Does anyone know what the symbol of the game suppose to be?

Casters

I'm talking about when you start the game there's two faces reflected away from each other in stone. One looks like a woman and the other one at the bottom looks like a man, both wearing hats. This is for the Shadows of Amn campaign.

OlvynChuru

I think the face on the bottom is supposed to be a drow, while the face on the top is supposed to be a good elf. There's all that conflict between the two near the end of the game.

Nuin

I've always thought that it was symbolic for the two general paths you could pick as a bhaalspawn - good and evil, or maybe just positive and negative. The ToB logo is then something like a "seize your destiny" kind of thing to signify that your journey is at it's end (skull from the cult of Bhaal logo with a claw around it).

Arunsun

My interpretation has always been that Charname has two facets. The one that's obvious to everyone, the person that charname is would be the upper half of the SoA logo, while the darker, more hidden and insidious one, essentially his bhaalspawn essence, would be the lower half. And SoA's logo represents at once the duality that exists between them and their reunion that occurs during SoA. And once these are reunited, ToB begins, and as Nuin said, ToB represents the "seize your destiny" aspect.

SomeSort

OlvynChuru said:

I think the face on the bottom is supposed to be a drow, while the face on the top is supposed to be a good elf. There's all that conflict between the two near the end of the game.

Pretty sure it's this. Notice the pointy ears.

JCDenton

It's Ellesime and Irenicus IMO.

WatchForWolves

This again? It's Irenicus-elf and Irenicus-human. Since that's kind of the plot of the game.

scriver

JCDenton said:

It's Ellesime and Irenicus IMO.

This.

SomeSort

The logo features don't match those of Irenicus and Ellesime in-game. Logo-elf has a scar and Ellesime does not. Logo-human, (assuming it's a human), has no scars and Irenicus-human does. (Assuming it's a human; the ears are obscured, but the dark skin leads me to believe it's a drow.)

For comparison:
https://www.baldursgateii.com/images/athkatla.png
https://68.media.tumblr.com/avatar_b19b2af06876_128.png
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1Z3aY0uELTQ/hqdefault.jpg

Attalus

Arunsun said:

My interpretation has always been that Charname has two facets. The one that's obvious to everyone, the person that charname is would be the upper half of the SoA logo, while the darker, more hidden and insidious one, essentially his bhaalspawn essence, would be the lower half. And SoA's logo represents at once the duality that exists between them and their reunion that occurs during SoA. And once these are reunited, ToB begins, and as Nuin said, ToB represents the "seize your destiny" aspect.

This has been my interpretation since I first saw it

Nuin

It's possible that the symbol meant different things at different points. We know that the devs had been planning for Irenicus (who started out as Jon Icarus) since Centeol from BG1, but that over time the story changed considerably. So while it was possibly meant to represent Irenicus and whoever (the partner didn't start out as Ellesime) at some point, as the story changed it came to represent different things.

Gallowglass

Interesting interpretations above.

I've always guessed that the symbol represented Selune and Shar, illustrating the story told in the in-game book "Sisters of Light and Darkness". But hey, in the absence of definitive clarification from the original devs, we're all only guessing.

tbone1

I thought it was the symbol on the coat of arms of either Amn or Athkatla. Or perhaps it represents the two futures CHARNAME faces.

Vitor

Elves vs Drows
It's really oppened to interpretation if you want to specify a single element of the story, but the general idea is Light vs Darkness. Also, it's clear that the face on the top has leaf shaped ears - so, my first intuitive guess is that it represents the war of Sylvan Elves vs Drows.

Irenicus before and after his Exile
That's a really nice interpretation that I read in this topic! The face on the top is clearly a Light Elf with its visible leaf shaped ear, but the face on the bottom have its ears covered by somekind of cloak or helmet. So, it's possible to associate it with a drow because of its darker tones, but the door is open to see that as the human form of Irenicus.

You can say that this dark face doesn't resemble Irenicus' artwork, but you should know this is supposed to be somekind of a figurative piece of elvish art. It's not supposed to be a realistic drawing. Also, that hood/helmet of the dark face could be representing the coif Irenicus wear.

So, now I'm more inclined to think that Shadows of Amn symbol represents Irenicus before and after his Exile.

Chidojuan

There is also some insight in this discussion: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/64080/i-never-quite-understood-the-soa-insignia-mirror-images#latest and this one: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/42879/shadows-of-amn-logo#latest if it helps.

unavailable

This looks like a job for zero punctuation.

Gallowglass

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JoenSo

Without reading through the old threads again - didn't someone point out there that it looks very much like the symbol of Waukeen? Which would kind of make it the symbol of Amn. With the addition of the shadowy face to make it Waukeen + shadow = Shadows of Amn.