My Beloved Triangles

My beloved triangles

Recently re-checked what the credits music are for the non-Golden endings and was having thoughts.

So every one of them has the appropriate character's battle theme at the beginning and their Path theme at the end. Between them are two pieces from the soundtrack, which is the part I decided to fixate on. For Morality ending, those two are The Diary of Orlaea, and Pride of the Three High Houses.

(spoilers incoming)

That's where my brain stopped because. Pride of the Three High Houses. That's exactly the thing that is... well, utterly destroyed at the end of that route. There is absolutely none of the three high houses left, and that is even if Serenoa survived.

It's such a bold statement, right in the credits. The Diary of Orlaea, that's an acceptable one. It reminds us why we chose that route, what we fought for, what we fought against, etc. But Pride of the Three High Houses takes away the focus from that "main plot", reminding us of the thing we chose to ignore rather than save or fight. The fact that it has a bright sound is an added sting, too.

As for Utility ending, alongside Roland's themes are Archduke Gustadolph and Chagrin Concealed. The first one is not surprising to find; it's a reminder of what we fought and achieved, straightforward like that. Chagrin Concealed gives a more somber tone, making us look deeper into what we lost. I will say it's not as oddly placed as Pride of the Three High Houses, since we do fight Svarog near the end. The game makes sure to talk about it in that scene straightforwardly enough.

I also think that the absence of any music that could reference Hyzante or the Roselle is this ending's last punch in the gut. The fact that even the credits decidedly ignore the Roselle's plight is... well, fitting.

Lastly, I'm going to say Liberty ending is the most confusing when I try to analyze it from this angle, although it's interesting nonetheless. There are Benedict's themes, as usual, and then there are He Who is Lord and Scales of Conviction. That seems... odd, especially compared to the other two endings. Those two don't have a strong flavor that could be pointing at something specific, consistently being used in objective moments in the story (persuasion + voting phases). If anything, using these two in Liberty's credits feels like an even stronger confirmation that Liberty was meant to be the "true non-Golden ending", or the antithesis of Golden. Golden is when Serenoa breaks free from the scales; Liberty is when he devotes himself to it. I like that there is no other distraction there -- no reference to Hyzante whom we defeated, no reference to Roland who left, no reference to Aesfrost whom we allied with. There is ONLY the scales.

Part of the tragedy of Pyre being such an overlooked game is that absolute banger tracks like Knights of the Sea, Dread Design, and Rage of Demons are totally unknown to most people

Links if ur not familiar and curious (or just wanna listen again) :

Knights of the Sea

Dread Design

Rage of Demons

The whole soundtrack (for Pyre and every other Supergiant game) is completely free-to-listen and iirc also ad-free on the studio's YT channel too!

Because the Wolffort clan and the Darkwood/Greenwood (Woodlands) are my chosen spots of interest, carryover notes so that I can refer back to it later if needed:

The Hawk and the Wolf: legend goes that the Wolffort ancestor was lead to their approximate current residence under the guidance of a hawk. The hawk then becomes the united clans banner as seen for House Wolffort for pride and fearlessness.

A possible design angle from a team to approach not naming the current dominant family name (Wolffort) after the hawk (like a name like "Falkes") was to be signifiers of both Draefendi's companions: the hawk and the wolf, as according to the Octopath TTRPG.

The hawk of legend would be the literal placeholder to the companion while the other is honored in namesake and so meant to be seen as the vehicle for the Huntress. This also amplifies itself with Serenoa as a unit, ex. Hawk Dive, battle dialogue "when a wolf is cornered," therein taking both companions. Then, noting that Draefendi's ring is the plume (CotC), the hawk likely has more significance in regards to the goddess and would then be more readily recognizable imagery in local legend.

If Wolffort's ancestor was an emigrant of the Darkwood/Greenwood, the symbolism of Draefendi and the old Wolffort legend seem less of a fanatical myth and more of an actuality that happened reasonably where Wolffort's ancestor was able to understand the desires of that one hawk, provided the latent ability of those clans to possibly borne a child able to connect/commune with beasts a little more readily. Of course, visually both the Wolffort demesne and Woodlands share a lot of the same inspiration, but that's understandable on a surface level for far simpler design reasons.

This ancestor then sees the two feuding tribes, Falkes and Telliore, as ancedote to the Darkwood/Greenwood peoples and so unites them as an opposition to Orsterran history.

In a completely different direction from left field, the parallels and crossovers between these people and/or similarities of Orsterra and Norzelia is that Triangle Strategy's stories might be a collection of Orsterran fables or cautionary tales (or a story a novelist made up for fun. Triangle Strategy could just be someone's choose your own adventure story, which would be funny). This really has no grounds other than the usage of "ser" and maybe possibly the cardinal directions somewhat being used.

As a fable anecdote however, it would make the tie in much cooler and more powerful as a story of "old versus new" or "light versus dark" and such in the sense that weather or not the old gods of Norzelia are actually the Osterran pantheon is individual headcanon, but then Serenoa as protagonist, as a Wolffort tied to the "old gods" through iconography and symbolism and the Scales themselves, facing off against not only something that was created by human hand in hatred and pride, the Goddess of Salt (the "new," the sacrilege of it) but also the powers of what is more tied to the fallen god, Galdera, than its namesake, Aelfric, and an Osterran would likely recognize those connections for hopefully easier digestion about the lesser clean cut parts in both Osterra and "Triangle Strategy."

Scales and tails!

actually i saw this on dash and i might as well ask!!