User talk:Somnium Draconis

Flames in the Targaryen COA

Source for the color of the flames in the Targaryen COA? As far as I know it is a pure assumption on File:House Targaryen.svg and should not be reflected in the text. Potsk (talk) 09:36, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Looking at the description of the Targaryen sigil and the mention of the color of the flames there are the folowing example's from the books 1) Dany thinking about having a banner made in aSoS (She closed her eyes to imagine how it would look: all flowing black silk, and on it the red three-headed dragon of Targaryen, breathing golden flames) 2)there is Dunk seeing a banner in THK (As Dunk turned his head, a gust of wind lifted the black silk pennon atop the tall staff, and the fierce three-headed dragon of House Targaryen seemed to spread its wings, breathing scarlet fire.) There are other mentions of the flames but those are either from personal sigils (aerion's breathing golden flames) or don't mention the color of the flames. Dany's imagining is what she would do if she had a banner made, not what a Targaryen banner would have actually looked like. Dunk however actually sees one, so the color of the flames at least in the reign of Daeron II was scarlet . Direpupy (talk)

Thank you! I'll restore the edit adding the reference about the scarlet fire. --Somnium Draconis (talk) 14:00, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Date of 48 for the birth of Sheepstealer

What do you base this on? Because al we have is "born when Jaehaerys I was young" wich could be anything between birth and adulthood, so why did you make the earliest date of birth the start of Jaehaerys reign? Direpupy (talk) 09:53, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

While you can read the use of the title king as an implication of it taking place in his reign, it can equaly just be because Gyldayn does not want his readers who only know him as king to get confused, or he could have just liked the good sounding phrase "when they old king was young". You have to keep in mind that this is a maester writing a literary work meant to capture they attention of his readers for a rather dry subject, history. You also have to wonder why he cals him by his epithet [old king] and not his name [Jaehaerys] this again reeks of a literary choise and not a hint at a timeframe. and lastly there is no reason to assume that a maester writing long after king Jaehaerys was dead would only call him king when writing about his reign or a event during his reign. I see no reason to assume the use of the phrase Old King means it must have been during Jaehaerys reign. I am going to undo your change because of this.Direpupy (talk) 14:09, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

A note is a great idea, i did not mean to imply that you did not have a point, just that its not something that can be stated as a fact and therefore used to narrow down a time frame on the birth of Sheepstealer. Otherwise its actually a great catch on your part.Direpupy (talk) 15:29, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

Rust

I see you've changed some blazons with "rusted" in it to "brunâtre." This doesn't seem right to me considering brunâtre is a color while rust is inherently a quality of metal. The objects on these COAs are also specified as "rusted," not "rust" or "rust-colored." In my opinion "rusted proper" is correct. Potsk (talk) 13:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi. As far as I know, rust is not a quality of metal used in the traditional heraldry (I'm pretty sure that "rusted proper" is an incorrect definition, since a rusted axe, like in the case of the Dustins, is not "proper") and it's more plausible that "rusty" and "rusted" mean a certain color, the color of rust indeed. But, if it is really a quality, even so rust needs to be depicted with a color, like the other elements of the COAS. Since the color rust does not exist in traditional heraldry, one must refer to the tinctures that most closely resemble that red-brown hue. I used brunâtre, but the problem is that I may have been too hasty, because perhaps "sanguine" or simply "gules" would have been more appropriate, as suggested by this text ("Gules can be maroon, red-orange, fire-engine red, deep pink, rust, or even salmon"). Considering this, for now I will restore the form "rusted", waiting to understand how to better define that term. --Somnium Draconis (talk) 14:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Gules, sanguine, and brunâtre are all equally incorrect. They are all solid colors. "An axe brunâtre" can only be interpreted as a brown axe, it makes no indication of rust. Writing the rusted axe as an object in its own right "a rusted-axe" might do the trick, however. Specifying a tincture only complicates things. Potsk (talk) 13:18, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

@Potsk I asked the opinion of a content creator who is making a series of videos analyzing Westerosi heraldry. She confirmed that there's no such thing as "rusted" or "spotted weapons" in the traditional heraldry, which means the blades of House Dustin's longaxes should be depicted as "gules", like in the previous version of File: House Dustin.svg. --Somnium Draconis (talk) 16:22, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

GRRM has stated that the heraldry in the books does not follow the formal rules, so applying these rules to his heraldry is incorrect. As such whether or not rusted weapons where a thing in traditional heraldry is a moot point and of no consequence when it comes to the heraldry of westeros. Here is a link to the so spake Martin page where you can find GRRM's statement on heraldry in his world https://www.westeros.org/Citadel/SSM/Entry/Heraldry_in_Westeros Direpupy (talk) 14:33, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm aware of that, but the problem is that in the wiki we are already following the formal rules: in the books words like Or, a stag salient, crowned, sable for House Baratheon's COA are never used; the description is simply " a crowned stag, black, on a golden field" (AGOT appendix). If we stick to what GRRM said, we should simply remove all the traditional blazons from the wiki, leaving only the "basic" description, but if we decide to keep the blazons, I think we should make them more observant of the formal rules for a matter of consistency. --Somnium Draconis (talk) 16:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Why should the traditional blazons be more observant of real-life heraldic norms than the actual heraldry from the books? Wouldn't that just be trading one inconsistency for another? (If there is an inconsistency in what we have now. I don't really see it) The formal blazons are attempts at translating the looser descriptions from the books as accurately as possible; as far as I understand it's to assist in constructing and fact-checking COA images, as well as having a consistent form for the blazons which the books don't really have. "A black stag on a gold field" can only be "Or, a stag sable," so it remains faithful. "A rusted longaxe" can be interpreted in a number of ways out of context, but the fact that characters look at the Dustin or Melcolm banners and know that the objects are "rusted" rather than simply brown, suggests that it is more than just a solid brown color like "brunâtre" indicates. Look at Duncan the Tall's arms as well: the color of the field is "sunset," and we know that's not just a poetic way of saying "gold (or)," "orange (tenné)," or "red (gules)" because Brienne remarks that it's more like a painting than a proper coat of arms. Thus using any of the standard tinctures in the blazon is highly inaccurate, and we can only make up a brand new tincture that we call "sunset." It's not like real-life heraldry is inflexible and unchanging anyway. There are institutions that define "the rules" (sometimes differing rules depending on the institution), but historically and in modern times they have not always been followed to the letter. The coat of arms of Albania breaks the rule of tincture. The coat of arms of Jordan has bronze which is a metal that doesn't really exist in heraldry according to the most authoritative institutes. It's like language - sometimes new words are coined. Potsk (talk) 17:26, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

We follow the rules in so far as it aplies to the heraldry but do not observe it strikly, this has always worked in the past as a compromise. Personaly i do not agree with it and think we should not use the formal rules at all, but again this is a compromise and i do not see the problem with adding things like rusted to the description.Direpupy (talk) 07:36, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Argent, white, and silver

You're mostly right about this but you have it backwards. Since "argent" (despite the literal translation) always depicts the color white in heraldry, any mentions of "silver" in ASOIAF heraldry should be kept as "silver" while "white" should be translated as "argent." I'm starting to agree with your suggestion of removing the real-life traditional blazons because this is just too complicated... Potsk (talk) 01:22, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@Potsk There's the same problem for yellow and gold. Yes, I still think it would be better removing traditional blazons. --Somnium Draconis (talk) 11:08, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

@Potsk Not true. Argent is often shown as white in heraldry, but not always. See here and here for counter-examples. Zacwill16 (talk) 18:56, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I think it would be a shame if the traditional blazons were removed personally. Blazonry is a lot more concise and accurate than plain English once you get the hang of the jargon (e.g. instead of "a shield split into halves by a horizontal line" you can just say "per fess"). Zacwill16 (talk) 21:34, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

However, in Westeros traditional blazons are not used, as far as we know, and GRRM himself explained heraldry in Westeros is different from real-life heraldry. --Somnium Draconis (talk) 22:54, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

So keep the blazons, but note somewhere - perhaps on the Heraldry page, which I think already has something like this - that the blazons are fan-made wording rather than from the books (which should be obvious since they're in French, but hey), and may not follow the exact wording of traditional blazons. We could also note that real-world blazonry is much more regulated today than it was in the Middle Ages, as people broke the "rules" all the time, and GRRM is simply echoing that less-regimented period. --Mindset (talk) 23:29, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

The differences aren't so great that Westerosi arms can't be blazoned according to real-life rules (the main ones are that Westerosi heraldry has a greater number of tinctures and has no fixed system for differencing and marshalling). If the wiki were to contain only things that exist in-universe then it wouldn't have images like this one, since Westerosi artists probably aren't capable of photorealism. Zacwill16 (talk) 23:31, 3 December 2023 (UTC)