Quartet: The Four Philosophies

I’d like to take a few minutes to muse on the Four Philosophies of Quartet. Quartet is an excellent JRPG available on Steam, and you should do yourself a favor and support it! Also, I’m going Full Spoiler in this write-up, so make sure you’ve beaten the game before you read any further.

In Quartet, it’s revealed that four sages have split the main world into four distinct worlds that are each governed by their own rules for how magic is distributed. This isn’t done on purpose, but each world does align with the personal philosophy (opinionated way of thinking) of each sage. By doing this, Quartet is able to explore four different ideas in near isolation, making predictions about what a world would look like with different availabilities of magic as a resource. It should be noted that for all intents and purposes, magic is treated simultaneously as both weapons and energy, accomplishing whichever task is necessary for the world, individual, or narrative, albeit with complicated inner systems that never get fully explained to either the audience or the inhabitants of any world. 

A Step-by-step Comparison

I’m going to be looking at all four philosophies just to see how they are handled and how well each of the philosophies holds up. I will judge them based on three major criteria: The Philosopher, the World, and the Narrative. I’ll rate each one of these from 0 to 3 based on how the philosophy is depicted. If the philosophy is depicted as being a “bad” philosophy, it will get lower points.

For the Philosopher section, I'll look at each sage and see how happy they were with their own wish coming true. Are they satisfied? Do they have any regrets?

For the World section, I’ll look at the quality of life of the worlds themselves. Needless to say, if everyone died, the world would score poorly, whereas if it became a utopia, the world obviously benefits from the philosophy even if the sage who chose it doesn’t approve. This will also link to the lore, which is the information about the world that exists before the narrative gets its claws into it.

Finally, the Narrative section. This is the stuff that happens in the game with our characters and dramas. The narrative is usually the point where the game itself shows what problems arise from established ideas. How does the narrative represent the philosophy? Does it say and do things that agree with the world and the sages, or does it contradict them?

I may miss a detail, or remember something incorrectly. Call me out if I do! I think this is a fun aspect of the game that deserves attention, so let’s check it out!

The Four Philosophies Summarized

First, a quick summary of each philosophy.

EARTH

What?

Magic should disappear.

Why?

Because magic, and the fight for control of it, is the root cause of all the suffering.

Result?

Resources: Absent

Le Dernier, the Earth Sage

WATER

What?

Magic should be studied and regulated.

Why?

Magic has utility, and only our own misunderstanding leads to its misuse.

Result?

Resources: Abundant

Haelan Reed, the Water Sage

FIRE

What?

Magic should be controlled by a select few experts. 

Why?

Controlling who has access to magic reduces its misuse.

Result?

Resources: Scarce

Heizer, the Fire Sage himself, later rebranded as Chancellor Uralt

WIND

What?

Magic should follow its own natural rules. 

Why?

Humans can’t comprehend nature, let alone make decisions for it.

Result?

Resources: Unmanageable

Keraunos, the Wind Sage

The Philosophers

Okay, let’s look at each Philosopher and see how they felt about their philosophy once their wish came true.

EARTH

The Earth Sage is easy. Once magic disappeared, more suffering occurred, and he realized very quickly that his idea caused the exact problems he wanted to prevent. He unalived himself to death. 

0 / 3

WATER

Things go according to plan. Magic gets more abundant, which is more dangerous, but overall, a system of study and regulation is created and overseen exactly as intended. The pursuit of this knowledge is sort of endless, and I think even though the Water Philosopher is totally equipped to handle exactly what they wished for, there will always be one further step needed (much like the pursuit of the scientific method), which means it can never be perfect. I don't see any moment where the Water Sage would see an issue in her world and think, "alright, maybe we need less study and control," but there are still issues she certainly sees.

2 / 3

FIRE

Bro loves it! He gets control of all this power, decides who can have it, and it feeds into his core value that dogs eat dogs. He lives by the sword, and dies by the sword, exactly as he had hoped. I think he even smiled. 

3 / 3

WIND

The Wind Sage is trickier. On the face of it, he can swallow all the sadness and suffering of his philosophy because he has a more “accept what you cannot change” mentality. It may be that the chaos of the Wind World makes life harder in its unpredictability, but he has signed into that and doesn’t seem to show any regret. 

The problem is that he actively dislikes the fact that the other worlds exist the way that they do, or at the very least, dislikes that there is now a war made possibly because of how they work. If he were truly interested in a “random” world of magic, he could conclude that sometimes places have no magic, and sometimes the magic is uneven. In fact, this is how his own world works, as well. Some people have no magic, some species do, etc. The existence of the other three worlds should not challenge his idea that magic is chaotic and unpredictable. It should, in a way, reinforce it, because the fact of having four wildly different worlds of magic is itself a chaotic outcome no one predicted. If he were the only one who had their wish granted, it could have, hypothetically, ended up with the exact same scenario. Because he meddles in the outcome, I take that to mean he isn’t fully prepared to sit back and reap what he’s sown.

1 / 3

The Wind Sage actively inviting someone else to decide a new system for magic

The Worlds

Next, the Worlds. Despite how the Philosophers feel, the Worlds themselves are depicted with varying degrees of success or failure post-split. Before I get into the details of it all, I need to note that by the standards of the narrative's perception, the worlds are actually doing well. Everyone has their gripes, and it's clear issues are inevitable, but you can see what the overall feeling is in Cordelia's assessment right before the final boss: all of the worlds that aren't pursuing war are thriving.

Cordelia summing up the positions of the worlds compared to Uralt's Fire Philosophy

EARTH

At first, Earth World hits a huge low. There is suffering and famine as people try to figure out how to live in a world where their most versatile resources are yanked away. But, eventually, they get there. 

Seren is arguably a well-working modern city with its own resources, energy, technology (just listen to the bops on the radio!) and quality of life. Earth World still has problems, like gang violence and drug dealing, but it needs to be noted that these issues are not unique to the Earth Philosophy. Most of the issues of the Earth Philosophy seem to be in the past, and it has overcome them. It can’t get full points because of how horrible that past was, but it’s not depicted as being plagued by many unique problems in the long run.

2 / 3

WATER

The Water World is the trickiest to figure out, because most of its issues seem to be related to the stuff it still hasn’t regulated yet. The word "yet" is what does all of the work here in terms of there being a flaw.

The major problems Water World is shown to be weak against are these: Corruption, Lawlessness, and Helplessness.

Corruption: There is mention by the Earth Sage that perhaps regulators in a Water Philosophy would be the ones with all the power. It's a good point, but in terms of lore, that doesn't seem to be the norm. Counter this with Fire Philosophy. In Fire Philosophy, a ruthless individual having unchecked power is how the system is designed to work. In Water Philosophy, if this same thing happens, it's not because of the system, it's despite the system. If the system fails at checking this powerful individual, it doesn't mean the philosophy of study and regulation must be reversed or undone, it means it needs attended to. Lore-wise, there seems to be some corruption in the realm of unethical business deals (Cordelia's father was a victim of this, Jerome's father worked in this field, etc., it's a lore norm), but I struggle to think of this as a problem unique to Water World. (There is the problem of the Parliament member who runs the weapons exchange, but this is not so much lore as it is plot, so I won't consider that a until the Narrative section.)

Lawlessness: The Wild West. The frontier. This is where law ends and lawlessness begins. Is this a unique feature of Water World? Absolutely not. This is another example of "yet." This place isn't regulated yet, but the Water Philosophy demands that some day it will be. If there's an issue here, it's that the gears turn slowly, but that's better than in other worlds where they might not turn at all.

A legal emergency implies this is something Water Philosophy is willing to fix

Helplessness: The biggest potential issue with Water World is that magic itself is available and powerful. Power facilities are akin to nuclear power plants, where everything works wonderfully until it horribly doesn’t. Forbidden Spells that do major damage are also factors for consideration. However, powerful, misused magic is a problem in every world but Earth, so it’s not quite unique in the Water Philosophy, it’s just a different flavor of that problem. Likewise, the world itself seems to have, generally speaking, a very good handle on this. It’s not like the people of Leornia are wandering around shooting their magic guns at folks. The regulations and failsafes seem to work, which means the worst internal issue people face is... bureaucracy.

The issues here are inactive, relegated purely to the potential for there to be a problem. Corruption, lawlessness, and helplessness are factors any world would have to grapple with, but it's hard to say they are unique to Water World, even if they are flavored a little differently. Instead of people asking “why isn’t this system working?” they occasionally muse about “what if this system stops working some day?” Which means it’s working.

3 / 3

FIRE

Fire World mirrors Water World in the idea of regulation and control, except the type of control is less about paperwork and more about bloodlines, traditions, and hierarchical power. The Auslens allow magic only through military ceremony. The Yina allow magic only through religious ceremonies. Either way, magic usage is less about governmental approval and more about finding an individual who will pass approval down to whomever they think is responsible enough to wield that power (or, an individual strong enough to take it by force). 

For something like this to work, that means magic has to also become a limited resource. There would be no purpose in the Pope gatekeeping who gets access to holy water if all water was holy. This is why the magical Fire Sage wish resulted in scarcity. Limited resources create a whole suite of problems, which include but are not limited to battling over those resources.

For my money, Fire World is what Water World would look like if Water World was actually bad. The worry about “what if the regulators control the power” is theorized in Water World and actualized in Fire World. Throw on top of that the very real war happening, the oppression of peoples, and the destruction of history and culture (even the culture of the oppressors), Fire World is seemingly an awful place to be for the vast majority of people who live there.

0 / 3

WIND

Wind World is fine actually. It’s fine. Presumably, it hasn't changed much from how the whole world was pre-split. Unless your species is being hunted by invisible birds, the chaos seems to lead to the many ups and downs one can expect in life.

The crime in Wind World does not seem unique to the Wind Philosophy. There is very little difference between the mafia of Wind World, the gangs of Earth World, and the outlaws of Water World. Also, most of the issues the world might have with unregulated magic get patched by their Phylaka system (which is a bi too Judge Dredd-y, but if it works...?), in a somewhat similar way to how Water World has found systematized solutions for its own crazy magic.

Without larger issues being shown with the world itself, it doesn’t seem like it’s suffering all too much, although it certainly has a want for more stability.

EDIT: After chatting with people who are more familiar with the game, I was reminded that a lot of the damage that Wind World suffers from is, naturally, storm themed. Magic storms. That kill whole peninsulas! And, more importantly, it's ongoing, with no sign of being controlled by anyone, up to and including the Phylaka. Because of this, I'm reducing the score I previously had by 1. It's still not 0, because places like Akos are somewhat thriving (for now), but it does make the world a lot less comfortable.

1 / 3

The Narrative

Finally, the Narrative. There are many things that happen in the story that frame the worlds in a different light, which gives us a glimpse of how the game itself feels about the philosophies of the sages.

One thing I want to get out of the way is that, unfortunately, the experiment of the four worlds never truly works. Earth and Wind are connected, as well as Water and Fire. This creates a huge complication in investigating the philosophies, because we can never know for sure if the Earth World’s lack of magic is what helps regulate the Wind World’s Phylaka system, or if Fire World would ever truly reach a war state if it didn’t have access to the resources of the Water World. But we can try.

Water World and Fire World are not isolated experiments

EARTH

In terms of the narrative, there is very little that indicates that Earth World is bad other than the general lament that there is no magic. If we ignore the lore and the sages, and just judge it based purely on the narrative, the Earth World is shown to have very few real issues that tie directly to its Earth Philosophy. Sure, in comparison to other worlds it would be nice if people had magic, but this lack of magic is not a direct conflict.

Still, the game sort of pretends it’s bad that Earth World has no magic—all of that ancient suffering and the Earth Philosopher’s sewer slide, but we already accounted for that. In the actual plot, the loss of Earth Magic is seen as important, but... not life-or-death important. If anything, the narrative’s focus on Alex’s rediscovery of magic highlights the coolness of being a Harry Potter figure in a world of muggles. 

2 / 3

WATER

The worst aspects of the Water World in the narrative really stem from the fact that it ends up hosting arms dealers. That does give a sour light to the philosophy of the world. It has abundant resources and chooses to profit by selling those resources to areas in conflict. Yikes! 

This is our Corruption element. Someone in Parliament is behind all of this dirty dealing, which means there is a bad apple at the top of the system. This is undermined, however, by the fact that they are selling arms to the Fire World. If the worlds had become legitimately split, and Water World didn’t have access to Fire World, it’s hard to say who they would be selling weapons to, if anyone at all. The biggest narrative issue with Water World is that it has access to Fire World, which means its biggest problems arise not from the Water Philosophy, but from its proximity to the Fire Philosophy. To say this makes the Water Philosophy bad is sort of like blaming the victim.

In Cordelia's first chapter, the big issue that comes internally is the problem of her father falling for a scam which tarnishes Cordelia's reputation and changes the course of her profession. This is a big deal, of course. But it's pretty mundane to the second issue that occurs, which is that Fire World infiltrators are using Water World technology to literally suck the magic lifeforce from humans to be used as resources, which causes Cordelia to unleash deadly Forbidden Magic. Water Philosophy puts Cordelia in a bad career situation, whereas Fire Philosophy almost tortures her to death.

Cordelia's big crisis in Chapter 1 is because of Fire World

When is comes to Lawlessness, the narrative highlights the desert town, but this isn't so much a demonstration of where Water Philosophy goes wrong as it is of where Water Philosophy goes right. If the issue here is that some places are lawless, Cordelia, wielding the Water Philosophy of study and regulation, swoops in and solves the entire region by becoming its sheriff. There is literally no downside to this, proving once again that the Water Philosophy is capable of solving its only issues.

The third biggest issue should be the rampant powerful magic, which is a part of the helplessness the Water World could be seen as suffering from. The Diacon prevents the use of extremely hazardous spells, as demonstrated by the wild curse Cordelia is forced to release in her first chapter (and later on when her home is bombed and she goes hog wild). Having all this strong magic around is like living in an apartment with a “domesticated” alligator. However, it should also be noted that during Cordelia and Jerome’s nightmares, the biggest difficulty they had to overcome was paperwork, not curses. At every turn, the narrative reinforces that the biggest problems of Water World are not the powerful spells or rare chances that a squirrel might sneak into the power facility (things that could be problems in most worlds), but are either 1) the current assault by Fire World or 2) the bureaucratic burden slowing things down a bit. Juno herself laments that Jerome’s nightmare isn’t that juicy—and how could it be in a world where he’s a medic whose biggest problems are handling the affairs of his late father’s estate? Compared to the twists and dramas happening in the other worlds, the narrative of Water World has a tough time establishing anything worth truly worrying about.

3 / 3

FIRE

Well, this one almost goes without saying. The narrative depicts the philosophy of the Fire World as being the one true evil philosophy. It is so evil, it becomes a WWII allegory without a single attempt to hide it. It is so evil, it is actively going to destroy all the other worlds, no matter how well they were functioning in their own philosophies. It would be easy to announce that the narrative sinks this to 0/3, but I need to do one last piece of rigor. 

Narratively, the biggest issue is the Yina. They are actively depicted as a sympathetic, victimized people. They are so Hebrew-coded that they make robotic dreidel golems to hold their memories. But... they are also governed by the Fire Philosophy. In order to gain access to magic, you need a bar mitzvah at the shrine. This means that in the Fire World, the philosophy, which acts equally upon the Ausleners and the Yina, has created an oppressor and an oppressed. The implication is that, should the Ausleners be more like the Yina, the Fire World would be fine, actually. Perhaps it’s not the Fire Philosophy’s fault at all, but rather the problem of handing the power to Brigadier Generals instead of your local Rabbi. Could secularism be at fault in the end!?

It’s only in following the narratives of the Yina people that the philosophy of the Fire World is allowed to be seen as anything but evil, but it’s hard to know for sure, because just like before, it seems the driving force for this war is the fact that the Ausleners have access to the weapons dealers of the Water World. Could we also assume that, should the Yina have met with the Water World’s resources first, the tables would have turned, and dreidel golems would be wrecking bier-und-brezel stands like yarmulke-ed kaiju? 

Lucky for us, the narrative doesn’t seem to consider this openly, and so we don’t have to either. For the sake of the narrative’s alignment to real history, the Yina people are treated as if they are from their own world with their own philosophy, separate from the Fire Philosophy that is destroying them. I’d like to toss the Fire World an extra bonus point because I can interpret their philosophy as “possibly working under spiritualism, not secularism,” but that doesn’t feel like an intended implication of these narrative beats. It’s just me theory-crafting my own impression, filling a little gap I think was created by accident by adhering so closely to a real-world parallel. Because of that, it seems that the narrative is explicitly saying the Fire Philosophy itself is all bad.

0 / 3

WIND

When looking at the World section, Wind World seemed to be running okay-ish, especially with the Phylaka blunting the sharper points of wild magic. But within the narrative, we are given some issues with the Phylaka as well.

The Phylaka have a feather-ruffling history of abduction and indoctrination. Unlike Water World’s regulations, the regulatory system of the Phylaka does not feel as democratic. It almost seems like organized vigilantism. When you pair Agata’s story alongside the story of Ben and the other orphans, the narrative seems to be saying “if this is what must be done to live in the Wind World, maybe the Wind Philosophy is not so good.” 

But, of course, we’re faced with the hiccup of the false split. It seems that Phylaka have no magic themselves, which is only assure-able by being connected to the Earth World. This implies that without the Earth World, there would be no Phylaka. The Earth World is also important in Juno’s story, which is 95% about how her herd is being chased by invisible Hawk Tuahs. We have to recognize how valuable that migratory path into the Earth World is.

Agata, as a narrative component of Wind World, only exists because of Earth World

Without the Earth World, Agata would be free, Juno would be dead, and Ben would be an unintentional hurricane. So... what? We already knew the Wind World is chaotic. That was the point. The narrative adds a somber tone to all of these plots, but this seems to be chaos functioning as intended. There were no promises that, by letting magic run free, everyone would be happy.

Plus, it’s stated by the Wind Philosopher that he was not choosing any anything. That implies this is at least somewhat how the world worked pre-split, so anything that happens in the plots surrounding the Wind World are not really qualitative aspects of the Wind Philosophy so much as simply facts of it.

Wind Philosophy sits this one out

Still, narratively, how bad is Wind World? The biggest internal threat was a rogue magician who was trying to reconnect the worlds, and the second biggest internal threat was Ben trying to keep a job. Our narrative missions in Wind World are small beans compared to the happenings of Fire World and Water World.

2 / 3

The Math(s)

Let’s sum up the numbers of this definitive, highly scientific system.

EARTH

0 + 2 + 2 = 4

The Earth Philosopher thinks he messed up badly, and for a time he did. But if he had stuck around long enough, he’d have discovered that it all worked out okay-ish in the end.

WATER

2 + 3 + 3 = 8

The Water Philosophy of education and regulation seems to be applicable to any situation regardless of resource scarcity, and so the only problem with this place is that maybe it’ll fail someday.

FIRE

3 + 0 + 0 = 3

Being the prime choice among individualists and powermongers, it’s no surprise that the Fire Philosophy works brilliantly for the one person at the top of the pyramid and literally no one else.

WIND

1 + 1 + 2 = 4

Unsurprisingly neither great nor awful, just unpredictable. The Wind Philosophy is in a tough position to judge what is a good or bad outcome in a system that it thinks should be absolved of scrutiny.

Personal Thoughts

To me, it adds up that Water is not only the best philosophy, but also the best place to live in the world of Quartet.

It doesn’t suffer from a monkey-paw bargain. Every other world is tainted from the “be careful what you wish for” reality of their philosophy, but not Water World.

Wind World wants magic to be true to its own nature—but be careful what you wish for, because that chaos is so unknowable that at any moment whole societies could implode! 

Fire World wants power to be handled and distributed to only people deemed capable of using it correctly—but be careful what you wish for, because it only takes one Evil Pope to rise to the top of the hierarchy and redefine what “correctly” means! 

Earth World wants to minimize suffering by removing power and energy politics completely—but be careful what you wish for, because going cold turkey on vital resources is how you go about killing everyone!

And what about Water World? Water World wants to study and regulate these powerful resources, but be careful what you wish for, you might actually have to, um, study and regulate them? And that might be hard. It might be slow. It might require paperwork. Yeah, be careful what you wish for, because it might be difficult to do that thing you want to do...?

Its Wild West biome, which is in juxtaposition to what I lovingly refer to as its Magical France setting, is where study and regulation haven’t succeeded yet. But when you compare it to all the other worlds in Quartet, there is nothing unique about having outlaws. Wind World has its mafia. Earth World has its gangs. There are barbarians all over the place. And, arguably, Fire World’s “lawlessness” has gained full control as an oppressive military entity that runs off of weapons trade from Magical France.

Water World lacks any unique downside that could only come about from strict adherence to the Water Philosophy, which indicates that the game is wearing much softer gloves when handling it. Water World's abundant resources appear magically, upon request, and so everyone can enjoy their Swiss Chocolate without ever wondering how come there are no cacao plants in the Alps.

The strength of Water World’s potential monkey paw is shown early in the game with the creature (a liganti) that was running into the power plant. It’s a good start, but this doesn’t really work in the long run simply because every world, even Earth World, has magical creatures that could ruin things if they went to the wrong place and started poking around. In fact, we see another liganti messing around in the Archive ruins in Zikaron's Chapter 11 Quest, which isn't even in Cordelia's world—within the same world where the "Ghost Sector" facility is, a place that we infiltrated in the plot! This means that the threat of a liganti breaching the Diacon in Water World and the threat of a liganti breaching the Ghost Sector generators in Fire World are both potentialities, and thus not something uniquely inherent to either.

A liganti, this time in the Fire World, mucking about the magic ruins

If I were to take a wrench to Water World, I would focus on the Forbidden Spells. In Water Philosophy, magic is abundant, so people are all basically born with semi-automatic weapons strapped to their chests. All of this is fine and dandy with education and regulation, but how do you regulate a six-year-old who wanders into the forest with a lighter permanently grafted to their hand?

The dilemma Water World should have leaned into is not the intentional resistance to the law, like in the Wild West biome with the arms dealers or the Parliament member taking advantage of his power position, but rather the unintentional explosiveness of humans who are either too young or too low class to be properly educated and supervised. There should be 700 dead villages which all kaboomed just because some teenagers were having fun with powers they don’t fully understand. Nuclear meltdowns should be the norm.

Focusing on the problems associated with magic abundance would solidify the internal threat of Water World. As it stands, the major threat to Water World is, like Uralt says at the end of the game, simply that it isn’t prepared for when a tyrant shows up. It has a helplessness problem. But this counterpoint to the Water Philosophy is kind of weak, isn’t it? It’s like saying, hey, your plan to build that bridge sounds smart, but it’s not nearly as smart as my plan, which is to punch you in the face. The evil Parliament member in Water World is an internal threat, a real corruption, but it is something that is handled by the internal system of that world (Jerome was sent to handle it!), so it's just a blip, one that nearly self-regulates. Uralt, on the other hand, is an external threat, one that applies to all worlds, and thus shouldn’t count as a monkey-paw backfire for the Water Philosophy.

If Water World had no neighbors, I guess everything would be fine

The depiction of chaos in the Wind World is also something that deserves another look.

My original impression was that the chaos was neutral. The invisible predatory birds are depicted as bad, but in my mind I thought, "this chaotic outcome is only bad if you aren't the predatory bird!" Likewise, Ben gaining magic powers is good for my team, so it must be good, despite the chaos he creates, right? But no. In a brief Bluesky post by Tyler Mire, the composer, he off-the-cuff-ed-ly says, "Chaotic neutral is probably right. But the range can go from harmless to catastrophic." And that's interesting. I don't consider him to be the Word of God here, but I think he's correct in that the game itself treats "harmless to catastrophic" to be a neutral range. Ben and Agata always bear Ben's powers as a burden. The hawks are never displayed as anything but an ontological evil, never sympathized with despite being in a world of communicative animalia. The magic storms only decimate the world, never revive it.

To better illustrate my point, we only have to imagine what a chaotic good world would look like. Instead of "harmless to catastrophic," what if it was "harmless to helpful?" You wake up, are struck by a lightning bolt, and suddenly you're completely refreshed! Also, you're a year younger, and your hip pain is gone!

But a true neutral chaos doesn't need to be all positive. It would range from "helpful to catastrophic" instead. It could have magic storms that aren't purely deadly; think Cloudy with a Chance of Falafels.

This internal attitude towards Wind World gives the philosophy of the game itself an interesting lean. It goes a bit soft on Water World, the world of law, but then leads players to see chaos as only shades of problematic.

Conclusion

I went through and tried my darned best to look at how Quartet frames and executes the four philosophies of its sages. The game itself is explicitly thoughtful and thematic, which I adore. I have high praise for such a delicate, nuanced premise, and it was a fun exercise for me to look at how it was all handled.

The semi-promise of a setup like Quartet is to view ideas in isolation. Plenty of games do this with other, less intertwined themes, usually wondering "what if World was Jungle" or "what if World was Ice Cream." Quartet instead takes a single issue and splits the worlds into isolation based on views around that issue... except not completely.

It's hard to ignore that, for whatever reason, the elementals atop Mt. Nibaros didn't fully comply. Each world is tethered to another in some significant way which denies independent inspection. If this were a science experiment, we'd toss it out because all of our samples would be contaminated.

But that just adds to the game's other layer of philosophical implication, which is that the four philosophers were wrong in thinking that any one world could possibly exist in isolation, even with the power of world-shifting magical entities. This is bolstered by the ending, where the final decision is probably akin to "let's build highways between the four worlds"—a solution I have other thoughts on, but won't expand on since it's a little out of the scope of this write-up.

The final rankings are as follows: Water beats Wind and Earth, which are about even, and Fire comes in last.

I don’t think this is that surprising, now that I look at it. Fire is painted plainly as evil, and Water is depicted as simultaneously rich, educated, and willing to help people on a large scale. I might have preferred a much more balanced depiction of the four philosophies, but also I think the story works perfectly as-is, blending fantasy elements with historical and real-world parallels in a way that allows room for interpretation while also having a firm ethical stance.

Thanks to Patrick, Tyler, and the rest of the Quartet team at Something Classic!

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Sources:

• Thumbnail image: Lannie "Merlandese" Neely III

• Screenshots taken from Quartet