Random Post: Flower Etymology

Perhaps you're taken aback by the title. It's a blog about books, not about flowers. But let's just say that you can guess what might happen in a book with a flower on the cover (or let's just say my imagination and geekiness know no limits XD).

My target is Covenant series by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Yep, you're familiar with the shimmery beautiful flowers on the cover. This time I won't be *cough *cough researching *cough on all the books. Just three of them. Half-Blood, Pure and Sentinel (Actually, I find out that the flower on Apollyon's cover is Lily. But damn, that's a little too hard to talk about. Deity, on the other hand... well, I can't  make out what flower that is. Same for Elixir and Daimon).

Half-Blood:

Flower on the cover: Hibiscus

Meaning:

1. It represents a sunny summer (uh, I can't see any direct relations between a sunny summer and what happened in Half-Blood )

2. It means "delicate beauty" among Europeans (Okay. The book is called Half-Blood. I'm sure they're beautiful at some point. But delicate? I can't see halfs as DELICATE. Unless you're telling me this is about the whole plot itself. Then I'm speechless)

3. It means "royalty" (i.e. great honor, respect and warm welcome) in historical tradition (Honor? Perhaps so. Respect? Probably not. Warm welcome for Alex? Not so much, huh?)

4. It means "welcome and hospitality" in Japanese (That sounds a little weird to me. But who knows?)

5. It means "wealth and fame" in China on one hand (I'm sure the pures are more wealthy and famous...)

6. It also represents a very special appeal of young female virgin in China on the other hand (If you read the whole series, you can say halfs are... well, virgins in one way. That is a whole lot of weird though)

7. It means "immortality" in Korean. In a wedding. They use Hibiscus to represent the immortality of love (Ah, I like this one. Half-Blood is the start of... you know, every romance involved in the whole series)

***
Pure:

Flower on the cover: Rose (Don't be so excited just yet)

Color of roses and their meaning (I'm not going to list all of them because the list is simply too long):

1. Red: love, beauty, courage and respect, romantic love, congratulations, "I love you, "job well done", sincere love, respect, courage & passion (Basically it means love in most situations. But wait, the flower is not red)

2. White: purity, innocence, silence, secrecy, reverence, humility, youthfulness, "I am worthy of you", heavenly (Well, it's kind of white. Reverence, humility is fitting. I mean, the halfs have to respect the pures completely. Heavenly... well, maybe godly will do :D)

3. Yellow: joy, gladness, friendship, delight, promise of a new beginning, welcome back, remember me,  jealousy,
"I care" (Jealousy, huh? Interesting... And promise of a new beginning? Maybe Alex (from Delirium) should give one to Lena. But hey, the flower on the book is not yellow either)

Now on to the big bad question: What is the meaning of a blue rose?

(Reminder: there's no natural absolute blue roses in nature)

Blue: The unattainable, the impossible

See that? Unattainable. Impossible. That certainly fits into the situation of Aiden (and all the other pures). The one being that is unattainable to halfs/Apollyons like Alex. Sad. But true. 

***

Sentinel:

 (Warning: Predictions are involved)

Flower on the cover: Tulip (Oh. My. Gods)

Meaning:

1. Red: Basically it's a declaration of true love (Aww, you know what that means...)

2. Yellow: It means "there's sunshine in your smile" and cheerful thoughts (Cheerful thoughts appeals to me. But it's not yellow. But hey, it's not red either. Although that wouldn't be much of a problem...)

3. Cream colored: It means "I will love you forever" (Another swooning. You know what that means. And the color is dangerously close to the color of the flower on the cover. Yeah, I know it's gray/silver. But damn)

4. White: It symbolizes heaven, newness and purity (There are things tickling in my mind but I can't make out what they are. I can only tell you that there are good stuff and bad stuff)

What I gain:

Well, not just the cover itself. The blurb also helped. Here's a sentence from the blurb:

"Alex must face a terrible choice between destruction of everything she loves and her own destruction. "

Well, we know for certain Alex would rather choose her own destruction than the other way around...

And there's a sentence from a teaser from Sentinel:

1. "And he would wait forever for me, just as I would wait forever and a day for him."

Here's what I gain from the cover, the blurb and the teasers

1. Sacrifices has to be made. Huge, irreversible choices. (From the blurb. That's obvious)
2. Tulip means "perfect love" in general (From the cover)
3. It's gray/silver (From the cover)
4. It's definitely Alex saying the second teaser (Way to state the obvious. But that means a lot)
 
What I think about these facts:

The tulip is gray/silver. You know what that means. Aiden for sure. And tulip means "perfect love" in general. That we can confirm. The closest color are cream color and white. White tulips symbolize heaven, newness and purity. It's a good thing... in most ways. Cream colored tulips means "I will love you forever". Well... that depends on what you think. 

On the other hand, Alex saying that a he (I think he's Aiden) would wait forever for her. That terrifies me a little because... a suicide mission might be well involved (Actually, it's already involved).

In general, what I think is:

Either Sentinel is going to end really heavenly (HEA ending), or it's going to end really tragically.

Reasons:

1. Heavenly: Heaven. Newness. Perfect love. Eternal love. It can't get more obvious

2. Tragically: The whole perfect love and eternal love thing can be twisted into a tragic love loss kind of stuff. And the teaser bugs me. A LOT. 

(Ugh, just thinking about a possibility of a tragedy makes my head explode. It's like the wait for Clockwork Princess all over again. Except things are more certain... and uncertain at the same time. That's really unsettling.)

Okay, time to snap back to reality and... go for my textbooks. *Sigh