Okay, so, maybe I’ve been playing far too much Fire Emblem: Three Houses. “Why do you think so?”, you might ask. I have but one phrase for you: “I am Ferdinand von Aegir!”

Needless to say, the name “Ferdinand” has been forever changed in my mind. Never again will I read “Ferdinand” and not have the urge to follow it up with “von Aegir”. That’s what made me laugh when I read the summary of today’s story! It probably happened completely by accident.

Plot and Setting

Herzschmerz (which Google translate tells me means “heart pain”) is my first foray into the “Equestria At War” universe, which means that (as usual) I have no idea what’s going on! For readers such as myself, it’s a little murkier on whether to put a boatload of exposition in and ultimately up to the author to do. For Lil Penpusher, I sense that they chose to continue forging ahead in their interpretation of Ferdinand Dawnclaw’s story and only provided as much exposition necessary to set up the immediate settings around the plot events.

From what I gather, the story (essentially) covers Ferdinand’s coup against the reigning powers of the Griffonian Empire. It follows as Ferdinand leads a task force to eliminate the regency council in charge of the Empire in order to take the reins and steer it back into a functioning nation once more. Unfortunately, it also has the collateral damage of the death of the young prince at Ferdinand’s talons, and therein lies the main focus of the story.

Ferdinand’s story is interesting, to say the least. There is quite a bit of context missing on my part, since this is only a snippet of what I presume to be an eventful life within the EaW universe. There are some events mentioned that would likely make for a lengthy story, such as the specifics behind Ferdinand’s Iron Cross award, but those were only briefly touched upon here. Instead, I believe Lil Penpusher wanted to focus on how, despite the way that Ferdinand had to steel himself to reform the Empire’s government, he still struggled with ensuring that he was in a position where he had a fighting chance. In essence, it’s a character study, although I feel like it didn’t quite hit the mark in its climax. I’ll talk more about this in the next section!

Section rating: 6.5/10

Character Exploration

Character studies are always a great way to explore a character’s mindset, personality, beliefs, and more. Herzschmerz, I’d wager, does count as a character study where we see Ferdinand’s beliefs and mental fortitude being tested, but I feel as though that it didn’t seem as impactful as it is made out to be. While I doubt making the audience feel sympathy for a literal child murderer was the goal, the story always maintains a sort of “distance” to Ferdinand as a character. We see some of his thoughts and his internal struggle, but it almost feels like it’s more telly than it is showy (Wikipedia definition).

The way that the summary was written and the general direction of the set-up to the climax raised the expectations that we would see a strong internal struggle as Ferdinand’s sense of moral clashes with his sense of duty to the Empire; ultimately, the story fell short of those expectations, as it feels like we never actually reached the climax – in fact, I’m struggling to determine what actually is the climax: the death of the prince or the aftermath as Ferdinand realizes just what he has done. Both of them have seemingly equal weight within the story, but also feel like separate beats within the pacing. It feels as though we had a long trail of rising action, skipped the climax, and continued on with the falling action like nothing happened. It left me feeling a bit unsatisfied with the story, as not only did the plotline feel incomplete, but there was only a minimal amount of exploration into Ferdinand’s character and how his actions that day might have affected him in the moment and in the aftermath (as we see that it is a memory in the introduction).

Section rating: 4/10

Grammar, Formatting, and Consistency

The grammar was a little all over the place, as there is a bit of an issue with capitalization in the story. As I understand it (after reading through the comment section), Lil Penpusher is a native German speaker and has been working on their English, including capitalization. There was so much capitalization that, prior to learning that they were not a native English speaker, I thought that there might be a secret message hidden in the capital letters, but there were so many words that were capitalized that I quickly gave that idea up.

To give a sense of the capitalization issues, here’s the second paragraph of the story:

Ferdinand Dawnclaw watched the Scenery from within the Imperial Palace, a Building that stood tall above the rest of the Capital, its grandeur and architecture unmatched by anything in sight. Ferdinand chewed on a toothpick as he began to think while watching the Sunset through the Windows of the Master Bedroom of the Palace. He was wearing his full Uniform today. It was a mixture of old and new for him. Most of it was just his old Uniform from when he was a General serving under Emperor Grover V., but he had ordered some new ornaments to be added onto it to properly represent his new status as 'Lord-Protector' of the Griffonian Empire. A Pair of golden Wings adorned his Collars, and right below his beak, centered around the Collar, was his Iron Cross.

Each word that I’ve highlighted in orange is a word where it is capitalized when it shouldn’t be. Admittedly, there are some parts where this could be overlooked in the story, which depends more on the canon in which Herzschmerz is based in. If a word is normally capitalized in the EaW universe, then that is forgivable for having it capitalized here.

I’ve also noted in red a minor grammar error, which is in “Emperor Grover V.”, that appeared several times; when roman numerals are used in names to denote which person of that name this is, there is no need for a period to be placed afterwards. “Emperor Grover V” reads as “Emperor Grover the Fifth”, which requires no period since the entire phrase is technically a proper noun. The only time where we would see a period after the numeral is when “Emperor Grover V” is situated at the end of a sentence, where it would naturally be followed by a period.

In a strange twist of translation, there is some consistency found in which words are capitalized throughout the story, which I presume is something that is derived from the German language. The word “noble” appears 4 times and is capitalized each time, which is too many times for it to be a coincidence. There is some forgiveness here since English is not Lil Penpusher’s mothertongue, but it is something that should be worked on in future stories and worth getting an editor/proofreader for if they struggle with determining when to capitalize.

The formatting is relatively alright, though it is interesting that Lil Penpusher chose to write out the sounds of each bullet fired. While the sounds of a gun attempting to fire when there are no bullets left is not uncommon in similar stories, the firing of the bullets definitely makes it stand out, although whether that sits well with readers is up to each individual person.

Grammar: 6/10
Formatting: 8/10
Consistency: 7/10
Section rating: 7/10

My Little Nitpicks

In the Capital of the Empire…
We find many capitalizations indeed. This is going to be… interesting to read.

Exposition at War
Oh boy, alright. Time to start keeping track of what information is being given.

Iron Cross
So, he’s a bit of a war hero for the Empire, but is also leading a coup against those in charge of it… Hm. There’s got to be some sort of irony in there.

Leading the lambs to the slaughter
And there they go! Goodbye, nobles and clergy?

Grover VI
Poor kid. He was just stuck in the middle of all this.

Duchess Gabriela Eagleclaw of Strawberry
I’m sorry, she’s from Strawberry? I… cannot take her seriously after this, not with that kind of title!

Death of a prince
Oof, overkill?

Final Thoughts

Herzschmerz is a character study of a morally grey character that might leave readers unsatisfied with the depth of which its main character is explored. For the look inside the mind of a revolution starter and fans of the Griffonian Empire in the “Equestria at War” universe, this might be right up your alley.

Final rating: (17.5/3)/10 = 5.8/10