Heraldry

The various noble Houses of the Seven Kingdoms use distinctive heraldry, to identify their armies on the battlefield and as a sign of status for individuals.

Heraldic designs may consist of a simple pattern of colors, but also usually feature real or mythological animals or objects. Specific sets of formal rules govern what form a heraldic design may take.

Only members of noble families, or their bannermen, have the legal right to formally display their own heraldry.

The heraldry of each noble House is also accompanied by a specific House motto, or "words". These typically take the form of boasts or battle-cries, such as House Baratheon's words "Ours is the fury!", or House Tully's words "Family, Duty, Honor". House Stark is a major exception in that unlike most other Houses, its words are not a boast but the ominous warning "Winter is coming".

While the heraldry used by each noble House was established by author George R.R. Martin in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the specific designs used in the TV series were developed by graphic artist Jim Stanes, after laborious effort and comparisons with literally hundreds of examples from real-life medieval heraldry.

Heraldry in Westeros and in the real-world
In the real-life Middle Ages, a specific set of rules governed heraldry designs.

The colors used in heraldry are formally known as "tinctures", though these are subdivided into regular "colors", "metals", and "furs". Red, Green, Blue, Purple, and Black are considered "colors". Certain other colors (i.e. Brown) were added in later centuries as new dyes became available to Medieval Europe. The two "metals" are Gold and Silver, though both of these actually encompasses a spectrum of colors: gold to orange to yellow is all considered "gold", while white to grey is collectively considered "silver". A few fur patterns were also used, such as "Ermine" and "Vair". Ermine is supposed to look like the tail pattern of a stoat, and Vair is supposed to resemble the belly coloration of kind of squirrel. Furs such as Ermine are technically patterns, not single "colors", but are arbitrarily lumped in with colors and metals as "tinctures". Each tincture officially consists of a specific shade of a given color and no other: there is only one shade of "blue" which cane be used, with no variation between different shades of "light blue" and "dark blue".

The most important rule of heraldry is the rule of tincture:


 * Metal shall never be put on metal, nor color on color.

It is against the rules of heraldry to for a design to be half red and half blue, or for it to be half gold and half silver. For example, the sigil of House Lannister is a gold lion (metal) on a red field (color). It would not be permitted to have a gold lion on a silver background, because it is also a metal. Ostensibly this is because heraldry is supposed to identify different armies on the battlefield and should be easily distinguishable at a glance.

There is a major loophole to this rule, however, in the choice of color for the animal or object (the sigil) used in a heraldic design. An object may be depicted as "proper" - using the color is possesses in nature - regardless of what other colors it is touching. This explicitly allows the animal or object featured in a heraldic design to break the rule of tincture. For example, the sigil of House Stark is a grey direwolf on a snow-white field, which breaks the "no metal against metal" rule. However, direwolves are actually grey in nature, so it is simply being displayed "proper" - the rule of tincture does not apply, and it can be used on a white field. In contrast, it would still break the rules of heraldry to put a purple direwolf on a blue background, because direwolves are never purple in nature, and a purple direwolf cannot plausibly be said to be displayed "proper".

A problem presented in both the A Song of Ice and Fire novels and HBO's TV adaptation Game of Thrones is that a specific set of terminology is officially used in heraldry, describing the different tinctures as well as design motifs - and this terminology only exists in the French language. The official names for the various tinctures are:


 * Red - Gules
 * Green - Vert
 * Blue - Azure
 * Purple - Purpure
 * Black - Sable
 * Gold - Or
 * Silver - Argent

French does not exist in the fictional world of Westeros and Essos, however, so it may be impossible to use the real-life formal terminology of heraldry in this context. For example, no one within the narrative is ever going to say to Tywin Lannister that the sigil of his House is "gules, a lion or".

Different shapes may be fitted into various shapes on flags or armor, but because they were originally painted onto shields, the official shape of an overall piece of heraldry is usually the shape of a shield (an escutcheon). This is the practice throughout most of the Seven Kingdoms, with the major exception of Dorne. Military tactics in the deserts of Dorne favor quick hit-and-run attacks, as opposed to columns of slow and bulky armored knights, who would soon suffer from lack of available water sources. Thus instead of using the full shields of heavy knights, the Dornish favor lightly armored and mobile riders who fight with spears and small rounded shields. This is reflected in the heraldry of Houses from Dorne, which are officially in the shape of a perfect circle, not an escutcheon.

Younger sons, variations, and personal sigils
Younger sons of noble Houses often prefer to use their own distinctive personal sigils, which are often a slight variation of the official sigil of their House. Sometimes even the oldest son and heir, or even the current lord, may have his own personal sigil - this is simply a matter of preference.

For example, while the official heraldry of House Tully is a silver fish on a red and blue background, Brynden "The Blackfish" Tully uses a variant of this for his personal heraldry, which consists of a black fish on a red and blue background.

Bastards
Acknowledged bastard children of a noble family are still not legally permitted to officially carry the heraldry of their noble parent's House. They may unofficially carry a flag displaying the heraldry on the battlefield or use weapons and equipment that display its heraldic symbol - but only as much as any common footsoldier in their noble parent's army may also carry such equipment. If an acknowledged noble-born bastard began openly wearing capes and armor displaying the heraldry of his noble parent's House, and using banners displaying the heraldry at formal social functions, he would face legal troubles and punishment.

For example, Jon Snow (before he joined the Night's Watch and forsook all family ties) was forbidden from officially "carrying" and displaying the Stark heraldry of a grey direwolf on a white field. One of House Stark's bannermen such as Ser Rodrik Cassel might physically hold a flag displaying the Stark heraldry, or even a common Stark footman might carry such a flag, and thus Jon may have carried weapons or equipment featuring the Stark direwolf design motif, but Jon was not allowed to use the Stark heraldry as a representation of himself, because this would be essentially making the false claim that he was a legitimized child who no longer bore the shame of his bastardy.

Noble-born bastards are in a legal state between fullborn nobles and simple commoners, however, and unlike the common smallfolk, acknowledged bastards are allowed to use their own heraldry - just not the heraldry of their noble parent's House. A custom very common in Westeros is for bastards to use the heraldry of their noble-born parent's House but with the colors inverted (which is known as "breaking" the design scheme). While the books and TV series never portrayed Jon Snow as using any kind of heraldry before he joined the Night's Watch, if he followed this custom his personal sigil would have been a white direwolf on a grey field, the reverse of the Stark colors. Thus the discovery of the six direwolf pups by Ned Stark and his sons is all the more considered a sign from the Old Gods: not only were there two female and four male pups (to match the Stark children), but the sixth was an albino - physically resembling the white direwolf design that Jon would use in heraldry as a bastard son.

One of the more infamous examples of bastard heraldry is House Blackfyre, a cadet branch of House Targaryen founded by bastard son Daemon Blackfyre when he was legitimized, over a century before the War of the Five Kings. Following the custom for bastards, Daemon inverted the color scheme of the Targaryen heraldry, so instead of the normal red three-headed dragon on a black background, House Blackfyre's heraldry consisted of a black three-headed dragon on a red background.

Exceptions: the Night's Watch and the Kingsguard
The Night's Watch has no heraldic symbol, to emphasize its sworn duty to be removed from petty politics of one lordly House or another, but to defend the lands of men as a whole. Thus, the Night's Watch uses solid black on its banner and shields, which symbolize the erasure of any allegiance to noble Houses. Even the "uniform" of the Night's Watch is to wear solid black clothing; members from wealthier families often buy all-black clothing before leaving for the Wall, while poor conscripts have their clothing simply dyed black when they reach the Wall (clothing which isn't always well-suited for cold weather). Thus when new recruits join the Night's Watch, they are often said to "take the black", to take up the black uniform. Solid black specifically denotes the rejection of heraldry, and is therefore strictly speaking not a "symbol" in and of itself, but the absence of a symbol. Even the seals on messages sent by the Night's Watch are simply made in black wax with no symbol on them. The wildlings have taken to calling members of the Night's Watch "crows" because like crows they are covered in black, but this is just a nickname - though it has also caught on a bit south of the Wall as well, as travelling Night's Watch recruiters such as Yoren are often called "wandering crows".


 * The Night's Watch-related articles on the Game of Thrones Wiki make use of the black raven icon used for the Night's Watch and associated characters on the HBO Viewer's Guide, but this is only because it became too confusing to use a solid black navigation icon in different articles. The black crow icon from the HBO website is non-canonical and never actually used within the story.

Members of the elite Kingsguard are noted for their all-white capes, and white enameled armor. The Kingsguard officially has no symbol, and display only a pure white banner for their heraldry, the opposite of how a knight with no allegiance will use solid black heraldry. Indeed, only members of the Kingsguard legally have the right to carry shields and banners emblazoned with all-white heraldry.

Somewhat like the Night's Watch they (in theory) give up their former familial and political allegiances when they join the order. Unlike the Night's Watch, the all-white banners of the Kingsguard are technically not considered to be a rejection or absence of heraldry, the way black is.