#i think cryptotheism even got an ask on this thing and they said it doesnt look like anything if i recall

[volo-omnia]

Y'know something I really love that makes a comeback in PLA but it never gets explained ever? The Arceus sigil from the Heartgold/Soulsilver Arceus event.

Y'know, this thing.

Now I know we do get an indirect explanation from the HG/SS event, although it does make me wonder about it's meanings and connections:

To start off, the in game meaning of the sigil is pretty cut and dry. Or at least....part of it.

Triangles are pretty common throughout gen 4, with the obvious connection being the creation trio.

As explained by Cynthia in the event, the bottom left circle corresponds to Dialga, bottom right with Palkia, and the one on top being Giratina. (And of course, the larger circle in the center with the sun-like design being corresponded to Arceus.) Their designs and placements in their hierarchy is pretty directly shown here, which is pretty nice.

However we also see a similar triangle in the Celestic ruins in the modern day, with their correspondences being related to the Lake Trio. Their placements of course being related to their respective lakes they reside in Sinnoh.

Now while these separate sigils don't explain the greater whole, they do explain parts of it. Since both the creation and lake trios are represented by upright triangles, we can clearly see 2 upright triangles in Arceus' overall creation sigil.

However that does leave the much larger image unexplained for the most part. There have been theories that each circle in the larger image corresponds to another legendary pokemon in the greater pokemon universe, but it's hard to fully place where each legendary goes where.

Now what I wanna do instead is speculate the design of the Arceus sigil from an esoteric perspective.

Most sigils have different meanings and designs based on the person making them, but I just wanna have some fun breaking down the design in itself. Disclaimer, I don't expect Gamefreak to know this stuff when designing their game, so most of this will be speculation.

Now with both creation and lake trios being represented by triangles, I find it interesting that they're both layered upright as opposed to one upright and one pointed downward. From an esoteric perspective, the way the triangle points reflects different meanings. If you have a triangle pointed upward, it would direct energy upwards to the heavens, as opposed to pointed downward, where the intended energy is directed down to earth/below.

However assuming the shape of the triangle was irrelevant, the usage of the number 3 could also be a point to the worldbuilding. The common theme of trios in the world of pokemon is typically symbolized by the ideas of harmony, order, and perfection, as well as regarded as a "holy number" in various cultures and religions. At least in the ideas of Agrippa, the number 3 is considered the "ideal" number of forms, with number 2 being the number of creating matter. (Although this is interesting as Giratina does get kicked out making the creation duo, Dialga and Palkia. Their loyalty to Arceus does indeed make 3 again.) Going back to the lake trio, the number 3 being represented by the three states of mind, that being wisdom, willpower, and emotion.

However, if we also take the obvious Christianity route to things, then the usage of triangles in the sigil also is quite an obvious indicator!

Since the ancient Celestics are inspired by the Greco-Romans, the usage of 3 is also quite common in mythology! I'm sure you don't need me to explain the common trinity of earth, water, and sky in Greek myths, trying back to Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades.

Now, here is where we get to the hard part. What are the other circles of the sigil? Well....I actually have no idea.

You see, an idea I've seen others try to connect this sigil back to is that of transmutation circles and alchemy circles.

And....yeah, I guess, but this is the part where I bring back that disclaimer that I don't think Gamefreak actually knows in depth what the hell I'm talking about right now.

There's a large plethora of alchemy symbols from Agrippa, The Golden Dawn, to many other occultists throughout history that are used to design these things, but....the Arceus sigil has nothing.

Typically you would have some sort of connection between each area of the circle that you wanted to channel in terms of that celestial aspect, that being a triangle/pentagram/hexagram/etc, but there are no clear chemical symbols or connections inbetween the circles. A lot of the circles are overlapped in this kinda weird way, with a lot on the surrounding edges just kinda sitting by themselves.

So be perfectly honest I'm not sure what kinda design they were going for here? Given by the cutscenes in the Arceus event of the Earth being overlaid the image of the sigil...the circles could represent a type of unity in the world and the circular nature of creation, but part of me thinks the game designers just kinda slapped a bunch of circles together to make it look cool. (And well, probably not to draw too much attention to real life occult topics in their kids game.)

At most I can say it's a type of creation circle given it's symbolized a lot with the idea of Arceus being The Creator, but it's difficult to say given it's design is quite far from what actual real life sigils would look like. All in all though, it's still quite an interesting thing that's included in it's worldbuilding.

....although now I think I get why it's never explained directly.