Heraldry is Cool

What is it about sigils and logos? My own feeling is that Game of Thrones finally made heraldry cool - in a geeky way, of course, but still. Previously, having a Homer Simpson mug or an Eric Cartman throw pillow was a way of demonstrating that you were in the in-crowd - provided, that is to say, your in-crowd was vaguely studenty. It showed that you were hip and with it (and studenty) and not afraid of your inner kid, whilst at the same time it showed that you were postmodern and trendy enough to know that even though The Simpsons was a kids' show it had lots of adult jokes in it too, and even though it was made by crazy far-out liberals it also supported old-fashioned family values, and so on. Meanwhile, having the White Tree of Númenor on a throw pillow was about as cool as having a crucifix on your wall. And having an Aslan throw pillow was tantamount to asking for a nonce-bashing.

So far, so uncool! Of course, context really was everything. Darth Vader mug? Not cool! Darth Vader toaster? Cool! Aliens t-shirt? Not at all cool! United States Colonial Marine Corps t-shirt? Very cool! A Homer Simpson bobblehead is not remotely cool unless somebody asks you about it and you say "Even Homer nods." Which would make it über-cool indeedy. A Simpsons hip-flask must obviously be used sparingly, but in the right setting one sees that it could have its uses. I'm skeptical about any sort of James Bond fragrance for men. The Pope's Cologne, on the other hand, is surely a must-have for even the most heterosexual fogey.

On one level then, the appeal of drinking your tea (or your beer) out of a mug (or a stein) with a direwolf on it is quite straightforward. But the fact that it's merchandising for a cable-TV spin-off of a popular series of fantasy novels makes it qualitatively different to drinking one's tea out of a mug with Brian Griffin on it. (OTOH a martini glass with Brian Griffin on it clearly is acceptable, provided you're drinking martinis. Ditto a coffee mug with Garfield on it, provided it's a picture of Garfield actually drinking coffee. Out of a mug.) The point simply is that the House of Stark is cool in a way that UNIT and SHIELD (with apologies) simply aren't, direwolves are cool in way that patronuses aren't and dæmons certainly aren't, and knowing what 'Winter is coming' means is much, much cooler (Ahem!) than knowing not to titillare the old dormientem draconem.

But then there's also another point to do with the nature of Game of Thrones itself. Because of its imaginary military, faux mediaeval setting, the heraldry of Game of Thrones actually really matters in a way that the emblems on the sides of star-ships and space-helmets in Star Wars and/or Trek frankly don't. In fact the direwolves and the lions rampant and the crowned stags and so on are as important in Westeros as Quenya and Sindarin are in Middle-earth. And so of course they're a marketeer's dream, just as (and let's be honest) heraldry has always been in real life. Slap the Royal Arms on a mug and it automatically becomes a "collectors' item" jubilee mug. Ditto the Union Flag (which, unlike official Olympics and FIFA World Cup logos, is very much out of copyright).* And what works in "real life" works just as well in the Forbidden Planet.

 

*And, to be fair, 'twas ever thus. In the 18th century, during the Seven Years War, when Frederick the Great was at the height of his popularity in England, there was a positive boom in tobacco jars inscribed with the royal arms of Prussia. (One can't exactly imagine Old Fritz made much off the back of them either.)