“An absolutely horrifying thought took seed within his panicking mind and Noctis suddenly was struck with the terrifying realization that it was possible that one of the men floating in these tanks actually was Prompto.”
My Big Bang debut with @ffxvreversebang2024 !!
@star54kar brought my Zegnautus Keep angsty vision to life with her fic, and I am unbelievably proud of what we made together! Come check it out!
It's quite warm again here, so have a refreshing render with the FFXV Pocket models, which I haven't used in a long time. I also got the chance to work on the Gladio base, which I didn't make in the past.
This is a concept idea I had on my least for two years. I'm trying to tick off most of my old projects so that I can get to the new stuff as well.
a symbol of romanticism: sylleblossom - the blue flower:
final fantasy xv's sylleblossom has a very special design and meaning. Let's talk about what it stands for and how it can be connected to art history.
More below the cut.
Luna and sylleblossoms
In general, blue sylleblossoms can be seen as a symbol for Luna in ffxv. They grow in Tenebrae and are its national flower, she has a garden full of them. Blue sylleblossoms are her favorite flowers. She gifts Noctis a pressed flower in their notebook and it is a strong visual symbol in her death scene. According to the final fantasy wiki: "Different color variants symbolize different things, but the blue version represents "a heart that does not give up" and "sincerity"." But there might be even more to it.
The blue flower and romanticism
The blue flower is considered an important symbol in art history, and especially of romanticism, an art movement of the 19th Century. It represents the romantic longing for the unattainable and unreachable, the infinite and the unconditional, it is also often interpreted as a connection between man and nature. In addition, the Blue Flower developed into a symbol of wandering, which is also characteristic of the Romantic era (and a main theme in ffxv too :) - the word wanderlust got its meaning in the Romantic Period btw). This motif can be traced back to an old German legend that says that one could find the blue miracle flower at night and would be richly rewarded. Consequently, this miracle flower represents a cause that is difficult to achieve, but longed for by many.
Here's a cornflower as an example. I painted a sylleblossom recently and noticed the similar petal shape and color.
The legend
The symbol goes back to a legend and the poet Novalis. The blue flower embodies the longing for an unattainable thing. In the story, a young man dreams about a blue flower that calls to him and he longs to find it. When he finally sees it, he sees a tender face in the flower. This - as is shown in the course of the story - is that of his later fiancé. In addition, the text teems with symbols typical of romanticism. In romantic works, threshold motifs are often used, i.e. motifs that mark a boundary between reality and the dreamlike, such as twilight, moonlight, or the view into the distance, which is usually carried by an enormous longing of the protagonist.
Noctis and Luna
When we look at Noctis and Luna's relationship, we can find a lot of these motifs. The longing, the wandering and looking into the distance. Luna seems always out of reach but they long to be together. We see Noctis looking at the moon in old previews and when Luna says farewell she tells him to "look to the distance, know that I am there". Even their names represent typical romantic symbols (night and moon).
Night and moon are also typical subjects in romanticism. I really like the similarities here between the official artwork of the ffxv piano collection and the painting by C.D. Friedrich.
Luna's death
Here's a screenshot of the dreamlike death sequence and another painting by C.D. Friedrich, who is one of the most recognizable Romantic painters.
One more interesting thing I'd like to point out is the topic of death in romantic paintings and Luna's death scene. I think it's interesting that you can see ruins and a gate behind Luna. It looks like Tenebrae or maybe Altissia but the gate behind her stands out. In romantic artworks, ruins can stand for the past and especially gates represent the transition into the afterlife. We can find several threshold motifs in this scene. In ffxv, it might show that Luna and Noct are inbetween the world of the living and the dead in that moment. Luna then goes into the afterlife (in the direction of the gate) while Noctis is pulled back into life.
The flower turns into the ring, which shows us that her calling has been fulfilled.
I'm not sure if the references about the romantic movement in ffxv were intentional or not, but in any case it was fun to think about it :). I hope you enjoyed this short meta analysis and look into some art history :)
Thanks to Rinual's Mod Menu I discovered that Iris has a hidden talent. She can incapacitate MTs!
Iris doesn't get the chance to fight the imperials when the bros raid the fortress in the main story, but by using the mod and adding her as a guest you can let her join the fray. Use her Eclipse technique and you can watch her practically ripping the heads off MTs. Pretty badass!
Game footage copyright Square Enix Co Ltd.