If you are wondering exactly what are the Four Tempers Severance explores in its labyrinthine corporate mythology, the answer lies in the twisted philosophical foundation of Lumon Industries. The four tempers are Woe, Frolic, Dread, and Malice. According to the company’s deified founder, Kier Eagan, every human soul is composed of a precise ratio of these four emotional states. To master them is to achieve absolute control over the self—or, in Lumon’s case, absolute control over its employees.
But as the explosive Season 2 finale revealed, Lumon isn't just preaching this philosophy in employee handbooks. They are actively weaponizing it. Through the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) department and the horrifying experiments conducted in the Testing Floor basement, the company is systematically dissecting human consciousness.
Here is the complete, ownership-grade breakdown of the Eagan doctrine, the dark truth behind the "Cold Harbor" file, and how the tempers connect to Gemma’s tragic fate at Lumon.
The Philosophy of Kier Eagan: What Are the Four Tempers Severance?
To understand Lumon Industries, you have to understand the mind of its 19th-century founder, Kier Eagan. Much like the ancient Greek medical theory of the four humors (blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm), Kier believed that human nature could be quantified, categorized, and ultimately, tamed.
In his megalomaniacal writings, Kier famously declared: "In my life, I have identified four components, which I call tempers, from which are derived every human soul. Woe. Frolic. Dread. Malice. Each man's character is defined by the precise ratio that resides in him. I walked into the cave of my own mind, and there I tamed them."
Lumon operates on the belief that an untamed soul is an unproductive, chaotic soul. By forcing employees to undergo the severance procedure, the company attempts to bypass the messy, trauma-laden "Outie" and create a sterile, compliant "Innie." The tempers are the building blocks of this control.
1. Woe
Woe represents profound sadness, grief, and despair. It is the heavy, sinking feeling of loss. For Mark Scout (Adam Scott), Woe is the defining temper of his Outie's existence following the supposed death of his wife, Gemma. Lumon views Woe as a paralyzing force that must be compartmentalized for a worker to function efficiently.
2. Frolic
Frolic is unrestrained joy, frivolity, and playfulness. While it sounds positive, Lumon views Frolic with deep suspicion. To the Eagan dynasty, unchecked Frolic leads to rebellion, distraction, and a lack of corporate discipline. The innies are occasionally rewarded with tightly controlled bursts of Frolic—such as a five-minute Music Dance Experience or a Melon Bar—but it is always strictly rationed.
3. Dread
Dread is anxiety, fear, and the anticipation of pain. It is the temper that Lumon uses most actively to control its severed floor. The Break Room, with its psychological torture and forced apologies, is a machine designed to instill Dread. It keeps the innies docile, terrified of the consequences of insubordination.
4. Malice
Malice is anger, spite, and the desire to cause harm. It is the destructive impulse that threatens the harmony of the workspace. When Helly R. (Britt Lower) first awakens on the severed floor, her Malice is off the charts. She throws a speaker at Mark, attempts to escape, and violently rejects her new reality. Lumon’s ultimate goal is to bleed the Malice out of its subjects entirely.
Macrodata Refinement: What Are the Four Tempers Severance Doing to the Brain?
For most of Season 1, the work of the Macrodata Refinement (MDR) team was a bizarre mystery. Mark, Helly, Dylan, and Irving sit at retro computer terminals, staring at floating grids of numbers. Their job is to look for numbers that "elicit a feeling" and drag them into one of five digital bins at the bottom of the screen.
These bins are labeled with two-letter codes: WO, FC, DR, and MA.
When a refiner hovers over a cluster of numbers, they physically experience the temper associated with it. The numbers might make them feel a sudden wave of terror (Dread) or a prickle of anger (Malice). By sorting these numbers, the MDR team is quite literally refining human emotion.
But whose emotions are they sorting?
Season 2 provided the horrifying answer. The files the MDR team works on—named after locations like Allentown, Tumwater, Siena, and Cold Harbor—are not abstract data sets. They are human beings. The numbers represent the raw emotional states of test subjects trapped on Lumon's underground Testing Floor.
When Mark drags a cluster of numbers into a bin, he is actively filtering and removing that specific temper from a real person's brain. The MDR team is the digital scalpel Lumon uses to surgically alter human consciousness, stripping away the "wild essence" of a person until they are nothing but a docile, compliant shell.
The Gemma Testing Room: What Are the Four Tempers Severance Weaponizing?
The most devastating revelation of the series revolves around Mark's supposedly dead wife, Gemma (Dichen Lachman), who has been kept alive on the Testing Floor and utilized as the wellness counselor, Ms. Casey.
In Season 2, we learn that Gemma is the ultimate test subject for Lumon's temper-taming agenda. Under the sinister supervision of Cecily (Sandra Bernhard) and Dr. Mauer (Robby Benson), Gemma is subjected to a relentless series of psychological and physical trials.
Every time the MDR team completes a file, a new "Innie" consciousness is created for Gemma. Lumon is systematically splitting her mind into dozens of different personas, each engineered to possess a different ratio of the four tempers. They are trying to find the perfect, unbreakable configuration—a consciousness entirely devoid of love, attachment, or Malice.
The WoeMeter Prop in Episode 7
In Season 2, Episode 7 ("Chikhai Bardo"), we see exactly how Lumon measures this psychological torture. The doctors use a device referred to behind the scenes as the "WoeMeter" to gauge Gemma's emotional responses.
In a brilliant piece of production design, the WoeMeter prop was physically constructed using harvested knobs and switches from a vintage Nagra tape recorder, powered by an internal ESP-32 microcontroller, and housed in milled industrial aluminum. As Gemma is subjected to distressing scenarios, the servo-operated meters and seven-segment LED displays spike, allowing Lumon to perfectly map her Woe.
They are not just observing her pain; they are quantifying it, digitizing it, and sending it upstairs for Mark to refine away.
The "Cold Harbor" File and Season 2’s Brutal Finale
All of this culminates in the breathtaking Season 2 finale, titled "Cold Harbor." For the entire season, Mark has been working on a highly classified, incredibly difficult file named Cold Harbor. Lumon executive Mr. Drummond goes so far as to claim that the completion of this file will be "remembered as one of the greatest moments in the history of this planet."
The finale reveals why.
Cold Harbor is not just a file; it is the name of the final room on the Testing Floor. It represents the 25th—and final—consciousness division for Gemma.
When Mark unknowingly completes the Cold Harbor file on his terminal, he triggers the final phase of Gemma's erasure. Inside the Cold Harbor room, Lumon conducts the ultimate test to see if they have successfully eradicated her capacity for love: they force her to physically dismantle the exact baby crib she and Mark had purchased before their tragic miscarriage.
The Exalted Victory of Cold Harbor
Lumon’s obsession with this milestone is immortalized in a terrifying new piece of corporate art introduced in the finale: "The Exalted Victory of Cold Harbor."
Unlike the historical paintings of Kier, this painting depicts Mark Scout himself. He is shown sitting at his MDR terminal, submerged in the frigid waters of "Woe's Hollow"—a mythic location in Eagan lore. Mark is rendered in a state of religious revelation, his hand raised to deliver the final keystroke, surrounded by a shadowy crowd of the people who manipulated him into doing it.
The painting proves that Lumon views Mark not just as an employee, but as a prophesied instrument of their "grand agendum." By tricking a husband into refining away his own wife's soul, Lumon achieves a sick, exalted victory over human attachment.
Emile the Goat and Mammalians Nurturable
The finale also finally explains the bizarre "Mammalians Nurturable" department—the room full of baby goats that Mark and Helena stumbled upon.
In the twisted, cult-like religion of Lumon, the goats are not just livestock; they are spiritual conduits. As the Lumon worker Lorne prepares a goat for ritual sacrifice, he chillingly asks: "Has it verve? Yes. Has it wiles, the most of its flock."
Lumon views the "verve and wiles" of a goat in the same way they view the Four Tempers of a human: as a wild essence that must be subdued. When an Innie test subject completes their purpose, they are discarded, and a goat is sacrificed to "guide" their tamed spirit to Kier. In the finale, a goat named Emile is designated as Gemma's spirit guide, signaling that Lumon intends to dispose of her entirely once the Cold Harbor test is complete.
The Greek Tragedy of Corporate Control
If Season 1 of Severance asked us to question the ethics of work-life balance, Season 2 demands we confront the corporate commodification of the human soul.
Lumon doesn't just want your time from 9 to 5. They want your Woe, your Frolic, your Dread, and your Malice. They want to break you down into raw data, filter out the parts of you that are inconvenient to the bottom line, and rebuild you as an appliance. The tragedy of Mark and Gemma is that they sought out severance to escape the unbearable Woe of their grief, only to hand the remote control of their minds over to a company that views their love as a metric to be erased.
As we look toward Season 3, the question is no longer whether Mark can finish his work. The question is whether he can reclaim the tempers he was forced to refine away, and in doing so, piece his wife's shattered soul back together.
FAQ: What Are the Four Tempers Severance?
What are the four tempers in Severance? In the mythology of the show, the four tempers are Woe (sadness), Frolic (joy), Dread (fear), and Malice (anger). Founder Kier Eagan believed every human soul is made of a specific ratio of these four emotions, and mastering them is the key to enlightenment and obedience.
How do the tempers relate to Macrodata Refinement? The MDR team (Mark, Helly, Dylan, Irving) sorts clusters of numbers into bins labeled WO, FC, DR, and MA. Season 2 reveals that these numbers represent the actual emotional states of human test subjects on the severed floor. By sorting them, the refiners are literally removing those emotions from the subjects' minds.
Why is the Cold Harbor file so important in Season 2? Cold Harbor is the final file Mark works on, and it corresponds to the final testing room for his wife, Gemma (Ms. Casey). Completing the file creates Gemma's 25th consciousness—a persona Lumon hopes is completely stripped of love and attachment, proving their temper-taming technology works perfectly.
What is the WoeMeter? The WoeMeter is a clinical device used by Lumon doctors in Season 2, Episode 7 to measure Gemma's levels of Woe during psychological testing. The physical prop was built using parts from a vintage Nagra tape recorder.
Sources
- Severance Season 1 & 2, created by Dan Erickson (Apple TV+)
- "Cold Harbor" (Season 2, Episode 10)
- "Chikhai Bardo" (Season 2, Episode 7)
- Hackaday: "The Mysterious And Important Work Of Prop Design On Severance"
- Inside the Episode 210: "Cold Harbor" | Apple TV