What Do The Symbols On The Wings Of Fire Cover Mean?

I really enjoy the little symbols on the covers of the 'Wings of Fire' books. At first glance, they just look like little extra details and colors around the edge of the cover or even hidden in the background, in the wing or as part of a design element. But once you start to look for them, you realize that they form a secret language of hints for the book. Visually, many of the symbols remind me of things from the book, like scales, claws, waves, snowflakes, leaves and suns. Many of the symbols are repeated from book to book. There are many instances of similar motifs being used on books that are about the same dragon tribe or that deal with similar themes throughout the series.

From an in-universe perspective, many of these symbols are tribe sigils or story breadcrumbs. The symbols on the covers can give away which tribes are featured in the book, and within the individual tribes, they can hint at specific characters, storylines, or artifacts. Some even act as foreshadowing. By closely looking at a cover’s symbols, readers can get hints about a main character’s secret ability, a special object, or even a certain prophecy. The series focuses heavily on the prophecies and the secretive histories of the dragons, so the symbols on the covers are a fun part of the story for readers who like to try to figure out what is going to happen next.

From a design standpoint, it seems that cover artists and the publisher have been purposefully inserting these motifs into covers. I follow along with interviews with various cover artists as well as a few fan run forums comparing U.S. covers to international covers as well as the graphic novel. I’ve noticed that the motifs evolve from book to book and even between editions of the same book. Some are literal (a shell for SeaWing artifacts) while others are more thematic in nature (a fractured circle denoting broken alliances). I have a little ritual that I do before reading a new book in the series. I pick out a symbol that I notice repeatedly and then I go back and skim through the chapters where that symbol was first introduced looking for objects, family crests and other natural imagery that was also introduced. There are plenty of fan created wikis and cover galleries where one can look up the various glyphs that are found on the covers of the ‘Wings of Fire’ books. I have to admit that looking for these little easter eggs makes rereading the books so much fun. It’s like a treasure hunt and the covers become part of the story as opposed to just being decorations on a box. And every now and then I stumble upon one that I hadn’t noticed before and it reveals some tiny spoiler that I had completely missed the first time around.

So I noticed that a lot of the ‘Wings of Fire’ covers have little symbols on them. These symbols typically represent the tribe that the book is about, or the mood for the book, or even a huge plot point for the book. If there are any icy-looking things on the cover, then you can expect a lot of IceWing in the book. If there are any wave-like things, then expect a lot of SeaWing. If there are any leaf or vine-like things, then expect a lot of LeafWing. Some of the symbols are literal to what is going on in the book, and some of them are symbolic to the themes in the book (such as betrayal, or prophecy, or family, etc.). It is really fun to go through the series and see which symbols keep repeating throughout the books. It is a fun little scavenger hunt that makes re-reading the books so much fun, and also helps you to realize things that you had completely missed the first time around.

They are probably heraldic badges, like the ruling queens of the tribes in the War of SandWing Succession. The symbols look very formal and elegant, like they would look great on a banner or shield. The cover probably combines the badges of all the queens in the story, and the most prominent symbols could indicate which queen is most influential in the book.

This would be a historical record of the power to be handed from one ruler to another, so as alliances change, the symbols could be rearranged or combined. This would require a LOT of work into the heraldry of the 3 tribes in the Prophecy Guides and the Winglets, though. I don’t have time to sit down and read through all of that, but someone would definitively make a HUGE online resource out of this. I’ll have to check out other fan sites to see if anyone else has come up with this.