Three Houses, Four Seasons. Could there be a fourth lord/faction?

[lazu]

Anyway - why the conspicuous difference in numbers between the English and Japanese titles? Any theories?

A possible candidate for a fourth faction is the church and that mysterious woman who seems to lead it, but I don't feel like somebody who seems like an enemy would be included in with the protagonists. So could there be another, surprise protagonist who we haven't seen yet.

Or maybe it's just Byleth who is the fourth one.

I could also be misunderstanding what the Japanese title means. 

[carefreejules]

Perhaps it can even refer to the climate in each location and that would still fall in line with the houses with one of the Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon in the title being the odd one out. 

I say that because iirc, wasn't it mentioned how the Holy Kingdom of Farghus is supposed to be cold? That Kingdom could be the Snow in the title. 

I also thought about how it could be related to the calendar system but that seems a kind of insignificant. 

Edited April 27, 2019 by carefreejules

[SpiceMan]

I believe the 4 different seasons represent the three lords and Byleth. 

Flower represents Edelgard because her crest looks like a flower bud

Snow represents Dimitri because Faerghus is a cold place and his crest also looks like something close to a icicle. 

Moon represents Claude because his crest is a moon (duh)

And finally wind represents Byleth. Not much info to go on for this but they have green hair, which is the traditional colour for wind, and the early battle map music translates to something like "Fodlan's wind" which could refer to Byleth starting out on their journey. So no I don't see another main character coming out of the woodworks soon because Byleth is the 4th main character. As for a 4th country that sounds somewhat plausible, A theory I heard was that the Adrestian empire went to war with a 4th nation, crushed it, and stole their land and history leaving the remnants of the past country to hold a grudge.  

 

[May]

I don't quite get the difference between Three Houses and Four Seasons either. But I'm kind of convinced the seasons has to do something with the colour schemes, and the colour schemes has to do something with the three nations and the monastery. 

[zuibangde]

The title in Japanese carries multiple meanings that simply can't be translated into English succinctly. Even though the 'four seasons' thing is part of the phrase, the four words combined creates new meanings. So someone that sees the title in Japanese/Chinese (it's exactly the same), won't just think of the four seasons but the other meanings the phrase itself as a whole represents.

My point is that there might not even be a clear or that significant of a link between 'Three Houses' and 'Four Seasons'. 

Edited April 27, 2019 by zuibangde

[Guest Edrey]

I always found it odd that the Adrestian Empire was twice as large than the other two factions ; and the fact that is mentioned that is the oldest one too might be foreshadowing...

In other words, I think that in the past there used to be 4 houses and the empire ate the missing one. 

[Guest Dmys]

I'm definitely a little hesitant about reading too much into the Three Houses title when it's not the one the developers of the game chose. It's definitely an awkward spot to be in, as the English title explicitly focuses on the school setting whereas the Japanese title isn't quite so specific. As for the Japanese title itself, if it has anything to do with actual seasons I think it might be just referring to the passage of time. I could see the game taking place over the course of a year with the calendar gating some daily activities but otherwise mostly being there to show time is passing (as opposed to being the central loop of the gameplay as in Persona).

I believe the title is going to lean much more heavily on the romantic symbolism, both the natural and the hollow, meaningless interpretations. The Cipher quotes that were just translated are intriguing in that they're all about deception, it's pretty uncommon characterization for FE lords. If having Byleth as a mute cipher character makes IS feel more comfortable writing less traditional lords, I'm all for it, but that's probably starting to go overboard with the speculation.

[Etrurian emperor]

The fourth house was probably wiped out in the past with its survivors ending up as the typical crazy villain cult. 

[Dayni]

I thought there was an explanation already that Byleth was essentially the fourth "season" in that (Okay, that's me being a bit out there, but I remember that being the way most people were about it a while back)?

I'll have to find that topic, give me a minute.

Edit: Here's a thread discussing it.

Edited April 27, 2019 by Dayni

[eclipse]

Since we know that Byleth starts out as a mercenary, perhaps the "wind" portion of the Japanese title means that he/she has no starting allegiance.  Which makes Three Houses an even more intriguing translation.