Neptune’s Trident Vs. Pluto’s Bident
Modern planet symbol origins
Published on Aug 3, 2023.
Reply to comment: “King Neptune?”
Okay, this is not a bad guess. I'm assuming that the staff with the prongs on it made you think of Neptune. But I want to take a moment to teach everyone about the difference between the staff of Pluto and the staff of Neptune.
The difference between their staves lies in the number of prongs. So you'll see this one has two prongs. This is a figurine depiction of Hades, the Greek god, also with two prongs on his staff. This is the Roman god Pluto, again, three-headed dog with the two-prong staff. It's called a bident, unlike Neptune who has a trident (with three prongs).
This two-pronged staff that Hades or Pluto carries, also known as the bident, is where the Pluto symbol is derived from. So this is the bident, the staff of Pluto, and when he secures a catch and there's something inside of [his bident], it becomes the Pluto logo [symbol].
And just like Hades is alikened to Pluto, Poseidon is the Greek god alikened to Neptune. So, here's that same figurine of Poseidon with the three-pronged staff. It's also worth noting that more often than not, any depictions of Neptune include water in some way, shape, or form.
So this I think looks like waves crashing up against him. Again, Neptune with the three-pronged trident, and he's underwater in this one.
Whereas this piece of artwork does not depict any water whatsoever, so that's another indicator that this is not Neptune.
