there are FOUR key romantic dialogue triggers for the Hans Capon romance. they appear in the following order: 1. Trosky, after saving Hans from the noose 2. Maleshov, where we rescue hans 3. At the Italian court gate, during the robbery 4. During the crypt escape

during my platonic playthru i made sure to glaze hans at every opportunity to maintain a high reputation. this is important bc the romance options only show up w/ good reputation. the only time i took a reputation hit was during the trosky torture session (accident)

i bring this up bc in maleshov the heart option was NOT available to me. took bigger rep hits during my actual romanced playthru & still got the maleshov heart. so i’m 98% sure you need to have chosen the trosky heart to get the maleshov heart.

this is important bc you *NEED* the maleshov heart to lock in the romance. i replayed the save files to have the 3rd and 4th hearts triggered without maleshov yet still received the platonic ending with hans. the maleshov romance dialogue is the foundational trigger.

this clicks with the final romance scene dialogue. a romanced hans will begin with, “i’ve been thinking a lot about the two of us. And about what you told me in Maleshov.” i think how henry reacts to hans’ claustrophobia is when, story-wise, hans starts realizing his feelings

the 3rd/4th hearts are not dependent on previous romantic dialogue. the maleshov 2nd heart *IS* dependent on the 1st trosky heart. but even if you choose the 1st, 3rd, and 4th hearts, if you do NOT pick the maleshov heart, you do not get the romance. that is SO interesting to me

here’s 2 hypothetical scenarios with different heart trigger combinations: A.) 1st, 3rd, 4th hearts + No Maleshov = Platonic Ending I interpret this as Hans catching feelings after realizing he can be fully vulnerable with Henry. He values this MORE than being SAVED from DEATH.

B.) 3rd and/4th hearts ONLY = Platonic ending these hearts appear during & after the robbery EVEN WHEN THERE HASN’T BEEN PREVIOUS ROMANTIC DIALOGUE. they’re not dependent on previous hearts like maleshov. hans still gets a rep boost. story-wise this can mean a few things:

B1.) Henry catches feelings too late and Hans doesn’t pick up on it. B2.) Hans’ response to them doesn’t change. So you could interpret double-sided unrequited yearning where there hasn’t been enough evidence for either of them to make a move in the final suchdol scene

B3.) By choosing this combination, you can role-play a Henry who has one-sided unrequited love. i don’t know WHY you would do that, but you can. the fact that WH gives you these hearts despite knowing it’s not enough to get you the romance ending is so evil but SO juicy

So basically the two REQUIRED and most IMPORTANT heart options are the 1st and 2nd ones. i’ve seen some people say they skipped a few heart options and still got the romance. i suspect they’re referring to the 3rd and/or 4th ones. i haven’t tried that combo yet so i cant confirm

in summary, from what i gather, in order to get the hans romance romance you must have - a good reputation with hans - the trosky AND the maleshov hearts - at least the 3rd and/or 4th heart - no romance with katherine

@_GooeyGUI_ Thank you for the analysis, true scientist of bl✊

@MrXylax ty ty 🫡

@_GooeyGUI_ The most important is 1st and 2nd. I did a platonic run and 3rd, 4th still showed up but no suchdol romance. Same thing when i only chose 1, 3, 4/only 3 or only 4

@Vallartacat ty ty. the more data, the better.

@_GooeyGUI_ Wow you put a lot of work and thought into this! Thank u! ❤️‍🔥👍🏼