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Quand bien même tu serais un super-héros, tu finirais par être fatigué.

Quand bien même tu serais un super-héros, tu finirais par être fatigué.
Even if you were a superhero, you would end up being tired.
From Lesson 413:Concession and hypothesis (quand bien même)·French

Questions & Answers about Quand bien même tu serais un super-héros, tu finirais par être fatigué.

Why is serais in the conditional here, when 'even if' usually takes the imperfect?
You are likely thinking of même si, which is followed by the imperfect to express 'even if you were' (Même si tu étais...). However, the expression quand bien même requires the conditional mood in both clauses to strongly emphasize the hypothetical nature of the statement.
Does quand bien même mean exactly the same thing as même si?
They are very close, but quand bien même is slightly more formal and emphatic. It stresses the extreme unlikelihood of the condition (being a superhero) to show that even in this extreme case, the result (getting tired) would remain exactly the same.
How does the phrase finir par work to mean 'would end up'?
The structure finir par followed by an infinitive is the standard French way to say 'to end up doing something'. Here, finir is conjugated in the conditional (tu finirais) because it is the theoretical result of our superhero hypothesis, and it is followed by par être (to end up being).
Could the two halves of this sentence be swapped around?
Yes, just like in English, you can place the condition at the end of the sentence: Tu finirais par être fatigué, quand bien même tu serais un super-héros. The meaning remains exactly the same.

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