Colours and Symbolism

Because I need a quick, handy guide on worldbuilding, let's discuss colours as they are used across Eorzea.

What are some examples of different colours being used to represent certain concepts in-game?

Additionally, does anyone have any info on different NPCs wearing certain colours? For example, I heard somewhere that the conjurers of Gridania wear different-coloured robes based on their rank or seniority, how does that work out? What colour represents a junior conjurer, and what represents a senior?

Probably the most dramatic use of color in this game are the colors used to indicate elements. Red for fire, Yellow for earth, Blue for water, Purple for lightning, Green for wind, Light Blue for Ice. It's pretty much always the case that when a creature has an elemental attack, it will be shaded with one of these colors, even if little or nothing else would indicate what element that attack is supposed to be.

It's actually kind of a strange thing, given that elements are, more or less, meaningless in this game from a mechanical standpoint.

For the players, if they don't just want to dye themselves whatever, I would imagine colors are an issue first and foremost when identifying with one's Grand Company. To my understanding, they are as follows:

Twin Adder: The Twin Adder's primary soldier color is yellow, but their members are also seen wearing green, brown and occasionally black trimming. White is also a good Twin Adder Color because of their affiliation with Conjurers and White Mages.

Maelstrom: The Maelstrom's primary soldier colors are red & black, but they also seem to use gold/silver trimming and white trimming.

Immortal Flames: The primary soldier color of the Flames is blue, but they also lean heavily on black (and say this is their color for some reason), gold trimming, the odd dash of purple or even red.

After the Grand Companies are player classes which might influence a player's tastes. The mages are self-explanatory:

White Mage
Black Mage
Red Mage

Dragoon - blue because you are the Azure Dragoon along with everyone else or something. Not major but I see a lot of Dragoon players get into it.

So it can be kinda hard if you want to make a Red Mage that rocks the class color while staying true to a GC that doesn't use red very much.

Otherwise there are no set patterns on the use of colors that I can discern outside of a lore book.

What always confused me was the Immortal Flames color mix-up, they go on about how their baby chocobo has veins thick with the patriotic black blood of the immortal flames or some such but in pvp the Flame Players are blue and the Flame Soldiers usually wear blue. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say something was lost in translation in the transition from Japanese to English formats of the game, or Square just can't keep things straight. Looking at you "Camps."

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Red for fire, Yellow for earth, Blue for water, Purple for lightning, Green for wind, Light Blue for Ice.

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Adding to this, non-elemental spells have white for their color. Green is also used for healing spells casted by Conjurer/White Mage and Arcanist/Scholar. Astrologian has white aura for every spell, likely because they draw power from the stars.

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Originally Posted by Kyran-Varlsen

What always confused me was the Immortal Flames color mix-up, they go on about how their baby chocobo has veins thick with the patriotic black blood of the immortal flames or some such but in pvp the Flame Players are blue and the Flame Soldiers usually wear blue.

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The Flames' foot soldiers uniform is a bit darker blue, and the glamor options they give as you reach highest rank is mostly black so fast black color maybe given only to those of high ranks. This is also a truth in real life, as natural fast black dye was hard to produce and expensive to get during middle age.

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Originally Posted by Kyran-Varlsen

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Other notes on city-state (etc.) related colouring:
Ishgard seems to put a lot of emphasis on lighter blues and greys, but some of their soldiers do also wear brown and I think I've seen some green too. That may also be because each of the four houses have their own colour scheme.
Ala Mhigo's colours are purple and gold, I think.
Garlemald's colours are black, white and red.
And at least the people guarding the gates to the Thavnairian consulate are wearing black and grey, but we can't really draw any conclusions from that.

Healing spells are green auras because they're wind based. At spells have a white aura similar to PLD and SCH spells because they are not aspected. Broil, Holy Spirit, Malefic are nonelemental as compared to Fire, Blizzard, Thunder, which have colored auras when cast

There's a pretty interesting passage in the lore book in regards to Garlean symbolism, namely in regards to the Garlean flag:

'The emblem upon the Garlean flag is a chain in abstract design. It symbolises the value the native sons and daughters of Garlemald hold dear: tight unity amongst their small number. In like fashion, the crimson of the central link represents all those who have perished in the name of the Garlean people.'

It can be found word for word on page 176.

Revisiting this thread to ask: What info do we have on the colours that Eorzeans use for occasions such as weddings and funerals?

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Originally Posted by Mysterysword

Revisiting this thread to ask: What info do we have on the colours that Eorzeans use for occasions such as weddings and funerals?

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Eternal Bonds utilize the western "white wedding" imagery and colours, though I'm not sure how applicable the ceremony is to Eorzea as a whole. Meanwhile, I'm not sure we've ever seen an actual funeral ceremony in-game, or even garb of mourning (although isn't the Thaumaturge's Guild related to that stuff?).

Just redone the short quest series at the church in eastern Thanalan which has some information about death and grave rites. The church belongs to the order of Thal (so, yeah, some tie-in with the thaumaturges) and they all wear cream coloured robes (not black like the Nald'thal folks wear). Not much on ceremonies; there's a lot of dead given the number of refugees in the area, and most people just seem to be abandoned where they drop(especially if they have no family). I found myself hauling at least 4 different corpses around. But the folks at the church are very kindly; they had me gathering Nymeia lilies in the hope the sweet scent would bring the lonely dead some peace. What mourners there were dressed in every day clothes, but they were all poor folks. Wealthy Ul'dahn merchants probably have elaborate funerals; can't recall if we saw Nielesfresne's ( or whatever his name was ) in 1.0

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Originally Posted by Hinoto-no-Ryuji

Eternal Bonds utilize the western "white wedding" imagery and colours, though I'm not sure how applicable the ceremony is to Eorzea as a whole. Meanwhile, I'm not sure we've ever seen an actual funeral ceremony in-game, or even garb of mourning (although isn't the Thaumaturge's Guild related to that stuff?).

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The closest thing I can think of to a funeral is early into the story when you delivery several bodies to the Church of Saint Adama Landama in Eastern Thanalan. It may not give much light to things, but we can see glean a bit about how Eorzeans care for their dead. Additionally we can see the priests there largely wear undyed clothes, which may be more about a life of poverty than anything else.

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Originally Posted by wereotter

It may not give much light to things, but we can see glean a bit about how Eorzeans care for their dead.

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Actually I reckon you might be a tad wrong. We can certainly glean how Ul'dahn's care for their dead but not Eorzeans as a whole. We gotta remember that Ul'dah has a pretty unconventional viewpoint of death compared to other Eorzeans and even the Warrior of Light's understanding of death. Some might even call them more morbid than they should be, but compared to say Ishgard who believe you died without honor if not to a dragon, they're pretty stock standard.

I don't believe there is sufficient evidence to suggest that specific colours are associated with funerals. As for the Order of Nald'Thal, as mentioned already, the thaumaturges are supposed to be ones in charge of Ul'dah's funeral matters, but their role as "undertakers" and funeral specialists has been very much downplayed since 2.0.

I vaguely recall some mention, though, of why thaumaturges specialise in fire, ice and lightning magic: Ice to preserve a body; lightning to cleanse it of impurities; fire to cremate it. Of course, I could well be mis-remembering this, as it seems abundantly clear that the dead are usually buried, rather than cremated.

To be sure, I've always disliked the inconsistent way the story handles the "decomposition" of the dead. Some bodies literally go *poof* into a burst of light and aether; others dissolve instantly in a puff of purplish, evil-looking miasma; and sometimes, just sometimes, actual bodies get left behind. There never seems to be any logic as to why some bodies go *poof*, and some get left behind. I chalk it up to gameplay-story segregation.

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Anyway, to go back to the original topic of the thread, I think it hardly needs to be pointed out that red is the colour of Stormblood. And the symbolism shouldn't be hard to figure out either — it's broadly the same as in the real-world.

Red is the colour of blood, and the colour of war and revolution. "In crimson it began, and in crimson it ended. And then... and then we were free."

Red is the colour of fraternity, hence its association with the Resistance, especially with Lyse, the Lady in Red.

Red or, more accurately, a shade of red closer to salmon pink, is the colour of Ala Mhigo, the physical country, a land of "crimson mountains, a sea of clouds, and a mighty fortress".


What's interesting is the juxtaposition of Stormblood's red with the blue theme that's less obviously associated with Heavensward, as in the prophecy: "Look ye where the sun doth rise, see crimson embers, dark'ning skies/ Look ye where the sun doth fall, see azure lost amidst the squall".

Blue was, in my opinion, the predominant colour of Heavensward, although its use wasn't as in-your-face as red was in Stormblood. Blue is the colour of the sky, the predominant image of 3.x as the expansion most associated with flight and flying.

Then there's also the revelation that the WoL's aether signature is blue.

And lastly, blue is sometimes the colour of melancholy — "feeling blue" — and that's quite clearly the tone that the writers were striving for with the Dragonsong War, in contrast with Stormblood, which as all about active, robust attempts to fight an openly known evil.

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Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf

Then there's also the revelation that the WoL's aether signature is blue.
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I'm curious where this comes from? I don't recall this being shown anywhere to be honest.

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Originally Posted by RickiFake02

I'm curious where this comes from? I don't recall this being shown anywhere to be honest.

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ALC 50-60 questline. Specifically, the final quest.

Dialogue screenshots below; nothing too interesting, just straightforward stuff.

https://i.imgur.com/Kz3N4Or.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/inQQy28.jpg

EDIT: If it matters, this is aether as seen via a special substance called "spectrolium". The ALC guildmaster Severian is the one who invented it (just prior to that cutscene, incidentally), and he states that it shows the colour of a given person's aether signature.

https://i.imgur.com/hfacOdS.jpg

Apparently it's basically something like Luminol for aether.

^To go with that, the PC WoL is always show to have a water-aspected Crystal of Light in cutscenes. For comparison's sake, Ysayle has an ice-aspected one and the Warriors of Darkness' Crystals of Light are every elemental color except water's. The PC WoL's crystal completes their set.

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Originally Posted by RickiFake02

I'm curious where this comes from? I don't recall this being shown anywhere to be honest.

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Also, Stormblood trailer when he's sparring with Lyse.

Spells make your character glow in the element color it is aspected to. Even non damage spells follow this small world rule, probably for fluff.

I'm also a little confused, since DRK uses more than just black. Blue flames, purple flames, scarlet and red flames, the red glyphs, and blue lightning. I don't exactly know what to aspect it to, but I'm not knocking it in the least, since it's my favorite tanking class. Probably is just a fluff and flashy thing, but it is a little confusing if Dark Knight is all "darkness used for good deeds" trying to show light colors with the dark, or it's just more flashy fluff to make AOE cones on the ground harder to see.