Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-30231626-20161015043220/@comment-4010415-20161016001129

Whether we like it or not, we have Miles quoted as saying "That's his true symbol." Since the video hasn't really been linked here, here's the link.

Monty: It's nothing spectacular.

Miles: It was just something we arbitrarily chose. You (Monty) were like "What about this?" and I was like "That's fucking awesome."

Monty: And then we put it on everything he wears, I guess.

Miles: A little bit-- Not everything.

And then before Monty could say anything further, they got sidetracked into talking about Jaune's shoes having "Left" and "Right" written on them.

So, it's not that they arbitrarily decided to give him a hidden symbol. They arbitrarily chose that particular symbol to be the one hidden under his chestplate.

As for what the symbols tend to represent (when they represent anything)... It tends to be a variety of things. There doesn't seem to be any real theme going on here for what significance the symbols have or what they're even for, just to look nice and add to the whole "individuality" thing. There's stuff like...


 * Who the character alludes to: Nora (Thor's hammer), Velvet (a stitched heart, for the stuffed rabbit), Sun (I guess. I mean, Sun is the monkey king), Neptune (Neptune's trident, duh), Mercury (winged shoe), Cinder (a pair of heels), Adam (a wilting rose), Scarlet (Peter Pan when he became the new Captain Hook, so pirate stuff)


 * Their name: Ruby (a rose), Weiss (a snowflake), Blake (a belladonna flower), Ren (a lotus), Emerald (an emerald), pretty much all of CRDL it seems


 * Their family: Ruby (Summer seemed to have the same), Weiss (all Schnees probably have it), Yang (sorta; it's a heart like Taiyang's, but it's different)


 * Their Semblance: Ruby (scatter rose), Weiss (in her glyphs), Yang (sorta; fire sometimes appears when she's using it), Nora (sorta?)


 * Their personality: Yang (fiery, emotional)


 * Their weapon: Nora, Pyrrha, Neptune


 * ??? : Jaune, Sage (if his wing tattoos are his symbol), Tai, Qrow, Roman, Neo, Ozpin, Glynda (a tiara?? I still don't 100% get why)

Ruby may use Summer's emblem because she looks up to her or wears it in remembrance.

The funny thing about the Schnee family is that they defy the idea of individuality. They all have white hair and blue eyes, they all have the same Semblance, and they probably all use the snowflake emblem.