#four winds

One of the four winds depicted on a pictorial map. Detail.

Amateur movie makers. 1927.

I adore how the term movements carries multiple meanings. It is connected to movements in a symphony, each section one part of the whole and various instruments working together in harmony. Sarah uses a lot of musical imagery in acotar: from battle to torture to spells to dreaming to creation. All the world is a song. I could see the next book having a consistent title, like @shadowyfawn has suggested, with subtitles that indicate the different movements in this next story.

I do expect that movement might be tied to the language or map for creation—

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There is another map we glimpse in acosf when Nesta tracks down the Harp. It is at the center of an eight-pointed star, associated with four cardinal directions like a compass rose:

We know the compass rose is used for travel; it was once referred to as a wind rose or rose of winds (which might be why roses are connected to creation and movement in the Maasverse as well). In Greek mythology, the winds were the product of Eos (Dawn) and Astraeus (Dusk), representing different seasons and directions. North, West, South, and East.

It doesn’t seem like a coincidence that Elain’s first question to Azriel elicited information on Illyrian’s connection to the song of the wind. When she uses her untrained magic, Elain also notes how the Suriel moves like the breath of the western wind. And she begins to repeatedly move like an unseen force—like the wind—soon after this.

We know her magic, the murky realm she has access to, is connected to the Cauldron—the map for creation—and likely allows her to move beyond earthly rules and borders. Sarah takes it a step further in acosf and even ties her magic to the Harp. Look at these responses from Elain and the Harp to Nesta:

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The bear, the bird, the cicada and the hare

The Four Winds Series

Frederick Cayley Robinson (1862-1927)

Mauvier seems the same, and that's unfortunate. Because the Mauvier we meet in the main storyline might be worse then Sombron. Sombron is the final boss. Him being an unambiguous evil we barely ever see or hear from is boring, but at least it makes sense. Mauvier shows up four times before you ever learn a single character trait about him. He's so fucking boring! In the three chapters where I fought him and got his pre battle conversations, I never learned anything about him.

In that same amount of time, I learned plenty about the other three. Zephia is almost cartoonishly evil, but she's also treating you like a naughty child the whole time. Marni actually does act like a child, throwing temper tantrums whenever she's defeated and constantly looking for praise. And Griss…well, Griss just seems like he's getting sexual pleasure out of being stabbed and assaulted. But Mauvier just seems like a flat cardboard villian. He's not there for any major reason. He's not funny, nor is he Interesting. He's a boring stoic knight who seems to only care about his orders. He's a soul sucking black hole of entertainment. I despise him.

We're meant to think Mauvier cares about Veyle. And yet he lets the abuse go unheeded prior to chapter 19. Zephia, Griss and Marni are weirdly more forgivable to me. In being so over the top outrageous, they make themselves funny. And by being funny and entertaining, they make me want to forgive them and recruit them. Mauvier is a dry sack of flour. He's basically nothing to me, merely a bland vessel for moving the story along. He also sucks to fight, but that's besides the point.

Mauvier being so uninteresting is king of important, because I'm expected to care about him enough to use him in the end of the game. And I legitimately don't even care about Mauvier. I don't want to see his supports. He's a boring vacuum of personality. I can't tell you any of his personality traits yet, and I'm at the point where we're recruiting him! For god's sakes, he's just awful. The worst character in game by a mile, I almost want to say. But then I remember Morion, and I remember how much I've also found Veyle uninteresting. So you know… there's contention at the bottom.

But I just wish we could've recruited the alternative Mauvier from the Fell Xenologue in place of the boring waste of space that is main game Mauvier. Also, Mauvier in the Fell Xenologue should've been the opposite of Mauvier in the main game. Personality wise and everything. I'd even take a new name for him, but I can't think of any new names. All I know is that he's boring to me. And so I could easily fix Mauvier.

How do we do it? Simple. The Mauvier in the main game is a boring, stoic man who follows orders to a tee and never seems to bother questioning them. So the opposite of that would be a boisterous man who's also a free spirit, a man who goes wherever the wind takes him. The opposite of Mauvier would still be a knight, but he'd be a passionate man who loves earth and everything in it and cares about more than just orders. Mauvier would basically be a character like Amber mixed with Boucheron. He'd be kind and strong and funny and over the top. He'd be a genuine paragon of virtue, but also a free spirit who lets no man dictate to him what is right and what is wrong.

Mauvier has a new backstory here too. He was still born to rich parents in firene, that remains true. But he never moved to Elusia with his mother. Shortly after his father died, mauvier's mom fell into a deep depression. She died all alone in her mansion, depressed and isolated from her peers. Mauvier then wound up on the streets, a young child all alone in this world. If not for his adoption by a wandering caravan, god only knows where he would have ended up.

But indeed, Mauvier was adopted by a wandering caravan of performers. The same kind of troupe which employed Seadall in the main timeline. This group of nomadic free spirits raised Mauvier as one of them, and he learned from them the meaning of life. Life is about more than wealth and obligations. Life is about enjoying yourself. It's about seeing the beauty in every living thing. It's about joy. Life is about joy.

See? I just created an alternative version of Mauvier, and I already like him more than the main version of Mauvier. This Fell Xenologue version of Mauvier would be so interesting to see interacting with Gregory and Madeline and Zelestia. I picture a sweet man who gives bear hugs, who loudly proclaims his love for everything he sees, and who only sounds like the main story Mauvier when he's really depressed. I wish we'd gotten this character, instead of the boring void that is the main game's Mauvier. I really wish this character existed.

Fell Xenologue Mauvier is warm where main storyline Mauvier is cold. And I have ideas for a name now. Mauve is a shade of purple. Purple is complementary to yellow. A nice name for certain tints of yellow include Chartreuse and Xanthic. Wikipedia told me this, anyways. It also tells me Xanthos was Ancient Greek for yellow or golden, and I like that name. But I feel like I can add a letter or two to the name to create something less real world. Something like…Xanthios, perhaps? Xanthios, the boisterous Knight. Not a royal knight, but a wandering knight who travelled the lands. Griss and Madeline look up to Xanthios, and he adores them like his children. He left his caravan family to become a knight of the land, a protector of the defenseless and defender of all those who society has shunned. And now he's found a new family, a family in the other three winds.