Flowers, while mundane, have conveyed a wide variety of meanings throughout history. I’ll be attempting to offer some extra context in how the flowers we encounter in-game might add to the story and characterization of some of the Resonators we’ve met along our journey in Rinascita.
However, this can still be far more nebulous compared to more concrete topics — given the variable meanings that certain flowers can have. However, I’ll be drawing from multiple sources to give, hopefully, a reasonably accurate interpretation.
Thankfully, for the most part, the core color language of flowers remains mostly unchanged between types of flowers. I’ll list out the general meanings, but I’ll likely repeat some of the theming in the individual sections where necessary:
A tall flower with a firm stem, crowned by delicate flowers. Sword Acoruses are often used by instructors to teach swordsmanship to young nobles, replacing real swords with these harmless blooms. The children, entranced by the beauty and fragrance, find their attention captured far more easily than by cold, menacing blades.
Our first taste of flowers in Rinascita is the Sword Acorus. You can immediately find this right in the square of Ragunna, by the Genesis Nexus. The name is a direct reference to the real-life “Gladiolus.”
Image taken from NagelGlads
The word “Gladiolus” means “little sword,” roughly. The name is a diminutive word — stemming from “gladius,” the Latin word for “sword” and the type of sword used by Roman infantrymen — coined by Pliny the Elder.
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Pliny the Elder is the author of *Naturalis Historia* (an encyclopedia of its time); an incredible piece of history).
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It was said that this flower was tossed at certain times onto athletes as part of the victory ceremonies, lauding their strength and athleticism; a similar tradition took place for Roman gladiators as well. It even has links to the Greco-Roman god Apollo, a commonly recognized symbol of athleticism.
Image of a gladius taken from Wikipedia. The word “gladius” doesn’t originally exclusively refer to this sword type — it can be any sword.
