House-badges/devices

[pengolodh_sc at yahoo.no]

No: HPFGUIDX 13809

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Amanda Lewanski <editor at t...> wrote:
[snip]
> Calm yourself. 

I was presumably a bit cranky that day - our computer is fond of 
crashing, freeezing (meaning that it doe not even respond to 
Ctrl+Alt+del), and at times has a negative bearing on the mood of the 
day.  That day was one of those.  Also, I am not always good enough 
at throwing in emoticons to brighten the tone of my posts.

> Where do you get that? I don't recall the orientation of 
> Gryffindor's lion being mentioned specifically anywhere (although I 
> could be wrong--Steve?). I think it *is* referred to as rampant 
> (for you non-herald types, one back foot down, the rest in the air) 
> instead of salient (both back feet down), which is what you usually 
> get when people try to draw a heraldic lion. This lion is, in fact, 
> correctly rampant.
> 
> It does face to dexter (the right of the shield, but from the 
> position of the person who would be HOLDING it, i.e., the guy 
> behind it, thus to the *viewer's* left). However, facing to dexter 
> is the correct assumed default. Facing the other way would 
> be "rampant to sinister," and generally must be specified. Again, 
> does it say somewhere in the books that I'm forgetting, that the 
> lion faces to sinister (or to the viewer's right)?
> 
> On the Hogwarts device, the quartering that combines all the House
> devices, the lion is depicted as to sinister, but I think that was 
> done for visual balance--another bit of artistic license.

Yes, I also think it is referred to as rampant somewhere, but is it 
referred to as rampant when describing a Gryffindor-banner, or when 
describing the hogwarts arms?  I do not remember.  I do not think 
that the use of the term rampant in the books is as strictly adhering 
to the rules of heraldry as it would be in a textbook on heraldry, 
and therefore rampant to sinister would not encessarily be described 
as such.  I think the word rampant when used in the books should 
probably be taken as a general description of an animal standing 
upright (which is what my dictionary gives as the meaning 
of "rampant" when used about animals).  Given that the Hogwarts arms 
are the only visual evidence of the Gryffindor lion in the books, I 
still hold rampant to sinister as the mroe correct choice.

> They quartered the background, for some unknown reason, presumably 
> to include both the House colors on the field, which makes part of 
> the gold lion have to compete with a gold field. 

[snip]

> > The Ravenclaw device, for some reason, does not show a bronze 
> > eagle displayed - it shows a black crow perched on a twig (at 
> > least it looks more like a crow, or sparrow, or magpie, than a 
> > rawen or eagle).
> 
> No, you're right, this is a raven. This is the most arrant departure
> from the book, in that they totally redesigned it.

I must have typed that without thinking too clearly - obviously, if 
it is similar to a crow, then it is similar to a raven (and given the 
context probably is a raven).  What happened was that I was mixing up 
ravens and hawks - i.e. connecting the word raven with the physical 
image of a hawk.  And you didn't even call me on that one! :-)

[snip]

> Harder to say why they departed from the Hufflepuff colors of white 
> and black, 

[snip]

But were not Hufflepuff's colours black and yellow in the first 
place?  A black badger in a yellow field, I believe.


> They could, by the way, have improved both identifiability and 
> contrast by "fixing" the position of the badger, but they stayed 
> with rampant regardant (looking back over its shoulder) which I 
> believe is specified in the books, so vivat to them on that point 
> (is it, Steve?).

It is shown visually as rampant regardant - the only memory in my 
head of a description of the hufflepuff device is that of a balck 
badger on yellow.  The best improvement to contrast would of course 
have been to retain the field as uniform yellow.  

[snip]

> They did. Or have you not seen the nightmares of which I spoke? Does
> anyone have a merchandise URL that shows those lozengy-background,
> modern-logo head-outline things? In "cool" modern colors, not even 
> close to heraldic? I was almost ill right there in the store.

[snip]

I think I have seen them, and I believe they are in the graphics-
group - I seem to recall something along those lines from the 
pictures from that WB display-show before Christmas...  

I got to see a picture of the mugs, however - those with some form of 
shields on them.  I think you've seen hem - you made a reference in a 
previous post to some calendar would-be heraldry for Gryffindor, 
sounding a lot like the description of the Gryffindor mug.  If you 
care for a second look at these, they can be seen at 
http://www.hpgalleries.com/muggallery.htm

I saw those for the first time a couple of days after I posted the 
original post of this thread, and all of a sudden, I was much, much 
less bothered by the devices for the movie.

Still, I think they would have made happier choices by simply 
duplicating what has been displayed at least in th UK-editions for 
the house-arms.