Fire Emblem Jugdral

Marth and Roy, is that you?
As ages passed and the 12 Crusaders became the talk of legends, a great rebellion arose and spread throughout the Land of Jugdral.
—Opening demo of Thracia 776 (completely untranslated)

The fourth and fifth Fire Emblem games, which constitute the second timeline and canon of the franchise. It's the only other canon with ties to another, being set in the distant past of Akaneia according to Word of God; in practice the only real tie between the two is the Divine Dragon God Naga. The two are quite the fan-favorite games among the English fanbase as a result of their radical but effective changes and differences, as well as their deeper and darker story.

  • Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (1996, Super Famicom) is a game that spans decades and generations: after several chapters with one party, the game continues with the children of the original characters. The game is quite unusual elements for the series: its chapters are enormous, requiring the capture of multiple castles, and Shipping is a gameplay mechanic upon which the ability to use several Infinity +1 Swords hinge. Even so, it's consistently popular among the base and is argued by many to be the best game in the series as a result of its engrossing plot and deep character development system.
  • Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 (1999, Super Famicom[1]) is a Midquel taking place toward the end of Genealogy of the Holy War's decade-long Time Skip. It's both more like a normal Fire Emblem game than its predecessor and quite different to most others: it returns to normal-sized chapters and maps, but it implements a few new gameplay mechanisms including the now-standard Fog of War, and the completely-forgotten fatigue meter. It's also notoriously Nintendo Hard, even by the standards of the franchise as a whole.

There are also two prominent manga adaptations of Genealogy of the Holy War, one by Mitsuki Oosawa and one by Nuts Fujimori. Both offer rather different interpretations on the events of the game, and both contribute to filling out the backstories and characterisations of numerous characters.

Tropes used in Genealogy of Holy War include:
  • Absurdly Youthful Mother: Most of the First Generation females, if you pair them up. Even if we assume that there are years between chapters, it seems unlikely that all of them were even 18 by the time they gave birth. Truth in Television though when we consider the more The Dung Ages-like approach this games takes in comparison to other Fire Emblem titles.
  • Adaptation Expansion: The Oosawa manga covers a lot of characterization of the side characters, and goes into more detail on what happens within the countries where the battles happen. For instance, it creates a rather big subplot on the...unique situation between Eldigan and Lachesis... though at the cost of making Eldigan's wife a jealous bitch.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Arvis clearly becomes one of the major antagonists...and yet at the same time, actually isn't that bad. Despite killing Sigurd and taking his wife (who was unknowingly related to him), he nonetheless wanted to make a much more peaceful empire out of everything, and despite that his son and Manfroy had gone mad, he still tried to stop the casualties of the child hunting. There was a good reason Seliph said that Arvis does not deserve hatred. Of course, this doesn't excuse all the evil Arvis did, and proved he was very willing to do, just to seize power and create his utopia.
  • Aliens Made Them Do It: Manfroy's plot involves quite a bit of this.
  • Alternate Show Interpretation: Depending on which version of the manga you may read. Mitsuki Oogawa's is more dark, tragic and character-driven (and somewhat sexually-explicit); Nuts Fujimori's is more gag-based, wacky, and lighthearted.
  • Anyone Can Die: It's a war story. What do you expect? The game even kills off the main character, rather suddenly.
  • Arbitrary Headcount Limit: One of only two games in the series to avert this. You will have up to 24 characters at a time and can use every one of them. This, of course, means that the Fire Emblem fanbase's obsession with Character Tiers is shifted to long, tortuous debates about Shipping instead.
  • Awesome but Impractical: The Holy Weapons are unspeakably powerful but are very expensive to repair, making their general use highly impractical. Generally, stronger weapons are more expensive, so the high price tag associated with repairing the better weapons usually leads players to reserve the stronger stuff for more powerful opponents.
  • Awesome Yet Practical: The Holy Weapons are expensive to repair, yes, but so powerful, they kill in 1 or 2 hits, regardless of what you fight with them. Money won't be much of an obstacle if you're keen on gameplay, and every character with them will be a freaking God of Death.
  • Bag of Sharing: As averted as possible. Each character even has his or her own money. The only way to trade items between units is to sell an item to the pawn shop and then buy it back with the other unit. Thieves can give their money to any unit, but otherwise, only lovers can trade money with each other.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Sure, you killed the vessel of a deadly dragon, ended the oppression of an empire and have had your leader crowned as a benevolent Emperor, but the schism that lead to the empire's rebirth means that no fewer than two holy weapons [2] will be unable to be used for at least a few generations.
  • Break the Cutie: Happens to several characters in the game, but most prominently the (seemingly) unbreakably cheerful Tailtiu. After watching almost all of her comrades (and likely her love interest, depending on who she's paired with) get slaughtered during Arvis's betrayal. Tailtiu is forcibly separated from her son, and spends the late years of her life enduring brutal mental/physical abuse by the hand of her own family, partially to protect her young daughter. It's hinted that in her final days, she simply lost the will to live. Ouch.
  • Brother-Sister Incest: While other games have it relegated to subtle subtext at best, this game actually has it happen as a major plot point, occurring no matter what you do.
    • To be fair, the main brother-sister couple in the game didn't know they were (half-)siblings.
    • This is the only game that makes two of the potential couples cases of Brother-Sister Incest and Kissing Cousins at the same time, if you pair up a kid of Edain with one of her twin sister Brigid.
    • A glitch in the Relationship Values system allows the player to potentially pair up the main character of the second generation with his Mysterious Waif half-sister. Said sister is the result of even further Brother-Sister Incest. This is actually a pretty popular pairing among the fans but it’s not otherwise possible, plot-wise.
  • Cain and Abel: If a party member is stated to have a sibling and that sibling doesn't eventually join your team, they will show up as an enemy.
  • Cavalry Betrayal: Arvis's The Plan in Chapter 5.
  • Darker and Edgier: And how. Both of the Jugdral games deconstruct a lot of the tropes prevalent in the Fire Emblem series (not to mention what happened in the middle of Genealogy of the Holy War). They also house a LOT of Complete Monster villans.
    • Taken Up to Eleven in the Oosawa manga, which has lots of Melodrama and plot twists. A way of seeing the whole plot can be as a deconstruction of a crusade or holy war: the good guys are good, yes, and the ultimate bad guys are bad, but most of the antagonists aren't genuinely opposed to whatever it is the protagonists intend to do more than they're frightened that the protagonists are going to crush them into the dirt. Politically, the earliest aggressive act that prompts Sigurd's initial sortie, the invasion of southern Grandbell by Verdane, is apparently because the king of Verdane has seen enough evidence (admittedly manufactured by Manfroy) that Grandbell intends to subjugate Verdane. The whole first half of the game follows the good guys across half the continent as they inadvertently (or consciously) destroy every government they come across. In his relentless quest of self-defense, Sigurd conquers Agustria and Verdane, destroys the entire military of Silesia, then invades his own country to prove himself innocent. Throughout the latter half of the game, villains are repeatedly shown considering what is best for their people, even if their decisions have led to oppressing others. There definitely are good guys and bad guys in the game, and protagonists are definitely the good guys, but viewed in an independent light their actions aren't any different from those of their enemies. No matter how peaceful or well-intentioned Seliph might be, he (once victorious) parcels up sections of the now-conquered empire amongst his supporters, which is exactly the same thing Arvis did when he took the throne.
  • Dead All Along: Lewyn in the second half is heavily implied to be this, with the Wind Spirit Forseti allowing his spirit to inhabit his body.
  • Deader Than Dead: Par for the course for the Fire Emblem series: when anyone is defeated in battle, they die forever, All Deaths Final. However, there's exactly ONE way to bring back a dead unit: the Valkyrie Rod. It has one use before it breaks and can only be used by someone with Major Blagi blood (i.e. Claude, and either Sety or Corple if Claude is their father). Still, Continuing Is Painful, since the Valkyrie Rod is outrageously expensive to repair (30,000 gold per use).
  • Death Equals Redemption: The more sympathetic villains are generally shown to regret some of their worse acts, and usually predict their own demise before the engagement that confirms it.
  • Decapitated Army: It's unclear exactly how many members of your army die in the Battle of Belhalla; in fact, it's quite possible that the vast majority of them somehow survived. Yet, with Sigurd dead, they scatter to the four winds rather than try to renew the fight, claim their inheritances, or clear their names.
  • Defeat Means Friendship: Averted, as with most Fire Emblem games. Defeat usually means no-frills death when it doesn't mean "now I'm running away, and you'll have to fight me again."
  • Demoted to Extra: Meta-example. This is the only canon to have almost no representation whatsoever in Super Smash Bros Brawl. All other sets of games (Akaneia-Valencia, Elibe, Magvel, Tellius) have trophies, stickers, songs and either a playable character or an Assist Character. The Judgral games? A Palette Swap of Ike vaguely resembles Sigurd and one of Marth vaguely resembles Leaf. That's it.
    • In the Oosawa manga, this applies to the three knights Sigurd starts the game with, as well as Holyn and Beowolf (who don't appear at all), probably due to mainly being fighter characters without too big of an impact on the storyline or particularly notable connections to other characters.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything:
    • If you hack Gungir into your inventory, the item description asks how you got it.
    • The Final Boss is supposed to be beatable by only either Julia with the Naga tome, or Seliph with the Tyrfing via Cherry Tapping, and there is a different quote depending on whose hand the Final Boss died to. But there is a quote programmed for literally anyone else but the mentioned two... if for some reason you manage to get someone like Sety to do it.
  • Did Not Do the Research/Spell My Name with an "S": Both averted and played straight. To say that the game borrows a lot of names from Norse mythology is like saying Thracia 776 is mildly difficult and more than a few named-after items are spot-on. On the other hand, the official spellings for them are abominable even by Engrish standards. A weapon that is very obviously meant to be the Tyrfing, to provide the most egregious example, has been spelled as "Tailfang" and "Tyrhung]]. The Flip Flops Of God do not help.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: "Welcome to the party we're throwing for you, Siglud! Meet my wife, who was your wife before she was kidnapped and brainwashed! Now we're going to drop huge flaming rocks on you."
  • Eighties Hair: The artstyle of this game's character portraits was angled rather strangely and in particular fluffed up the front parts of everyone's hair to absurd degrees, giving almost everyone this look. Thracia 776 stopped doing this and any characters who returned from Genealogy of the Holy War were all redrawn with normal-looking hair.
  • Eleventh-Hour Superpower: Julia with Narga.
    • Also Sigurd and Seliph with Tyrfing: if not quite as awesome, it does have a good deal more availability. Narga is closer to Eleventh Hour and Fifty Minutes God Mode since you get it solely for the last castle of the last chapter.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Lombard is disgusted by Andrey killing his father without remorse.
    • Bloom is pretty okay with letting Hilda torture Tailtiu (or Ethnia) to death, but he doesn't support the child-hunting whole-heartedly, and is somewhat kinder to Tailtiu/Ethnia's daughter Tine/Linda.
    • Arvis himself hates the child hunts. So much that he deploys a small Batman Gambit to stop them, with some help from Yurius's girlfriend Ishtar.
  • Everyone Is Related: Many members of the first-generation party are either nobility or royalty, and these nobles and royals end up breeding with one another to create a Second Generation rebel army whose members are related not only everyone else on their own side but are also related to everyone on the other side, too. It's like one huge family feud. Here's the family tree.
  • Evolving Weapon: Kill 50 units with the same weapon, even if it's a holy weapon, and the weapon will gain the Critical skill, with the critical chance increasing by 1% with each additional kill up to a maximum kill count of 100 (a +50% critical bonus).
  • Face Heel Turn: Arvis. Pretty much all the information given about him states that he's an intimidating but upstanding and well-intentioned servant of the crown. He even appears as a guest character in the first chapter and gives Sigurd a Silver Sword from the king.
    • Hell, this never stops being true. While he might veer into Well-Intentioned Extremist territory, he's only doing what he does because he's sure it's for the best.
      • Less controversial of an example: Eltoshan's first seen being the very best of friends with Sigurd, and even prevents another Augustrian lord from attacking Sigurd from the rear; see Honor Before Reason below for the turn.
  • Genki Girl: Tailtiu, Silvia, Fee and Patty are all super cheery girls.
  • Guide Dang It:
    • Even though the word "genealogy" is in the title, it isn't obvious what you're supposed to do in terms of pairing people up. Without prior knowledge one is more than likely to only have half of their possible moms produce kids, the other half dying childless, and the entire process can look remarkably scripted unless you're lucky enough to have been placing your units so an unusual pairing brews. Some of the villagers do give hints about how the mechanics work, but they make absolutely no sense unless you are already aware of the mechanics in the first place. "Sons tend to inherit characteristics from their fathers, and daughters tend to inherit traits from their mothers" sounds like meaningless gibberish unless you know what’s coming.
    • There are many hidden events in the game in which the game never tells you about in advance. For example, the event where Lex can acquire the Brave Axe requires to go to a cliff on the lake while holding an Iron Axe in Chapter 1. In addition, many of the events are exclusive to the substitute characters so many of them are inaccessible if you paired up many of the female characters.
    • There is a specific AI quirk that is difficult to figure out without trial and error where the enemy commander retreats to their castle to bring reinforcements if most of their squad were killed. They will retreat without regard to enemies on their way, even when they were blocking the castle entrance. Hannibal in Chapter 9 is one of these types of commanders and exploiting this quirk is the only way to make him easier to recruit.
  • Heel Face Turn: Many characters (including one or two of the best) start off as enemy units who can be somehow convinced to join your cause.
  • Heel Realization: Arvis and Travant each have one.
  • The Hero Dies: Sigurd, the main character of the First Generation, is betrayed and murdered halfway through the game.
  • Heroic Lineage: As the title implies, Genealogy of the Holy War does more with this trope than even most Fire Emblem games, applying it to much of the cast and even making it a game mechanic.
  • Hot Chick with a Sword: Ayra is probably the first and most well-known in the Fire Emblem series.
  • Hotter and Sexier: The Oosawa manga gets away with cranking up the sexiness in the storyline quite a bit, with several scenes involving characters having sex, in the middle of sexual afterglow, or having rather saucy fantasies about their romantic prospects. For example, the scene in which Deirdre and Sigurd confess their mutual love has Deirdre naked since she was bathing in a river before he came in, and they go through Their First Time right after their marriage ceremony.
  • I'm Dying, Please Take My Infinity +1 Sword: How Sigurd gets the Tyrfing from his father.
  • Inconsistent Dub: Parts of the fan translation: for example, Ayra is called "Ira" in gameplay, but a conversation with Quan refers to her as "Ayra". Not even this page can agree about the spellings for most of the names.
  • Infant Immortality: Averted. Hard. Hell, in a certain "Protect the Civilians for free levels" event, the civilians are little children of the "child" class (which is Civilian, except, justifiably, weaker). The enemy also explicitly kills children in the plot.
  • Inferred Survival: How did the Second Generation children get their hands on extremely powerful, unique artifacts, if the previous bearers of said artifacts all perished in an ambush?
    • Gameplay Mechanic only, really. Not to say there weren't survivors of the Battle of Belhalla, but where the kids got their gear has no meaning on that outcome.
  • Infinity-1 Sword: Sigurd gets one of the best generic swords in the prologue chapter, a Silver Sword (it's the only rank-A weapon you will have until at least Chapter 2). If used even sparingly over the next few chapters, this Silver Sword will probably rack up the necessary fifty-plus kills to give it Critical. Once it’s passed on to Seliph (or any sword-user) in the second generation, it's overwhelmingly powerful. If it’s given to Larcei or Ulster, either of them can usually wipe out armies from the very beginning of Chapter 6.
  • Infinity+1 Sword: The Holy Weapons: each provides magnificent onscreen bonuses to the Major-Blood characters wielding them and are always the best (or, since Swords and Spears have multiple Holy Bloodlines, second-or-third best) weapons of their class. This is ignoring the usual free Skill or Skills that these weapons provide.
  • Interface Spoiler:
    • On the Holy Blood Screen, Deidre has a small, purple spot in the middle of the circle which isn't present with normal units, indicating her Lopt Blood without spelling it out by name.
    • Any character you can recruit will have a Luck score higher than 1.
    • Units occupy set spaces in the castle screen, usually in order of when they're acquired; if you have a visible empty space surrounded by units, you're either going to recruit someone very soon or you missed someone.
    • It's also possible to figure out Seliph and Julia are related (which is treated as a spoiler) by the same method as figuring out Deirdre's Loptous Blood.
  • Inventory Management Puzzle: You literally have to sell your items then buy them back at double the price if you want to trade them around your units.
  • Invulnerable Civilians: Averted very hard: civilians that are on the map can easily be killed by enemy troops if they are not protected. The villages that all the bandits and pirates go after will only last about ten turns worth of damage, too.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: The Balmung, wind sword, and hero sword are all this.
  • Kissing Cousins: It happens quite a few times with the preset stuff alone, but it has crazy potential depending on how you set up your pairings in the first generation.
    • (takes deep breath) Patty and Lester/Faval and Rana (their mothers Briggid and Adean were not only sisters, but identical twins); Holyn and Arya (both part of the royal house of Isaac, and so are distantly related); Shanan and Lakche; Aless and Nanna; Johan/Johalva and Lex's daughter; Azel's son and Julia; Claude and Sylvia (who are also distantly related).
  • Lawful Stupid: Poor Eldigan. His King is obviously a thick-headed idiot and tyrant, and always treating him lowly, yet he insists on serving him like a faithful knight or just resorting to persuasion rather than flat out renouncing him for great justice. It bit Eldigan in the ass HORRIBLY, as said king executed him.
  • Lethal Joke Character: Dew, from the first generation. Starts at level one, with almost no offensive capabilities whatsoever, and he has without a doubt some of the best (base) growth rates in the first generation (sans HP). He's not likely to contribute meaningfully to battles in the first generation; instead, his usefulness lies in the fact that he is one of the best fathers in the game because of those growth rates' being passed down, in addition to the Bargain skill. His biggest flaw, his low HP growth, is mitigated by the HP growth bonuses granted by all degrees of Holy Blood; he is one of the best to pair with Briggid, and he is a strong contender for other mothers of physically-oriented children such as Ayra or Lachesis, all three of whom pass some degree of Holy Blood onto their kids. Though it's true that Dew passes on some very good growths, Bargain (everything's half price), and Sun Hit (absorb damage dealt as HP), he's still usually considered inferior to other partners such as Lex or Holyn for Arya (both give Arya a Hero Sword to pass down, Lex gives Arya's kids Minor Neir blood, Elite (double experience gain) and Ambush (always attack first when HP is lower than 50%), though Lex doesn't pass any weapons onto Skasaher since Skasaher can't use axes, and Holyn gives Arya's kids Major Odo blood, giving them twice the stat bonuses of their usual Minor Odo blood as well as twice the benefit for using swords, which are the only weapons Arya's kids can use, and gives Skasaher his inventory; he also passes down Moonlight Hit, which is a mixed blessing since it competes with Arya's Comet Hit (which, 98% of the time, is much better) for activation) and Beowulf and Finn for Lachesis (both remedy Lachesis' lack of skills to pass onto her kids, providing them with Pursuit and, in Beowulf's case, Charge, both skills considered vitally necessary as they give units more attacks per battle; Delmudd is also able to inherit Beowulf's equipment).
  • Lord British Postulate: Of the "If it has health, he can be killed" variety. Julius appears in chapter 10 and can actually fight you. If you're lucky enough to score some criticals (or get a couple good shots with Forseti) or just Cherry Tap Julius, you can beat him. Data also suggests that Julius was intended to be fightable in Thracia 776, meaning that we could have had a true example of this.
  • Lost Forever: Several characters if you don't recruit them, accidentally kill them, or don't manage to rescue them from the far-more-powerful-than-they mooks who spawn near them. Thracia 776 even makes some characters become dark warlords if you miss them.
    • Sometimes requires a great deal of effort to avoid losing recruits, such as in Arya's case: you must avoid damaging her since you might inadvertently kill her (she has the fewest HP you have yet seen on any enemy unit as well as the lowest defense), she's unbelievably dangerous insofar as she has the opportunity to one-shot literally everyone in your party, and you can't recruit her until you take the castle she's guarding, being physically in your way. It's necessary to lure her away from the castle so you can kill the guards and take it, then run up to her and talk to her, all while being very careful never to engage her lest she pull off one of her relatively common ten-hit combos or lest
  • Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: Lex and Tailtiu, the kids of Langobalt and Reptor, respectively, in the First Generation. The Second Generation has one of Danan's kids, Johan/Johalva (depends on which one you recruit, though the other isn't that bad either compared to others), and Travant's son Arion can end up joining with Seliph because of his love for Altena.
  • Magikarp Power:
    • Dew the Thief starts heavily under-leveled with almost no offensive capabilities whatsoever, but he has some of the best stat growth rates of the First Generation. Once promoted he will contribute substantially to battles, and if he gets married he will pass his high growths down to a Second Generation character.
    • Princess Lachesis has piddling stating stats and stat growth, low HP, and lack of combat-related Skills makes using her to fight a losing proposition; this is not helped by the fact that, when you get her, swords are the worst weapon to be using (most enemies are using either lances or swords, making a weapon advantage impossible) and Raquesis can't use anything else. When she Classes Changes she becomes a Master Knight, which can use almost every weapon type at an A-rank, gets a massive boost to all of her stats, and gains the Skill "Pursuit" (always double attack when attack speed is higher than the opponent's) to make her a dangerous unit.
  • Nintendo Hard: It's part of Nintendo's long-running Fire Emblem series, noted for not being terrifically forgiving.
  • Non-Lethal KO:
    • Arena defeats don't result in character deaths; instead, they reduce the character's HP to 1.
    • Every time Deirdre falls in battle, she'll come back at the end of the chapter, unscathed because the enemy merely captured her.
    • When Quan, Ethlyn and Finn join Sigurd's army, they're protected by a special script that causes them to go back to Leonster in the event that they are defeated. The special script stops working when they leave for good at Chapter 4.
  • Overlord, Jr.: Edain, Brigid, Lex and Tailtiu have not so nice older or younger brothers that took after their dads and then have villainous kids of their own. And the True Final Boss is Arvis's power-mad son Julius.
    • Or antivillainous in the case of Iuchar, Iucharba, Brian, Arion, Ishtar and Ishtore. The first two can be recruited (though only one at the time), and Areone can be made into an allied unit (not under your specific control, but fights for your side anyway) by Altena.
  • Properly Paranoid: Some villagers in the first half speak of periodic hunts declared by nobility to kill those accused of being of Loptous descent. You witness a major justification in the second half.
  • Pseudo Crisis: Turn-based game variation: in Chapter 1, after subduing Genoa Castle, Elliot arrives from Agustria to the north leading a large squad of knights with the intent to take on Sigurd's army for daring to invade Verdane, and his knights start moving toward Evans Castle, Siglud's home base for the chapter. At this point, the bulk of the player's forces are probably way to the south, dealing with the enemy castles down there, so it looks like you're doomed... until after the next turn's enemy phase, where Eldigan leads the Cross Knights from Nodion and curb stomps Elliot's forces.
  • Recurring Boss: You'll see the Tor Hammer used against you more times than you'll care for, spanning three generations of users.
  • Redshirt Army: The Leonster knights that get killed along with Quan and Ethlyn. Mahnya's pegasus knight squadron that gets killed by the Beige Ritter.
    • Quite likely also the remnants of Johan's or Johalva's armies after you recruit one of them to your side.
  • Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: The ending of the First Generation, or Chapter 5. It's even worse when you consider that they're dying to Meteor, so nearly your entire First Generation party is killed by rocks... though Sigurd is killed by Arvis himself.
  • Self-Made Orphan:
    • Chagall and Andrey killed their fathers for power.
    • Julius killed his mother in a fit of madness (and almost kills his sister Julia, but Mom manages to save her before dying) and later leaves his father to die.
    • The player can make Lex, Tailto, Johan and Johalva do in their fathers.
  • Shades of Conflict: While the player characters are the clear good guys here, the villains are either Anti Villains (Brian, Ishtar, Ishtore, Areone, pre-recruitment Altena and several minor bosses) or Well Intentioned Extremists (Arvis, Travant, though YMMV) who are mixed in with Complete Monsters (Hilda, Manfroy, Loptous-possessed Julius).
  • Star-Crossed Lovers: The tale of Sigurd and Deirdre is a tragic one. They get married and have a young child, but then Deirdre gets kidnapped and brainwashed into marrying her half-brother only to bear children that would have major Loptous blood. Then Sigurd gets killed.
  • Storming the Castle: While many Fire Emblem games do this, every chapter in Genealogy of the Holy War literally involves storming multiple castles.
  • Strong Family Resemblance:
    • A number of characters resemble their Holy Crusaders ancestors. Shanan looks like Od, Lewyn looks like Sety, Njörun looks like Altena, and Fjalar looks like Arvis. It's less obvious with the rest, but there are still a few traits that the main characters obviously got from their Crusader ancestors.
    • In-game portraits of some child characters are slightly edited version of their fixed parent. Larcei is essentially Ayra with short hair while Ares is Eldigan with slight facial differences.
  • Take Care of the Kids: Sigurd gives baby Seliph to Oifey and Shanan after capturing Luveckto keep Seliph safe.
  • Time Skip: After Chapter 5.
  • Too Awesome to Use: The Holy Weapons are very powerful, and anyone using one is granted numerous bonuses to their stats in addition to the high numbers attached to the weapon itself. It also does not take much work to wear them down, as it is not unusual for a player character to attack twice or three times per exchange, and Holy Weapons are painfully expensive to repair. Using one to fight in the arena will usually involve a repair bill swallowing up at least half the prize money, and using one to fight Mooks is overkill to the point of waste, especially in the case of the faster Holy Weapon users who trade harder hitting for more attacks. As such, Holy Weapons are better left off being used sparingly against strong opponents.
  • Updated Rerelease: Fan-made example, unfortunately. Fans from the fansite Fire Emblem Universe have decided to hack Fire Emblem 7 for the GBA to make it akin to Fire Emblem 4, with updates, features, et cetera. It has, sadly, been dead for quite some time now, as revealed by the creator of it in the April 2nd "release".
  • Wham! Episode: At the end of Chapter 5, Sigurd fights his way to his home and Arvis welcomes him with open arms... and then Sigurd and his army get massacred.
Tropes used in Thracia 776 include:
  • Cherry Tapping/Mercy Rewarded: Capture. Your stats are heavily lowered, but you can capture the defeated enemy and seize their items.
  • Complete Monster: While this is obviously YMMV for the villains, Thracia reveals that there was a plan to create them in-universe. Those accepted to be nobles of the new Loptous Empire would be taken from their families and raised to be this. In fact, it seems that doing your best to become one is a prerequisite for being one of the order's higher-ups. This is one of the reasons why Salem left.
  • Crutch Character: Evayl is probably the best example of this in the series. Yeah, Jagen and Marcus in Fire Emblem Elibe are probably considered the archetypical examples, but Evayl is removed from the player's party relatively early on, and doesn't return until very late game, and even then only if you visit a certain side chapter. Furthermore, the game will literally rig the RNG so that she can't die early in the game, in order to ensure that she gets turned to stone by Veld in Chapter 5.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Thracia 776 is notable for having the first playable "dark mage" in the series' history.
  • Five-Man Band: The Magi Squad.
  • Fog of War: Introduced here.
  • Foregone Conclusion: Well, obviously: as this game only ends about half-way through Genealogy of the Holy War.
  • Hero of Another Story: Leif was just another character in the last game, but is now the main Lord.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: The last chapter reveals the Loptous Sect manipulatyed Travant into killing Quan and Ethlyn. YMMV as to whether this is an improvement to the story or just an Ass Pull to give the final boss more of a personal connection to The Hero.
  • Interquel: Takes place in between chapters 6 and 7 of Genealogy of the Holy War.
  • Invulnerable Civilians: Averted even more so than in Genealogy of the Holy War. They can also be captured by enemy soldiers and taken away.
  • Nintendo Hard: The series is normally hard, but Thracia 776 turns it Up to Eleven.
  • No Fair Cheating: Gungnir exists, but is Dummied Out. It has a description telling you not to hack.
  • Non-Lethal KO: Capturing can generally only be done at low HP, and when you release a unit, they leave the battlefield and don't return. The benefit from this is that you can take the enemy's equipment, in a game in which equipment doesn't have much durability and is very expensive to purchase.
  • Official Couple: In Genealogy of the Holy War, all pairings except Sigurd/Deirdre, Quan/Ethlyn and Arvis/Deirdre were optional and customizable. However, Lewyn/Erinys was canonized in Thracia 776 through the presence of Ced and Forseti in the game. The marriage didn't end very happily though, due to either personal difficulties or Lewyn having his memories and/or personality messed with upon being revived/possessed by Forseti.
    • Also, this game strongly hints at Lachesis/Beowolf and Lachesis/Finn: yes, both of them, as Beowolf is Diarmuid's daddy and Finn is Nanna's. Also, Beowolf seems to have another son with an unnamed noblewoman of Conote, Fergus, who's a playable character here. This makes Diarmuid, who already has Nanna as a maternal half-sister, have another half-sibling on his dad's side. Yes, the families in this game are really fucked up.
    • Nanna/Leif, assuming Nanna doesn't die during the course of the game.
      • Likewise, Fred and Olwen marry if neither kicks it. Same goes to Machyua and Brighton, and Tanya and Orsin. While not as openly stated, Princess Miranda is hinted to have married Conomore, which doubles as May-December Romance since he was her father's retainer.
    • Selphina and Glade are already Happily Married too.
  • Shades of Conflict:
    • Main Characters: on the white end of the scale, you have the heroic and sheltered Prince Leif and the remnants of the Leonster Knights. Around the grey area you have you have Lifis who wreaked havoc on Thracian civilians, Pahn who's a thief, a good natured thief no less though. Not to mention there's a couple of Punch Clock Heroes that join just because they're there at the right moment (Fergus, Shiva, Trewd and Ralph). Also, there's the Bishop August who seems to have a morally ambiguous past and holds a cynical view towards the Manster nobles.
    • Enemy Characters: around the Grey end, there's a good amount of enemy bosses who fit here such as Largo (Dorias even commends Leaf if he captures Largo instead of killing him), Rumay, Gomes (a bandit no less) and Reinhardt. Around or near the black area is Kempf (a man who even his fellow commanders view with disgust), Raydrik and Veld.
  • Taken for Granite: The Big Bad's modus operandi. Eyvel gets hit with it early on. You can get her back in a sidequest chapter later on, if you meet certain requirements.
  • Trope Codifier: Sort of, in a series internal sense: for all its unique features, Thracia 776 still plays much closer to and feels more like every Fire Emblem game since, Akaneia remakes aside, than its predecessors do; as such, it could be said to be the game which set the mold for the franchise's modern incarnations.
  1. ↑ This was actually one of the last games released for the Super Famicom.
  2. ↑ Assuming Cyas will eventually inherit the Valflame.
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