#TL:DR uhhhhhhhhhHHHH THERE'S A LOT ACTUALLY

[modmad]

holy shamoly there are so many things to play with here AAA (also Gladstone doesn’t have friends like OOF anon ouch right in the kokoro)- imma waffle about possibilities for a bit so feel free to read or ignore

Oh man I’m super into this thank you anon whoever you were.

This is the original from the comic scan! Regarding your observation of it not relating to marriage, I think that’s covered by the Don Rosa original explanation in Sign of the Triple Distelfink that it was designed specifically for the coming of a new child. Taking that packaged on top of the fact that it was in fact his mother who received that particular hex effect, and that Gladstone inherited it after the fact, I suspect there’s room for a shift in how the luck functions. Also this is like, happy fun duck comics land so I’m not gonna get too bogged down in technicalities (also going to talk about the theme of isolation in this later).

I do like that you pointed out it has stuff to do with familial love and is different from the symbol for friendship- that works all too well! Gladstone loves his family a lot, but even then his actual friendships with and within the family aren’t all that great! He loves Scrooge, and doubtless (deep down) Scrooge loves him, but they don’t always see eye to eye and in terms of ‘friendship’ it isn’t easy to say that they have a good relationship. Same with Donald; ultimately, they’re cousins, and would never hurt each other seriously in any way, but they fight all the time! Donald in particular is very open about the fact that he hates Gladstone, and while I don’t believe I’ve ever read Gladstone saying he hates Donald, he certainly enjoys being his rival and getting on his nerves!

The one-instead-of-three tulips is particularly laden with possibilities; with how you described them, I would say it fits Gladstone very well! Gladstone has absolute faith in his luck; in fact it’s when he doesn’t that it sometimes stops working for a time. If we take that as ‘faith in what one does’, that erases ‘faith in oneself’ and ‘faith in ones fellow man’- which half works, because he doesn’t trust others (perhaps with the exception of his family, but even then in O Lucky Man we see he was suspicious of Donald using him too), but then Gladstone is very arrogant and confident, so does that negate the first? So perhaps we have to cancel out ‘faith in what one does’ and THAT fits in the sense that, even if it always benefits him, he doesn’t have any control over his luck and effectively is hostage to its whims. Moreover, as in this particular comic, it’s suggested that he feels frustrated and guilty that it doesn’t matter whether or not he tries to achieve something good, it just happens to him. Basically, the thing that he lacks is faith in his worth as an individual: however, is that ‘faith in oneself’ or ‘faith in what one does’? I’m not actually sure! But he certainly doesn’t have faith in all of those three aspects, so one tulip sounds just right.

In terms of the birds, that is to say the ‘distelfinks’, there are several ways to interpret their positions and behaviour, but I can only make these guesses as an outsider based on what you’ve said and other symbolisms I’m more familiar with (there are so many little tie-ins to heraldic, alchemic and tarot symbolism with this image but I’ll try not to deviate).

From your statement it’s unusual for them to be facing each other, and hex signs are usually applied to households, marriages, or friendships; i.e. situations that involve multiple people. This along with ‘inward facing’ creatures to me implies a statement on inwardness, and an inward channeling of the power it is meant to summon. Gladstone’s luck may have a slight umbrella effect, but what is repeatedly enforced in the comics is that it only benefits him. There’s some amount of his luck ‘rubbing off’ on people, whether by literal touch or simple proximity, but the hex only affects him to the absurd degree we’re used to (which makes it entertaining as a character feature, but has proven to be distressing both for him and others). 

We can, again, take this imagery as a depiction/description of Gladstone’s selfishness, or it could be a conscious decision on the part of the hex maker to restrict such a high level of supernatural luck to one entity only. Imagine if that level of luck happened to everyone who was within shouting distance of Gladstone, or everyone who happened to walk past that particular barn, or stayed with people who’d made contact with him etc. The results would be impossible! Dangerously so. With inward facing distelfinks, it leads to a supposition that the only beneficiary of the hex is someone who it explicitly refers to; it worked for Daphne, obviously, as she was the person it was made for and was born directly in front of that symbol, and it works for her son who was born on her birthday. My redraw excludes that specification of the ‘newborn child’ image in the heart, and I’m starting to think that I’ll have to fix that! Because this is so obviously an inherently important aspect of the symbol- this hex can only be received as a birthright. In this sense, the spell is purposefully isolating itself from outsiders, and that reflects perfectly with how Gladstone has done the same to himself; in that vein, it could be said that Gladstone’s self centred personality is not only inevitable as a side effect of being so lucky, but is a necessary form of self-defence to cope with the mechanics of his luck.

As for ‘staring down’ at the tulip and the heart (which I take to be a symbol of the hex’s receiver), it could again be seen as a literal depiction of the distelfinks having a position of superiority and control over the subject. In my redraw I attempted to keep it close to the original, but I took the liberty of making it look even more like the tulip is viscerally connected to the heart. It could be seen either as a tulip growing out of the heart, or being forcibly inserted into it by the distelfink- either way it is a slightly uncomfortable concept. It also struck me that the birds were clearly holding onto the tulip, and the centermost bird is in a slightly aggressive stance- leaning over the flower, looking right out at the viewer. In other symbol language, a symmetrical creature gazing front on to the viewer is often a warning or a confrontational statement; again, a form of exclusion, and a statement of something that should not be interfered with. I wish I knew what the four flowers in the design were, and whether they have some inherent symbolism too...

SO yeah that’s my little analysis. It has to be said all of this is complete speculation on my part! Whether Don Rosa had any of this in mind when he was making the design is anyone’s guess, but he has a long history of depicting very accurate research and I strongly suppose that he knows a lot more on distelfinks than I ever will. Whatever the case this sign is certainly one that could stand more exploration in the canon! There’s just so much to play with!

Anyway, this was fun- now I have to work. Oops.