Is there any wrong to come by picking mean dialogue options?

[Gula]

You can, but by the next cutscene or set of dialogue you're everyone's best friend again. The Warrior of Light is apparently immune to consequences because we're awesome and stuff.

Alphinaud was upset with me for exactly 6 seconds before going back to calling my WoL his friend and doting as he usually does after I picked an A-hole choice.

I really would like to be a massive jerk and have someone remember it, but this isn't a Telltale or Bioware game. Otherwise the Scions would be incredibly worried their champion keeps leaning in favor of the Imperials and Ascians.

[Theodric]

Otherwise the Scions would be incredibly worried their champion keeps leaning in favor of the Imperials and Ascians.

At this point they're both more interesting to me since the stakes for them are actually pretty high, whereas for the protagonists everything works out in a way that lets them wrap everything up in a neat little bow at almost every turn. With the illusion of bad things happening in the form of the occasional secondary character being put up on the chopping block every now and then.

Given how unhinged fans can be, I'm not surprised that the development team are reluctant to kill off any major characters but it'd be pretty cool if we could see someone on the level of Nanamo, Alisae or Cid bite it on a permanent basis.

[Lauront]

Alphinaud was upset with me for exactly 6 seconds before going back to calling my WoL his friend and doting as he usually does after I picked an A-hole choice.

I really would like to be a massive jerk and have someone remember it, but this isn't a Telltale or Bioware game. Otherwise the Scions would be incredibly worried their champion keeps leaning in favor of the Imperials and Ascians.

Well, sometimes life is full of little surprises. It's not even a case of being a jerk - I think they've written the Ascians at the least as a faction I would find sympathetic in the context of a video game and would choose to side with. Sometimes I like playing factions like the Sith, whose moral perspective is even more openly at odds with my own, but with the Ascians they brought in a manner of moral relativism and a reclamation narrative that essentially put them in conflict with the protagonists from a different vantage point to that of the Sith or, say, Chaos in WH40k. There are plenty of NPCs - Scions included - which I find annoying and/or demanding and would like for my character to be flippant towards.

The Imperials of course are being used in their chess game and many often forget that. Perhaps SE will make this clearer later on, as the civil war unfolds, since many innocent Garleans are at risk - something which might motivate Gaius and/or the Populares to enlist your aid.

It's a shame, really, because of all the MMO settings out there, the "dark" side in this MMO is playing on one of my favourite arcs - an ancient race's reclamation arc. One I particularly liked with the high elves in Age of Wonders III. I care much less for the Hydaelyn side of it but I'll endure it until the story moves on.