Man, I can't believe this didn't get any replies. This discussion has great potential. Â
So far as we know, there doesn't appear to be any official Allagan standard (Crystal Tower would be covered in them if there were) but they definitely have a fondness for blue and gold. Â
What I think it interesting about this is that national flags have only recently become universal, in both Eorzea and the real world. In fact, the idea of a nation is pretty novel to begin with, although history is littered with the occasional nation-state here and there. For most of civilized history, the world consisted of kingdoms which were the property of their respective kings, who would lease the land out to friends and family. Those people, the nobility, would then sub-lease to the common folk. This wasn't conducive to a national identity, because borders were constantly in flux as monarchs bought, sold, and traded land. Â
I think the most notable example of an early form of nationalism would be the Roman Republic / Empire. I'd imagine that Greek city-states had at least some national identity, but I don't know a ton about them and I don't think they were huge into what we'd consider a flag (although family heraldry was very common) so I'm going with Rome. Even then, I don't believe the SPQR banner was nearly as widespread as, say, the American flag is today. Heavily used in the military, but probably not something you'd see hung in the local tavern. Â
So let's hit on the subject of Allag vs. Garlemald, and their key differences (because the game tends to focus on their similarities). If we absolutely had to pick one real-world civilization to pair each empire with (because really they're a combination of many cultures), Garlemald is probably Rome and Allag is probably early kingdom Egypt. Think more pyramid builders, old testament Egyptians, not more modern Cleopatra-era Egyptians. Even the Romans considered them ancient.Â
So, going off this comparison, we can guess a couple things about Allagan politics. Political theory in Allag, as in the real Egyptian kingdoms, probably hadn't advanced past the point of "Serve me and you get food, or we'll kill you if you don't." Pretty basic reward/punishment structure. Also, Xande owned everything. Everyone else just had the privilege of using Xande's land. Â
Garlemald, on the other hand, belongs to no single man. Even the Emperor, in theory, lives to serve the nation of Garlemald. It's not just his empire. It's my empire, and your empire too. Sure, many of Garlemald's conquered people are just going along because of the reward/punishment system. But Garlemald has shown that it's reached the nationalist level of political theory. Citizens are supposed to work for the Empire because its the right thing to do. So to create this paradigm, you don't want the face of the Empire to literally be the Emperor's face, because then it just seems like he owns the whole thing. Rather, you need something like the standards of Ishgard's High Houses, but for everyone. If everyone has the exact same family emblem, then logically everyone in the nation must be a single family. From this, you get Garlemald's Ivory flag. Â
And that's my really long and rambling was of saying that Garlemald has a flag and Allag doesn't.
So far as we know, there doesn't appear to be any official Allagan standard (Crystal Tower would be covered in them if there were) but they definitely have a fondness for blue and gold. Â
What I think it interesting about this is that national flags have only recently become universal, in both Eorzea and the real world. In fact, the idea of a nation is pretty novel to begin with, although history is littered with the occasional nation-state here and there. For most of civilized history, the world consisted of kingdoms which were the property of their respective kings, who would lease the land out to friends and family. Those people, the nobility, would then sub-lease to the common folk. This wasn't conducive to a national identity, because borders were constantly in flux as monarchs bought, sold, and traded land. Â
I think the most notable example of an early form of nationalism would be the Roman Republic / Empire. I'd imagine that Greek city-states had at least some national identity, but I don't know a ton about them and I don't think they were huge into what we'd consider a flag (although family heraldry was very common) so I'm going with Rome. Even then, I don't believe the SPQR banner was nearly as widespread as, say, the American flag is today. Heavily used in the military, but probably not something you'd see hung in the local tavern. Â
So let's hit on the subject of Allag vs. Garlemald, and their key differences (because the game tends to focus on their similarities). If we absolutely had to pick one real-world civilization to pair each empire with (because really they're a combination of many cultures), Garlemald is probably Rome and Allag is probably early kingdom Egypt. Think more pyramid builders, old testament Egyptians, not more modern Cleopatra-era Egyptians. Even the Romans considered them ancient.Â
So, going off this comparison, we can guess a couple things about Allagan politics. Political theory in Allag, as in the real Egyptian kingdoms, probably hadn't advanced past the point of "Serve me and you get food, or we'll kill you if you don't." Pretty basic reward/punishment structure. Also, Xande owned everything. Everyone else just had the privilege of using Xande's land. Â
Garlemald, on the other hand, belongs to no single man. Even the Emperor, in theory, lives to serve the nation of Garlemald. It's not just his empire. It's my empire, and your empire too. Sure, many of Garlemald's conquered people are just going along because of the reward/punishment system. But Garlemald has shown that it's reached the nationalist level of political theory. Citizens are supposed to work for the Empire because its the right thing to do. So to create this paradigm, you don't want the face of the Empire to literally be the Emperor's face, because then it just seems like he owns the whole thing. Rather, you need something like the standards of Ishgard's High Houses, but for everyone. If everyone has the exact same family emblem, then logically everyone in the nation must be a single family. From this, you get Garlemald's Ivory flag. Â
And that's my really long and rambling was of saying that Garlemald has a flag and Allag doesn't.