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Heraldry and correct blazons in the Wiki


chris1994

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... I still have to wonder why anyone would actually believe the Velaryons use the silly little baby animal design rather than a heraldic seahorse for their heraldry.

It makes more sense, and looks less derpy.

 

... You know what? If I ever meet George in person. I'm going to ask him. I'll have two pictures and ask which one he considers canon. *Keeps an eye out for cons*

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Yeah, about that. From an e-mail from George to us from 1999:

Quote

You guessed right on the Velaryon seahorse; I wanted a real one

The vast majority were actually created in collaboration with George. We'd create a few, put them up, share the links, and he'd give us feedback (often immediately) and we'd correct what he wanted corrected.

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1 hour ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Crownlands and Reach have been added!

Great! So now the final few, the Stormlands and Dorne. Now even though the blazons in these regions were mostly already done quite well, there were some that I've had my problems with.

House Horpe is on of those Houses with a chevron, as discussed above. So according to the Citadel, they show a partition of the field "per chevron" and, like all other Houses naming a chevron in their sigil, what you see on the Citadel is actually an inverted chevron. But on the wiki, someone thought to correct this and portrayed an actual chevron... So I unlike the other Houses with a chevron, I blazoned House Horpe as having an actual chevron. I propose however, changing the design in the wiki to what we see on the Citadel and then blazoning it "inverted chevron" like I did with Houses Ashford and Ball after the aforementioned discussion about the issue.

In Dorne, I used "carnation" for the tincture of the infant of House Blackmont (seriously sinister sigil, btw) even though the description clearly states "pink" and I previously argued that pink should be blazoned "rose". Now I stand by this decision since "rose" is an actually pink colour whereas "carnation" would be the pinkish colour of (caucasian) flesh. But since it actually is a person that is described having the tincture of "pink", I think it's fair to assume that the pinkish flesh-colour was meant. I already did the same for House Sunderly but didn't go in detail explaining it.

Finally, House Jordayne I did my best with the blazon but I'm not really satisfied. Actually, even if Westerosi heraldry differs from RL heraldry, this has got to be one of the stupidest sigils ever, since it would be absolutely impossible to differenciate between dark and light green from afar on a battlefield, so it makes no sense whatsoever to use such ambiguous colours. That's the reason why such things don't exist in RL heraldry and that's the reason why there are no blazons for it. I had to make do and I think people reading this blazon would understand the meaning but I still welcome other possibilities if there are better options. 

Anyway, here we go:

The Stormlands

House Fell: Per fess, a white crescent moon on a black field above a green field, a sprucetree line between (Per fess sapiné sable and vert, in canton a moon increscent argent)

House Horpe: Per chevron engrailed grey and bone, three death's head moths counterchanged (Per chevron engrailed cendrée and argent, three death's head moths counterchanged)

House Kellington: A black book bound in bronze, locked, on a pale blue field (Bleu celeste, a book sable clasped and garnished bronze)

House Penrose: White crossed quills, on a russet field (Brunâtre, two quills saltirewise argent)

House Rogers: Nine silver unicorns around a silver maze, on a black field (Sable, a maze within an annulet of nine unicorns argent)

House Selmy: Three stalks of yellow wheat, on a brown field (Brunâtre, three stalks of wheat or)

House Tarth: Quartered, yellow sun on a rose-coloured field and white crescents on a blue field (Quarterly, first and fourth rose, a sun-in-splendour or, second and third azure, a moon increscent argent)

House Toyne: A black winged heart, on a gold field, within a black embattled border (Or, a heart with wings within a bordure embattled sable)

House Tudbury: A brown tortoise within a yellow lozenge, on a green field (Vert, on a lozenge or a tortoise tergiant brunâtre)

House Wylde: A blue-green maelstrom, on a gold field (Or, a gurges aquamarine)

Dorne

House Blackmont: A black vulture with a pink infant in its claws, on yellow (Or, a vulture volant sable clutching an infant carnation)

House Dalt: A purple field strewn with lemons (Purpure, semé of lemons or)

House Jordayne: A golden quill on checkered dark and light green (Chequy vert and vert of a paler variety, a quill or)

House Martell: A gold spear piercing a red sun on an orange field (Tenné, a sun-in-splendour gules transfixed by a spear or)

House Vaith: Three black leopards standing on a yellow pile on orange (Tenné, on a pile or three leopards statant sable)

House Wyl: A black adder biting a heel on yellow (Or, a human heel proper being bitten by an adder sable)

 

I've also decided to do the personal arms of some characters next like was already done for Big Walder and Little Walder mainly because it's more fun blazoning complex sigils which is often the case in quartered personal sigil ^^ So that will probably be my last section ;-)

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So now lastly, some personal arms. Since except for Big and Little Walder, nobody that I know of has up till now had a blazon of their personal arms in the information box, I guess the decision to put it there is still questionable, but I am strongly in favor of adding these.

So some of these were a bit hard to blazon and I would be happy for feedback. First of all, for those few that weren't listed on the Citadel, but still have personal sigils (like Harrold Hardyng or Rhaenyra Targaryen), I didn't create a separate English description, just copied the one used on the Wiki, but they could maybe be somewhat improved to fit a more clear description that aligns with other sigil descriptions. Second, since the Citadel indeed missed some personal sigils, it could very well be that I missed some too; characters which do have personal arms but that I forgot or didn't pick up on since they aren't listed on the Citadel.

So now the list, and then I will point out some examples where I am not completely satisfied or just have other remarks to make.

Aegor Rivers: A red stallion with black wings snorting flame on gold (Or, a stallion gules winged sable snorting flames proper)

Aemon Rivers: Quarterly: a silver-grey castle on blue beneath a red bend sinister, three green mistletoes on gold bordered in green (Quarterly, first and fourth azure, a bridge cendrée, at either end a tower of the same, all debruised by a bend sinister gules (for Walder Rivers), second and third or, three mistletoes within a bordure vert (for Charlton))

Aerion Targaryen: A dragon of three heads, orange, yellow and red, breathing golden flames on black (Sable, a dragon gules thrice-headed tenné, or and of the second breathing flames of the third)

Arlan of Pennytree: A silver winged chalice on brown (Brunâtre, a winged chalice argent)

Bronn of the Blackwater: A flaming chain, green, bendwise sinister on smoke-grey (Cendrée, a chain bendwise sinister inflamed vert)

Brynden Rivers: A white dragon on black, breathing red fire (Sable, a dragon argent breathing fire gules)

Brynden Tully: A leaping trout, black, on a field of blue and mud red (Paly wavy azure and gules, a trout embowed sable)

Cleos Frey: Quarterly: a blue castle on silver-grey, a golden lion on crimson (Quarterly, first and fourth cendrée, a bridge azure, at either end a tower of the same (for Frey), second and third gules, a lion or (for Lannister))

Colen of Greenpools: A grey field strewn with bluejays (Cendrée semé of bluejays proper)

Creighton Longbough: A brown chief on green (Vert, a chief brunâtre)

Daemon Blackfyre: A black three-headed dragon on a red field (Gules, a dragon thrice-headed sable)

Duncan the Tall: A green shooting star above an elm tree proper on sunset (Purpure in chief merging to tenné in base, above an elm tree proper a shooting star vert)

Harrold Hardyng: Quartered: the arms of House Hardyng and House Waynwood are displayed in the first and third quarters, respectively, and in the second and fourth quarters is the moon-and-falcon sigil of House Arryn (Per pale, in dexter per fess with in chief lozengy gules and argent (for Hardyng) and in base vert, a wheel broken sable (for Waynwood), in sinister bleu celeste, upon a plate a falcon volant of the field (for Arryn))

Illifer the Pennyless: Gold and ermine gyronny (Gyronny or and ermine)

Joffrey Baratheon: Per pale crimson and gold, a golden lion rampant and a black stag (Per pale gules and or, a lion of the second and a stag crowned sable combatant)

Loras Tyrell: Three golden roses on green (Vert, three roses or)

Lothor Brune: A bearpaw, brown on white, beneath three apple cores red, green, and red, on a golden chief (Argent, a bear’s paw brunâtre, on a chief or an apple vert between two more gules)

Pearse Caron: A silver harp on yellow (Or, a harp argent)

Rhaenyra Targaryen: Targaryen heraldry (a three-headed red dragon on a black field), quartered with the moon-and-falcon sigil of House Arryn (for her mother Aemma Arryn), and the silver seahorse on sea green of House Velaryon (Quarterly, first and fourth sable, a dragon thrice-headed gules (for Targaryen), second bleu celeste, upon a plate a falcon volant of the field (for Arryn), third aquamarine, a seahorse argent (for Velaryon))

Robb Stark: A grey direwolf’s head on white (Argent, a direwolf’s head caboshed cendrée)

Rossart: A hand holding a torch lit with green fire and a chief lit with green flames, on silver (Argent, a hand clasping a torch proper inflamed vert, a chief inflamed of the last)

Shadrich of Shady Glen: A white mouse with red eyes on blue and brown undy (Bendy undy azure and brunâtre, a mouse argent orbed gules)

Tallad the Tall: Checkered blue and white, on a black fess three golden eyes (Chequy azure and argent, on a fess sable three eyes or)

Thomas the Threadbare: A frayed maunch, white on brown (Brunâtre, a maunch frayed argent)

Tyrion Lannister: A golden hand in a circle of golden lions on crimson (Gules, a hand within an annulet of lions or)

Walder of Woodmere: A blue plate on white (Argent, a hurt)

Walder Rivers: A silver-grey castle on blue beneath a red bend sinister (Azure, a bridge cendrée, at either end a tower of the same, all debruised by a bend sinister gules)

So starting with Duncan the Tall, obviously his shield tincture of "sunset" is very ambiguous. To make it clearer in the blazon, I actually omitted the blazon "sunset" and worked with the actual colours seen in the depictions. Now on one hand I am very unhappy with that since it goes against one of the most important rules of blazoning, to not form a blazon around an artist rendering, but to always work with the original textual descriptions. On the other hand though... using "sunset" in the blazon as such would be so unbelievably unclear that it could be literally any variation of orange, purple, red, dark blue, many others, and any combination of those into something somewhat resembling a sunset that I just didn't feel right to blazon it thusly. So either way, I'm hopelessly frustrated in this case but I would be glad to hear your opinion ;)

Next, Harrold Hardyng. This is actually quite well possible to blazon with standard terms, but since this sort of quartering (or since there are only three parts, tiercing) is quite unusual, I don't believe there is much precedent for it and there could be another way of putting it. Now my other suggestion is somewhat more elegant because it's shorter but it may be less clear, or harder to understand, I'm not sure, so just tell me what you think of my other option
(Per fess lozengy gules and argent (for Hardyng) and vert, a wheel broken sable (for Waynwood) all impaling bleu céleste, upon a plate a falcon volant of the field (for Arryn))

In Joffrey's case, for some reason, the sigil on the Citadel and the one on the Wiki are reversed. I don't know if the Wiki has another more canon source than the Citadel that states displaying the stag in dexter and the lion in sinister whereas the Citadel does the opposite, but if not, I propose changing the design and then using my blazon (same goes of course for House Baratheon of King's Landing)

For some reason I'm not quite satisfied with the description of the chief in Lother Brune's personal arms, so let me know what you think there and if you can think of a better alternative.

Lastly, Thomas the Threadbare doesn't even have an own Wiki page, so I'm not quite sure what his blazon will accomplish but you know... someday there might be a page for him ;)

So if I have forgotten any personal arms, please tell me. There are some that are both personal arms and the arms of the House that person is the head of. I have included here Joffrey Baratheon and Daemon Blackfyre, Joffrey because of the little confusion I mentioned and Daemon because House Blackfyre itself isn't yet properly blazoned. But the other ones include Garlan Tyrell and all the other Harlaws. Now I do propose including their personal arms on their own pages as well but it seemed redundant to list them again when they were already posted under their Houses.

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3 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Others with a personal sigil are Galtry the Green, Howard Pyle, Bennis, Glendon Flowers and Clayton Suggs

Okay, I did those too, as far as possible. Galtry brings us another case of "green on green" but I just used House Estermont as a precedent there. If the personal arms of Howard Pyle are confirmed as canon, I do think the sigil should be designed but I did the blazon anyway. Glendon Flowers has the same personal arms as his father Quentyn Ball, so the blazon can be added to both their articles. Clayton Suggs' sigil I didn't blazon since the tincture of the field is unknown and an actual blazon would be impossible in that case. I also thought of Aegon II Targaryen who had a personal sigil used by the faction of the greens.

So here we go:

Aegon II Targaryen: A golden three-headed dragon on black (Sable, a dragon thrice-headed or)

Bennis: A plain brown field (Brunâtre)

Galtry the Green: Nine jade mullets upon a field of leek-green (Vert, nine mullets of the field)

Glendon Flowers/Quentyn Ball: A fireball blazing red and yellow across a night black field (Sable, a fireball inflamed gules and or)

Howard Pyle: A grey iron greathelm on white, within a bordure of grey roundels (Argent, an iron greathelm cendrée within an orle of roundels of the last)

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13 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

And Jon Snow?

Oh yeah didn't realize that there was a context for personal arms for Jon Snow... But still don't know if you should include that in the information box since the source seems very far from canon to me... Especially for a really major character like Jon Snow, I think that if GRRM actually wanted him to have a personal sigil, he would have made it canon and included it in the books. But anyways, since it's just the Stark colours reversed, the blazon really isn't difficult:

Jon Snow: A running white direwolf, on an grey field (Cendrée, a direwolf courant argent)

(Btw, I think that the design of his personal arms on the Wiki is far from great :P just my opinion, but I think that should be redesigned, the wolf looks really weird, more like a dog than anything else, and the grey field is far too dark, not at all "Stark grey", almost black)

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I thought of a couple more... There seems to be no end to personal sigils ^^'  First Euron Greyjoy whose arms can again, like Clayton Suggs', unfortunately not be blazoned because we have no description of the colour of the field which is quite disappointing because the sigil sounds really cool. Then we also have Maekar Targaryen and Rodrik Ryswell. So here we go:

Maekar Targaryen: The three-headed Targaryen dragon, quartered (Quarterly, the first, second, third and fourth sable, a dragon thrice-headed gules) or (Sable, four dragons thrice-headed gules)

Rodrik Ryswell: A golden horse's head, eyes and mane red, on bronze within a black engrailed border (Bronze, a horse's head or orbed and crined gules within a bordure engrailed sable)

Note that I propose two options for Maekar Targaryen. I don't know what to with the term "quartered" when there is four times absolutely the same sigils... one could say that he just used four dragons for his position as fourth son like Garlan and Loras Tyrell did with their sigil, and omit the quartering. But since it's so defenitely said that it's quartered, to make that difference apparent on a shield, you would have to mark the partition lines of a different colour like it's done on his breast in the depiction of Maekar on the Wiki. I don't know, I guess it's just again one of these times where GRRM didn't think long enough on his sometimes very illogical heraldry. Use whichever blazon you want, the first one would be more accurate to what we have from the source material but it makes absolutely no heraldic sense...

Also, I used the term "crined" for the different-coloured mane in the Ryswell sigil; I propose "crined" since I've never heard of "maned" in sigils... See under "crined" on this site for reference. So to be consistent, I propose using this term for the arms of House Ryswell in general as well.

Oh and I just read that apparently Lady Barbrey Dustin née Ryswell also quarters her father's sigil with that of her husband's

Barbrey Dustin: The spiked crown and crossed long axes of House Dustin quartered with the golden horsehead of her father, Lord Rodrik Ryswell (Quarterly, first and fourth or, between two longaxes saltirewise rusted proper shafted sable a crown of the last (for Dustin), second and third bronze, a horse's head or orbed and crined gules within a bordure engrailed sable (for Rodrik Ryswell))

 

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On Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 4:16 AM, aRanycsapat said:

Yeah, about that. From an e-mail from George to us from 1999:

The vast majority were actually created in collaboration with George. We'd create a few, put them up, share the links, and he'd give us feedback (often immediately) and we'd correct what he wanted corrected.

Sweet merciful Christ, the Derp Is Real. Along with making absolutely no sense.

>_<


Well, there goes any and all respect for House Velaryon.

 

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5 hours ago, aRanycsapat said:

All the easier for the Sea Snake and Oakenfist to crack heads, I suppose. :)

Alyn-Eats-Dornish-For-Breakfast the Oakenfist is a badass. Because wrecking Dornish shit. I always approve of such.


Corlys had the most Swag. But then the Greens ruined everything.

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2 hours ago, Nittanian said:

I tried reverting File:House Velaryon.PNG to the animal version per Ran's confirmation, but I'm not sure if it is displaying correctly.

Not yet, but the last time I updated an image, it simply took a while for the change to be visible, so I suppose it is the same here.

 

Edit: Now it displays correctly ;)

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On 1.7.2016 at 2:51 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Perhaps you could also take a look at this page on heraldry, and say whether there are some things that could be improved here too?

Yeah I've looked at that but I think that most of it is pretty great, very concisely explaining heraldry and blazoning and the differences between George's and RL heraldry and how these differences could logically pose problems for the Medievalish Westerosi society and its warfare.

I just have a problem with the subsection "Variations of the field". The textual explanation fits and can absolutely remain. But the following examples are not examples of variations of the field but of ordinaries (or subordinaries like the canton). They are also wrongly called ordinals even though they are correctly named ordinaries in the picture to the left of the text.

So even though I wouldn't know concretely how to put this in text, I propose using correct examples for variations of the field (of the top of my head, House Tully with its waving lines or the strewn mockingbirds for House Baelish but there are certainly more other examples) and adding a subsection for the ordinaries and subordinaries, explaining these and then use the examples that are now used for variations of the field.

Also, in terms of formatting, these two explanatory pictures with ordinaries on the one hand and divisions of the field on the other hand are placed really weirdly in the article, they don't seem to match up with their respective subsection (even though the picture of the ordinaries should in any case not be matched to variations of the field), so if possible, that should be adjusted.

Lastly, in the new subsection of the ordinaries the whole problem with the chevrons should be mentioned and how we have agreed to proceed with blazoning those arms that are described as having a chevron but actually diplay an inverted chevron.

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I'm hoping this is a good topic to post this in. (I'm pretty sure this is my first foray into the forums, and I didn't see a search function anywhere.)

By chance, I happened to notice that while the Wiki article on House Waxley says the Waxley sigil features three candles, the only reference I could find to it in currently available Song of Ice and Fire books and preview chapters says six candles. See:

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Talk:House_Waxley

Unless there's something to the contrary in other canon materials (which I don't have), House Waxley's Wiki article should probably be corrected, including the blason. (I'm an ignorant and inartistic hack when it comes to graphics, so I'm not the guy.)

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11 hours ago, Morgiou said:

I'm hoping this is a good topic to post this in. (I'm pretty sure this is my first foray into the forums, and I didn't see a search function anywhere.)

By chance, I happened to notice that while the Wiki article on House Waxley says the Waxley sigil features three candles, the only reference I could find to it in currently available Song of Ice and Fire books and preview chapters says six candles. See:

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Talk:House_Waxley

Unless there's something to the contrary in other canon materials (which I don't have), House Waxley's Wiki article should probably be corrected, including the blason. (I'm an ignorant and inartistic hack when it comes to graphics, so I'm not the guy.)

Well there seems to a Knight of Wickenden which is Ser Edmund Waxley, but there is also a Lord Waxley mentioned so there might actually be two branches.

but i to could only find 1 reference and that's to six, im guessing its the same as you found.

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12 hours ago, Morgiou said:

I'm hoping this is a good topic to post this in. (I'm pretty sure this is my first foray into the forums, and I didn't see a search function anywhere.)

By chance, I happened to notice that while the Wiki article on House Waxley says the Waxley sigil features three candles, the only reference I could find to it in currently available Song of Ice and Fire books and preview chapters says six candles. See:

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Talk:House_Waxley

Unless there's something to the contrary in other canon materials (which I don't have), House Waxley's Wiki article should probably be corrected, including the blason. (I'm an ignorant and inartistic hack when it comes to graphics, so I'm not the guy.)

I guess that must actually be a continuity mistake of George's since it actually says on the Citadel that it's three candles. But since the books always trump everything else, I guess you're right that it should be corrected.

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