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empyrean-thrones · 11 days ago

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[analysis] the school system in fourth wing

I've decided to reread fourth wing and I have questions and theories that I need to share with my corner of the internet.

This post will include an in-depth (i hope) analysis on the war school system in fourth wing and how all that ties into the country's politics.

a rant no one asked for:

The thousands of twenty-year-olds waiting outside the gate to enter their chosen quadrant for service are the smartest and strongest in Navarre.

First and foremost only the smartest and strongest enter in Basgiath, which implies that this War college is the elite of the elites. There must be thousands of students who never pass the tests, which also begs my first question: where do these failed students go?

The easiest scenario is if Basgiath is the only college in the continent (which for such a big continent seems like a poor choice) does it mean that you either pass the exams or you don't get to continue your education? Ever?

That would prevent a high number of people of getting superior education and acess to knowledge, which is exactly what a fascist regime would do. However the author paints the government as being possible to be reckoned with.

Our main characters negotiate with them over and over again about various aspects, which in my opinion doesn't sound totalitarian to me. It's true that they killed hundreads of people for trying to rebel, which DOES sound facist to me, but during the ongoing canon events they seem like a different government altogether. To me a totalitarian force doesn't negotiate and the only way to end it is to break it. There can be no space for tyranny, or for oppression, and the only way to assure that is to rip its roots, not by negotiating.

But for the sake of everyone's sanity let's ignore that for now, Basgiath wants Navarrian citizens to think "you'll only be sucessful if you go to the military". And they drive their point even further when they reduce the entrance to candidates who are the smartest and strongest. Again to be a part of the elite is anyone's dream come true.

There's also other incentives. We know they promise good pay: Dylan, the guy who dies on the parapet, says "I keep telling her [my mother] that I’ll have better chances for advancement as a rider,". For struggling families Basgiath may seem the only solution, and isn't the King so kind to give good financial compensations to those who decide to fight for their country's honor. The higher the risk, the higher the reward. We also know that this is a matter of pride, just as in the real world when you go to a prestige college you can boast about it. You can use it to show other people how smart and good you are, I assume the same happens in the Empyrean.

This would be an excellent premise if it all didn't unravel by the end of the first chapter.

That's not to add to the fact that there has been no critique on Basgiath except "they let students die" which is not the nuanced commentary we would and should expect, instead that nuance is reduced to: the government is hiding evil soulless monsters for reasons we still aren’t privy to (I digress, that's another post).

Every Navarrian officer, whether they choose to be schooled as healers, scribes, infantry, or riders, is molded within these cruel walls over three years,(...)

Lazy writing and overbearing exposition apart, I want to note that the students, the candidates choose where they'll be going. (this will be important later)

Also important detail is that "Every Navarrian officer" does in fact imply that there's only one war college in the whole country, which is simply wild to me. But with that in mind we now know that everyone who wishes to be a part of Navarre's military forces needs to survive Basgiath, those who can't either die or don't even enter the college at all.

Again those who fail where do they go? My answer would be they go on to do other jobs, non military jobs if you will. We don't actually get an answer to this I don't think. Because Rhiannon's twin sister (enphasis on the twin, they're 20 years old) which is the only person of their age that we know never went to Basgiath is already married with a baby and we don't know what she or her husband do to make money.

On this reread it also stood out to me that Violet calls the college as a whole cruel. So not only is the riders quadrant cruel the rest of the quadrants are also cruel. I wish we got to see more of that cruelty in the books, especially in this first one. We know riders die, that's the whole premise of fourth wing, but what happens in other quadrants? Why are the healers and scribes cruel? These are answers that will never be answered I'm afraid.

I would have been better off failing the admission test to Basgiath and going straight to the army with the majority of conscripts.

Now this is the line that inspired me to make this post because I don't know if I'm stupid or if my english is failing me.

Earlier in the chapter we have established you need to go to Basgiath if you want to be in service. So how and why does Violet failing the admission test equals to going straight to the army?

If by "the army" Rebecca means to refer to the infantry this needs to be clearer to the reader. I've reread the first half of the chapter so many times, to see if I was missing some context clue, but I don't think I am. Rebecca must think that being a soldier in infantry is different than being a rider but when you get to the bottom of it, it really isn't.

Because by all logic Basgiath is a War College meaning everyone in there will belong to the Navarrian army at some point in their lives, that's the goal of studying there. It doesn't matter in which faction of the army you end up in, the only true thing is that you will serve your country whether you're in infantry, riders, healer or scribe quadrant. You're all part of "a bigger" thing.

So again how does failing equal to going straight to the army?

Would Basgiath accept mediocrity?

And even this logic contradicts itself because the infantry is still set in Basgiath. There is no way Violet could fail the entrance test and still join the army. I know Rebecca probably wanted to give the idea that the only promising future as a Navarrian would be going to the army, and by doing that she’d be criticising the system as a whole, and yet she undoes that in the next two pages.

Each of Navarre’s six provinces has sent this year’s share of candidates for military service. Some volunteer. Some are sentenced as punishment. Most are conscripted. The only thing we have in common here at Basgiath is that we passed the entrance exam—both written and an agility test I still cannot believe I passed—which means at least we won’t end up as fodder for the infantry on the front line.

There's a lot to unpack here, so let's start by world building inconsistencies.

If one needs to pass the entrance exam (is it called admission or entrance exam? decide on a name rebecca for the love of god) to study at Basgiath and to be part of the infantry you need to study there, how would Violet failing mean she would become fodder for the infantry?

As established before Infantry is a part of Navarre's army, also remember when I said that the candidates choose in which faction of the army they will serve? (We are not considering those with a rebellion relic here) That choice means nothing if you're just going to end up in Infantry anyway.

If those at Basgiath are "the smartest and strongest in Navarre" how are you going to accept someone who didn't even pass the admission exam to become a part of your military forces? Again does Basgiath accept mediocrity?

On the topic of the Navarre provinces sending their share of candidates for military service I also have questions: Does each province have a quota which they need to fill? How do the canditates volunteer? Is there some sort of paperwork they need to do to show they want to make part of the military? Is the volunteering made public?

I wrote in my notes that each province may have to send in a specific number of candidates depending on how they helped during Unification. In a way, for the whole country to stay together, the King may have decided it would be best for everyone to have representitives in the army. That way lower income provinces wouldn't be slighted and undermined when it came to the entrance exams.

This is in theory of course, there's always the underlining issue of who gets the better acess to information in order to study. Violet grew up in the archives, the acess to information was a book away, all she needed to do was ask her father for a book and she would have it. When it comes to strength training she didn't even need to queue or wait for any tutor, Lilith got her one immediatly after she informed her she'd be going to the rider's quadrant. I doubt many people get acess to private teachers.

On the other hand, when we look at Rhiannon's situation for example, she grew up in a humble home (i'm basing this on the fact that her twin still lives with her parents even after married or at least very close by), we don't have any indication that her village is either big or small, but we can assume that if they do have a library is not nearly as rich as the archives. That puts her in disadvantage from the start in relation to Violet. I also doubt she had a private teacher for her strength training.

Back at the quote I underlined, I still don't know the difference between sentenced and conscripted seeing as the dictionary says both of those mean being forced to serve in the army, highliting obligation. But that could be my english failing.

Conscripted: to force someone to serve in an army or one of a country's armed forces - Cambridge Dictionary

sentence: to decide and say officially what a punishment will be - Cambridge Dictionary

Do those who are sentenced need to pass the entrance exam to be in Basgiath? They could simply fail on purpose to make sure they don't go. How does Basgiath prevent that? To purposefully fail would be seen as an act of rebellion?

Unfortunately I don't have any theories on these last questions.

This is the only quadrant at Basgiath that doesn’t accept conscripts—only volunteers.

To end this post on a positive note I have to send flowers to Rebecca for this. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not but I'm choosing to believe it was.

The quote above refers to the riders quadrant, they only aceept volunteers, which we know to be a lie. The rebellion kids are sentenced to the riders quadrant, but this is a perfect showcase on how propaganda works. If the law/rules of Basgiath forbid it, logically the government would never force kids into the riders or any specific quadrant, they wouldn't break their own law. Candidates can be sentenced and still choose their own quadrant. Which is why Violet is so surprised when Liam tells her they are forced to the riders quadrant: it's unlawful.

#The entire system needs to go at this point #basgiath war college

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