#Frani Glenbrook

[kelbunny]

I like to imagine they were closer at one point

[triangle-strategy-notes]

Here’s the info on the royal family! It’s not as much as Destra, but we get a design and the description of “kind/kindly” for the queen.

Translation notes under the cut: 

The term I translated as “soft-hearted” came up as “sweet” in google translate, but when I looked it up in an online dictionary the phrase seems to have a colloquial meaning along the lines of “softie” or “pushover”. I get the feeling Google tends to shy away from translating things as insults/offensive terms, so I’m not sure whether “sweet” is accurate or not. I went with soft-hearted as kind of a middle ground between the two potential meanings.

The characters used for “Morality” are usually translated as “Justice” (specifically in the sense that justice refers to fairness, equality, and impartiality). I’m translating it as Morality since that’s the word used in-game for the trait, but it could technically be read a different way.

There’s a note about Symon’s design at the bottom that relates to some other stuff higher up on the page, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the royal family.

[cheeseandcake-from-ao3]

Summary: "Crown Prince Frani wakes up, and swears there must be something fundamentally wrong with the world. Archduke Gustadolf being found dead, his brother having a fight with the Lord Wolffort heir, and a sudden change to the marriage arrangement? The him from a week ago would have laughed at the absurdity. Unfortunately, nothing goes back to normal the next day, or the day after that."

Or: A 5,000 word oneshot where there's been a small time loop that Prince Frani wasn't there for.

[alien-onyx]

hope u dont mind me using your template thingy i made it but with tringly stringly while on a call with the bestie

hi, have a silly thing that I was possessed to suddenly make, don't take it too seriously

[tristrattournament]

[three3two22]

Some weeks ago I watched all four Hunger Games movies for some reason. You know when something's too mainstream you're like "I'm not gonna watch it >:)" but I guess I had nothing better to do. I wasn't paying good enough attention however so there's not much of value I could say about it, but one thing sure got my attention and that's Primrose, and it's half because she reminded me so much of Cordelia Glenbrook.

Like goddamn she just about stole the show for me because of that. They have similar personalities (gentle and kind), similar looks (blond + braid), similar jobs (medic/healer), similar roles relative to the mc (younger sister that the older sibling is protective of), similar narrative (seems like a damsel in distress but ends up showing a lot of inner strength). I know I have TriStrat in the brain but can anyone blame me for this?

The biggest difference between the two has to be (and this is where I should put a spoiler warning for Mockingjay pt. 2, I guess) that Prim doesn't make it. It really is what sets the bitter tone of the ending despite the success of the war. I really doubt the ending would have felt as empty even if one of the love interests died instead of her. Hell, even if both died it wouldn't have felt so crushing because of how integral Prim was to Katniss's... well, everything.

And you know this made me speculate the alternate scenario where Cordelia similarly doesn't make it. Like, the writers didn't know what to do with her post chapter 14 anyway, so maybe they planned to kill her off before coming up with the genius idea to make her a playable character since she became too much of a badass during ch7-13. Gotta say, if I went for the destroy bridge or dam path in ch13 in my first playthrough, I might have been -- even if for a moment -- truly convinced Cordelia would die after the dramatic turn of events.

And look, that would hurt like hell if that really was the case. But that's the point, right? It would make people empathize with Roland better in terms of his unyielding bitterness towards the war Aesfrost started. Regna and Frani's deaths don't hit that hard -- we understand they were dear to Roland but we don't FEEL it. But Cordelia we've known for 10+ chapters and being unable to save her after coming so close to it must be devastating if that's what happened. Like, that could potentially make me fall into the depths of genuinely indulging myself in the act of crushing Aesfrost for an unspeakable price.

This seems like an okay idea but honestly it hurts too much to even consider this alternate scenario. Maybe it's better for her that way rather than being forgotten post chapter 14, but man, screw that. Sometimes I just want comfort.

To come back to Hunger Games, I really did enjoy Prim. Loved that scene where she dances with Katniss. Siblings, man. I'll be thinking about her for a while. I wouldn't have said the protective/heroic older sibling + fragile/docile younger sibling trope was particularly my favorite -- it has a very "old fashioned" ring to it -- but honestly I've been falling for it ever since TriStrat did it (with quite a bit of subversion, too), and now with Hunger Games I really indulged in it.

[sombrerokiwi]

Au where Serenoa and Frederica get married and there's no war. They grow old together and are often visited by Dragan who talks for hours on end about the latest developments in the mines. Frani becomes king of Glenbrook and he's a fair and just ruler, though he often looks to his siblings for advice. Cordelia spends her days in the castle gardens, happily playing with local kids and assisting Frani. Gustadolph dies under mysterious circumstances and is succeeded by Thalas and his sister who's name I can't remember. After a stern talking to from Svarog, they formally apologize to Frederica for how they treated her and relations between Aesfrost and Wolfort improve. A revolution happens within Hyzante and the Roselle are treated the same as the other citizens. They're free to leave or stay and they can choose to work at the source if they want to. Patriatte spontaneously explodes.

Best au. Amazing au. 10/10 would go and rotate this au in my head constantly.

[croeses]

I find Frani such a fascinating character.

He does not seem all that great on the first playthrough, when he comes off as rather arrogant and is more than once the butt of the joke. But in hindsight, he seems, to me at least, to be well-intentioned in what he does, even if he oftentimes goes about it the wrong way.

Let's start with the scene in the gardens. Here Frani is in opposition to his siblings on the subject on their father. We know that Roland and Cordelia are right. Regna is never showed to care for his children and he seems to mostly ignore them when he is not berating them (at least so it looks from Roland's scenes with him). So why is Frani defending him? Is Regna a better father to him than to his other kids?

Hughette says so in one of her character stories. And yet, I am not so willing to believe her. She hasn't been long at the court and is an outsider to the royal family's affairs. It may seem like that to her, but I don't think that is the true.

Frani seems to be older than Serenoa which means that he was already born during Regna's scandal with Destra. So Regna was more than happy to send both him and his mother, whoever she was, away. (I have my headcanons about her and the role she played in this whole affair.) That is not something a loving father would do. Regna also does not react very strongly when Frani is killed in front of him, but that may be just my interpretation. Overall, Regna seems as indifferent toward Frani as he is toward his other legitimate kids.

Frani himself seems to share his father's sentiment, considering he allies himself with Patriatte against Regna, which would be very unusual if his father was a loving and respected parent.

Despite all of this, Frani is defending him from Roland's accusations. Rather rudely, of course, but he seems bend on convincing his siblings that their father is simply too busy for them. He is not neglecting you, he says, he has more important things to do because he is king and everyone is depending on him.

Which is very funny considering that we find out that Regna holds no real power and is nothing more than a figurehead. I doubt Frani doesn't know this, when he himself is very involved in the matters of the court.

I think he is lying because he cares for his siblings and wants to protect them from the harsh truth. Their father doesn't love them and doesn't want to spend time with them. He is forced to keep them around because they are his legitimate children but he would probably not mind if they were gone. Frani knows all of this because he is older, because he is the heir and is involved in the machinations of the court, because he had more time to notice and accept that his father doesn't love him. And that is a painful process and he wants to spare his siblings from it, if he can.

He seems harsh on them on multiple occasions, but that is clearly just a facade. He even acknowledges it himself when he talks to Serenoa, asking him to remain a friend to Roland and admitting that he cares for him, despite his foibles.

There is another interesting moment during the garden scene. The Wolfforts get mentioned and Frani warns Roland about them and the possibility that their loyalties may change. He tells Roland to be ready crush them, 'if they dare to rise above their station'.

On the first playthrough, the player who identifies with the Wolfforts, of course, may even feel insulted by his words. After the Liberty ending though, we realize that Frani was only speaking the truth, warning Roland of something that had a great likelihood of happening. And indeed, if you go with Benedict, the Wolfforts do exactly what Frani said they would do. They rise above their station and stab Roland in the back in their quest for power. Too bad Roland doesn't follow his brother’s advice and strikes them down at the first sign of disloyalty, however impossible that may have been for him to do.

But how does Frani know that the Wolfforts may betray the royal family? Is it just a general warning about powerful vassals? Does he understand the politics of Glenbrook so well that he realizes how great of a threat the Wolfforts are because of their military might?

Both of these possibilities may be true but I think that the actual reason behind his warning is that he knows about Serenoa's parentage. Why wouldn't he? Surely, there were people at the court who remembered how Regna wished to make some peasant girl his queen. Someone could have easily told him about it. Maybe it was Patriatte with the intention of destroying all trust and respect Frani may have still had for his father.

During the throne room confrontation, Frani is initially calm and seems to understand the situation much better than Regna. He mentions Hyzante and how Gustadolph made an enemy of them, something that could not be advantageous for him, while his father babbles on about the Saltiron War, apparently unable to understand the present situation or Gustadolph's motivations. (Gustadolph even tells Regna that he always lacked imagination which is such a roundabout way to call him an idiot that I can't help but laugh every time I heard it.)

It matters little what he knew. He dies too soon to have any lasting impact upon the story. And it is his death that says the most about him.

The Wolfforts and Roland arrive. Frani berates his brother for returning, but it is clear from the way he says it that he is actually worried about him and would have wished for Roland to remain safe, away from the danger the invading forces represent.

In the end, Gustadolph orders Avlora to kill Roland and the Wolfforts, which makes sense considering they represent a bigger threat than Maxwell does through numbers alone. Frani had been compliant up until this point but when he hears this order, he rushes to stop Avlora. And, in a cruel and unnecessary moment, Avlora cuts him down.

I'm going to go on a tangent here, but I think what Avlora did here is unforgivable. Frani was not a threat. He was unarmed and probably had no real way of stopping Avlora and had acted without much thought about what he was going to do. But Avlora shows him no mercy. I suppose you could argue she only did it on reflex, to defend herself but a trained soldier like she was should be able to control herself in high-stress situations. For a character that is supposed to be redeemed, that is supposed to join the "good guys", she does not give the impression of being a good person in this scene.

This scene is also why I don't buy the common interpretation among the fandom that Avlora and Cordelia are in any way friends. I highly doubt that Cordelia would be willing to forgive and forget her brother's callous murder, especially as she seems to be as bend on revenge as Roland is. I think that her willingness to work with Avlora to achieve her goals is meant to serve as a contrast to Roland's refusal to ally with the people who had wronged him. Cordelia is able to set her feelings aside to attain victory while Roland would abandon everything than do so.

All right, tangent over.

Frani dies to protect his brother. In the end, after everything he said and did during the time we knew him, much of it not very flattering, he shows his true colors in his last moments. Not only he loved his family, he loved it more than he loved himself.

This is his moment of redemption. He may have not been the best son or brother or heir to the throne but he was willing to sacrifice himself for those he cared about.

We don't spend much time with Frani, but in those short chapters he is still with us, the game manages to create a rather complex character, not wholly good, but not wholly evil either. A feat that I find rather impressive.

[asha-mage]

It's crazy to me how the story demonstrates that not only does Frani underestimate both his siblings, it ultimate proves that his beliefs about them are the complete inverse of reality

Frani believes Roland to be an irresponsible wastrel who dosen't value his duty or family enough, and in the end the story shows that Roland values his duty and his family to the point of near self destruction, being willing to give up his crown for the well being of his people, risk the chance of victory for the safety of his sister, and his life for vengeance on Frani's killer. Meanwhile Frani calls Cordelia a spoiled brat and clearly regards her as the weak link in the family, but under pressure she shows incredible strength of character and will, and an insight for politics that far outstrips the rest of her family, winning over unlikely allies and preparing to launch a counter coup against Gustadolph without any aid from Wolffort.

Anyways, I'm starting to like the head canon that after the Wolfforts run off to Centralia in Frederica's ending, that Cordelia succeeds in ending the age Salt and Blood, conquering Norzelia with Avlora's help and becoming its Empress.

[spock-smokes-weed]

Alright so spoilers for triangle strategy cus I really want to talk about it, I can’t hold it in. But this did happen in the demo so if you’ve played that feel free to stick around.

Alright so I was honestly really surprised when they killed off Frani. He was set up to be the evil older brother who kicks off the war, and with what we get in some scenes after the invasion, it does sounds like he was up to no good. I was honestly expecting both Regna and Frani to be like major villains so them getting axed so early was so surprising to me. Frani’s death really kinda highlights how this game is always pulling the rug out from under you and subverting your expectation. Ya know you expect Roland’s uptight sour older brother to be a major villain, so you don’t see the invasion and his unfortunate death until it’s too late.

I think it’s great story telling and it made me really feel something about this character I didn’t quite care for in the beginning. Sure Frani was a real tool and he was probably doing some unsavory things that could have bad consequences, but seeing him die and bleed out right in front of his family hits hard. And I can’t stop thinking about this is impacting Roland. His relationship with his brother wasn’t the greatest so he’s probably going to have a hard time putting his ghost to rest.

[kelbunny]

Behold my stupid late night doodles

Based on this scene from the Aesfrost invasion haha

[gazzub]

House Glenbrook

[gascon-en-exil]

While I don't really care about shipping Serenoa and Roland anyway, I kinda found the reveal of Serenoa's parentage to be out of left field and not really set up in any meaningful way, and has not a lot of impact on the characters in the majority of the routes. Like it's really jarring that it comes up, and then if you go with Frederica's path or Roland's path it's just never mentioned again. I think they probably could've handled it better or just scrapped it entirely.

You compared it to the Jon Snow parentage reveal, but at least with that there was some kind of setup around the mystery of Jon's parents, what with Ned promising to tell him about it and then getting killed off. And I think it doesn't help that Regna has no personality and then gets killed off, and Destra is dead before the game begins and has no characterization. It just feels like a really weird plot point to me.

It's a reasonable comparison insofar as it's a poorly-received incest reveal, but I think most people took issue with Targaryen Jon Snow because they were shipping him and Daenerys beforehand (and I suppose just sort of forgot that the Targaryens traditionally practice incest so it's not like it would be an obstacle for her at least). I actually like that twist, because it's foreshadowed well and has some elegant symmetry. As with just about everything else in S7-8 of GoT it was rushed and overall badly handled, but that's a fault of the execution.

I understand, intellectually, why there's the big reveal about Serenoa; it allows Benedict's route to unfold the way it does and attempts to play up even further Roland's inadequacy issues: not only does everyone hate him as king, but now he finds out his best friend has just as much right to rule Glenbrook as he does except Serenoa is a bastard but the game doesn't care about that. It's very lightly foreshadowed early on, with the way Roland fights with Frani and with Frani even snarking at one point (the Chapter 3 vote I think?) that Serenoa is trying to replace him as Roland's brother. It's not much, but it's something, technically. I just can't shake the feeling that the biggest underlying reason to make them brothers was to try to preemptively no homo all their interactions, bland as they are. TS is noticeably less comfortable with teasing gay subtext to the degree that even older FE is.

[randomnameless]

Wtf

Apologies to Thalas, I thought he was worthless, but apparently being worthless doesn't prevent you from being king material.

Regna threw his dynasty and the fate of his country into chaos because he wanted to get laid, legitimize his bastard and demote his children and current wife to extra.

Like, idk if Regna wanted to make Serenor his official heir, but given how he wanted to marry Destra while Glenbrook has, apparently, no concubine system, would only lead to this?

Like, I'd never have thought I'd agree with Patriate one day, but damn.

Regna the Sage, uh ?

Adresti-frost might be a "hereditary meritocracy" but damn if Gustadolv's dad didn't threw him and his siblings to the sewers the second Frederica was born.

Idk the character's ages, Franis is older than Roland, who is around Serenor's age, and Cordelia is the youngest.

Meaning Regna had Cordelia at a time where Queen Glenbrook knew her husband fucked around, already has a bastard and wanted to get rid of her. Coupled with the general feeling Roland had about his father not giving a fuck about him and not expecting a thing from him (is it just a feeling or Regna was really sour to be parted with the bastard he wanted to legitimize so he treated Roland, who should remind him of Serenor, like shit???)

[tristrattournament]

[themoomoorn]

Scrimblo Blimbo Strategy Ramblings Thus Far: Aesfrost Eat Dirt Challenge

That's it, that's the post. Yes, I've only made it to Chapter VII (which was one of two chapters in the OG demo) but Aesfrost isn't doing itself any favors, and judging from the very sparse spoilers I've read, even with other potential turns that are genuinely gray, Aesfrost still sucks.

Also, while I love Frederica, she's frustrating me some - she can be seen as a lower-rung princess of Aesfrost d/t being the daughter of a concubine who also happens to be of an oppressed ethnic group, and being betrothed to a powerful House of Glenbrook means she's probably trying not to step on any toes, but...I don't know. I feel like she won't pull anything epic or extreme against her douchebag older brother.

Benedict is sus.

I recruited Picoletta by sheer chance, and as it turns out, this completely random, sassy lost child trivialized the Chapter V battle (the one where you have to get Roland safely across the castle gardens); I tried the map without her and had far harder time. 10/10, you go girl.

Gotta love how Frani chastised Roland for impulsively coming to his family's aid, only to get done in by impulsively pissing Avlora off.

I feel like I will really not like Avlora, and it hardly has to do with Maxwell either.

I did Hyzante for Chapter 3. Poor Corentin - he was in the demo, but he's not part of the core cast. Knowing how and why he joins on the Hyzante route, I feel like he'd be a great addition.