Ignis's Belongings

With Ignis’s birthday, my thoughts always turn to his mysterious origins—what the devs intended, what the fandom has imagined or theorized. My story Born to Dance in the Dark dives deep into his (very sparse) canonical, speculated, and absolutely non-canonical origins—from meeting his parents to the actions of his ancestors, which affected the events that took place in the main game. There were a number of sources from the game and XV universe I used in piecing together a history for him, but the symbols in the heraldry used in the game were what I found most interesting.

Fleurs exist everywhere in XV iconography—sometimes stylized as daggers or tridents when they’re used in a more menacing or defensive context, sometimes as a symbol of royalty. For the most part, however, the fleur-de-lys is mostly associated with Tenebrae and House Fleuret . . . and Ignis. The symbol appears on the tops and bottoms of his shoes of his casual outfit, which if you think about it is rather shocking. Can you imagine it getting out that the dignitary of one country was stepping on the royal symbol of another? But I don’t think they meant it that way, especially if you look at Ignis’s weapons.

Forgive me—neither Nightyswolf nor I have a scanner large enough to show both pages, and I do think it’s important to show both, as this is his character section, not just a collection of random items with his face.

Ignis's Character Page from the Ultimate Edition Art Book

These are from the official Square Enix cosplay guides:

Not just anyone is allowed to bear a coat of arms. Sure, you can pay $30 or whatever for a company to look up your family “heraldry” and draw you a pretty picture today, but that doesn’t actually give you the legal right to display it in any official capacity. While Insomnia resembles Japan in culture, its royalty and military systems appear to be a mix of Japanese and English traditions. Perhaps it’s my English localization bias coming into play there, but the reality of the matter is that many of us only experience this game in English. According to college-of-arms.gov.uk, “For any person to have a right to a coat of arms they must either have had it granted to them [by a monarch] or be descended in the legitimate male line from a person to whom arms were granted or confirmed in the past.”

Mind you, that doesn’t mean that an illegitimate heir cannot bear his own coat of arms. His illegitimate seal can be granted by the monarch and is a symbol of recognition, not of shame. The marks of illegitimacy on a charge indicate that the man (yes, man) and his descendants are not eligible to the entitlements of the legitimate line, but the honor can still be passed down to his children. However, Ignis’s charge does not indicate he is illegitimate anyway, which I will explain later.

Since Ignis is descended from a line of royal retainers, it’s likely that he isn’t the first in his family to bear this charge. It’s true that motifs are assigned to an individual and not a surname, but coats of arms are in fact passed down through the male line. Coupled with the fact that Prompto’s profiles all take care to point him out as a commoner as though he’s an exception (the PAK profile for Prompto even goes so far as to say, “unlike his royal companions”), I am inclined to conclude that Ignis is of noble birth.

*Edit: This was confirmed with the release of the English translation of the Official Works, which describes Gladio as "Heir of House Amicitia" and Ignis as "Heir to House Scientia."

Now that we’ve established that, let’s look into the symbols and what they mean.

Blue and White

The colors blue, purple, gold, silver, and white are associated with Tenebrae, most often with the royal family, but also in the population. We see the scheme in concept art of the people of Tenebrae, the Fleurets’ outfits, and in the sylleblossoms and Fenestala itself, including Lunafreya’s room. The presence of a blue field (the shield background part) in Ignis’s charge combined with the white fleur-de-lys strongly points to his family somehow being connected to Tenebrae, and additional evidence below suggests a connection to the Tenebraean royal family itself.

The color blue (or azure) is said to represent many things, including strength, loyalty, wisdom, masculinity, and piety. It is associated not only with intellect but also stability and calmness.

The color white (sometimes silver or argent) unsurprisingly symbolizes purity, peace, innocence, and truth. It is a color commonly associated with cleanliness and perfection.

The Fleur-de-lys

As we see on both Ravus’s and Lunafreya’s outfits, the crest (the very top of the Fleuret charge) is a fleur-de-lys. This isn’t uncommon for many royal families—it’s become a symbol of royalty in modern times. It's also shown in some Insomnian, Niflheimr, and Accordian iconography. But the symbolism along with the name (fleur/Fleuret) most strongly associates it with the Tenebraean royal family. Tenebrae being Not-France and it being a symbol of House Capet contributes to this theory. And with its three prongs, it also bears a resemblance to the Trident of the Oracle.

But for Ignis to bear the charge containing the Fleuret crest in addition to Tenebraean colors has some very strong implications, and he does display this symbol nearly as predominantly as the skull. Not only does the blade of the dragoon lance itself resemble a fleur, the fleur at the base of the charge somewhat resembles a crown, which I thought was interesting.

The origin of the fleur-de-lys as a symbol with a specific meaning is questionable, but it has become a symbol of the ruling line of France in heraldry ever since King Louis VII adopted it as an emblem of sovereignty. It is also used in religious contexts to symbolize purity, as some believe the fleur to be a lily (but some also believe it to be a bee or a frog).

The Bend Sinister/Dexter*

*As you can see in the image I rendered, they seem to have trouble deciding which way this charge is displayed. The "front" side of the dagger shows it as a bend dexter, with the back as a sinister because it's mirrored. Because the image texture and concept art shows the charge as a bend dexter, that is the correct way. It’s significant to make this distinction because it’s a common mistake that a bend sinister denotes illegitimate birth, but even this is not true. It seldom denoted illegitimacy; the most popular symbols were the baton sinister, sinister bendlet, or sinister cotisse. In fact, there were no rules whatsoever for symbols to distinguish a bastard from a legitimate son, only that some distinction be made on his charge that it be made clear he was ineligible for succession.

A commonly assumed meaning of the bend dexter has militaristic connotations—that of defense—but scholars of heraldry maintain that there are no hard and fast rules for any meanings of ordinaries. I include this information because this charge was designed by a group of videogame developers subject to the same biases as the rest of the internet, and indeed why I included the meanings of colors and symbols above, which are highly subjective.

Arrows Pointing to the Sun

This isn’t a part of the charge as displayed, but I thought its inclusion on the weapon was interesting. As Ignis is one of the three Sword-Sworn of the King of Light, his family was foretold to help bring about the dawn. The arrows connect his family’s symbols to the sun, which can mean that House Scientia fights for the light, or perhaps that his efforts help bring about the dawn.

Fox-Davies, A.C. (1909). A Complete Guide to Heraldry. T.C. & E.C. Jack.

My additional thanks to Nightyswolf for her portion of this research and providing the shots.

*In the interest of full disclosure, this isn’t supposed to prove anything about Ignis’s background. As Nightyswolf has pointed out, this symbol appears on Noctis’s character page in the Ultimate Edition artbook on the dragoon lance—interestingly with the field in black instead of blue. It also appears in its blue form on Prompto’s handgun series in the game itself. I can try all I like to handwave these—I associate Ignis with the dragoon lance more than Noctis, Prompto is characterized in his cosplay guide and UE page with the Valiant—but at the end of the day, I’m afraid they were just sticking this symbol wherever they liked.

It’s fun to imagine that this charge is associated with Ignis and follow where that leads, but unfortunately it remains a headcanon rather than canonical fact.