The Innis Herald takes its name from one of the oldest figures in storytelling. Today, “herald” is often used loosely for anything that signals what is to come, but the older meaning is more precise: a herald announces or signals the approach of an event. The herald is the consequence of an event, not the cause. This distinct archetype is worth noting, as the figure it describes has shown up in nearly every culture and era, from the Greek gods to the Marvel multiverse, and its staying power says something about how people deal with uncertainty. Humans have always wanted someone to tell us what is coming. A student newspaper, in its own small way, answers that same wish, and to understand what it means to be a Herald, it helps to look at the figures who came before.

Start with the crow. In Pokémon, Murkrow is said to bring misfortune to anyone who crosses its path (Murkrow Pokédex: Stats, Moves, Evolution & Locations, n.d.). But the misfortune is its own doing, so there is nothing for it to announce. It is the bad event itself. Absol, another Pokémon, is the real thing. Its Pokédex entry in Black 2 and White 2 says it comes down from the mountains to warn people of disasters it has sensed with its horn (Absol Pokédex: Stats, Moves, Evolution & Locations, n.d.). The catastrophe exists whether or not Absol appears, and the creature simply perceives it and passes the warning on out of kindness. This is a useful perspective against the usual image of the herald as a harbinger of doom.

Other modern stories use the herald for darker or more political ends. In The Hunger Games, Effie Trinket does not run the Games, yet she is the one who draws Primrose Everdeen’s name from the reaping bowl, and then Peeta Mellark’s. Her cheerful pageantry tells both the districts and the audience that the Games have begun and everyone should prepare. She is the rich Capitol’s signal to the poor districts, which was exactly how medieval heralds worked in the real world. 

In The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the Silver Surfer serves as a herald to Galactus, the world-devourer. She does not consume planets. She tells their inhabitants that theirs is next. If Absol is the herald as protector, she is its mirror image: a messenger whose warning serves a destroyer. Yet she still fits the classical definition, since Galactus is a sovereign power and she speaks for him as an envoy speaks for a king. 

This pattern is much older than pop culture. In Greek myth, Hermes is the Olympian’ messenger. In the Odyssey, Zeus sends him to order the nymph Calypso to free Odysseus, and in the Iliad he guides the Trojan king Priam through enemy lines to Achilles’ tent. His staff, the kerykeion, takes its name from the Greek word for herald, and actual Greek heralds were considered under his protection. 

Not every herald speaks. Aurora, the Roman goddess of dawn, rises before the sun and opens the sky, announcing the day without making it. She is the herald at its most literal, and its most hopeful. 

The Huma, a legendary bird of Persian tradition said to spend its life in flight and never touch the ground, is harder to classify. Anyone on whom its shadow falls, the stories say, is destined for kingship or great fortune. If the bird makes kings, it is closer to Murkrow, a cause rather than a messenger. If it signals a destiny already decided, it is a herald. Which reading you choose says a good deal about how you think fate works.

Then there are the heralds who actually existed. In medieval Europe, they carried proclamations between rulers, declared wars, and ran tournaments. Because they had to recognize knights by the symbols on their shields, they became experts in heraldry: the design and regulation of hereditary emblems such as coats of arms. England’s College of Arms, which still oversees these matters, was chartered in 1484 (About Us, n.d.). Over the centuries, the work shifted from carrying messages to tracing family lineage. When the Industrial Revolution produced a prosperous middle class eager for documented ancestry, demand for that expertise surged again.

Robert Glover exemplifies what the job looked like in practice. Born in 1544, he became Portcullis Pursuivant in 1568 and Somerset Herald in 1570. He spent much of his career on heraldic visitations, official tours in which heralds recorded and verified the arms and pedigrees of the gentry (Ramsay, 2004). His collections preserved records that scholars still use, and a medieval roll of arms known as Glover’s Roll carries his name, as he made a copy of it (Glover’s Roll (A), n.d.). 

From Hermes’s winged sandals to Effie Trinket’s wigs, from the mountains of Absol to the archives of the College of Arms, the herald is defined by position rather than power. It brings the news but does not make it, and it can be kind or cruel depending on whom it serves. Perhaps that is why the figure never goes away. As long as people have had something to wait for, they have told stories about the one who arrives first. The Innis Herald carries on that tradition. It does not decide what happens on campus, but it stands between events and the people who want to know about them. Like Absol, it can choose to serve its readers, telling them what is coming and what has already arrived.

References

About Us. (n.d.). College of Arms. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from http://college-of-arms.gov.uk/about-us

Absol Pokédex: stats, moves, evolution & locations. (n.d.). Pokemon Database. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/absol

Glover’s Roll (A). (n.d.). WappenWiki. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from https://wappenwiki.org/index.php/Glover%27s_Roll_(A)

Murkrow Pokédex: stats, moves, evolution & locations. (n.d.). Pokemon Database. Retrieved October 4, 2026, from https://pokemondb.net/pokedex/murkrow

Ramsay, N. (2004, September 23). Glover, Robert. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-10833