amount of pain to others:
  • Mell: In both lives, his inability to communicate with his sister and his desire to conform to his sister's image of him as a "prince" led them to grow apart, and he is thoroughly devastated by the results of his actions and inactions.
  • Bestia/Yukimasa/The Swordsman: Torn between his desire to be human and his thirst for massacre, he latches onto women to become his tethers. In his second life, his humanity is all but completely lost, leaving only a savage beast in its place. When The Swordsman hears from Michel what he becomes in his future life, he is genuinely disturbed, enough to actively seek a way to avoid this fate despite being well-aware of his profound nature. In the end, his desire for humanity trumps his thirst for blood, and he asks that upon his soul shall be engraved the word "Restraint".
  • Jacopo: Like Mell, his lack of communication led to his downfall. His desire for power and to keep appearances led him to become Lonely at the Top. He found himself unable to backtrack, considering himself to be in too deep, always finding excuses or waiting for the "right" moment to do things, but all of this is just him fleeing from his problems instead of confronting them head-on, and as a result he continues on his self-destructive path, leaving behind him broken people and regrets. When Michel confronts him, he realizes that he should have put a stop to everything immediately and that he lost sight of his true desire: protect Morgana and make her happy. In "A Requiem for Innocence", even after being freed from Morgana's curse, his soul lingers, unable to move on to his next life. When Morgana finds him, his soul is trapped inside a world of illusions of his own making. Jacopo is unable to forgive himself for all he has done, and his very soul is crumbling to pieces. It takes Morgana's help (despite her very conflicted feelings) for him to finally rest in peace.
  • Didier and Georges: Both realize only too late that they neglected and essentially exiled their dear brother. Their actions were ultimately guided by their desire to protect him, but they acted too late and were, in the end, unable to prevent the tragedy. Georges unwittingly hurt emotionally Michel so much with his painting that he led him to resurrect Morgana. His regrets led his soul to join the mansion as a painting, looking for Michel, wishing to tell him that he was sorry. Burdened by his name and his duty as a Knight, Didier killed Michel himself, an act that Georges never forgives him for. Grief-stricken, the eldest son dies young, and his tormented soul also joins the mansion, still shackled by what he thought were his duties. Only Michel's forgiveness allows him to truly pass on, and he genuinely wished to be reunited with his brother in a future life.
  • Michel: His grief led to the resurrection of Morgana and to the damnation of Giselle. His moment of weakness torments him, and it is his desire to save Giselle, but also others, that lead him to face the witch head-on and discover the truth behind everything.
  • The Witch Morgana: In her desire for vengeance, she cursed numerous people to suffer tragedies, and her malevolence led to the misery of countless others. It is not until the very end that she discovers the truth behind the actions of the men responsible for her death, and only then does she discover that she essentially cursed herself, as the part of her soul which was incompatible with her hate split apart from her and became The White-Haired Girl. She is incredibly distraught to learn the truth about Jacopo, as she wished to curse the lord responsible for the blood sabbats, not him. She makes a point that she doesn't forgive the men, only that she has a clearer view of what happened and that their torment has lasted long enough.
• My Greatest Failure: Georges' soul finds his way to the mansion in which he becomes a painting due to his wish to apologize to Michel for hurting him and not preventing his death. His help was essential to Michel reclaiming his identity, and he sacrificed himself to save his brother from what could have been the destruction of his soul.
• Nature Versus Nurture: Bestia's tale plays with this. Initially, it follows the nurture argument, making it seems that Yukimasa only became delusioned about being a beast after being dehumanized and treated like an animal by the villagers. However, as the tale progresses, it is subverted: Yukimasa always has been a sadist in secret and the "beast" fame was convenient for him to show off his real depraved nature.
• Never My Fault: Mell thoroughly refuses to acknowledge how his actions, or inaction, played a part in his tragedy, as he keeps telling himself that he did nothing wrong. That aspect of himself is also responsible for Morgana's tragedy.
• Nice to the Waiter: Inverted. During his imprisonment at the Bollinger estate, Michel, whose head was in a very confusing and uncertain place, downright terrorised the servant who brought him his meals.
• The Nicknamer: Ceren attributes a nickname to everyone she meets. No one is safe from her nicknaming! Not even Barnier himself.
• Noodle Incident: A very meta one. In Requiem's backstage extra, Jacopo rants about the time Michel attacked him with a bottle. Ceren chides him for dredging up this incident, as the game it occurred in was never translated to English, and thus means nothing to the reader.
• No Honour Among Thieves: The three men who kidnapped and abused Morgana are only aligned through circumstance. Mell is an unwilling participant and turns on them twice in as many timelines, and Jacopo planned to dispose of his two co-conspirators when it was over. Especially true for Yukimasa, who offers to just kill the lord for Michel and take his key the simple way after joining up with you.
• Obliviously Evil: Morgana feels righteous in her vengeance, and has committed herself to a cruel, bloody path without truly weighing the morality of her own actions. It hits her in the end that she may have run afoul of this trope.
  Morgana: It's strange. Setting them free, I both feel like a weight's been lifted – and like I'm the greatest villain of them all.
• Odd Friendship: Jacopo and Giselle in the years after his life fell apart circa 1869. After ascending the observation tower together and wordlessly sharing the grief its spectre still casts over their wounded hearts, even in ignorance, their fingers touch and each is treated to a vision of the noble soul the other once was. This short story even gets a clever Call-Back to the main game: the Maid makes the same confession to Jacopo she once did to Michel – that she had a particular disdain for him, of all the house's masters – knowing the weight of centuries will erode the respect and empathy they shared from her broken mind by the time she tells his story.
  • Yukimasa and Maria in Reincarnation.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • The Fifth Door tells the true story of Michel and Giselle without the fabrications that were cooked up by Morgana to distort the tale into a fairy-tale fantasy.
  • Chapter VII tells Michel's whole story, and we see the events leading to his sacrifice from his perspective, revealing his thoughts and that among the knights sent to kill him was his own brother Didier.
  • In Salvage, we hear about Morgana's story and what happened to her. The whole goal of the Final Chapter is to reveal the truth behind the events which led to her death and to save her, lifting the veil behind the actions of everyone involved.
  • Replaying the game after getting the true ending renames the Featureless Protagonist into a destitute soul, and gives him additional inner monologues and dialogue.
• One-Woman Wail: Quite a couple of songs of the soundtrack qualify, increasing the tragic aspects of many scenes, with This Mutilated Body being a prime example, playing during some of the most important events of the game, such as Michel reclaiming his self, and when he is murdered by Didier.
• Pet the Dog: Lord Barnier's kindness and affection for Ceren, with an incredibly twisted application of Be Yourself. In her he sees something of a kindred spirit – an utterly remorseless, inscrutable creature, and unlike every other authority figure she'd ever known, who had tried in vain to make her feel human emotions she didn't have, he tells her there's nothing wrong with just being who she is. He also greatly values her unconditional affection, no matter the depravities she sees him commit, and wants her to stay with him. He even goes out of his way to ensure she survives his Last Villain Stand, but she refuses: she is madly in love with him, and would rather join him in death than go on living alone. Then he kills her for disobeying his orders and cackles manically about it.
  • In a more literal example, the second Lord Barnier (Jacopo) at the height of his cruelty and isolation, begins taking care of a dog.
  • Antonin Bollinger stepped in to save Giselle from execution after their sexual relationship was revealed, convincing his mad wife to settle for exile. Giselle wonders if the monster had a heart after all or was just trying to save face.
• The Plague: In the Witch's era, a disastrous illness took the lives of everyone living nearby the mansion, decimating a whole village. People will tell the story that it was because of a witch's curse. The reality is more mundane and far somber: by selling Morgana's blood, a little girl who was getting skinnier by the day despite eating and who certainly contracted a disease during her imprisonment, the Lord essentially poisoned the complete village.
• Playing the Heart Strings: The game features several tracks in which the strings highlight the tragedies the characters suffer from. Among them is "A Noble Death", in which the violins' lament hammer down the heart-wrenching scenes unfolding before your very eyes.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Aimee, who prescribes to proper gender roles and traditional values except faithfulness, apparently is disgusted when she thinks "Michelle" has homosexual feelings for her, and even more aghast when she realises he lacks any sex organs, deriding him as an "abomination". She's hardly alone in feeling this way during her time period, but it still serves to make her a Hate Sink.
• Poor Communication Kills: The root of Jacopo and the White-Haired Girl's problems behind the third door. Maria even lampshades it: if the two of them would just talk to each other directly, they could resolve their problems in a heartbeat and her scheme to destroy their marriage would fall apart.
  • Played with, subverted, and eventually inverted with Michel and Giselle. Initially, their respective traumas and internal biases make their first month together horrible, with Michel openly threatening her with a knife and Giselle bringing bandits to kill him out of desperation. Unlike the previous doors, Michel finally realizes that they've been hurting each other and decides they need to sit down and communicate. Their mutual willingness to put an end to their dispute like adults is what proves they make a much healthier couple than the previous protagonists. Unfortunately, it's Michel's attempts to communicate with his mother that leads to their real tragedy, as she's much less willing to actually listen than Giselle.
• The Power of Love: Mocked by Morgana, who believes such a thing to be trite and chalks Michel's triumph – with Giselle's invaluable aid – over the ordeal she put him through down to more mundane means.
• Prolonged Prologue: In the Backstage section, Morgana herself echoes this sentiment, calling the first four chapters "an extended prologue".
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: The prequel A Requiem For Innocence is one for Jacopo, as we see exactly how heroic, good-natured and well-intentioned he was before slowly but surely becoming a paranoid, heartless and tyrannic lord who killed slaves by the dozen and ultimately decided to kidnap an old woman and bleed her dry to enact his scam. Said woman turns out to be a now maimed and delirious Morgana, and not even that stops him, as he feels that, at this point, there is no going back. By the end of his tale, he is nothing but a shadow of his former self, and dies alone, responsible for the deaths of everyone he knew and loved, his spirit completely broken. It also serves to show how Morgana herself went from the saintly-if-insensitive woman who helps people to the Wicked Witch she is in the original VN.
• Quest for Identity: The primary purpose of the first half of the visual novel. After the fourth door, rejecting the initial fabricated story is essential for getting on the path to the true ending.
• Rage Breaking Point: In A Requiem For Innocence, After surviving attempted murder by the hand of his former friend Gratien, Jacopo becomes paranoid, but it is Odilon's death that sends him over the edge, and lead him to coldly order the execution of the protesters.
• Rags to Riches: Jacopo managed to accomplish this during Morgana's era, becoming the new lord by pretending to be his bastard son. He had good intentions initially, but soon found himself isolated and hated by the same people he helped.
• Rape as Backstory: Giselle was raped and abused by Michel's father when she worked as a maid for him.
• Really 700 Years Old:
  • The Maid, as she was there to witness the tales of the many guests and masters of the manor. Justified as she is no longer alive.
  • The oldest resident of the mansion: The Witch Morgana herself. While her appearance is the one she had while she was still alive, she is by far the oldest being of all.
• Redemption Equals Death: At the very end, Georges saves Michel from his brother Didier's tormented spirit. This action, however, could very well have meant the extinction of his very soul, something which is left ambiguous. In a way, Georges made the greatest sacrifice to save his brother.
• Red Herring:
  • Bestia behind the Second door yearns for humanity, and is terrified when another beast appears in the mansion, killing it to protect the White-Haired girl. It does everything in its power to look as much human as possible, despite knowing that it is a beast at its core. There never was any beast. Bestia is, in reality, a man with sadistic urges who lost his memories following a shipwreck, and unknowingly mistakes another human being for a beast, killing his love, Pauline, in the process. His appearance as a frightening being shrouded in haze is nothing but his own vision of himself, an illusion perpetuated by The Maid in order to fool You.
  • The Maid has the power to show you events from the past, is a passive observer in each tale in which she does nothing to stop the tragedies unfolding, is revealed to be quite unreliable in her narration and claims to be the witch of the mansion, Morgana. That last statement couldn't be further from the truth.
  • After seeing the White-Haired Girl and Michel's physical similarities, not to mention their names and Michel's appearance in the past, many think that they are the same person reincarnated. While there is a good reason for these similarities, it is not for the reason everyone thinks it is.
• Reincarnation: The White-Haired Girl from each time era is implied to be a reincarnation. In fact, almost every main character from the first three doors is a reincarnation doomed to misery as a result of the curse Morgana placed on their souls.
• Reincarnation Friendship:
  • Jacopo and Maria always start out as or become best friends in all three of their lives.
  • Pauline and Maria are from the same orphanage in their first life, and become friends again when they meet in their third life.
• Reincarnation Romance:
  • Somewhat in the case of Jacopo and Morgana. In his first life, he had feelings for her, but they were never expressed. In his second life, he marries the White-Haired Girl, who is the personification of Morgana's saintly side.
  • The true ending consists of both Michel and Giselle reincarnating with the memories from their past lives apparently intact, and they meet again at the plot of land where the mansion used to be located.
• Reluctant Psycho: Yukimasa secretly takes pleasure in torturing and killing others, but is very much afraid of those desires to the point he feels that only a "tether," or another person as an emotional crutch, can hold him back. However, he stops being reluctant and becomes full-blown Ax-Crazy after murdering a merchant until he meets The White-Haired Girl...then promptly returns to going full-blown crazy after the White-Haired Girl is murdered by a mob storming the manor.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: In A Requiem for Innocence, the Lord delivers one to Jacopo, coldly stating that their selfless act wasn't motivated out of kindness, but just because they wanted to feel better about themselves, and by doing this they lost their advantage and jeopardized their chances. Barnier shows up again during Jacopo's fever as a spirit (or a fragment of his imagination gone wild), tormenting him from beyond the grave, and turning him slowly but surely into a paranoid and ruthless ruler, just like he was.
• The Reveal: The story of "The House in Fata Morgana" is meticulously crafted. As such, each reveal bears an immeasurable weight not only for the player, but also for the characters:
  • First door: The White-Haired Girl is Mell's half sister. This revelation breaks both siblings.
  • Second door: Bestia is, in fact, a man. A man who has completely lost his humanity, but a man nonetheless. And that other beast, which appears during the story? It was in fact Pauline, who ends up slaughtered by the very man she loved.
  • Third door: Maria is a conniving and treacherous woman who plays both sides in order to make Jacopo's life as miserable as possible.
  • Fourth door: Nothing was real. The entire story is a pure fabrication. The Maid is not the Witch Morgana, the White-Haired Girl is not named Giselle, and ??? is not the White-Haired Girl.
  • Michel was born intersex and thought to be female until his body developed into one of a man, except for the lack of male genitals.
  • Jacopo, "the Lord", wasn't the same lord as the one who initially bought Morgana as his property and used her in his sabbats: he was in fact the very slave who helped her to escape and who lived with her for a few years immediately after. And he is the same man who would later usurp the position of lord and order her capture. When he realizes he captured the girl who he wanted to make happy in the first place, he finds himself unable to talk with her, as she doesn't recognize him, her traumatic experiences leading her to jump to the conclusion that he must have been the same person who bought her years ago.
  • The White-Haired Girl, who share so many characteristics with Michel, including his name, is not him.
  • The painting's identity: It is Georges, Michel's brother, whose soul came to the mansion out of his sheer desire to apologize to his brother.
• Riddle for the Ages: Near the conclusion of Reincarnation, the fates of Ceren, Barnier, and the characters who didn't show up in the Distant Finale are mused upon by Morgana. Save for the White-Haired Girl and (possibly) Georges, there's nothing stopping their souls from beginning new lives; but while the core cast being pulled back together is almost certainly owed to preternatural twists of fate, it's not a sure thing she'll ever again cross paths with those absent.
• Sand In My Eyes: A dramatic example. Didier kept his helm on during Michel's execution and crucifixion in order to nobody see him crying.
• Sanity Slippage: In A Requiem For Innocence, Jacopo slowly but surely loses himself after becoming the new Lord, becoming colder by the day. His fears just grow over time, with Gratien's attempted poisoning being the turning point, the moment where his mind broke. His body may have survived, but his mind was thoroughly altered after this, with him being haunted by what seems to be Barnier's ghost, but that apparition is nothing more than an image crafted by his own brain.
• Self-Made Man: Jacopo qualifies in all of his incarnations. His astuteness and ruthlessness allow him to rise in society and make a name for himself.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Michel and Giselle's mission when they access the Final door. Michel realizes only too late that they never traveled to the past: everything was an illusion made possible by the land of the dead and by the mansion. However, their efforts weren't for naught, as even if they did not change the past, they were able to uncover the truth behind everything that happened and show it to Morgana.
• Shout-Out: In A Requiem For Innocence, Michel and Giselle have a choice of what kind of movie they want to see. Choosing Animated leads them to see what they think is a kid-friendly film... but turns out to be South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut.
  Giselle: Why did Kenny die so many times?
  
  That was not the calm and relaxing movie I was expecting! I have an overwhelming urge to shout “You bastard!”
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: In the Backstage, Morgana lampshades how Michel and Giselle become this when they are together. She couldn't be more annoyed.
• Slasher Smile:
  • The Swordsman showcases a chilling one when he begins to enjoy himself.
  • In A Requiem for Innocence, the Lord is almost never seen without his disturbing smile.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Ginevra, the mastermind behind the revolution against Lord Barnier. She doesn't live to see her chosen puppet seize power, but it's only through her plotting Jacopo was able to do so, and all the tragedy that follows springs from that well.
• Sobriquet Sex Switch: Michel's birth name was Michelle, he changed it to Michel (which is obviously only two letters shorter to his birth name) once he started identifying as a man. This also plays a part in the plot, since Giselle (whose memory became fuzzy after several centuries) started mistaking the White-Haired Girl (who is also named Michelle in all her incarnations) for Michel, since the names sound very similar.
• Spirit Advisor: Giselle in the final door.
• Split-Personality Merge: In the true ending, the White-Haired Girl asks Michel to kill her so that her soul can reunite with Morgana's.
• The Sociopath:
  • Downplayed with The Swordsman. He is able to function in society and acts normal among other humans, but deep down he has sadistic urges and gets a thrill out of torturing and killing people. Except for his tether, he completely lacks empathy, which he evidenced when he kidnaps Morgana: while he did care for the girl to an extent, he mentions that he "doesn't have a need for two tethers". It is his struggle between his needs to satisfy his urges and his wishes to remain human that prevent him from falling into depravity, thus creating an equilibrium.
  • In A Requiem For Innocence, Ceren turns out to be a non-violent (though still highly disturbing) variation.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: In A Requiem For Innocence, Morgana, and for good reasons. After being subjected to cruel betrayals and inhuman treatments leaving her scarred for life, on top of her identity issues, Morgana is unable to get out of her shell, acting at best cold, at worst with disdain towards others. It takes Jacopo and the prostitutes' godly patience to help to open up just a little.
• Stab the Picture:
  • In the first chapter, Nellie Rhodes destroys a painting of herself and her brother Mell after seeing him out with The White-Haired Girl on a date.
  • A later chapter features a painting of a similar white-haired girl that had been slashed with a knife later revealed to be a portrait of protagonist Michel. Michel is a transgender man and destroyed the painting in a fit of emotion because it depicted him as a woman.
• Stay with Me Until I Die: When traveling to the past, Michel is able to reach Morgana, but it is still too late. Her broken mind mistakes him for an angel. Devastated, Michel pretends to be one and stays with her until her last breath.
• Stealth Pun: In the Backstage segment of A Requiem For Innocence, Jacopo is asked by Giselle whether he prefers sweet or salty popcorn, to which he replies salty. In response:
  Michel: ...You are what you eat.^note Salty as in bitter or angry, which post-revolution Jacopo is perpetually.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • The Maid/Giselle. Her cultured and refined personality is a mask to help her cope with all the horrible things she's seen and done over the centuries, as well as with watching (what seems to be) Michel reincarnate as a woman and fall in love with other people over and over again. Even before she became the Maid, Giselle's bubbly and cheerful personality was a mask to cope with the trauma of being raped by Michel's father.
  • Ceren. No matter how bad things get, she is always seen with a smile on her face. Many characters comment on this, pointing out that her happiness threeshold must be crazy low for her to be able to remain so upbeat and positive all the time, despite what she lived through. At best, people who get to know her think she is very nice but annoying, at worst people are creeped out by her behavior. Turns out Ceren is unable to feel negative emotions, making her blind to the pain she can cause as she simply can't understand negative emotions of others. Her demonstrations of empathy are just her putting up an act. For all his repulsiveness, Barnier was right on the money about her: she is utterly and completely mad.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: Morgana has golden eyes hidden beneath her hood, fitting for the Witch she became.
• Take Me Instead: A panicked Giselle locked behind the door to the observatory tower yells that she is the witch the knights are looking for in her attempt to save him. However, Morgana's powers prevent anyone but Michel from hearing her.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: A side story in Requiem for Innocence recounts how Aimee slowly poisoned Georges through his meals, which is how he finally figured out she was a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. Georges, facing up to his part as an Accomplice by Inaction, lets her kill him.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: In the A Requiem For Innocence backstage extra. Maria and Jacopo are especially off with the whole thing.
• Terms of Endangerment: The Witch Morgana has a certain tendency to call the ones she tries to corrupt "my dear".
• Title Drop: Ending 8: Fata Morgana.
• To Be Lawful or Good: Didier, bearer of the house name, knight and brother of Michel faces an impossible ordeal. In the end, he decides to be lawful, and personally leads the charge to the mansion, in which he kills Michel himself. Later, he is also the one to nail his body to the cross. On both occasions, never once does he remove his helmet. Michel correctly guesses that Didier was in tears the whole time. In the end, Didier ends up alone, as his remaining brother Georges never forgives him for killing Michel, and dies young, eaten up with remorse. His tormented soul finds his way to the mansion as a result.
• Together in Death: Jacopo's final plan for Morgana after the harvest festival. Having destroyed her life far beyond repair and fallen far past the point of redemption in his mind, this is the only ending he can imagine for the pair of them. When she dies of her wounds before he even gets there to ease her passing, he is so filled with shame that he can't even bring himself to end his own life: the idea of joining her had become too disrespectful, after everything he'd done to her.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: The White-Haired Girl in all stories. Morgana in her origin story. And once again the White-Haired Girl, after you discover the whole truth.
• Tragedy: Every story told inside the mansion is one. Not a single soul's story inside of the mansion is an exception.
• Tragic Keepsake: If you look closely the background graphic for the lord's bedroom, you can see a lute. Ceren draws attention to this in the backstage extra to imply Jacopo still held to at least one of his former self's passions as the lord, however sad that is.
• Underestimating Badassery: Jacopo calls Lord Barnier a "third-rate fairytale villain", and presumes he has nothing to fear from his opponent before their battle begins. Barnier shocks him by evading a killing blow with alacrity, grabbing a discarded sword, and putting up a far better fight than you'd expect from a decadent nobleman.
  Jacopo: (Goddamn! For a flamboyantly dressed asshole, he sure can fight!)
• Undying Loyalty: Odilon ends up feeling this for Jacopo. Too bad is in full and brutal effect. Funnily enough, in the backstage extra, he declares that he'll reincarnate into Jacopo's timeline in the third door and thus be on hand to fix all of his lord's problems before things go to hell.
• Unreliable Narrator: When looking through the doors, The Maid will deliberately keep certain things hidden and significantly alters the fourth door.
• Unwanted Rescue: In one Bad Ending near the end of the game, a poor choice leads to Yukimasa having to step in and cut down Jacopo to save Michel's life. Although Michel is saved, the group is robbed of the chance to hear Jacopo's side of the tale, and Morgana curses Michel in the dead man's place.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: In A Requiem for Innocence, Jacopo and Morgana's relationship in a nutshell. Morgana is not exactly the most affable person, being quite acerbic and caustic, but deep down she developed feelings for him, and while Jacopo is exasperated by her behavior, he keeps looking after her and simply answers in kind and reveals himself to be quite sarcastic.
• Walking Spoiler: Two major ones, that funnily enough are our hero and our villain: Michel, the Player Character and The Hero, and Morgana, the eponymous Big Bad.
• Weakened by the Light: Because of her pale white skin, the White-Haired girl is unable to remain under the sun's light for too long. It also applies to Michel, who can even faint after too long exposure. Indirect contact isn't an issue, but prolonged direct contact can create some.
• We Used to Be Friends: Jacopo and the "slum rats" with whom he spent most of his life. This is especially true of Maria, who he seems to completely push from his mind after coming into power.
• Wham Line:
  • When The Maid is confronted by "You":
    The Maid: I am ... Giselle?
  • This one line preludes the reveal that Michel isn't really cursed at all, but was born intersex.
    Giselle: You're not actually a man at all, are you?
  • When in the past, this line turns everything we assumed to know upside down and leads to Michel's "Eureka!" Moment:
    The Nun: "I do think he's much better than the old lord though..."
• Wham Shot:
  • First door: when Mell realizes that the girl on top of him is not the White-Haired girl, but his own sister, Nellie, wearing her hair as a wig.
  • Second door: When Pauline finally reaches the mansion and discovers Yukimasa inside - only for him to be revealed to be Bestia. What follows is Pauline being skewered by her lover, in gruesome detail.
  • After the final chapter: When they are about to leave the mansion, Michel, Georges and Morgana are stopped by none other than Didier, in full knight attire.
• Worf Had the Flu: Aimee overpowers a horribly malnourished Michel to disprove his claims that he's a man – a man would have no trouble throwing her off, weak as she is. Her dismissal of his handicap rings a bit hollow, as he is downright emaciated when this altercation occurs.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness / Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Jacopo plans to off the swordsman and Mell when their business with Morgana is over. This fizzles off his radar in time, when he resolves instead to take her away after the harvest festival and commit suicide with her.

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