The Wickham Thread: False Sparks and Why Azriel's Windshield Needs Cleaning
Now that the end of my school year is winding down, I wanted to write about something that’s been clanging around in my brain the last few weeks:
WANT vs. NEED (one of the first rules of story)
Here is something I tell my students early in every school year, because it’s the first structural story concept that truly clicked for me a long time ago as both a reader and a writer:
The most compelling stories are never really about what a character WANTS. They are about the gap between what a character WANTS and what they actually NEED … and the long, usually painful, frequently humbling journey of closing that gap.
A character’s WANT is immediate, and it’s shaped by their wounds, blind spots, ego, and fears. That WANT feels true to them because it’s a direct expression of who they currently are.
But a character’s NEED is something much deeper. At the end of the day (or the story), it’s what they must become in order to be fully themselves.
Unfortunately for the characters, more often than not, the WANT is standing directly in the way of the NEED.
I honestly love this so much, and I love thinking about this with nearly every book I read. This distinction is the engine of almost every great story ever told. And, I would argue, this is also the engine running quietly beneath everything SJM has been building in Azriel’s arc across ACOFAS, ACOSF, HOSAB, and HOFAS.
But first, before we get there … let’s talk about George Wickham. 🙂
I just recently ended my Pride and Prejudice unit with my senior students, and we spent a ton of time talking about a topic that applies directly to Azriel (and Elain and Gwyn), as well as to the concept of WANT vs. NEED:
ROMANTIC MISDIRECTION … otherwise known as: “The False Spark”
The concept of a misleading romantic connection can often set emotional stakes, deepen characterization, and further the plot. In P&P, before we get to the Pemberley visit with Aunt and Uncle Gardiner and the final romantic resolutions between Elizabeth and Darcy, we confront an illusion:
Our sharp-witted heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, meets George Wickham. He’s charming, attentive … oh, and by the way, perfectly tailored to her biases. He tells her exactly the story she most wants to hear.
But, sadly, it isn’t love. I think projection is probably the better description for it. It’s Elizabeth’s wounded pride softened by an added dash of sideburns and good humor.
Ultimately, Wickham is this quintessential false spark, a relationship built on misunderstanding, ego, and fantasy. (*ahem, ahem*) 🙂
Wickham offers Elizabeth an emotional support that feels right in the moment (to her), but it collapses under truth, self-examination, and personal growth. (*AHEM!!*) 😂
So, essentially, what I’m trying to say is this:
Romantic misdirection exists to ultimately reveal a character’s internal blind spots. This, in turn, spurs that character into motion so they are then able to go on a journey of self-reflection and growth.
For instance: Wickham is a classic red herring. He flatters Elizabeth’s prejudices, appealing to her wit and independence. But, as we discover, he’s hollow. His charm exposes what Elizabeth thinks she wants in a man.
This is Elizabeth’s WANT … I’d argue she only really wants what he represents, which is the satisfaction of being seen by someone charming enough to be worth seeing.
But, what she NEEDS is someone far more demanding, who will not let her remain comfortable and who will require her to grow. But we’ll come back to him. 🙂
While dissecting this in my classes, my students started calling this the “Wickham Thread,” because they began pulling the thread of this idea from P&P and making connections to other stories (I love when that happens!).
One example that we spent some time talking about was from The Lord of the Rings (spoilers ahead). Éowyn’s infatuation with Aragorn is arguably steeped in a similar projection: she loves what he represents, like freedom and an escape from fear and her cage of Rohan. It becomes clear that she does not love the man himself. She has great admiration for him and his heroic path (there’s arguably a strong sense of hero-worshipping happening here). But Aragorn is ultimately a symbol to her, and you cannot build a genuine relationship with a symbol. (*continued throat clearing, lol*😅)
When Éowyn finally meets Faramir, the tone shifts entirely, and her earlier connection with Aragorn is revealed as a misdirection. It stands clearly as a reflection of her yearning for valor and freedom rather than genuine recognition between two people. It was an infatuation. Faramir does not represent anything to Éowyn; he simply just sees her. He meets her at her lowest point and finds something to connect to as he interacts with her as an equal. (*I MEAN COME ON, PEOPLE*💀)
Aragorn was what she WANTED. Faramir is what she NEEDED.
And this pattern is everywhere over recent years too. For those of us old enough to remember the Twilight series as the movies were released, the marketing machine built an entire cultural phenomenon around TEAM EDWARD vs. TEAM JACOB, leaning hard into the “who will Bella choose?” tension. But, let’s be real … Bella was never truly going to choose Jacob; and the text beneath it always supported that fact. Jacob is the false spark and the misdirection: he offers warmth, familiarity, and a version of normal that Bella finds deeply appealing at one point. Edward, for better or worse, is the need.
And, as my students pointed out with great enthusiasm, the same pattern plays out in The Summer I Turned Pretty (spoilers ahead). The show amplified the Jeremiah question, because “who will Belly choose?” is commercially irresistible. But Conrad, again, was always the answer to something that was never actually in question and when faced with the idea of what Belly WANTS vs. what Belly NEEDS.
What all of these examples underscore (Wickham, Aragorn, Jacob, Jeremiah) is this fact:
The false spark is always perfectly shaped to who the character CURRENTLY is; and the true pairing always requires the character to GROW beyond that current self.
As I mentioned to my students as we looked at P&P:
The False Spark = a mirror
The True Pairing = a door
WHY DOES THIS TROPE EXIST?
I have to say that I really, to the deepest part of my soul, absolutely hate when a large story gets overshadowed by a “WHO WILL THEY CHOOSE????” question if a romance is involved. I can’t stand it. And I hate that ACOTAR as a fandom has allowed this discourse to perpetuate, especially when the series itself has SO. MUCH. PLOT. to address.
What has happened, I think, is that many readers across the board (not just with ACOTAR) in recent years have misunderstood what these romantic misdirections and false sparks are meant to do. For example, we are meant as readers to look at Azriel at his low point in his bonus chapter and understand that during his interactions with Elain, he is being faced with a mirror and not a door. We are meant to scream at the character: this is the wrong direction!!! But, unfortunately, it gets misconstrued as something romantic.
SJM is not the first author to utilize this tactic, which is supposed to serve a very specific purpose. So why do so many stories, from Austen to Tolkien to Jenny Han, offer a false spark before the real one?
Because the author is trying to show readers that the character has NO IDEA what they NEED. They only know what they WANT.
This then sets that character arc off on a trajectory of rapid growth.
That WANT is shaped by the character’s wounds, blind spots, and the version of themselves they’ve constructed to survive (*ding! ding! ding!*) It exists to show the reader … and then eventually the character … exactly where the blind spots are.
Wickham doesn’t just reveal that Elizabeth has poor judgment in one instance. Instead, he reveals the shape of her pride (how she loves to be right, how flattery dressed as candor gets by her defenses, etc.). Without Wickham, Elizabeth never has to confront that about herself.
Similarly, without Elain, Azriel never has to confront his blind spots. His interactions with her reveal them.
Without that false spark, the character never has to “clean the windshield.”
We call this the “dirty windshield problem” in my classroom. A character thinks they can see where they are going clearly enough. They think they know what they want and why. But their view is obstructed in some way.
For example, Elizabeth Bennet thought she could see “well enough” where she was going; but she didn’t realize how obstructed her view really was until she started to clean the windshield properly by undergoing this process of self-reflection and growth … and in that process, she ultimately comes to terms with what led to her prior choices and opinions. She sees her destination and Darcy clearly then. Wickham, in other words, is the false signal before the real transmission comes through.
That obstruction can take the shape of ego, fear, self-doubt, trauma, wounds not yet examined, etc. The thing is, the character does not fully realize it until something forces them to look directly at the glass as they are trying to move forward.
THE FALSE SPARK IS WHAT OFTEN FORCES THEM TO LOOK.
Then, the character is left standing in front of a windshield they can no longer pretend is as clean as they once thought it to be.
BUT DOESN’T THIS MEAN GWYN COULD BE AZRIEL’S FALSE SPARK??
No. In my opinion, it doesn’t. Because romantic misdirection has specific, identifiable characteristics (which we've just established).
Azriel’s pull toward Elain is explicitly built on the logic of symmetry: his two brothers are mated to two of the three sisters; therefore, “the third” should be his. He is not drawn to Elain as a specific person whose particular qualities he recognizes and responds to. His POV makes this very clear—he has nothing beyond the superficial to say about her, admits there has only ever been glances and finger brushing, states he has never thought about a future with her, and realizes he was right to stay away from her. He is drawn to the concept of her as the answer to a math equation. That is textbook false spark construction: attraction to an idea, rather than a person.
Also, every moment of Azriel’s interiority in relation to Elain is coded in wrongness ... he even uses the word himself. Again, we’re dealing with a mirror and not an open door toward growth. This interaction and false spark with Elain produces shame, self-loathing, and emptiness. He fixates on his hands and ends the encounter in a cold rage. Compare this to his interiority in the second half of the chapter, which produces ease, warmth, laughter, his shadows settling, and a buried image of Gwyn that glows. He is focused on a person here; not some idea.
AZRIEL AND THE FALSE SPARK
Azriel is our Elizabeth and Éowyn. His windshield is in desperate need of cleaning much like those characters, and he has been operating under the sincere belief that he can see “well enough” for now.
Much like Wickham, I contend that Elain is a red herring when it comes to Azriel’s romantic arc, and I’ve thought this since ACOFAS was first published in 2018. It stood out to me right away because the narrative has been intentional about communicating this framework and how the trope is used.
Why have I believed this for 8 years? Because Elain is perfectly calibrated to Azriel’s current self, specifically to his wounds (Azriel has that glass shard stuck inside in the shape of abandonment issues, physical trauma, and a need to protect stemming from his mother). From Azriel's standpoint, Elain is gentle, seemingly in need of protection, and positioned by narrative circumstance as the symmetrical answer to his longing. She appeals to the part of him that has spent centuries wondering if the Mother deems him worthy. My guy constructed this math equation with Elain rather than examine why belonging has always felt out of reach for him.
Elain flatters his WANT without challenging his NEED. She is the reflection … not the door.
And the bonus chapter makes this devastatingly clear by showing the reader exactly what each relationship produces in Azriel. The Elain encounter ends in frost, in rage, in nothing at all. Rhys intervenes. Azriel himself calls it a mistake. The narrative corrects it before it can complete itself, like it often does in romance stories or arcs where this pattern appears.
So why Darcy and not Wickham? Why Faramir and not Aragorn? Why Gwyn and not Elain?
Because the true pairing does not confirm; instead it challenges. It must ask the character to grow beyond who they currently are … and it does that by seeing the character clearly (the person underneath).
Darcy sees Elizabeth. Not just the wit and deflections, but the person who has been hiding behind them. And Elizabeth, in his presence, is eventually required by the narrative to see herself: the one who was wrong, and proud, and capable of being better. Darcy doesn’t let her remain comfortable in her self-image.
And Gwyn sees Azriel, not the Shadowsinger (I’ve written about this theme specifically in great detail before). She is not a mirror reflecting his desires back at him. Rather, she is entirely herself in his presence … and in that selfhood, she gives Azriel permission to be entirely himself in return. How do we know this? Because his shadows dance and settle, his self-loathing disappears, warmth and humor emerge. Azriel’s metaphorical armor comes off, and he does not scramble to replace it. This will ultimately require Azriel to self-reflect and grow.
And I focus here on Azriel because he’s the POV we get; but it’s clear that Azriel sees Gwyn too. He sees past her trauma and instead sees who she is becoming. Again, the text tells us this—this is not just my wishful thinking.
These are intentional juxtapositions against the false spark.
Azriel’s windshield is not yet clean, and he has a long way to go with a lot of self-reflection and growth ahead of him … but SJM’s protagonists always do before they earn what they are building toward. The only difference now is that the narrative has finally established the destination and the door that Azriel must choose in order to grow.
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