*MELINA NOT MALENIA! I knew I’d fall prey eventually to the name mixups, sorry ladies!! Adobe didn't upload the full video the first time this uploaded and I'm so sad I lost SO many of your amazing comments before I even had a chance to read-- I'd love to read them though if you remember please share!! 💙
@Kitetales You may have mentioned this in the video and I missed it. But When you watch the trailer of Merika walking up to the divine gate, as she lifts the golden strands, as the gust of wind blows over her body you can see her hair begins to braid itself.
The Spiraltree Seal has a detail that slightly shifts some of this hypothesis, _“Sacred seal of soiled amber engraved with a spiral tree design. Enhances spiral incantations. The majesty of the white tower, stretching to reach the gods, even inspired a secret faith in the invaders, the people of the Erdtree.”_ The White Tower of the Hornsent and the symbol of the spiral served as an inspiration for the Erdtree. The Crucible was said to have been the primordial form of the Erdtree. Additionally, the Grandam's curse specifically explains the afflictions persisting through Marika's children rather than an intentional act. The Lamenters specifically show that the pain of horn growth was something that the Tower hid from the general populace to sanitize their belief system. The Tower of Babel combining all people and reaching to heaven is a purposeful parallel to how the White Tower is built with the bodies blended into its architecture, and within the trees themselves there as well. Japan is known for its religious syncretism and how they fused aspects of Buddhism into their native Shinto religion, as well as the establishment of Tutelary Deities and other details. (The manga version of *_Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind_* establishes these religious overlaps that serve as a foundation in both *_Final Fantasy_* as well as a lot of other Japanese adaptations of Western Fantasy if you want some insight there). This is a part of the larger parallel to Tokyo as a Babylonian analogue (which goes back to *_Teito Monogatari_* and other long-standing parallels of this analogy), which links to the Furnace Golems and the Tokyo Firebombings in WWII with the fall of the tower. _“They were never saints. They were simply on the losing side of a war.”_ The reason the Furnace Golems are only weak to fire is because that only ended when the fires burned themselves out after reaching 1800° - melting glass and raining it out of tornados, spontaneously bursting clothing into flame, sucking oxygen out of shelters, boiling water sources, and having whole dams of bodies piled up and burned together. - Hence Leyndell banning fire, despite it being a tool of the age of the Erdtree being very much akin to the post-war struggles of Japan's prosperity & stagnation. Additionally, if you're curious about the blending of two individuals with Marika/Radagon and a lot of the other thematic inspiration that serves as a heavy foundation for the themes of the game, the book *_Night's Master_* by Lee Tanith is basically foundational text for characters like Rykard, Tanith, Zorayas, D, Malenia, St. Trina, Midra, Miquella, and others which also gives insight into a lot of spiritual themes that overlap into how *_Elden Ring_* designs its lore. Hopefully this gives you some good places to look & interesting food for thought!!
If the Fingers can see the world through Empyrean Eyes, then that would explain why Ranni and Melina have eyes that are permanently closed. They've killed the surveillance feed.
Yesss. And think about this. The Eye that is closed for Melina is the one thats Gloam Colored and we know that the Gloam Eyed Queen was an Empyrean chosen by the fingers! The GEQ's Sigil looks like Metyr's head/eye! This idea REALLY adds up and almost confirms Melina was the Gloam Eyed Queen or had a piece of her sealed within who went on to lead an uprising against Marika, was struck down, and then reborn as a spirit?
@@ATC43 Yes. She’s burned and bodiless. Perhaps that was a part of Marika expelling the Gloam-Eyed Queen. Perhaps the GOQ was an outer being afflicting Melina (like all of Marika’s other Radagon union children). That being took control or nudged Melina to rise up in that form. Marika struck her down and sealed the eye and left her a spirit. I had never been convinced of the connection until we got her brother Messmer and the Base Serpent afflicting him.
@JohnDWJ Same with Melania? The blue dancers sealing the outer god of rot, perhaps blended with the marika jar? Then birthed as a child with a component the entity sealed within? I mean waterfowl dance?
@@JohnDWJ Hard agree, I think Marika/Radagon have way more children together compared to the known 2. My head canon is Messmer, Godwyn, Ranni, Melina, Miquella and Malenia. Although these are only circumstantial pieces of evidence, of the 3 confirmed empyrean children, 2 of them are confirmed to be M/R children, I think the cuckoo imagery surrounding Caria is a hint about Ranni, and although it's implied, Godwyn is never actually confirmed to be Godfrey's child, and then in Messmer's fight you have part's of Radagon's theme in the music.
When you talk about marika being made out of emulsified flesh blended together in a jar, it made me think of the importance of butterflies in the story. That's essentially what Marika would be, metaphorically speaking, with the flesh being the caterpillar and the jar her cocoon. Even the mask that the people wear during this horrible ritual is called the "caterpillar mask" Then, of course, you have many different butterflies in the game that each represent a unique child of Marika's. Perhaps to say that she is the "mother" of these butterflies as well. Its an interesting motif that I'll definitely be thinking about on a future playthrough. Thanks for a thought provoking video!
This violence associated with new power and rebirth goes way beyond just the jars and butterflies. Enir Ilim, the gateway to divinity, is constructed from bodies. The finger ruins, birthplaces of the powerful Two Fingers and contact point for Metyr, have been infested by leeches and sucked of life. Hell, we enter the DLC by touching Miquella's corpse that's hanging out of a cocoon. In the most direct sense, he planned his own death as well as the deaths of several other demigods to make his bid for power. Power does not come from nowhere in Elden Ring, and those who obtain power are usually not the same as those who sought it.
@@Meese12 It all comes back to Berserk again lol with Griffith and his path to ascension paved with his victims, his final decision to sacrifice his band to become a finger on the hand of god.
Also, rebirth as a theme - and its COST - are weaved (pun very much intended) SO STRONGLY into the stories of nearly ALL of Marika's children?? I hadn't really thought of it that way until I read your butterfly comment, but now it seems SO obvious to me. Godwyn, stagnation. Literally forced to be neither dead nor alive, dooming (or blessing, depending on your perspective) those influenced by him to undeath - a literal kind of rebirth outside of the Golden Order. Mohg, obsessed with blood, the very essence of life, and the rebirth of a long-lost dynasty he could shape - and that's not even counting the bit where he put his brother in a goddamn cocoon, lol, since that was probably Miquella's idea. Morgott, the one loyal son, and the only one who doesn't seem obsessed with rebirth - quite the contrary, in fact, since he's essentially the lone guardian (of Marika's Golden Order) of Team Status Quo And Don't Rock The Boat. Ranni engineered her own partial death so that she could be reborn free from the influence of her Two Fingers. Malenia's blooms and the lore of the scarlet rot is literally rooted ALL in the concept of death and rebirth, something you see plainly when she blooms into Malenia, Goddess of Rot. Miquella's quest for rebirth is this whole dang DLC, lol. Melina's story is still quite vague, but we know she was born by the foot of the Erdtree, that she - at the time she meets the Tarnished - is "burned and bodiless", and that she was born with the same kindling within her as Messmer was. I speculate that she was born BY death, or through it; that in the death of something else, Melina came from it, much like pyrogenic flowers that only bloom after a fire. Messmer's theme here is not as strong, though there's his butterfly - but I think his story is more about the wish FOR rebirth, in the shape of redemption, of ridding himself of a sin he was born from but did not choose. ... and Rykard got himself vored on purpose so he could be rebirthed as a giant snake god. TOGETHAA indeed 😂🫡🤯
I think the reason why the Hornsent were obsessed with the "jar mixing" is probably to recreate the power of the Crucible. In the Crucible, all things were together and life spawned from it. So, the jars are like the Crucible in their way.
Definiton of a Crucible: "a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures." Jars are a literal crucible to reenact the Crucible Tree
To add to this, maybe the reason the Crucible Knights joined Godfrey and Marika was because they found this practice abhorrent? Like how Islam and certain Christian sects have very strict rules about idolatry, maybe the Crucible Knights thought the Hornsent trying to recreate the divine Crucible was a deeply blasphemous act, and thus they had to be stopped?
Holy shit that has to be it, there is even a description somewhere in game where it's stated that they're trying to make saints by stuffing them in jars. "Saints" of the Crucible, in a grotesque and deranged way. It's pretty theorised that the first sin was Marika divesting herself for the first time, in order to let the Golden Order usurp the Elden Ring and "corrupt/override" the Crucible. This is when antithesis first appeared. By stuffing people in jars, the hornsent would want to forcibly recreate the state of existance pre-Golden Order, when the Crucible was the only thing that existed.
Being disgusting by a late revelation about the circumstances of her birth almost makes it sound like Marika's story could parallel, of all people's, Rya's.
I love finding those parallels because I think it provides such a strong foundation for theories in that same vein to be true. Thank you for sharing that I can absolutely see that being a hint!
If Queen Marika is a Jar Saint that was created by mixing different forms of life together that may explain why her children were so influenced by the outer gods. If the ingredients used to make her a jar saint were creatures of the outer gods, then that could explain why her children, especially when she had children of Radigon, were so chimeric.
@@LiliumCruorem Rykard is probably an aspect of radagons self hatred, as well as disdain for the world that put the Carians on the defensive. He is aligned with caria.
She’s part of a group of people who are said to assimilate well together in the jars. I don’t think she was a jar saint herself- I think her ascension to godhood was the cause. the divine gate with all the gatherings of the golden threads probably influenced her (genetically- going back to her people being good at melding too) and her eventual children.
Casually dropping one of the greatest elden ring lore videos ive ever seen. Marika's children were aspects of herself she picked up in the jarring process...what a wonderful theory. Well done.
You raised some unreal points here. I believe alot of Marikas origin story is hit right on the nail in this vid. Although im not too sure she is purposely putting her curses into her children, instead randomly showing up in each child as a consistent reminder of the hornsent and where she comes from. This would help explain why she loved Godwyn the golden best, he was the uncursed, untainted child. The shining example of Marikas ideal world. and because of his death, thanks to Ranni (and quite possible Miquella to get him as a consort) she finally breaks mentally. She tries so hard to save her loved ones from death, such as removing the rune of death from her reign as a way to recompense the massacre of her people from the shaman village. Despite this Godwyns death comes anyways just like how she lost her village and this is where she realizes that all shes done, that even becoming a GOD couldnt stop the ones she loved most from death, and due to this she shatters the Elden ring. All along all she wanted to do was save the people she loved from death but inevitably fails at every turn. Such a tragic and nuanced character Marika is, im really happy SOTE helped explain Marikas origins and why she did what she did in the main game. Also, since your analysing the statues so much I wanted to bring up something interesting. Did you notice that the earlier statues of Marika seems to be more structured. She starts her reign with hee hands at her waist and as time progresses you can see her slowly and slowly lowering down into his classic crucafixtion pose? I urge you to look into it as I could also help explain the timeline of events.
What if Godwyns curse was the fact he couldn’t die? The black knives were supposed to kill the body. But instead his soul was destroyed. His body, undying, became the death root. Spreading its form of death throughout the lands. Please correct me if I’m wrong. I am not good with lore. I used to think dark souls 3 was a prequel to two with how different two was
While the saving the loved one's from death angle you present certainly seems compelling as a reason in light of the Shaman village, I still find that angle hard to reconcile with the creation and banishing of the Tarnished and Godfrey as that essentially from what we can tell removed their inability to die and it seemed like she did it with a plan in mind despite what love she might have held for Godfrey which to me indicates she was starting to give up on/wanted a way out of being the Greater Wills vassal god regardless of the consequence that might have for those related/close to her and this seems to have been a while before The Night of the Black Knives, in other words it feels like some things are still missing for us to be able to completely conclude what Marika's views and motivations were at certain points for some of the things that she did. Also to add on, while this vid had some interesting interpretations of the timeline of events as well as how things occurred regarding Marika's origin, I find that some of the lore given by Ymir regarding the Fingers and Marika was entirely absent from the possible way that Marika achieved her godhood as Ymir almost seems to imply they had a rather close connection with her ascension and how she achieved it or at least possibly what she did after which I've seen some other lore videos touch upon. The picture of what happened leading up to the in-game present has definitely started to better form with what the DLC has revealed, but the whole puzzle has still yet to be pieced together correctly I feel.
@@quinnzykir Godwin was “killed” by only half of the death rune, the part that kills the soul. Ranny killed her body, the half that kills only the body.
Good theory. We know that Millicent and her sisters are aspects of Malenia that were thrown off after her battle. We know that Miquella divested himself of St Trina. Therefore it seems the Empyreans have an ability to excise parts of their selves as independent entities. Would show how Marika was able to create Messmer.
Might even explain why Ranni and Melina share the eye tattoo and both being bodiless - it's possible Melina is an aspect of Ranni made into her own entity.
This is honestly the most well thought out theory i've seen about Marika's history in the land of shadow, the idea that Marika was essentially "raised" by the hornsent is something i hadnt heard being talked about before but it helps piece out a lot of the environmental storytelling.
Yeah I agree that her being an insider to the hornsent culture at some point is pretty clearly alluded to. I'm partial to the theory of her being a succesful jar saint myself.
The gloam-eyed queen having serpentine aspects makes so much sense. The godskin she cradles them in could literally be her own skin that she sheds like a snake. Hell, she may even be able to take the form of a serpent the same way Lansseax was able to take the form of a human. Serpents are always descendants of dragons in FromSoft games.
Yeah, this is the one. This is the first video on the DLC where I went "Oh shit, this is it, someone's cracked the final piece of the code." So many acute insights packed in here. I vary just slightly on a small point though. Marika "putting" the aspects she doesn't want inside her inside her children sounds off to me, as a reaction. I think they were in her, and because they were in her, they got passed on to her kids. Birth defects, essentially.
Putting aspects of one's self literally into there children fits so poetically and it ties in perfectly with all of her children having their left eye missing. Maybe Marika plucks her kids eyes out in order to end the chain of that awful influence or disable her children from ever ascending to godhood. Crazy!
Also, it fits with the whole notion of "the sins of the father" (in this case mother) and generational trauma; if you try to repress your history, it's bound to be repeated in your children.
Its funny how you mention their eyes, because Malenia, Miquella, Mesmer, and Marika herself all have their eyes closed. Malenia has her eyes missing, while Mesmer had a fake glass eye.
@@Nin_tonydose it say that anywhere I really like the idea but can't remember hearing anything like that before my only other problem with it is there are 4 eyes but there should be only 2 since they share a body right?
I think the overtures of what you present here are pretty spot on, but a few points of contention: The storehouse is explicitly the result of Messmer's Fire Knights' requesting to protect and archive some of the Hornsent culture during the purge. The Black Keep in general has much more contemporary architecture compared to Hornsent architecture - its akin to Stormveil or the (real) Roundtable Hold. All this means is that the details of what you posit change, but the general gist is... yeah, she had Messmer, bided her time, and continually "divested herself" of Crucible adjacent aspects. The Scadutree is a giant symbol of that, even, borne of things that bear no semblance of order. The literal shadow of the great golden Erdtree.
Such a great remark about the Scadutree being born of no semblance of Order; mirrors her perfectly and I’ve been struggling with trying to make that connect!
@@kitetales Its in the Scadu Avatar remembrance, I can't take full credit haha Marika wasn't necessarily a huge fan of Order itself, but I think its clear she at least wanted to NOT be like the Crucible and distance herself from her past and origins as much as possbile - from the people and cultures who functionally genocided her people and in one way or another groomed her into godhood. I think Order is almost an escape, for Marika, and she breaks the Elden Ring when she realises her escape is actually just a bigger cage.
I love the hypothesis presented here. Shows a lot of thought was put into them. One thing I want to point out is that Marika didn't give traditional birth, but she relied on Erdtree births for her children. Basically, she harvested them like fruit from the tree. We know this because Melina says as much when she asks about Bok and what it's like to be born of a mother. I've been assuming that each is the demigods are reborn Empyreans and lesser gods, killed by Marika's Golden Order and forcefully recycled through the Erdtree.
I would also like to mention that the crucible knight era of Godfrey’s era would perfectly allign with an initially collaborative period of the golden lineage and the hornsent. It would perfectly explain the sudden change of meaning of the aspects of the crucible going from being worshipped to hunted down and killed during the reign of Godfrey. Marika found out or at least revealed her finding out at that time and had the Lord of the Erdtree cast the shadow by leading the revenge against the hornsent for their actions against the Shamans. Such an event does fit the lore of the main game.
Radagon was a man who also got put into the jar with Marika. Their flesh melded perfect together. His red hair symbolises the Crucible. Probably something related to the old tree got dumped in the jar with them
I think that is absolutely it! The braided tree branch on the infinity symbol on the Greatjar podium is probably what that’s meant to be, the inclusion of the tree
@@kitetales@MissyAmy88 absolutely not. I agree with almost every part of the video but Radagon and Marika blending. Radagon is just her physical, less spiritual, aspects of her. She had to split those aspects in order to ascend to a god, such as Miquella needed to split his flesh, eyes, love... and so St. Trina was born. Also, hornsents making "saints" isn't them trying to create a god but giving a divine porpose to the shamans. Hornsents needed shaman's flesh melding properties to create the divine gate. All corpses from the divine gate are hornsents, they just needed the "glue" to blend all those lifes together. Grandam Hornsent calling Marika "wanton strumpet" is the key. You don't call someone that just because "she's the one" you call her that if you think she had sex or an inappropiate romance. So, "the seduction" is the reason she calls Marika "wanton strumpet". Marika seducted SEROSH, not Godfrey (and deffo not GEQ), that's a cardinal sin for hornsents as Lions were divine beasts. She seducted divinity, became a goddess, and BETRAYED her fate (ghost on bonny village tells us shamans were "created" to be put into jars). Marika was meant to be glue on the divine gate, not a goddess, that's treason! The trailer also says: the betrayal and the seduction, AN AFFAIRE (so there was a relationship) from which golden arose (golden order) and so too shadow was born (Messmer). There's a talisman in the shadow keep pointing Godfrey's Messmer father. Also, that explains why Marika send away Godfrey/Serosh once they won Giant's war. They only were a mean to an end, and then Marika calls back Radagon, her other half.
@@indiesounnd6051 I think she had sex with Serpent i.e. the ritual we see at Volcano Manor, but since her "super-power" is to combine aspects and essenses - Mesmer is a mix, not a pure serpent. That's why Grandam calls her a sloot and Marika herself wants to hide and supress Mesmer. That's her sin.
@@AltFromTheLimbo there’s no evidence of Marika having sex with the serpent, it could be true at some point but, anyways, that theory doesn’t fit the key words from the story trailer:” the seduction and the betrayal, an affaire from which golden arose and so too shadow was born” People often focus only on the first sentence since it’s much easier to fit. But the second sentence is there too. There was a romance which “gave birth” to gold and shadow. Marika having sex with the serpent doesn’t make sense at all to create the golden order. Marika romancing Serosh does.
I remember seeing somewhere that the Store Room was created during Mesmer's "war". They were basically eradicating this entire race of beings and so, to preserve their history, this building was created.
Yeah that was a request of one of the Messmer's Fire Knights, the sage one that wears a hood (forgot the name, sorry). If anything I'd say the entire Shadow Keep was built during the crusade era, and built exactly around Shaman Village in order to keep the place protected and hidden, despite the fact no one lives there anymore.
I really like the Marika-is-a-jar-saint thing. I actually think about this a lot, see how this grabs you. “Miquella spoke of the beginning, of the seduction and betrayal…” So, a seduction. Consider what we find in Bonny village - an apparition of a Hornsent explaining to a shaman why he has to do this to her. But why would a sacrificial lamb require an explanation? Who is going to bother trying to rationalize and justify that? …unless it wasn’t any lamb. Unless this particular lamb had given this particular Hornsent reason to question his own actions. His words are so insistent I believe they can be seen as him wrestling with his own conscience even more so than trying to convince the sacrifice of the necessity of killing them (which, again, would be weird). What if this Hornsent had been successfully seduced by this shaman, which resulted in her being the only one to survive? This handles the line about Marika blessing the village even tho there was no one left to save - survivor’s guilt and the certainty that her family was dead. It handles the lines from the Hornsent grandam about Marika being a slut. It handles the “seduction and betrayal”. It handles explaining the Hornsent headgear that stops them from having doubts - possibly implemented after one of them fell in love with a shaman. And.. here’s where I put on my tinfoil hat.. It handles who messmers father is. Yep. That’s right. Marika got pregnant by a Hornsent to survive the massacre and then had the son of that union annihilate his father’s people. I been thinking about this for a while. I do like your theory a lot tho. Great video as always.
The Godfrey link is a VERY nice catch! I was wondering why Godfrey was completely absent in the story of the Land of Shadow, the only things we had to go on were the Talisman of Lord's Bestowal (placed beneath one of the golden trees, was Marika growing these as proof of her sainthood?), and Messmer's soldiers wielding axes (using his exact fighting style, even.) One thing I might add is that since the Land of Shadow and the rest of the Lands Between were one place during this time, Hourah Loux may not have necessarily been from there. Marika could have brought him home from anywhere, possibly the "badlands" mentioned in the Exalted Flesh and Nephelli's set. I can understand the Grandam's stern motherly disapproval at her daughter bringing home some bad boy from the badlands...
Still watching the video so this may overlap but here are some thoughts that popped into my head while watching: I get the feeling the scene we see in the story trailer of Marika by the Divine Gate must have happened before her hair became braided. Maybe she became a god and was then able to braid her hair indicating her divinity thus her statues were being made. Or the hair became braided as a result of the ritual? The statues all have the Circlet of Light that we get from Miquella thus indicating the statues were made after that ritual.
If you watch the story trailer carefully when she raises the golden threads, you can see her braid form as the wind rushes out of the divine gate. It's a subtle detail, but she seems to have no braid at the start of the gust of wind, and a fully formed one at the end.
But her hair, when unbranded in the cinematic, seems to be much longer already than the statue shown. I mean, unless she cut her hair to turn it into a belt, I guess.
I think the tree and the shaman in front of it is “eiglay” transferring her soul to a nearby snake using the tree (as it’s pointing at the snake) to avoid being put into a pot in Bonny village.
Hornsent’s references of “O mother” and “wife and child” make me wonder whether Marika’s relationship with either the Hornsent in general or Hornsent himself included a marriage of some kind. Hornsent’s deeply personal quest of vengeance is unhinged to the point where it suggests he suffered a personal betrayal himself.
Maybe Hornesent is the Son that the Grandam mentioned? Would actually make a lot of sense if he was given she wants us to take said son to help us kill Messmer and Hornsent is to my knowledge the only NPC summon we get to use in the fight against Messmer.
@@EnergyBurst2 the son is the actual incantation she gives you. It's the spirit of her son. There also are parallels and similarities between that incantation and spirits that haunt Omens to the point that we can state that Hornsent Elder spirits are a source of Omen Curse, seemingly based on the Lamenter practice abhored by the hornsent. Some kind of biological warfare by Hornsent against Lands Between that predates Messmer's Crusade.
Another reason that I think confirms the Jar Saint Theory is the whole alchemical theory of the Rebis. The Red King and White Queen connect both to the visual designs of Red Radagon and Blonde Marika inhibiting the same body. The soul of a male and female sharing one body in harmony. The jar material is expanded in the DLC with Red and White mushrooms. These items are described as fleshlike and a perfect substitute in the crafting recipes of jars. As the greater potentate cookbooks also describe that these crafting recipes came from their creator unable to stomach the rituals of the jars. It almost seems like Radagon and Marika were perfect for each other and most likely fused. We know that Radagon hated his hair for its likeness to the giants, but what if it extended him as but another perfect component to the recipe of a true saint. The timeline gets scuffed but its already a bit of a mess. But I do think that this promotes that Marika WAS a saint born from the Jar Ritual and is the reason why the Hornsent had a fondness for her, a fondness enough for her to be considered a traitor when she enacted her genocide.
Absolutely brilliant theory. No one among the numerous lore experts attempts this last weeks proposed anything coherent and pertinent of this level. Thank you.
I love the irony of Miquella and Marika. Miquella sees Marikas order as “flawed” or “problematic.” He denounces his mother and pursues godhood for himself. In his attempt to rid himself of his mother’s troubles and wrongdoings, he ends up doing the exact same things as Marika. He used people to achieve his goals, just like Marika. He gave the inhabitants of the lands between/the shadow realm a false promise, just like Marika. Furthermore, in his attempt to bring in an age of compassion, he becomes cold and heartless… just like Marika. For being a prodigy, he seems to be naive to his own actions. Similarly to the actions Marika had to take in order to gain power and control. Hopefully that made sense 😅
@@WAR3600 St. Trina is my prime example. The shape that she’s left in, the place she’s locked away in. Her being Miquellas personification of love, and her saying the only way to free Miquella is to kill him. Furthermore, what he did to his brothers. Using Mohgs body and taking Radhans soul… who knows if Malenia was under his spell, or perhaps he fed her so many promises and dreams that she fell for him and did anything. After all, he left her in the Haligtree, and she waited there for her brother who would never return.
>He gave the inhabitants of the lands between/the shadow realm a false promise, just like Marika No he did not. He fully has the intent to keep the promise. Thousand years voyage guided by compassion. That's on the table. People will accept each other, but not with their own will.
Another thing to notice about Miquella is how childish he is. The moment something doesn't work, he abandons it. He wanted to help Godwyn it seemed but the idea was clearly abandoned; he wanted to make a second and better Erdtree, the Haligtree, which was abandoned as well, he decided to go to the Land of Shadows. I think that the biggest example of this is the Unalloyed Gold Needle. That thing was almost finished, he could've cured his sister, but he told her to go nuke Caleid instead to kill Radahn so he could turn him in his consort eventually.
So many good connections. Great job Kite! (btw the one about ff7 made go "why i didn't see this analogy with Marika and Sephiroth before.." it's so clear!)
You talking about the braids got me thinking that maybe the crucible was the Erdtree and Scadutree melded together. When Marika seperated the shadow lands from the rest of the lands between she created the Scadutree and Erdtree as they are now. The Scadutree seems to have 2 sort of main trunks branching off while the Erdtree is one perfectly straight trunk. The depictions of the 3 trunk tree we see in the shadow lands might be depictions of the primordial Erdtree/ Crucible.
Something that another lore channel mentioned was how if you look at the very top of the Erdtree past all the bright light you can actually see what looks like the dead trunk (and a few leafless branches) of another slightly taller tree that possesses an expected standard brown wood colored trunk much like how we see at the doorway into the Erdtree itself showing what was likely the old Great Tree having actually been swallowed up and surrounded by the Erdtree. To me that could mean the Great Tree was the central straight tree in the sorta triple tree spiral sigil that can be found in certain places in the dlc and the Scadutree could have been, or at least represents, the other 2 that were spiraling now split off with the rest of the Shadowlands with now only each other to spiral into resulting in why they are crumbling, this all might be a stretch though and the Scadutree could literally just be its own thing and spirals as a way to mock the hornesent or as a way to represent the darker more 'twisted' and potentially destructive orderless aspects it represents.
God damn you’re a tier 1 ER content creator! I’ve been watching the others for 2 years, how come you’ve only come up on my feed now! Gonna watch everything you’ve put out so far. Keep up the tremendous work!!
From the Gazing Finger description: "The head of Metyr, the finger-mother[...] From within the center of the fingerprint that wrinkles the creature's foremost protrusion, a tiny wart-like eye gazes vacantly into the beyond." And from the description of the Staff of the Great Beyond: "[...] The Mother [of Fingers] received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm. Despite being broken and abandoned, she kept waiting for another message to come." So your assumption about this dot being Metyr's eye is absolutely correct.
Just to confirm Marika was a successful jar saint: the tooth whip describes how it was used for the jar rituals, and in the story trailer you can see scars from teethmarks on Marika's arm.
I'm with Nightscout on this one. The jar people aren't just grafted, they're fully skinned. Also, the way the whip describes the process and how Godrick grafts a dragon to his arm, it seems like raw flesh needs to connect to raw flesh to 'meld' them. So while we may see scars on Marika, she also isn't Grafted in any way. Unless the 'sainthood' involves emerging from said jar completely renewed, I don't think that Marika was ever forced into a jar.
@@LeviathanTamer31woah never thought about how this theory fits well with goddrick too. Like his whole thing is trying to combine his body with others to make him more powerful. Knowing or not, he could be emulating how his mother was created in the first place
@@dmmax18Someone made a good point that maybe Empyreans had the power to discard parts of themselves so Marika got rid of the pot stuff and got renewed and at some point she discarded/created Radagon similarly as Miquella St. Trina. Also the video maker had a nice point that Marika discarded some qualities of hers by giving birth such like the Abyssal Serpent into Messmer which was possibly within her originally. Ofc the other theory is that every child of hers (especially the ones with Radagon) is cursed because of some sin she did against either the Crucible or the Greater Will.
The "Eye" connexion with Fingers and outer gods is fascinating, expecially when you also consider the link to Chabriri, his "raisins" and the expression of the Frenzied Flame, or the formless Mother, which appeared in the shadow to Mohg, trapped in the depts, a horn circling back straight into his eye socket. You are definitely onto something there! I stumbled by pure luck onto your content, and i truly appreciated it, thanks!
Kite!!’ Wonderful observations!!! RADAGON WEARS THE BRAIDED BELT IN THE LANDS BETWEEN BTw!!! Addendum: I see that you did mention this later on in your video. I prematurely commentulated!
@kitetales It's entirely possible it's something he took with him when they split apart. I mean, he (like St. Trina and Miquella) is her exact opposite. She's progress, he's regression. She's rebellion, he's loyalty. Female, male, etc. We know for a fact he definitely took the Giant's Curse with him, the red hair. That said, the Other Halves don't all follow that trend. We don't know Ranni's Other Half (though I suspect it is Melina, being burned and bodiless, and the "younger sister with visions of fire" was actually original red-haired Ranni), but... Zullie the Witch showed cut dialogue of Malenia 6 months prior that now confirms that Millicent and the sisters are Malenia's Other Half, just split apart as if born through pollination when her Scarlet Rot flower first bloomed. Millicent spends most of the story talking about returning Malenia's pride to her, meaning that like Radagon and St. Trina she carries a lost bit of emotion, of self, to Malenia. In the cut dialogue if Millicent dies without removing the needle before fighting Malenia, Malenia has absorbed Millicent into herself and calls your character Dearest Friend, and speaks in a sad manner wishing they did not have to fight. It's all very interesting.
@@SpacePirateLordthat's... So... FRUSTRATING!! Why didn't they include it??? Feels like EVERY TIME I hear of cut content from Fromsoft quests, it's something that would have made them *irrefutably* better. It would have been more than worth taking the time to include that in the game. Im mad now.
@wyattthealchemist Yeah, it's weird that they didn't include that version, but... The idea is still there in the game, as Gowry found the sisters in the Aeonian swamp, which makes sense as that is the most likely place they would have separated from Malenia, after the events of her first bloom fighting Radahn. Also, Millicent trying desperately to find Malenia to return her lost dignity and pride. It's basically become more subtle storytelling. I think perhaps they didn't include it because Miyazaki didn't want to reveal that all Empyreans also have an Other Half until the DLC.
@@wyattthealchemist It's probably cut because it would really really throw off people who don't pay attention to dialogue or lack the braincells to piece it together
i rate lore videos exclusively on how well i could listen to the video while nursing a migraine (which is usually when most of my lore videos are playing for me. Dark room, ice pack, and elden ring lore lol). Happy to say you get a solid 10/10 from me, and are added to the list of good ones
@@kitetales Sometimes they go quick, sometimes they don't, and that's when I'm grateful for these long lore videos. They really help pass the time quickly! Thanks again!
Regarding the Sephiroth analogy: what wasn't in those records was that Jenova was never one of that extinct people. She was the parasite from outer space that mimicked and killed them, The Thing style. If the analogy holds, Marika was never actually a Shaman. She was a thing created in a misguided effort to replicate their power from what turned out to be entirely different materials.
Ooooh damn!!! I never played FF7, but I got through half of 8 when I was just a lad ... This ^^ kinda seems fitting to me. Someone's theory I heard recently posited that she was a rogue Mimic Tear, and that would fit the analogy very well
Braids, spirals (helices), and double helices are different things, in a .. mathematical(?) / geometrical(?) / topological(?) sense. I've seen a couple of essays that lump them all into the same category (symbolizing combined life or similar), but I find it a little hard to believe that Miyazaki would ignore the differences; that they wouldn't mean something distinct.
I like your idea about Marika's kids being f-ed up because she was expelling her aspects of the Crucible into them. Even if it isn't what FromSoft were going for it's a satisfying narrative.
@JayWhipp1e Miquella himself abandoned his love (seemingly in the form of St Trina), I don't think it'd be that weird for Miquella to have something Marika cast off like that. Looking at St Trina the more superficially obvious aspect of her is "sleep", as opposed to "love". It might be something similar for Marika and Miquella.
Didn't Messmer build the library by request of one of his men, dedicated to keeping records/specimens of the peoples they were obliterating? Salza? Hilde? I forget who. Shadow Keep was built for him to use as Marika's regent, not reporposed from an existing structure, was it not?
"Hilde was a dear friend to Salza the sage, and joined those who urged that the specimens be preserved. Hilde's ashes were enshrined as a charm to protect the storehouse." I'm not sure if there is anything else that directly references the storehouse. I think it's difficult to say definitively what occurred. I sort of interpret that to mean the specimens were already there and that Messmer wanted to burn everything, but his top soldiers put their foot down. The hypothetical question that I would have if they weren't there to begin with is how they got the specimens into the storehouse, especially considering the purging that was happening throughout the lands of shadow.
@@justkubzalso not to mention how big some of them were, like none of the doors looked like they could fit the giant hanging men and beasts through them.
@FoolOfDust94032 yeah that's one of the main thoughts I had, but it's also difficult to take that as evidence because it is a video game after all and sometimes we can sort of handwave things so that they make sense lol but the logistics of getting them in there would be tough, let alone without causing damage to the specimens
Her name was actually changed to "Hornsent Grandam" in the latest patch. It seems like it was a typo. Also, given the braid's description: A braid of golden hair, cut loose. Queen Marika's offering to the Grandmother. Boosts holy damage negation by the utmost. What was her prayer? Her wish, her confession? There is no one left to answer, and Marika never returned home again I wonder, if her prayer or wish was that she could have saved her people, to have known them, to save them from that fate. This video is by far the best theory I've heard. Everything I see online has never felt satisfactory. I hope more is uncovered because Marika's backstory was the most interesting by far.
The thing I never got a hold on is whether the grandma mentioned in the braid offered is the empyrean grandam, or someone else. Logic says that since we only meet one grandma, that's probably her, but that is literally the only line mentioned between their connection. Not sure if I'd agree with the assessment that marika hid messmer out of love; let's say she did grow out of the nonsentimental culture of the hornsent, or the trauma of the experience having changed her for the crueler, I feel like even if the birth of messmer (who from the current understanding seems to be the eldest son?) awoken any feelings of love within her, the remembrance description for messmer seems to say that she sent him back into the shadow lands because she feared him. The idea that marika's children are just aspects put into her that she released into her children is evocative. I really like that. For marika to have been a trusted...god/servant/tool of the hornsent, I can imagine her the desolation of the giants being part of that role, since the hornsent also feared the fell flame. I wonder if that puts the timeline of the hornsent civilization quite a bit closer than it appears. I think there's something else that lends credence to the gloam eyed queen being a part of marika now; malenia has a gloamed eye, and if we follow the reasoning that marika's children received aspects that were put into her, then there's a possibility that aspect was passed on to malenia. A bit of a sidetrack, but i think that also speaks to the culture of the godskins; they must have known certain aspects of the shamans or the idea of compositing beings into themselves for power. A bit further down the rabbit hole; the fact that aspects of the giants appear within messmer and radagon might imply that they're descendents of marika who took in the giant's aspects sometime during her creation...which makes me think that radagon might also be a child of marika? we never really learn of his lineage other than that there was giant blood in it, but considering what we find out, it's more likely his ancestor experienced the jar treatment, and we know of mainly one success story so far. (nevermind you went there later on!)
Great video! I think this timeline and dlc does a lot to make sense of the events, I will posit though that I think a lot of what we saw in the DLC finally consolidated the two primary theories about who Melina is, those being one of Marika’s children or the Gloam eyed queen. Before the dlc those theories seemed very mutually exclusive, but now with the dlc i think both are true. Firstly we got solid confirmation of her being Marika’s daughter from the Messmer’s Kindling description. I think that while Mesmer was tasked with the overall slaughter of the common hornsent, his younger sister Melina (who was an empyrean whose aspect aligned with destined death) was tasked with delivering death to the other hornsent divinities (either othersuccessful jar saints or hornsent who successfully passed through the divine gateway, I can’t remember what item mentions these but I swear it’s somewhere). To complete this task, she formed the cult of the godskins, who would skin these hornsent divinities and wear their flesh (which explains why they manifest aspects similar to the crucible, the hornsent divinities flesh infuses them with aspects of the crucible). At some point along the way, Marika removed Melina’s right eye and replacing it with an Iris of Grace just like her older brother (her right eye was saved though, we receive it as an item in game, the beast eye, an eye set in stone that is the same color as Melina’s left eye which we see in the frenzied flame ending and the stone bears the same markings as are around her eye. The eye also trembled in the presence of death root, since Destined Death was her aspect.) When the time came to set up the Golden Order proper, Marika wanted to remove destined death from the order, and either Melina opposed this, or Marika needed to destroy Melina in order to bind destined death. Either way Melina was burned to ash and Destined Death was bound. Still ultimately a theory but I personally think it finally makes Melina and the gloam eyed queen and the godskins make perfect sense.
Oh one more thing. That design behind her statues, it really looks like it's supposed to represent a prettied up version of the jar guts that are attached to her poor people. Almost like an homage/dedication.
@@Mongrelntruder for some reason I think that flesh pocket is a godskin. Maybe not the godskin we know, but a literal hornsent created beastgod. Perhaps the original lion the dancing lions are channeling? I believe Godfrey slew a Hornsent Deity and gave it to her as a wedding present and she used its corpse to ascend with all the traits the jars birthed in her.
I feel like the time line went something like: 1. Marika ascended to some kind of sainthood during the time of the crucibleband the Hornsent. Perhaps Radagon was a Giant "sinner" she was "potted" with. 2. She rose to enough power to "betray" the Hornsent and ascend to full Godhood, perhaps it was a ritual she was even forced into, hence all the Hornsent bodies reaching toward the gate in the Miquella boss room. In this process, her people were all sacrificed. 3. Marika shorn her braid, had Messmer and Melina, married Godfrey, started the first age of the Erd tree, and shielded away they Shadow realm. 4. She birthed her omen children and discovered Messmer's abyssal serpent, so she hod Messmer's away and had him destroy everything that wasn't touched by grace. 5. Perhaps at this time, when Farum Azula was still on the ground, Melina rose to power as the Gloam Eyed Queen. Maybe she revolted in response to her brother being cast out. 6. The Elden Beast comes to the world, blowing up Farum Azula, allowing Marika to overtake the Gloam Eyed Queen and remove the death rune while fusing with the Elden Ring. Yeah, something like that. Surely some bits and bobs are out of order or misconstrued, but in general.... I think...
@@varsoonhks3211 She could be. If you do the frenzy ending Melina appears in the cutscene and her normally closed eye is open and it looks gloam. Another thing that could support this theory is the Black Flames that Gloam-eyed queen bestowed upon the Apostles. From the item Messmers Kindling you have a description that as his sister (Melina) he also had visions of fire. And this kindling is described as a "dark thing". Melina is also a kindling maiden. Maybe its connected or maybe not.
Holy damn!! It DID blow my mind! That would then also be why she's depicted as a shattered/broken statue-type of thing - she just looks like a shattered collection of stone pieces once you can look at her after the Elden Beast fight.
Moved to new video: I’ve been watching a lot of tarnished archaeologist and the first statue in the lands of shadow seems like it could be at the start of the age when she performed the libation ritual across the lands between. Maybe she went around and saw the various places in the lands between after becoming one of their saints through “jar technology”. Then she comes back to the lands of shadow, with the new knowledge, cut her lock of hair, hijacked a divine god ritual to become lord and god radaghan/marika, birthed messemer, then returns to the lands between to have Godfrey be her “consort” and conquer all who oppose her. Pretty solid plan.
Wow great video ! I caught myself thinking “oh that might be a stretch” a couple of times, but glad I kept watching since you explain everythting really well, and having finished the vid everything you said actually comes off as way more plausible than anything I thought. Nicely done !
@@kitetales Yee. The lore for the dlc (or seeming lack of it) left me lukewarm to it. But as soon as you mentioned the Sephiroth comparison, many things seemed to make more sense. Your video rekindled my interest in the game overall. 😊
Great video! I really think you're on the right track here, so many things clicking into place. And that point about Sephiroth and Marika is genius, I would just add that Zoraya in the base game would also parallel this.
First off, Love this video, some things I forgot in the base game were in here that reignited some thoughts and theories I had for this game and its DLC I don't wanna nitpick aren't ALL the Empyreans we come into contact with Shaman? Technically all 6 children that we know of from Marika are about half Shaman: Mohg, Morgott, Malenia, Miquella, Messmer, Melina. Depending on if Radagon and Marika were always of the same body then its POSSIBLE that Ranni, Radahn, and Rykard could be Shaman too, this might explain why Rykard seems to be melded with the Serpent despite being consumed. The thing is if Shaman can meld with anything and Marika was the success to the Hornsent's experimentations then she wouldn't be 100% Shaman and be made up of many other humans and Shaman. ALL of Marika's children are "cursed" it does seem like its the curse of the Hornsent, which I do really agree with you
Shaman, or jp temple preistesses are a class of people a caste or profession. We know this because Marika's people are the Nuemen as clearly stated in several places including tge charayer template for that appearence. That's latin for divine power or divine will. The Nox are also Nuemen. All of the Empyeans are definately at least partially Nuemen through Marika. The only one we cannot say for certain is the GEQ, who could be one. The best evidence we have is that the Godslayer Greatsword is a spiral, just like the finger-slayer blade, which was kind of the Nox version of the same thing, a weapon to kill a god.
Not only the kids whose names start with M. I think even Godwyn (and his descendants) inherited that shaman blood of Marika. The way his body assimilate with death and encroach the root of erdtree, I'd say his body is trying to fuse with both the fragment of rune of death used on him as well as the root where his body was enshrined. This shamanic ability is also inherited by Godrick, though in a different method of grafting various limbs and body parts into himself.
@@spearsage I thought about including Godrick, Godwyn, and Godefroy but we never really see Godwyn's whole body while alive and we don't know if him assimalating with the Erdtree is an affect of Shaman melding ability or if Erdtree sees (or saw) Godwyn as another burial offerring, Godrick/Godefroy may have some Shaman blood in them since Godrick seems to be able to keep some his sanity (I always felt like he was depicted as a crazed, entitled, inbred noble) unlike the Grafted Scion or Revnant.
As with Dark Souls it is the most important to discern truth from propaganda. Gods? Empyrean? Who's to say it's true? Fingers? Marika herself told to ALL her children to "be as a lord. As a god" If Malenia is an avatar for a Goddes of Rot only empyrean may become...then who is Romina? If we could slain several Gods on our journey...then what differs them from not Gods? And what does that make us then? If Gods deliberately give your their power as blessing, Giant'a fire from Fell God, Scarlet Rot from GoR, bleed spells from Formless Mother and Divine from Greater Will...then who is the Gravity God? And why no one worships him yet can manipulate/use gravity?
The hilts of the weapons at the grace of the Roundtable Hold are also spiral. I wonder if there’s a connection. After watching your video, I went back to Enir Ilim. Spiral shaped objects, pillars and statues are really everywhere. I’m thankful I found your channel. You really bring super valuable insight and information to the community. Subscribed 👍🏻
I'm only half way through and I am literally nodding at every point you're making, it's SO GOOD. I love the idea of Messmer being a vessel for the "original sin" serpent. Very well explained so far... okay i will watch the rest now
Thank you for the video, very interesting observations and well thought out theories! In regards to Godfrey/Hoarah-Loux I observed that the Red Rune Bears you can find in a couple of places in the Land of Shadow do the same Earthshaker move that Godfrey does, and the Highlander set for some reason really reminds me of him and mentions highlanders hunting the red bears. Thus I like to think that Hoarah Loux indeed was a random murderhobo living where the Land of Shadows is today, running around the woods, grappling and bareknuckle-boxing the sh*t out of Red Rune Bears, when Marika found him and thought "this guy will be perfect for mushing the hornsent into a fine paste with his bare hands".
Did my message got removed? Well here we go again... Amazing vid! I was discussing this same thing about Marika being a product of the jar ritual implemented by the hornsent with a friend a few days ago. Becoming the "perfect" specimen. Also good work for noticing those small but important details on both Marika and Radagon's outfits🥰 Also nice call back with Sephiroth and Jenova's origin :) And btw I immediately recognized the artwork k8theKind uses as banner on her YT's channel. It was made by ariamis_arts. Maybe you both already know said artist. I just wanted to mention that because I love his artwork. Especially those related to the souls series!
Hi Adam!! No no I'm sorry, I deleted the first upload of this video because Adobe uploaded it almost 10 minutes shorter than what it should have been!! Thanks so much for leaving your comment again. I didn't know about the artist at all, thank you so much!! I will add that to the video, I really appreciate you looking out for artists!
Incredible Video Kite! I love that others are coming around to the idea that Marika has been divesting herself of pieces of her being ever since the beginning. I had a similar theory concerning the jarring ritual and her leaving undesired pieces of that ritual behind. Radagon could have very well been a lesser fire giant/descendant who was mixed in with her, hence Messmer's red hair. I'm toying with the idea that rather than Marika, it was Radagon who pushed for the sealing of Destined Death. Marika is always characterized as bringing conflict, breaking things apart, and was scheming to have Godfrey and the Tarnished return since before Radagon left Renalla. While Radagon is the one who forms a sect of their Order which ultimately spawns zealots, tries to repair the ring and is characterized as trying to mend/sow things together. He is even called Radagon OF the Golden Order. While Marika's very first incantation explicitly dubs it Golden WITHOUT Order. He also hates his Red hair which is a signifier of the crucible. Also, if we want to get really tinfoil hatty, the beginning of Story Trailer suspiciously looks like Radagon with the top off. And if we go with the idea that the scene is meant to be when Marika plucks the Elden Ring/Rune of death from some God related to the Crucible/Death/Gloam Skies theeen things start getting a bit interesting concerning Radagon's part in all of this. To me this all points to Radagon being the aspect who pushed for the Eternal Age. Marika might have been on board in the beginning but clearly had a change of heart. Marika no doubt realized that her Godhood was a cage just like St. Trina realizes it will be for Miquella. Marika's pose looking like its crucified on Radagon's Golden Order Totality pose is very intentional.
I think that all of the curses are actually parts of things blended with Marika, including something infected with rot, parts of the base serpent, all the things the hornsent considered cursed and unwanted. I've been thinking that Miquela may be the original young empyrean, hence the eternal youth. Morgot and Mogh were the only ones that were actually cursed. The other curses were parts of her that were able to be released due to her recombination with Radagon.
my only point that goes against the arm band theory is that the statue of radagon that has 2 armbands is in Renalla's chamber, which in this case would be a symbol of radagon's marriage to Marika...in the room renalla spends all of her time in, considering that renalla doesn't even allow a statue of Marika to be within her academy, i doubt she would keep a statue of her ex-husband with the signifier of their divorce
I think the armbands don't symbolise marriage as such but a binding vow that was made. Marika/Radagon broke the vow they made to Renalla but she was never able to accept this. What I'm still wondering about is the consequences of breaking the vow. My best guess would be that it either cut communications to the greater will or opened up the lands between to the influence of the outer gods
All the outer gods in the game actually represent the emotions of the one god, Marika. Marika shatters the ring and releases all the emotions within her, thus pursuing her children, each possessing a burning of their shattered selves.
The statue revelation is awesome! I love how they gave us a visual timeline of Marika through the ages. That said, I have a theory that might throw a wrench in it. See, we know the Hornsent were using the Shamans to try and create a god. But I haven't seen anyone else ask WHY they wanted a god. It's possible they just wanted to make a god for the sake of doing so -- their culture was obsessed with spiritual ascension, after all -- but that doesn't seem narratively satisfying to me. So then, why did they need a god? I think a clue is in the Furnace Visages, dropped from the Furnace Golems. They're described as depicting a Fell God of Fire that haunted the Hornsent. And although it lacks the one-eyed visage we're used to, I think this is almost certainly the same Fell God of the Fire Giants. And what was the first war Marika waged? That's right, the war against the Fire Giants. If Marika began her career as a god loyal to (or at least controlled by) the Hornsent, then I think they're the ones who had her wage this war. They needed a god to kill a god, and that's why they made her. Then, later on, when Marika used Messmer to take her revenge against the Hornsent, she had him create the Furnace Golems as a twisted parody of everything they did to her; a sacrificial blending together of life, bearing the image of the very god they made her to destroy. They're Marika's violent way of telling the Hornsent, "This is why you deserve all this." They're images of all the pain they inflicted on her, turned into tools of vengeance. That's just my theory, though. This DLC really turned Marika into one of my favourite characters in any piece of media, and I love how much the lore community is analyzing her now! EDIT: Almost forgot that the Talisman of All Crucibles also hints at this, as it supposedly grew on one of the Giants. This, along with the fact that the Rauh Ruins have very similar architecture to the ancient ruins around the Forge of the Giants (among other places), suggests to me that the Giants actually had a stronger connection to the Crucible than the Hornsent. Maybe that's why the Hornsent wanted them and their Fell God out of the picture; they wanted to be the chosen people of the Crucible, and couldn't stand the Giants' apparently being more favoured.
I think it's also possible that the Fire Giants and their God are somehow opposed to the Elden Ring, and may be the reason that the previous God of the Elden Ring, Placidusax's God, fled. I think there was some kind of calamity in Placidusax's time that left the world with no God and possibly is also the time that Metyr and the Two Fingers lost contact with the Greater Will. This could have been to do with the Godskins and the Gloam Eyed Queen, but I doubt it as I think they came much later. Metyr is stated to be the first star to fall upon the Lands Between, suggesting that she arrived before the Elden Ring. This makes me think that there may have been some form of life in the Lands Between before the Elden Ring. To me, it makes the most sense for a primordial culture of Giants to be the first things living in the Lands Between. Titanic giants form the foundations of several of Elden Ring's mountain ranges, and architecture similar to that around the Forge of the Giants seems to brace and underpin the entire world, even going deep underground. I believe the Fell God of Fire that they worship, the Flame of Ruin, may be tied to the Sun. The Flame of the Fell God incantation summons miniature suns to pursue foes. The eye of the Fell God resembles real magnetic storms that form on the surface of the Sun, and also resembles patterns made around meteorites embedded in the architecture of all of the divine towers. The Furnace Visage item is said to depict a fell god of fire and resembles heraldric depictions of the sun. And the Sun Realm Shield, one of very few items in the game that even mention the Sun, mentions a city "crowned by the sun" and an ancient "Seat of the Sun" that has long since faded away, suggesting at one point in the distant past there was a political power in the world that venerated the Sun. While this could be a Dark Souls reference, I think we are still supposed to believe there was an actual Seat of the Sun in Elden Ring's history. As stated, very few items even mention the Sun, which is unusual as in every real world culture, the Sun is given great cultural importance. It could be that the Sun is simply inferior to the newer, closer star, the Elden Ring but alternatively it could be that the Sun is shunned for cultural reasons. Most of the items that mention the Sun are tied to the Eclipse, and seem to suggest ideas that run counter to our conventional idea of the Sun as a giver of life. The Eclipse Crest Greatshield states: "The eclipsed sun, drained of color, is the protective star of soulless demigods. It aids the mausoleum knights by keeping Destined Death at bay." What's interesting here is that eclipsing the sun, obscuring it, draining it of colour, is what keeps Destined Death at bay. The Sun's light is associated with Destined Death, and blocking that light prevents Death from taking hold. This idea is repeated in the Eclipse Shotel: "Storied sword and treasure of Castle Sol that depicts an eclipsed sun drained of color." Its skill reads: "Set the lusterless sun ablaze with the Prince of Death's flames, inflicting the death ailment upon foes." Once again we have a lusterless Sun that is not associated with death (the sword has no deathblight build up by default) but when the Sun becomes lit, becomes coloured, becomes inflamed, it inflicts Death, and is the *only* weapon in the game to do so. I think the Sun burns with the Flame of Ruin, and that the Flame of Ruin is closely tied to Destined Death. This is why burning the right person in the Flame of Ruin at the Forge of the Giants directly transports you towards the Rune of Death at Farum Azula, an event the game never explicitly explains. I think that as the closest star to the Lands Between, the Sun was worshiped by the most ancient culture, the Giants, who built Rauh and other places. But eventually a new Star, the Elden Star, landed in the Lands Between, became the Elden Ring and empowered the Ancient Dragons to rival the Giants and claim Godhood for themselves. Eventually, either because of the Giants or for other reasons, Placidusax's God was forced to flee and the world was left with no God. The Hornsent, who revere the Divine Beasts who themselves were closely tied to the Ancient Dragons and their Storm, felt the world needed a new God to champion the Elden Ring, and set about experimenting with creating Saints by blending life, to artificially create a perfect candidate for Godhood. But rather than recreating the old Order of Placidusax's God and the Divine Beasts, Marika created a new Order of the Erdtree, and in doing so betrayed the Hornsent.
@@LuciferLucklessi really like this theory, makes a lot of sense that the original inhabitants of the lands between would worship the sun as their god in parallel to human history
@@LuciferLuckless Good theory, but I personally think it's more likely that the Fell God WAS Placidusax's god. The only named gods in the lore are Marika and the Fell God (the outer gods like the Formless Mother and Scarlet Rot seem like a different class from "regular" gods, especially with DLC context), so there aren't really any other candidates. I doubt it would be an unmentioned third god, though I only believe this because of a vague sense of narrative cohesion. We also know for a fact (according to Melina quoting Marika in the Second Church of Marika) that the Age of the Erdtree began immediately following the fall of the Giants. We also know that Placidusax was Elden Lord in the age before the Erdtree. The timeline seems to add up, with Placidusax losing his title of Elden Lord after the Fell God's defeat and Marika's consequential rise to power. This would also explain why the Ancient Dragons attacked Leyndell afterwards; they were seeking revenge for their god. And finally, we know Farum Azula is the seat of Placidusax, the deposed Elden Lord. And how do we get to Farum Azula? Be reigniting the Giants' Forge. Maybe this was the signal Placidusax was waiting for, heralding the return of his Fell God, and that's why we get pulled to the seat of his power. Honestly though, I don't think either of us are wring. One of my favourite things about From's method of storytelling through context clues and hints is that everyone has their own interpretation, and each theory can have merit. We're all reading a version of these stories that we most connect with, and that's awesome!
This is an amazing theory that gives a poetic and comolete feeling to the DLC, where it's all connected more. And it gives an interesting take on some of the demigods, if they're children in the way millicent is a bud of malenia, where the motivation for Marika's actions was also to remove aspects of herself after the revelation of her origin being such a terrifying merging of things. And that the origin of some of her children was the act of that removal. It would mean mellina could be even nore confusing. She could be more like millicent, an aspect of Marika, and maybe one remvoed far later in the timeline. I always assumes she was like the last remnant of Marika's soul sent out because Marika was trapped within the erd tree. But she may still be an aspect of Marika, cast off and becoming a new life.
I wanted to comment earlier but it was taken down before I could post it so here it is again ^^ I'll edit it after I've watched the full video again if I said anything unnecessary : Great video !! Especially the observation on the statues and the storeroom, and Godfrey maybe being a highlander. Those blew my mind ! There's 2 things I want to add though that might change a bit of your theories : 1 - Messmer's theme song during his fight is very closely related to Radagon's boss theme, so it is I think suggested that Radagon is Messmer's father, and thus her first marriage was maybe with him ? Also the harp that plays during the shaman village is also present not only at the start menu but also at the beginning of the Elden Beast's boss theme so it might be to further emphasize that the Elden Beast is Marika herself. 2 - The snake skin found next to the "O Mother" gesture that is very similar to the one found in the temple of Eglay where in the lore you discover Rya's origins is a hint to the Lithuanian tale about Eglé, the Serpent queen, a young maiden that was forced to marry a serpent (who turned out to be extremely handsome afterwards ^^' = maybe Radagon ???). In the tale that can be found on Wiki, after the marriage she ends up having four children, 3 boys and 1 girl that for reasons end up all cursed and become trees. Other than that I also loved the call back to Sephiroth and Jenova, very astute observation that scratches my FF fan itch
I wanted to add also that there is a lot of cases where the Fell God and serpents are closely associated, shown in other lore videos I've watched. And as the Fell God was also part of the Hornsent culture does that maybe explain Messmer and Melina's affinity with fire and Messmer's link to the base serpent ? Radagon hated his red hair also so maybe there's something there
Thank you so much!! I didn't notice that about Messmer's theme but I think that 100% fits!! I could totally see that being the case in the scenario that the seduction was of the Gloam-Eyed Queen via Radagon as well. I'll absolutely have to go read that tale you referenced, that sounds like it absolutely might be a reference!
@@zfezzanithe fell god is an original sun god as depicted by dung eater and his armor. Also this god later became the crucible God and finally the god the fire giants took power from in order to beat Godfrey.
Oh, this is so good.❤ I noticed the differences in statues as well. However, adding that Messmers statue with baby is so nice, it's really adds up a lot. Indeed, i believe Marika is a successful Jar experiment. And that's why Hornscent was okay with her. And I thought that her children were just part of her jar buddies. Like as you said, they chopped everything that could fit. So, for example, some Hornscent was added, some snakes, a bit of rot, a bit off children, a bit of warrior spirited person, or a blasphemous person. And then, when she had children, they shared those traits. Well, something like that comes to my mind. But anyway, great video. I will say this will be the ultimate look on things.😊
Am i the only one who thinks strumpet sounds like a great name for some kind of pastry or the like? "Ok sir, would you like a coffee to go with your strumpets?" "Lets sit down and have some tea and strumpets" Maybe im just a weirdo or just hungry, but the word strumpet makes me think about food.
@@kitetales lol, i know what strumpet means, but for some reason the word just makes me hungry, lol. I think it would fit a food better than it's acual definition is all I'm saying, lol.
Oh wow. You had a lot of this figured out months ago. I do think Mesmer was born with the snake in him tho, as Marika, being a conduit of all the outer gods gave birth to children who were more susceptible to being their vessels, willingly or not.
Trying to fit in more things here. I think that the clothes the Godskins wear are made from the flayed skins of the other shamans who were made into pots. And that the Godskin Nobles are instances where the pot-melding worked but on a smaller scale, not to the extent of creating "saints". (source: this video and the Godskin Noble Hood desc). Then the GEQ was another Empyrean who had been found by the hornsent and was working with them as a backup/alternative/rival to Marika. She was backed by at least the Godskins. As part of her journey, Marika had to come into conflict with GEQ to determine which of them got to ascend to divinity. However, Marika had a powerful ally in Maliketh who was able to defeat her and the Godskins. (We know that the rune of death was "plucked from the golden order upon its creation". We know that the GEQ held/controlled the rune of death. Therefore she must have lost control before Marika ascended to divinity and formed the golden order). Possibly the "seduction" and "betrayal" could apply here as well. It could be that Marika thought that the GEQ was too powerful to defeat due to her possession of the rune of death. Therefore, Marika/Radagon could have seduced her and stolen the rune of death in the process. Which would weaken her and her followers enough so that Maliketh could defeat them.
It could be that she gained godhood, had Messmer while still in the shadow realm. Then sent him to do his crusade before she would leave for her campaign in the lands between, promising to return. The idea that her kids weren't just cursed by fate but by her to rid herself of aspects she didnt want. Serpent, Melina with some kind of kindling the crucible in Mogh and Morgott, The Rot (although that's it's own god as far as I remember.) and probably her childish nature in Miquela. This is really interesting, good work.
But messmer did exist in the lands between, multiple items descriptions referring to him a ND gaius as being radahn seniors and close which wouldn't be possible if messmer never left the realm of shadow
@@boneman-calciumenjoyer8290 of all the points (which are good) this is the funniest one in a sense of imagine you walk in and he's like 'How do you keep coming back!? What sorcerry is this!?'
@@garbo3562 "oh yeah... so your mom made all of us effectively immortal, so that we can put the demigods to the sword and become Elden lord... you can call me stepdad, if you want." (Gets impaled and scorched again.)
This is utterly brilliant. It clears up so much that I didn't even realize I didn't know. I knew she hooked up with Radagon to make Mesmer, but the fact that they were married, and she left Radagon for Horah Loux, and that thats what makes her a strumpet. It also clears up another relationship I've been pondering, Miquella and St Trina. I was considering the possibility of St Trina actually being a separate entity from Miquella and not a discarded part of his body. Her being a Saint I figured then she must be a Jar Saint, like Molina Saint of the Bud, and I guess now Saint Radagon as well. The parentage of all Marika's children are clear to me, but how some ended up empyreans is not, I figured it was a curse on Marika that the Gods/Empyrians of various Outer Gods she defeated chose one of her children as their empyrean, but your theory adds so much to it, that since Marika is a Saint herself, her children each inherited an aspect of her that some outer Gods lusted after and forced their Empyrean mark onto them. I even get the Malenia, Miquella and Godwyn connection now. Godwyn being Marika's gold blessing without order, to Horah Loux the human warrior. He came out balanced. Marika tried to combine with Radagon again to complete the Rebis, the perfected hermaphrodite, since they both had gone on journeys of growth seeking perfection, Marika with her faith of Gold, and Radagon with the Glintstone soceries. Both had produced prodigies, Godwyn who slew dragons in the dragon war and Radahn who needs no explanation. Hoping to make the perfect order, the Golden Order that shall act forever. However everything being in perfect unity forever is essentially stagnation, and each of their twins were cursed by stagnation. Miquella to never grow and Melania to rot in place. Godwyn took pity on them, as he is the one they were meant to be like, and thats their statue at the Haligtree, the three embracing.
I wonder how Marika felt that if, after betraying the Gloam-Eyed Queen, that her second child, Melina, was born with a gloam eye. Perhaps the Gloam-Eyed Queen was akin to Radagon or St Trina, another piece of Marika, one which she cast off, one that opposed her new order, on any number of grounds. Marika is the goddess of life eternal whereas, I believe, the Gloam-Eyed Queen was the goddess of birth (think the swaddling cloth) and death (think god killing black flame). Similar but also incompatible ideas. I would caution that this is rampant speculation, but with the Gloam-Eyed Queen, that's the best we got. :)
This is genuinely the best Elden Ring I've ever heard! The connections, the motivations, the history, it all adds up to create something very cohesive and emotional. Fantastic stuff!
@@kitetales that makes alot of sense as to how there is allt of deep amazing ocult, mythological, botanical,and biblical references and connections in this experience of a game 🙏
but how would they then be the same person? doesn't really make sense to call it a seduction in that context. and radagon has absolutely no snake imagery tied to him and the concept of order which he embodies is the complete opposite of what the snake embodies in literature/religion. it also wouldnt make sense for her to reunite with radagon if he was the reason her child was cursed and had to be abandoned in the land of shadow.
Radagon is a champion that was elevated to elden lord by the greater will as he is a true believer to it. His Rune is much more orderly than any of the others. Also by the information we receive from the duelist set, its appearance and the colloseum lore we find out that Radagon only was elevated to elden lord a long time after the colloseums have stopped being used. Putting his actions with renalla in a time after messmer's crusade.
I may be late with the response because I didn't see this, but holy moly, this entire video just clicks and fits with everything that. I have recently heard of others going over the DLC lore wise or possible theories of how this came to be as it fits so well. I could not be hooked on the entire video and didn't want to skip any of the parts that you told in this video.
I’m half amazed by your theories and half annoyed I didn’t think of it myself. Marika being a jar saint makes so much sense and explains so much! Great vid!
highly agree, i commented this 4 weeks ago under a vaati vid, with the same train of thought: "Considering the theme of "creating a god" is all over Elden Ring, with the Nox, Rykard, Miquella, Mohg, Gowry and such. I doubt it started with Marika. Personally i think Marika is a successful product of the "nigh-sainthood" production/massacre of the hornsent. Not a survivor/escapee, but an amalgation of beings after being chopped up and merged. For the hornsent to consider Marika a betrayer, there had to be a connection first. Many of the Innard-Beings look visually extremely similar to Marika down to the Symbol. They are failed products of what Marika became. The Empyrian Grandmother is a hornsent with Ties to Marika. Since the hornsent consider the Crucible as holy, the origin of all, where everything was contained within, trying to recreate such a thing would be through merging "everything" back together once again. And since the Numen/Shamans merge harmonously, they act as glue, or base to this. This is rounded of by Marikas Rune being the Rune of Life (The crucible being the origin of life in the hornsent mythology) This feels very familiar with the Kodaku lore/The myth of the venom pot. Marikas Self/Ego is what came out. The hornsent put their faith, their hopes in their newly created, man made Saint, who turned their back on them, and started a massacre in turn, enacted revenge and used the Gates of Divinity to ascend to actual Godhood. This would also provide an explanation to the Marika/Radagon duality, and why all of Marikas offspring are cursed to an extent or flawed by outer gods influence Thus, within Marika, many Beings are accumulated, which had effect on her Offspring. Her being an artificial Crucible, although the life she was able to create, was flawed and it produced Omen Children, Cursed Children open to outer influences since they lacked a critical component. Radagon also mightve been a different Person too pre-Pot Merge, of Giant-lineage. His actual Ego is dissolved, but appearance kept, in her Arsenal. Marika couldve either morphed into him at will, or even seperated too, offloading her sense of instilled/programmed loyalty to be able to enact her Revenge on her creators. Him being the personified Aspect Loyalty or Order, was the reason he stayed true to the Elden Beast/Metyr after the Shattering and tried to reforge the Elden Ring after Marika shattered it. This would fit in the timeline, as the Minor Erdtree Miracle states the Erdtree was only with Marikas Golden Kindness but without the Order during her time at the Village with Messmer/Younger Sister. Similarily, Melina being the only one to know the secret Miracle is a clue to this. Thus the Crusade was not only for Revenge, but mayhaps to put an End to their further production of Saints and their Treatment of other races. To entirely bury their Sins, but also Marikas past and her own Sins with them. The supressing Pillar is in the middle of the Lands Between/Shadowlands, and the 6 Major Tower, who likely got erected under Marika. As such, whatever it is surpressing, was likely picked by Marika"
*MELINA NOT MALENIA! I knew I’d fall prey eventually to the name mixups, sorry ladies!!
Adobe didn't upload the full video the first time this uploaded and I'm so sad I lost SO many of your amazing comments before I even had a chance to read-- I'd love to read them though if you remember please share!! 💙
Oh so that's what happened! I was puzzled when the video went unavailable about mid-way through.
@Kitetales You may have mentioned this in the video and I missed it. But When you watch the trailer of Merika walking up to the divine gate, as she lifts the golden strands, as the gust of wind blows over her body you can see her hair begins to braid itself.
Mel'ina Ma'lenia is rough. People slip up equally with Ra'dahn Rada'gon.
Ah OK cool
The Spiraltree Seal has a detail that slightly shifts some of this hypothesis, _“Sacred seal of soiled amber engraved with a spiral tree design. Enhances spiral incantations. The majesty of the white tower, stretching to reach the gods, even inspired a secret faith in the invaders, the people of the Erdtree.”_
The White Tower of the Hornsent and the symbol of the spiral served as an inspiration for the Erdtree. The Crucible was said to have been the primordial form of the Erdtree. Additionally, the Grandam's curse specifically explains the afflictions persisting through Marika's children rather than an intentional act. The Lamenters specifically show that the pain of horn growth was something that the Tower hid from the general populace to sanitize their belief system.
The Tower of Babel combining all people and reaching to heaven is a purposeful parallel to how the White Tower is built with the bodies blended into its architecture, and within the trees themselves there as well. Japan is known for its religious syncretism and how they fused aspects of Buddhism into their native Shinto religion, as well as the establishment of Tutelary Deities and other details. (The manga version of *_Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind_* establishes these religious overlaps that serve as a foundation in both *_Final Fantasy_* as well as a lot of other Japanese adaptations of Western Fantasy if you want some insight there).
This is a part of the larger parallel to Tokyo as a Babylonian analogue (which goes back to *_Teito Monogatari_* and other long-standing parallels of this analogy), which links to the Furnace Golems and the Tokyo Firebombings in WWII with the fall of the tower. _“They were never saints. They were simply on the losing side of a war.”_ The reason the Furnace Golems are only weak to fire is because that only ended when the fires burned themselves out after reaching 1800° - melting glass and raining it out of tornados, spontaneously bursting clothing into flame, sucking oxygen out of shelters, boiling water sources, and having whole dams of bodies piled up and burned together. - Hence Leyndell banning fire, despite it being a tool of the age of the Erdtree being very much akin to the post-war struggles of Japan's prosperity & stagnation.
Additionally, if you're curious about the blending of two individuals with Marika/Radagon and a lot of the other thematic inspiration that serves as a heavy foundation for the themes of the game, the book *_Night's Master_* by Lee Tanith is basically foundational text for characters like Rykard, Tanith, Zorayas, D, Malenia, St. Trina, Midra, Miquella, and others which also gives insight into a lot of spiritual themes that overlap into how *_Elden Ring_* designs its lore.
Hopefully this gives you some good places to look & interesting food for thought!!
If the Fingers can see the world through Empyrean Eyes, then that would explain why Ranni and Melina have eyes that are permanently closed. They've killed the surveillance feed.
Yesss. And think about this. The Eye that is closed for Melina is the one thats Gloam Colored and we know that the Gloam Eyed Queen was an Empyrean chosen by the fingers! The GEQ's Sigil looks like Metyr's head/eye!
This idea REALLY adds up and almost confirms Melina was the Gloam Eyed Queen or had a piece of her sealed within who went on to lead an uprising against Marika, was struck down, and then reborn as a spirit?
@@ATC43 Yes. She’s burned and bodiless. Perhaps that was a part of Marika expelling the Gloam-Eyed Queen.
Perhaps the GOQ was an outer being afflicting Melina (like all of Marika’s other Radagon union children). That being took control or nudged Melina to rise up in that form.
Marika struck her down and sealed the eye and left her a spirit.
I had never been convinced of the connection until we got her brother Messmer and the Base Serpent afflicting him.
Eyes are meant to represent their power as well the grace they give out to people. Marika's Rune and Leda Rune show this very prominently.
@JohnDWJ Same with Melania? The blue dancers sealing the outer god of rot, perhaps blended with the marika jar? Then birthed as a child with a component the entity sealed within? I mean waterfowl dance?
@@JohnDWJ Hard agree, I think Marika/Radagon have way more children together compared to the known 2. My head canon is Messmer, Godwyn, Ranni, Melina, Miquella and Malenia. Although these are only circumstantial pieces of evidence, of the 3 confirmed empyrean children, 2 of them are confirmed to be M/R children, I think the cuckoo imagery surrounding Caria is a hint about Ranni, and although it's implied, Godwyn is never actually confirmed to be Godfrey's child, and then in Messmer's fight you have part's of Radagon's theme in the music.
When you talk about marika being made out of emulsified flesh blended together in a jar, it made me think of the importance of butterflies in the story.
That's essentially what Marika would be, metaphorically speaking, with the flesh being the caterpillar and the jar her cocoon. Even the mask that the people wear during this horrible ritual is called the "caterpillar mask"
Then, of course, you have many different butterflies in the game that each represent a unique child of Marika's. Perhaps to say that she is the "mother" of these butterflies as well.
Its an interesting motif that I'll definitely be thinking about on a future playthrough. Thanks for a thought provoking video!
This violence associated with new power and rebirth goes way beyond just the jars and butterflies. Enir Ilim, the gateway to divinity, is constructed from bodies. The finger ruins, birthplaces of the powerful Two Fingers and contact point for Metyr, have been infested by leeches and sucked of life. Hell, we enter the DLC by touching Miquella's corpse that's hanging out of a cocoon. In the most direct sense, he planned his own death as well as the deaths of several other demigods to make his bid for power.
Power does not come from nowhere in Elden Ring, and those who obtain power are usually not the same as those who sought it.
@@Meese12 It all comes back to Berserk again lol with Griffith and his path to ascension paved with his victims, his final decision to sacrifice his band to become a finger on the hand of god.
Holy shit. I love that.
Also, rebirth as a theme - and its COST - are weaved (pun very much intended) SO STRONGLY into the stories of nearly ALL of Marika's children?? I hadn't really thought of it that way until I read your butterfly comment, but now it seems SO obvious to me. Godwyn, stagnation. Literally forced to be neither dead nor alive, dooming (or blessing, depending on your perspective) those influenced by him to undeath - a literal kind of rebirth outside of the Golden Order. Mohg, obsessed with blood, the very essence of life, and the rebirth of a long-lost dynasty he could shape - and that's not even counting the bit where he put his brother in a goddamn cocoon, lol, since that was probably Miquella's idea. Morgott, the one loyal son, and the only one who doesn't seem obsessed with rebirth - quite the contrary, in fact, since he's essentially the lone guardian (of Marika's Golden Order) of Team Status Quo And Don't Rock The Boat. Ranni engineered her own partial death so that she could be reborn free from the influence of her Two Fingers. Malenia's blooms and the lore of the scarlet rot is literally rooted ALL in the concept of death and rebirth, something you see plainly when she blooms into Malenia, Goddess of Rot. Miquella's quest for rebirth is this whole dang DLC, lol. Melina's story is still quite vague, but we know she was born by the foot of the Erdtree, that she - at the time she meets the Tarnished - is "burned and bodiless", and that she was born with the same kindling within her as Messmer was. I speculate that she was born BY death, or through it; that in the death of something else, Melina came from it, much like pyrogenic flowers that only bloom after a fire. Messmer's theme here is not as strong, though there's his butterfly - but I think his story is more about the wish FOR rebirth, in the shape of redemption, of ridding himself of a sin he was born from but did not choose.
... and Rykard got himself vored on purpose so he could be rebirthed as a giant snake god. TOGETHAA indeed 😂🫡🤯
Tbis was the nail in the coffin for me. The caterpillar mask to butterflies for each of the children… it comes together so well
I think the reason why the Hornsent were obsessed with the "jar mixing" is probably to recreate the power of the Crucible. In the Crucible, all things were together and life spawned from it. So, the jars are like the Crucible in their way.
Also explains why the Flame of Frenzy was initially an area of investigation, since it's prerogative is to return everything to a primordial state.
Definiton of a Crucible: "a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures." Jars are a literal crucible to reenact the Crucible Tree
To add to this, maybe the reason the Crucible Knights joined Godfrey and Marika was because they found this practice abhorrent? Like how Islam and certain Christian sects have very strict rules about idolatry, maybe the Crucible Knights thought the Hornsent trying to recreate the divine Crucible was a deeply blasphemous act, and thus they had to be stopped?
Holy shit that has to be it, there is even a description somewhere in game where it's stated that they're trying to make saints by stuffing them in jars. "Saints" of the Crucible, in a grotesque and deranged way. It's pretty theorised that the first sin was Marika divesting herself for the first time, in order to let the Golden Order usurp the Elden Ring and "corrupt/override" the Crucible. This is when antithesis first appeared. By stuffing people in jars, the hornsent would want to forcibly recreate the state of existance pre-Golden Order, when the Crucible was the only thing that existed.
Being disgusting by a late revelation about the circumstances of her birth almost makes it sound like Marika's story could parallel, of all people's, Rya's.
I love finding those parallels because I think it provides such a strong foundation for theories in that same vein to be true. Thank you for sharing that I can absolutely see that being a hint!
Ohhhh, that's such a neat detail to notice! "Was I not... born of the grace of a god?" rings EVEN MORE SAD NOW
If Queen Marika is a Jar Saint that was created by mixing different forms of life together that may explain why her children were so influenced by the outer gods. If the ingredients used to make her a jar saint were creatures of the outer gods, then that could explain why her children, especially when she had children of Radigon, were so chimeric.
@@Ironsides1985 yet only Mesmer is a snake furry
@@quinnzykir Rykard isn't a snake furry?
@@LiliumCruoremRykard is a Messmer cosplayer that went too far
@@LiliumCruorem Rykard is probably an aspect of radagons self hatred, as well as disdain for the world that put the Carians on the defensive. He is aligned with caria.
She’s part of a group of people who are said to assimilate well together in the jars. I don’t think she was a jar saint herself- I think her ascension to godhood was the cause. the divine gate with all the gatherings of the golden threads probably influenced her (genetically- going back to her people being good at melding too) and her eventual children.
Casually dropping one of the greatest elden ring lore videos ive ever seen. Marika's children were aspects of herself she picked up in the jarring process...what a wonderful theory. Well done.
Such a huge compliment, thank you!! ❤️
You raised some unreal points here. I believe alot of Marikas origin story is hit right on the nail in this vid. Although im not too sure she is purposely putting her curses into her children, instead randomly showing up in each child as a consistent reminder of the hornsent and where she comes from.
This would help explain why she loved Godwyn the golden best, he was the uncursed, untainted child. The shining example of Marikas ideal world. and because of his death, thanks to Ranni (and quite possible Miquella to get him as a consort) she finally breaks mentally.
She tries so hard to save her loved ones from death, such as removing the rune of death from her reign as a way to recompense the massacre of her people from the shaman village. Despite this Godwyns death comes anyways just like how she lost her village and this is where she realizes that all shes done, that even becoming a GOD couldnt stop the ones she loved most from death, and due to this she shatters the Elden ring.
All along all she wanted to do was save the people she loved from death but inevitably fails at every turn.
Such a tragic and nuanced character Marika is, im really happy SOTE helped explain Marikas origins and why she did what she did in the main game.
Also, since your analysing the statues so much I wanted to bring up something interesting. Did you notice that the earlier statues of Marika seems to be more structured. She starts her reign with hee hands at her waist and as time progresses you can see her slowly and slowly lowering down into his classic crucafixtion pose?
I urge you to look into it as I could also help explain the timeline of events.
What if Godwyns curse was the fact he couldn’t die? The black knives were supposed to kill the body. But instead his soul was destroyed. His body, undying, became the death root. Spreading its form of death throughout the lands.
Please correct me if I’m wrong. I am not good with lore. I used to think dark souls 3 was a prequel to two with how different two was
While the saving the loved one's from death angle you present certainly seems compelling as a reason in light of the Shaman village, I still find that angle hard to reconcile with the creation and banishing of the Tarnished and Godfrey as that essentially from what we can tell removed their inability to die and it seemed like she did it with a plan in mind despite what love she might have held for Godfrey which to me indicates she was starting to give up on/wanted a way out of being the Greater Wills vassal god regardless of the consequence that might have for those related/close to her and this seems to have been a while before The Night of the Black Knives, in other words it feels like some things are still missing for us to be able to completely conclude what Marika's views and motivations were at certain points for some of the things that she did. Also to add on, while this vid had some interesting interpretations of the timeline of events as well as how things occurred regarding Marika's origin, I find that some of the lore given by Ymir regarding the Fingers and Marika was entirely absent from the possible way that Marika achieved her godhood as Ymir almost seems to imply they had a rather close connection with her ascension and how she achieved it or at least possibly what she did after which I've seen some other lore videos touch upon. The picture of what happened leading up to the in-game present has definitely started to better form with what the DLC has revealed, but the whole puzzle has still yet to be pieced together correctly I feel.
messmer was an abortion...
@@quinnzykir Godwin was “killed” by only half of the death rune, the part that kills the soul. Ranny killed her body, the half that kills only the body.
@@dexmiss194 oh yeeeeah
Good theory. We know that Millicent and her sisters are aspects of Malenia that were thrown off after her battle. We know that Miquella divested himself of St Trina. Therefore it seems the Empyreans have an ability to excise parts of their selves as independent entities. Would show how Marika was able to create Messmer.
Might even explain why Ranni and Melina share the eye tattoo and both being bodiless - it's possible Melina is an aspect of Ranni made into her own entity.
it also helps how Marika and Radagon were one of the same.
"if I fits I sits' dead
But it gets the idea across right?! 😂
I was totally engrossed and then that line had me rolling
Theyre cats 🥰
"What is it? The braids?" - Marika to the Hornsent, probably.
STAHP 😂😂😂😂💀💀💀
This is honestly the most well thought out theory i've seen about Marika's history in the land of shadow, the idea that Marika was essentially "raised" by the hornsent is something i hadnt heard being talked about before but it helps piece out a lot of the environmental storytelling.
Yeah, Marika was definitely raised by the Hornsent. From the very first trailer, her massacre of them was referred to as a "betrayal".
there's some big flaws here but the idea of Marika being the saint Jar is really on point to some moments in the game
Yeah I agree that her being an insider to the hornsent culture at some point is pretty clearly alluded to. I'm partial to the theory of her being a succesful jar saint myself.
I bet she is the daughter of midra
@@eveexeTV what are the flaws, help us understand
The gloam-eyed queen having serpentine aspects makes so much sense. The godskin she cradles them in could literally be her own skin that she sheds like a snake. Hell, she may even be able to take the form of a serpent the same way Lansseax was able to take the form of a human. Serpents are always descendants of dragons in FromSoft games.
Do NOT let the hornsent learn about the slap chop....
Oh my gosh you're so bad!! 😂
Actually having a giggle fit about this thank you
If he does, then he's gonna be in a great mood all Age long and if he isn't then just show him the Graty and his mood will definitely pick up.
Cleaning up those messes in Bonny Village will have Hornsent saying Sham-Wow!
“This bad boy*slaps jar* can fit so much shaman flesh in it!”
Yeah, this is the one. This is the first video on the DLC where I went "Oh shit, this is it, someone's cracked the final piece of the code." So many acute insights packed in here. I vary just slightly on a small point though. Marika "putting" the aspects she doesn't want inside her inside her children sounds off to me, as a reaction. I think they were in her, and because they were in her, they got passed on to her kids. Birth defects, essentially.
Love the idea of them being birth defects/“inherited trauma” as a friend put it.
Putting aspects of one's self literally into there children fits so poetically and it ties in perfectly with all of her children having their left eye missing.
Maybe Marika plucks her kids eyes out in order to end the chain of that awful influence or disable her children from ever ascending to godhood. Crazy!
Also, it fits with the whole notion of "the sins of the father" (in this case mother) and generational trauma; if you try to repress your history, it's bound to be repeated in your children.
Its funny how you mention their eyes, because Malenia, Miquella, Mesmer, and Marika herself all have their eyes closed. Malenia has her eyes missing, while Mesmer had a fake glass eye.
Yes!! And Radagon is missing his eyes as well!
the sore and scarseals are marika's and radagon's eyes
@@Nin_tonydose it say that anywhere I really like the idea but can't remember hearing anything like that before my only other problem with it is there are 4 eyes but there should be only 2 since they share a body right?
melina's eye is also closed until you fuck with her
@@keatoncarman447 technically don't they both have two eyes. Look at Saint Trina she has two eyes.
"baby messmer" is my favourite thing in the world rn
Turns out adobe was the real dark souls the whole time.
Adobe went hollow
Adobe or not dobe
@@WilliamNobleBonninActual 🤣😂💀
Adobe is the Swahili translation of Agatha. 🤯
@@CthulhuTheory it was Agatha all along!!!!
I think the overtures of what you present here are pretty spot on, but a few points of contention:
The storehouse is explicitly the result of Messmer's Fire Knights' requesting to protect and archive some of the Hornsent culture during the purge.
The Black Keep in general has much more contemporary architecture compared to Hornsent architecture - its akin to Stormveil or the (real) Roundtable Hold.
All this means is that the details of what you posit change, but the general gist is... yeah, she had Messmer, bided her time, and continually "divested herself" of Crucible adjacent aspects. The Scadutree is a giant symbol of that, even, borne of things that bear no semblance of order. The literal shadow of the great golden Erdtree.
Such a great remark about the Scadutree being born of no semblance of Order; mirrors her perfectly and I’ve been struggling with trying to make that connect!
@@kitetales Its in the Scadu Avatar remembrance, I can't take full credit haha
Marika wasn't necessarily a huge fan of Order itself, but I think its clear she at least wanted to NOT be like the Crucible and distance herself from her past and origins as much as possbile - from the people and cultures who functionally genocided her people and in one way or another groomed her into godhood.
I think Order is almost an escape, for Marika, and she breaks the Elden Ring when she realises her escape is actually just a bigger cage.
"really helped tie everything together" I see what you did there girlie haha
YES!! I KNEW someone would! ❤️
My favourite part was when you said "(the biblical story of Samson) might be a reference to Godfrey pulling apart Serosh"
God took notes from Miyazaki 🤣
I love the hypothesis presented here. Shows a lot of thought was put into them.
One thing I want to point out is that Marika didn't give traditional birth, but she relied on Erdtree births for her children. Basically, she harvested them like fruit from the tree. We know this because Melina says as much when she asks about Bok and what it's like to be born of a mother.
I've been assuming that each is the demigods are reborn Empyreans and lesser gods, killed by Marika's Golden Order and forcefully recycled through the Erdtree.
Yet the demigods still have the physical traits of their parents.
@@KaliTakumi cultivated fruit. everyone reborn through the Erdtree is more Numan like with every generation.
@@whoisj I think it's more of a reach than anything. Even the crackpot theory that Melina is Miquella has more evidence backing it
hold on, if people soul are sent to the Erdtree after dying, then the tree works like a jar, mixing up the souls to make a demigod to be born
@@smlel8293 exactly. This time under Marika's control.
Sis just cooked whole 5 star gourmet buffet for the lore community. Thank you very much!
I would also like to mention that the crucible knight era of Godfrey’s era would perfectly allign with an initially collaborative period of the golden lineage and the hornsent. It would perfectly explain the sudden change of meaning of the aspects of the crucible going from being worshipped to hunted down and killed during the reign of Godfrey. Marika found out or at least revealed her finding out at that time and had the Lord of the Erdtree cast the shadow by leading the revenge against the hornsent for their actions against the Shamans. Such an event does fit the lore of the main game.
"if I fits, I sits" lmfao talking about the hornsent melting everything together into the jars
If it chops, I plops
@@kitetales i found a cute time line in your comments. I see what you've done here. You have earned all my like
Radagon was a man who also got put into the jar with Marika. Their flesh melded perfect together. His red hair symbolises the Crucible. Probably something related to the old tree got dumped in the jar with them
I think that is absolutely it! The braided tree branch on the infinity symbol on the Greatjar podium is probably what that’s meant to be, the inclusion of the tree
@@kitetales@MissyAmy88 absolutely not. I agree with almost every part of the video but Radagon and Marika blending. Radagon is just her physical, less spiritual, aspects of her. She had to split those aspects in order to ascend to a god, such as Miquella needed to split his flesh, eyes, love... and so St. Trina was born.
Also, hornsents making "saints" isn't them trying to create a god but giving a divine porpose to the shamans. Hornsents needed shaman's flesh melding properties to create the divine gate. All corpses from the divine gate are hornsents, they just needed the "glue" to blend all those lifes together.
Grandam Hornsent calling Marika "wanton strumpet" is the key. You don't call someone that just because "she's the one" you call her that if you think she had sex or an inappropiate romance. So, "the seduction" is the reason she calls Marika "wanton strumpet". Marika seducted SEROSH, not Godfrey (and deffo not GEQ), that's a cardinal sin for hornsents as Lions were divine beasts. She seducted divinity, became a goddess, and BETRAYED her fate (ghost on bonny village tells us shamans were "created" to be put into jars). Marika was meant to be glue on the divine gate, not a goddess, that's treason!
The trailer also says: the betrayal and the seduction, AN AFFAIRE (so there was a relationship) from which golden arose (golden order) and so too shadow was born (Messmer). There's a talisman in the shadow keep pointing Godfrey's Messmer father.
Also, that explains why Marika send away Godfrey/Serosh once they won Giant's war. They only were a mean to an end, and then Marika calls back Radagon, her other half.
@@indiesounnd6051 I think she had sex with Serpent i.e. the ritual we see at Volcano Manor, but since her "super-power" is to combine aspects and essenses - Mesmer is a mix, not a pure serpent. That's why Grandam calls her a sloot and Marika herself wants to hide and supress Mesmer. That's her sin.
Radagon's red hair is a curse of the giants. It is explained in The giant's red braid weapon
@@AltFromTheLimbo there’s no evidence of Marika having sex with the serpent, it could be true at some point but, anyways, that theory doesn’t fit the key words from the story trailer:” the seduction and the betrayal, an affaire from which golden arose and so too shadow was born”
People often focus only on the first sentence since it’s much easier to fit. But the second sentence is there too. There was a romance which “gave birth” to gold and shadow.
Marika having sex with the serpent doesn’t make sense at all to create the golden order. Marika romancing Serosh does.
I remember seeing somewhere that the Store Room was created during Mesmer's "war". They were basically eradicating this entire race of beings and so, to preserve their history, this building was created.
Yeah that was a request of one of the Messmer's Fire Knights, the sage one that wears a hood (forgot the name, sorry). If anything I'd say the entire Shadow Keep was built during the crusade era, and built exactly around Shaman Village in order to keep the place protected and hidden, despite the fact no one lives there anymore.
@@padrenuestreCan I ask where this came from? Like is it an item description?🙏
@@krispyhoe2126 Salza's Hood, Rain of Fire - what I can remember off the top of my head.
@@padrenuestre thank you so much!!
I really like the Marika-is-a-jar-saint thing. I actually think about this a lot, see how this grabs you.
“Miquella spoke of the beginning, of the seduction and betrayal…”
So, a seduction.
Consider what we find in Bonny village - an apparition of a Hornsent explaining to a shaman why he has to do this to her.
But why would a sacrificial lamb require an explanation? Who is going to bother trying to rationalize and justify that?
…unless it wasn’t any lamb. Unless this particular lamb had given this particular Hornsent reason to question his own actions. His words are so insistent I believe they can be seen as him wrestling with his own conscience even more so than trying to convince the sacrifice of the necessity of killing them (which, again, would be weird).
What if this Hornsent had been successfully seduced by this shaman, which resulted in her being the only one to survive?
This handles the line about Marika blessing the village even tho there was no one left to save - survivor’s guilt and the certainty that her family was dead.
It handles the lines from the Hornsent grandam about Marika being a slut.
It handles the “seduction and betrayal”.
It handles explaining the Hornsent headgear that stops them from having doubts - possibly implemented after one of them fell in love with a shaman.
And.. here’s where I put on my tinfoil hat..
It handles who messmers father is. Yep.
That’s right. Marika got pregnant by a Hornsent to survive the massacre and then had the son of that union annihilate his father’s people.
I been thinking about this for a while.
I do like your theory a lot tho. Great video as always.
This might be the best SotE lore video out so far.
That is a HUGE compliment and I will take that award for as long as I can hold it! 😆❤️
The Godfrey link is a VERY nice catch! I was wondering why Godfrey was completely absent in the story of the Land of Shadow, the only things we had to go on were the Talisman of Lord's Bestowal (placed beneath one of the golden trees, was Marika growing these as proof of her sainthood?), and Messmer's soldiers wielding axes (using his exact fighting style, even.)
One thing I might add is that since the Land of Shadow and the rest of the Lands Between were one place during this time, Hourah Loux may not have necessarily been from there. Marika could have brought him home from anywhere, possibly the "badlands" mentioned in the Exalted Flesh and Nephelli's set. I can understand the Grandam's stern motherly disapproval at her daughter bringing home some bad boy from the badlands...
Still watching the video so this may overlap but here are some thoughts that popped into my head while watching: I get the feeling the scene we see in the story trailer of Marika by the Divine Gate must have happened before her hair became braided. Maybe she became a god and was then able to braid her hair indicating her divinity thus her statues were being made. Or the hair became braided as a result of the ritual? The statues all have the Circlet of Light that we get from Miquella thus indicating the statues were made after that ritual.
If you watch the story trailer carefully when she raises the golden threads, you can see her braid form as the wind rushes out of the divine gate. It's a subtle detail, but she seems to have no braid at the start of the gust of wind, and a fully formed one at the end.
That's true! The trailer could not be in a chronological presentation either...
But her hair, when unbranded in the cinematic, seems to be much longer already than the statue shown. I mean, unless she cut her hair to turn it into a belt, I guess.
@@ericohm9474 Good observation. When you braid hair tightly it gets shorter.
I think the tree and the shaman in front of it is “eiglay” transferring her soul to a nearby snake using the tree (as it’s pointing at the snake) to avoid being put into a pot in Bonny village.
Hornsent’s references of “O mother” and “wife and child” make me wonder whether Marika’s relationship with either the Hornsent in general or Hornsent himself included a marriage of some kind.
Hornsent’s deeply personal quest of vengeance is unhinged to the point where it suggests he suffered a personal betrayal himself.
Maybe Hornesent is the Son that the Grandam mentioned? Would actually make a lot of sense if he was given she wants us to take said son to help us kill Messmer and Hornsent is to my knowledge the only NPC summon we get to use in the fight against Messmer.
Jolan is also summonable
I think he's talking to his deceased family...
@@EnergyBurst2 the son is the actual incantation she gives you. It's the spirit of her son. There also are parallels and similarities between that incantation and spirits that haunt Omens to the point that we can state that Hornsent Elder spirits are a source of Omen Curse, seemingly based on the Lamenter practice abhored by the hornsent. Some kind of biological warfare by Hornsent against Lands Between that predates Messmer's Crusade.
Hornsent's family was killed by Messmer that's his relation to them
This is definitely the best well put theory video I've seen so far, and the fact you came with this out an statue is just perfect
Another reason that I think confirms the Jar Saint Theory is the whole alchemical theory of the Rebis. The Red King and White Queen connect both to the visual designs of Red Radagon and Blonde Marika inhibiting the same body. The soul of a male and female sharing one body in harmony.
The jar material is expanded in the DLC with Red and White mushrooms. These items are described as fleshlike and a perfect substitute in the crafting recipes of jars. As the greater potentate cookbooks also describe that these crafting recipes came from their creator unable to stomach the rituals of the jars. It almost seems like Radagon and Marika were perfect for each other and most likely fused. We know that Radagon hated his hair for its likeness to the giants, but what if it extended him as but another perfect component to the recipe of a true saint. The timeline gets scuffed but its already a bit of a mess. But I do think that this promotes that Marika WAS a saint born from the Jar Ritual and is the reason why the Hornsent had a fondness for her, a fondness enough for her to be considered a traitor when she enacted her genocide.
Absolutely brilliant theory. No one among the numerous lore experts attempts this last weeks proposed anything coherent and pertinent of this level. Thank you.
Wow that is a huge compliment!! Thank you!! 🥲❤️
I love the irony of Miquella and Marika. Miquella sees Marikas order as “flawed” or “problematic.” He denounces his mother and pursues godhood for himself. In his attempt to rid himself of his mother’s troubles and wrongdoings, he ends up doing the exact same things as Marika. He used people to achieve his goals, just like Marika. He gave the inhabitants of the lands between/the shadow realm a false promise, just like Marika. Furthermore, in his attempt to bring in an age of compassion, he becomes cold and heartless… just like Marika. For being a prodigy, he seems to be naive to his own actions. Similarly to the actions Marika had to take in order to gain power and control. Hopefully that made sense 😅
Out of curiosity, why do you say he became cold and heartless?
@@WAR3600 St. Trina is my prime example. The shape that she’s left in, the place she’s locked away in. Her being Miquellas personification of love, and her saying the only way to free Miquella is to kill him. Furthermore, what he did to his brothers. Using Mohgs body and taking Radhans soul… who knows if Malenia was under his spell, or perhaps he fed her so many promises and dreams that she fell for him and did anything. After all, he left her in the Haligtree, and she waited there for her brother who would never return.
@@josh.1162 The cross left by his compassion is also the largest cross by far
>He gave the inhabitants of the lands between/the shadow realm a false promise, just like Marika
No he did not. He fully has the intent to keep the promise. Thousand years voyage guided by compassion. That's on the table. People will accept each other, but not with their own will.
Another thing to notice about Miquella is how childish he is. The moment something doesn't work, he abandons it. He wanted to help Godwyn it seemed but the idea was clearly abandoned; he wanted to make a second and better Erdtree, the Haligtree, which was abandoned as well, he decided to go to the Land of Shadows.
I think that the biggest example of this is the Unalloyed Gold Needle. That thing was almost finished, he could've cured his sister, but he told her to go nuke Caleid instead to kill Radahn so he could turn him in his consort eventually.
So many good connections. Great job Kite!
(btw the one about ff7 made go "why i didn't see this analogy with Marika and Sephiroth before.." it's so clear!)
You talking about the braids got me thinking that maybe the crucible was the Erdtree and Scadutree melded together. When Marika seperated the shadow lands from the rest of the lands between she created the Scadutree and Erdtree as they are now. The Scadutree seems to have 2 sort of main trunks branching off while the Erdtree is one perfectly straight trunk. The depictions of the 3 trunk tree we see in the shadow lands might be depictions of the primordial Erdtree/ Crucible.
Something that another lore channel mentioned was how if you look at the very top of the Erdtree past all the bright light you can actually see what looks like the dead trunk (and a few leafless branches) of another slightly taller tree that possesses an expected standard brown wood colored trunk much like how we see at the doorway into the Erdtree itself showing what was likely the old Great Tree having actually been swallowed up and surrounded by the Erdtree. To me that could mean the Great Tree was the central straight tree in the sorta triple tree spiral sigil that can be found in certain places in the dlc and the Scadutree could have been, or at least represents, the other 2 that were spiraling now split off with the rest of the Shadowlands with now only each other to spiral into resulting in why they are crumbling, this all might be a stretch though and the Scadutree could literally just be its own thing and spirals as a way to mock the hornesent or as a way to represent the darker more 'twisted' and potentially destructive orderless aspects it represents.
The crucible is the fell god.
God damn you’re a tier 1 ER content creator! I’ve been watching the others for 2 years, how come you’ve only come up on my feed now! Gonna watch everything you’ve put out so far. Keep up the tremendous work!!
I thought the thumbnail was a clickbait and my mind blew away. Excelent video.
From the Gazing Finger description: "The head of Metyr, the finger-mother[...] From within the center of the fingerprint that wrinkles the creature's foremost protrusion, a tiny wart-like eye gazes vacantly into the beyond."
And from the description of the Staff of the Great Beyond: "[...] The Mother [of Fingers] received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm. Despite being broken and abandoned, she kept waiting for another message to come."
So your assumption about this dot being Metyr's eye is absolutely correct.
Thank you for the re-upload one of your best videos yet!
Thank you so much!! ❤ Adobe did me so dirty!
Really great video! The core statue braid find I think is a solid one; we'll take all the timeline clues we can get when it comes to Messmer
Thank you so much!! I love that crowdsourcing the lore is the way this story gets built 🥲
Just to confirm Marika was a successful jar saint: the tooth whip describes how it was used for the jar rituals, and in the story trailer you can see scars from teethmarks on Marika's arm.
Marika might have been subjected to the torture, but she may have escaped instead of suffering the entire process.
I am starting to think that becoming a hornsent saint and being an empyrian is the same thing.
I'm with Nightscout on this one. The jar people aren't just grafted, they're fully skinned. Also, the way the whip describes the process and how Godrick grafts a dragon to his arm, it seems like raw flesh needs to connect to raw flesh to 'meld' them. So while we may see scars on Marika, she also isn't Grafted in any way.
Unless the 'sainthood' involves emerging from said jar completely renewed, I don't think that Marika was ever forced into a jar.
@@LeviathanTamer31woah never thought about how this theory fits well with goddrick too. Like his whole thing is trying to combine his body with others to make him more powerful. Knowing or not, he could be emulating how his mother was created in the first place
@@dmmax18Someone made a good point that maybe Empyreans had the power to discard parts of themselves so Marika got rid of the pot stuff and got renewed and at some point she discarded/created Radagon similarly as Miquella St. Trina. Also the video maker had a nice point that Marika discarded some qualities of hers by giving birth such like the Abyssal Serpent into Messmer which was possibly within her originally. Ofc the other theory is that every child of hers (especially the ones with Radagon) is cursed because of some sin she did against either the Crucible or the Greater Will.
The "Eye" connexion with Fingers and outer gods is fascinating, expecially when you also consider the link to Chabriri, his "raisins" and the expression of the Frenzied Flame, or the formless Mother, which appeared in the shadow to Mohg, trapped in the depts, a horn circling back straight into his eye socket. You are definitely onto something there!
I stumbled by pure luck onto your content, and i truly appreciated it, thanks!
Okay this is just fantastic. I looove this narrative. Top 3 lore videos ever imo
Wow thank you so much!! 🥰
this is the first video of yours I ran into and it's wonderful. Your approach is really breathing new life into the community. Thank you so much!
Thank YOU so much for your kind comment!! ❤️
Kite!!’ Wonderful observations!!! RADAGON WEARS THE BRAIDED BELT IN THE LANDS BETWEEN BTw!!!
Addendum: I see that you did mention this later on in your video. I prematurely commentulated!
THANK YOU SO MUCH ANGEL!! And YES!! His appearance is a funny blend of both versions of Marika's statues... what does it mean?!
@kitetales It's entirely possible it's something he took with him when they split apart. I mean, he (like St. Trina and Miquella) is her exact opposite. She's progress, he's regression. She's rebellion, he's loyalty. Female, male, etc. We know for a fact he definitely took the Giant's Curse with him, the red hair.
That said, the Other Halves don't all follow that trend. We don't know Ranni's Other Half (though I suspect it is Melina, being burned and bodiless, and the "younger sister with visions of fire" was actually original red-haired Ranni), but... Zullie the Witch showed cut dialogue of Malenia 6 months prior that now confirms that Millicent and the sisters are Malenia's Other Half, just split apart as if born through pollination when her Scarlet Rot flower first bloomed. Millicent spends most of the story talking about returning Malenia's pride to her, meaning that like Radagon and St. Trina she carries a lost bit of emotion, of self, to Malenia. In the cut dialogue if Millicent dies without removing the needle before fighting Malenia, Malenia has absorbed Millicent into herself and calls your character Dearest Friend, and speaks in a sad manner wishing they did not have to fight. It's all very interesting.
@@SpacePirateLordthat's... So... FRUSTRATING!! Why didn't they include it???
Feels like EVERY TIME I hear of cut content from Fromsoft quests, it's something that would have made them *irrefutably* better. It would have been more than worth taking the time to include that in the game.
Im mad now.
@wyattthealchemist Yeah, it's weird that they didn't include that version, but... The idea is still there in the game, as Gowry found the sisters in the Aeonian swamp, which makes sense as that is the most likely place they would have separated from Malenia, after the events of her first bloom fighting Radahn. Also, Millicent trying desperately to find Malenia to return her lost dignity and pride. It's basically become more subtle storytelling.
I think perhaps they didn't include it because Miyazaki didn't want to reveal that all Empyreans also have an Other Half until the DLC.
@@wyattthealchemist It's probably cut because it would really really throw off people who don't pay attention to dialogue or lack the braincells to piece it together
i rate lore videos exclusively on how well i could listen to the video while nursing a migraine (which is usually when most of my lore videos are playing for me. Dark room, ice pack, and elden ring lore lol). Happy to say you get a solid 10/10 from me, and are added to the list of good ones
Aww thank you so much! I’m so sorry to hear about the migraines though ☹️ I hope they will pass quick ❤️
@@kitetales Sometimes they go quick, sometimes they don't, and that's when I'm grateful for these long lore videos. They really help pass the time quickly! Thanks again!
Regarding the Sephiroth analogy: what wasn't in those records was that Jenova was never one of that extinct people.
She was the parasite from outer space that mimicked and killed them, The Thing style.
If the analogy holds, Marika was never actually a Shaman. She was a thing created in a misguided effort to replicate their power from what turned out to be entirely different materials.
Ooooh damn!!! I never played FF7, but I got through half of 8 when I was just a lad ...
This ^^ kinda seems fitting to me. Someone's theory I heard recently posited that she was a rogue Mimic Tear, and that would fit the analogy very well
@@madmorgo6233Oh man it makes sense
Braids, spirals (helices), and double helices are different things, in a .. mathematical(?) / geometrical(?) / topological(?) sense. I've seen a couple of essays that lump them all into the same category (symbolizing combined life or similar), but I find it a little hard to believe that Miyazaki would ignore the differences; that they wouldn't mean something distinct.
I like your idea about Marika's kids being f-ed up because she was expelling her aspects of the Crucible into them. Even if it isn't what FromSoft were going for it's a satisfying narrative.
it doesnt make sense to me sadly. Marika put her.. eternal youth into Miquella? Doesn't seem to gel.
@@JayWhipp1e miquellas curse is nascence, personally i am a fan of the idea its an outer gods influence, maybe formles mother or gloam eyed queen, idk
@@fishsticks2965the reason her kids being suseptible to outergod influence is because creatures embodying them were involved her her sainthood.
@JayWhipp1e Miquella himself abandoned his love (seemingly in the form of St Trina), I don't think it'd be that weird for Miquella to have something Marika cast off like that. Looking at St Trina the more superficially obvious aspect of her is "sleep", as opposed to "love". It might be something similar for Marika and Miquella.
This is nice, I like the connection with eyes, jars, Marika using people but most of all her children being a part or aspect of her.
Didn't Messmer build the library by request of one of his men, dedicated to keeping records/specimens of the peoples they were obliterating? Salza? Hilde? I forget who. Shadow Keep was built for him to use as Marika's regent, not reporposed from an existing structure, was it not?
"Hilde was a dear friend to Salza the sage, and joined those who urged that the specimens be preserved. Hilde's ashes were enshrined as a charm to protect the storehouse."
I'm not sure if there is anything else that directly references the storehouse. I think it's difficult to say definitively what occurred. I sort of interpret that to mean the specimens were already there and that Messmer wanted to burn everything, but his top soldiers put their foot down.
The hypothetical question that I would have if they weren't there to begin with is how they got the specimens into the storehouse, especially considering the purging that was happening throughout the lands of shadow.
@@justkubzalso not to mention how big some of them were, like none of the doors looked like they could fit the giant hanging men and beasts through them.
@FoolOfDust94032 yeah that's one of the main thoughts I had, but it's also difficult to take that as evidence because it is a video game after all and sometimes we can sort of handwave things so that they make sense lol but the logistics of getting them in there would be tough, let alone without causing damage to the specimens
Her name was actually changed to "Hornsent Grandam" in the latest patch. It seems like it was a typo.
Also, given the braid's description:
A braid of golden hair, cut loose. Queen Marika's offering to the Grandmother. Boosts holy damage negation by the utmost. What was her prayer? Her wish, her confession? There is no one left to answer, and Marika never returned home again
I wonder, if her prayer or wish was that she could have saved her people, to have known them, to save them from that fate.
This video is by far the best theory I've heard. Everything I see online has never felt satisfactory. I hope more is uncovered because Marika's backstory was the most interesting by far.
The thing I never got a hold on is whether the grandma mentioned in the braid offered is the empyrean grandam, or someone else. Logic says that since we only meet one grandma, that's probably her, but that is literally the only line mentioned between their connection.
Not sure if I'd agree with the assessment that marika hid messmer out of love; let's say she did grow out of the nonsentimental culture of the hornsent, or the trauma of the experience having changed her for the crueler, I feel like even if the birth of messmer (who from the current understanding seems to be the eldest son?) awoken any feelings of love within her, the remembrance description for messmer seems to say that she sent him back into the shadow lands because she feared him.
The idea that marika's children are just aspects put into her that she released into her children is evocative. I really like that.
For marika to have been a trusted...god/servant/tool of the hornsent, I can imagine her the desolation of the giants being part of that role, since the hornsent also feared the fell flame. I wonder if that puts the timeline of the hornsent civilization quite a bit closer than it appears.
I think there's something else that lends credence to the gloam eyed queen being a part of marika now; malenia has a gloamed eye, and if we follow the reasoning that marika's children received aspects that were put into her, then there's a possibility that aspect was passed on to malenia. A bit of a sidetrack, but i think that also speaks to the culture of the godskins; they must have known certain aspects of the shamans or the idea of compositing beings into themselves for power.
A bit further down the rabbit hole; the fact that aspects of the giants appear within messmer and radagon might imply that they're descendents of marika who took in the giant's aspects sometime during her creation...which makes me think that radagon might also be a child of marika? we never really learn of his lineage other than that there was giant blood in it, but considering what we find out, it's more likely his ancestor experienced the jar treatment, and we know of mainly one success story so far. (nevermind you went there later on!)
Great video! I think this timeline and dlc does a lot to make sense of the events, I will posit though that I think a lot of what we saw in the DLC finally consolidated the two primary theories about who Melina is, those being one of Marika’s children or the Gloam eyed queen. Before the dlc those theories seemed very mutually exclusive, but now with the dlc i think both are true. Firstly we got solid confirmation of her being Marika’s daughter from the Messmer’s Kindling description. I think that while Mesmer was tasked with the overall slaughter of the common hornsent, his younger sister Melina (who was an empyrean whose aspect aligned with destined death) was tasked with delivering death to the other hornsent divinities (either othersuccessful jar saints or hornsent who successfully passed through the divine gateway, I can’t remember what item mentions these but I swear it’s somewhere). To complete this task, she formed the cult of the godskins, who would skin these hornsent divinities and wear their flesh (which explains why they manifest aspects similar to the crucible, the hornsent divinities flesh infuses them with aspects of the crucible). At some point along the way, Marika removed Melina’s right eye and replacing it with an Iris of Grace just like her older brother (her right eye was saved though, we receive it as an item in game, the beast eye, an eye set in stone that is the same color as Melina’s left eye which we see in the frenzied flame ending and the stone bears the same markings as are around her eye. The eye also trembled in the presence of death root, since Destined Death was her aspect.) When the time came to set up the Golden Order proper, Marika wanted to remove destined death from the order, and either Melina opposed this, or Marika needed to destroy Melina in order to bind destined death. Either way Melina was burned to ash and Destined Death was bound. Still ultimately a theory but I personally think it finally makes Melina and the gloam eyed queen and the godskins make perfect sense.
Oh one more thing. That design behind her statues, it really looks like it's supposed to represent a prettied up version of the jar guts that are attached to her poor people. Almost like an homage/dedication.
It looks like a snake body too
idk why but it reminds me of the flesh pocket from the dlc trailer
And that's where Radagon came from.
@@Mongrelntruder that was my thoughts also. It even got those weird sewing cut at the borders.
@@Mongrelntruder for some reason I think that flesh pocket is a godskin. Maybe not the godskin we know, but a literal hornsent created beastgod. Perhaps the original lion the dancing lions are channeling? I believe Godfrey slew a Hornsent Deity and gave it to her as a wedding present and she used its corpse to ascend with all the traits the jars birthed in her.
Girl nice, I like that you cover lore like this in this style. You and Tarnished Archaeologist are my 2 fav lore channels.
@@bell5082 Wow that’s high praise!! Thank you!! ❤️
I feel like the time line went something like:
1. Marika ascended to some kind of sainthood during the time of the crucibleband the Hornsent. Perhaps Radagon was a Giant "sinner" she was "potted" with.
2. She rose to enough power to "betray" the Hornsent and ascend to full Godhood, perhaps it was a ritual she was even forced into, hence all the Hornsent bodies reaching toward the gate in the Miquella boss room. In this process, her people were all sacrificed.
3. Marika shorn her braid, had Messmer and Melina, married Godfrey, started the first age of the Erd tree, and shielded away they Shadow realm.
4. She birthed her omen children and discovered Messmer's abyssal serpent, so she hod Messmer's away and had him destroy everything that wasn't touched by grace.
5. Perhaps at this time, when Farum Azula was still on the ground, Melina rose to power as the Gloam Eyed Queen. Maybe she revolted in response to her brother being cast out.
6. The Elden Beast comes to the world, blowing up Farum Azula, allowing Marika to overtake the Gloam Eyed Queen and remove the death rune while fusing with the Elden Ring.
Yeah, something like that. Surely some bits and bobs are out of order or misconstrued, but in general.... I think...
Melina's not the Gloam Eyed Queen, though.
@@varsoonhks3211 there's a very common running theory that she is.
@@varsoonhks3211 She could be. If you do the frenzy ending Melina appears in the cutscene and her normally closed eye is open and it looks gloam.
Another thing that could support this theory is the Black Flames that Gloam-eyed queen bestowed upon the Apostles. From the item Messmers Kindling you have a description that as his sister (Melina) he also had visions of fire. And this kindling is described as a "dark thing". Melina is also a kindling maiden. Maybe its connected or maybe not.
Holy damn!! It DID blow my mind! That would then also be why she's depicted as a shattered/broken statue-type of thing - she just looks like a shattered collection of stone pieces once you can look at her after the Elden Beast fight.
Moved to new video: I’ve been watching a lot of tarnished archaeologist and the first statue in the lands of shadow seems like it could be at the start of the age when she performed the libation ritual across the lands between. Maybe she went around and saw the various places in the lands between after becoming one of their saints through “jar technology”. Then she comes back to the lands of shadow, with the new knowledge, cut her lock of hair, hijacked a divine god ritual to become lord and god radaghan/marika, birthed messemer, then returns to the lands between to have Godfrey be her “consort” and conquer all who oppose her. Pretty solid plan.
This is one of the better more convincing theories ive seen! Please release more its great to see a timeline so well put
Also, I think you're definitely onto something with the braids/timelines/etc. Good stuff!
Thank you so much!! Our third eyes are opening up!
@@kitetalesplease look into the duelist set and the colloseums they put radagon further in the timeline than messmer crusade.
You have by far the best take about the Seduction and the Betrayal.
Thank you so much!! 😊
I like how I started this vid at 250 likes and watched the counter go up to 350 by the time I was done.
It deserves to keep going up.
Wow great video ! I caught myself thinking “oh that might be a stretch” a couple of times, but glad I kept watching since you explain everythting really well, and having finished the vid everything you said actually comes off as way more plausible than anything I thought. Nicely done !
that FF7 analogy went crazy!!!
IT WORKS RIGHT?!
@@kitetales Yee. The lore for the dlc (or seeming lack of it) left me lukewarm to it. But as soon as you mentioned the Sephiroth comparison, many things seemed to make more sense. Your video rekindled my interest in the game overall. 😊
Great video! I really think you're on the right track here, so many things clicking into place.
And that point about Sephiroth and Marika is genius, I would just add that Zoraya in the base game would also parallel this.
First off, Love this video, some things I forgot in the base game were in here that reignited some thoughts and theories I had for this game and its DLC
I don't wanna nitpick aren't ALL the Empyreans we come into contact with Shaman? Technically all 6 children that we know of from Marika are about half Shaman: Mohg, Morgott, Malenia, Miquella, Messmer, Melina. Depending on if Radagon and Marika were always of the same body then its POSSIBLE that Ranni, Radahn, and Rykard could be Shaman too, this might explain why Rykard seems to be melded with the Serpent despite being consumed. The thing is if Shaman can meld with anything and Marika was the success to the Hornsent's experimentations then she wouldn't be 100% Shaman and be made up of many other humans and Shaman.
ALL of Marika's children are "cursed" it does seem like its the curse of the Hornsent, which I do really agree with you
Shaman, or jp temple preistesses are a class of people a caste or profession. We know this because Marika's people are the Nuemen as clearly stated in several places including tge charayer template for that appearence. That's latin for divine power or divine will. The Nox are also Nuemen.
All of the Empyeans are definately at least partially Nuemen through Marika. The only one we cannot say for certain is the GEQ, who could be one. The best evidence we have is that the Godslayer Greatsword is a spiral, just like the finger-slayer blade, which was kind of the Nox version of the same thing, a weapon to kill a god.
Not only the kids whose names start with M. I think even Godwyn (and his descendants) inherited that shaman blood of Marika. The way his body assimilate with death and encroach the root of erdtree, I'd say his body is trying to fuse with both the fragment of rune of death used on him as well as the root where his body was enshrined.
This shamanic ability is also inherited by Godrick, though in a different method of grafting various limbs and body parts into himself.
@@spearsage I thought about including Godrick, Godwyn, and Godefroy but we never really see Godwyn's whole body while alive and we don't know if him assimalating with the Erdtree is an affect of Shaman melding ability or if Erdtree sees (or saw) Godwyn as another burial offerring, Godrick/Godefroy may have some Shaman blood in them since Godrick seems to be able to keep some his sanity (I always felt like he was depicted as a crazed, entitled, inbred noble) unlike the Grafted Scion or Revnant.
As with Dark Souls it is the most important to discern truth from propaganda. Gods? Empyrean? Who's to say it's true? Fingers?
Marika herself told to ALL her children to "be as a lord. As a god"
If Malenia is an avatar for a Goddes of Rot only empyrean may become...then who is Romina?
If we could slain several Gods on our journey...then what differs them from not Gods? And what does that make us then?
If Gods deliberately give your their power as blessing, Giant'a fire from Fell God, Scarlet Rot from GoR, bleed spells from Formless Mother and Divine from Greater Will...then who is the Gravity God? And why no one worships him yet can manipulate/use gravity?
The hilts of the weapons at the grace of the Roundtable Hold are also spiral.
I wonder if there’s a connection.
After watching your video, I went back to Enir Ilim.
Spiral shaped objects, pillars and statues are really everywhere.
I’m thankful I found your channel. You really bring super valuable insight and information to the community.
Subscribed 👍🏻
I'm only half way through and I am literally nodding at every point you're making, it's SO GOOD. I love the idea of Messmer being a vessel for the "original sin" serpent. Very well explained so far... okay i will watch the rest now
Thank you so much! ❤️
Thank you for the video, very interesting observations and well thought out theories! In regards to Godfrey/Hoarah-Loux I observed that the Red Rune Bears you can find in a couple of places in the Land of Shadow do the same Earthshaker move that Godfrey does, and the Highlander set for some reason really reminds me of him and mentions highlanders hunting the red bears. Thus I like to think that Hoarah Loux indeed was a random murderhobo living where the Land of Shadows is today, running around the woods, grappling and bareknuckle-boxing the sh*t out of Red Rune Bears, when Marika found him and thought "this guy will be perfect for mushing the hornsent into a fine paste with his bare hands".
Did my message got removed?
Well here we go again...
Amazing vid! I was discussing this same thing about Marika being a product of the jar ritual implemented by the hornsent with a friend a few days ago. Becoming the "perfect" specimen. Also good work for noticing those small but important details on both Marika and Radagon's outfits🥰
Also nice call back with Sephiroth and Jenova's origin :)
And btw I immediately recognized the artwork k8theKind uses as banner on her YT's channel. It was made by ariamis_arts. Maybe you both already know said artist. I just wanted to mention that because I love his artwork. Especially those related to the souls series!
Hi Adam!! No no I'm sorry, I deleted the first upload of this video because Adobe uploaded it almost 10 minutes shorter than what it should have been!! Thanks so much for leaving your comment again. I didn't know about the artist at all, thank you so much!! I will add that to the video, I really appreciate you looking out for artists!
Incredible Video Kite!
I love that others are coming around to the idea that Marika has been divesting herself of pieces of her being ever since the beginning. I had a similar theory concerning the jarring ritual and her leaving undesired pieces of that ritual behind.
Radagon could have very well been a lesser fire giant/descendant who was mixed in with her, hence Messmer's red hair.
I'm toying with the idea that rather than Marika, it was Radagon who pushed for the sealing of Destined Death. Marika is always characterized as bringing conflict, breaking things apart, and was scheming to have Godfrey and the Tarnished return since before Radagon left Renalla.
While Radagon is the one who forms a sect of their Order which ultimately spawns zealots, tries to repair the ring and is characterized as trying to mend/sow things together. He is even called Radagon OF the Golden Order. While Marika's very first incantation explicitly dubs it Golden WITHOUT Order. He also hates his Red hair which is a signifier of the crucible.
Also, if we want to get really tinfoil hatty, the beginning of Story Trailer suspiciously looks like Radagon with the top off. And if we go with the idea that the scene is meant to be when Marika plucks the Elden Ring/Rune of death from some God related to the Crucible/Death/Gloam Skies theeen things start getting a bit interesting concerning Radagon's part in all of this.
To me this all points to Radagon being the aspect who pushed for the Eternal Age. Marika might have been on board in the beginning but clearly had a change of heart. Marika no doubt realized that her Godhood was a cage just like St. Trina realizes it will be for Miquella.
Marika's pose looking like its crucified on Radagon's Golden Order Totality pose is very intentional.
I think that all of the curses are actually parts of things blended with Marika, including something infected with rot, parts of the base serpent, all the things the hornsent considered cursed and unwanted. I've been thinking that Miquela may be the original young empyrean, hence the eternal youth. Morgot and Mogh were the only ones that were actually cursed. The other curses were parts of her that were able to be released due to her recombination with Radagon.
WOW, just WOW, what a great video! I love when lore-theories like this comes out and makes so much sense!
Thank you so much!! 🥲❤️
my only point that goes against the arm band theory is that the statue of radagon that has 2 armbands is in Renalla's chamber, which in this case would be a symbol of radagon's marriage to Marika...in the room renalla spends all of her time in, considering that renalla doesn't even allow a statue of Marika to be within her academy, i doubt she would keep a statue of her ex-husband with the signifier of their divorce
@@calcabe6037 that wouldnt really explain the statue where she only has 1 armband
I think the armbands don't symbolise marriage as such but a binding vow that was made. Marika/Radagon broke the vow they made to Renalla but she was never able to accept this. What I'm still wondering about is the consequences of breaking the vow. My best guess would be that it either cut communications to the greater will or opened up the lands between to the influence of the outer gods
THIS was the explanation that I needed about the timeline. Now it all make sense. THANK YOU ❤
All the outer gods in the game actually represent the emotions of the one god, Marika. Marika shatters the ring and releases all the emotions within her, thus pursuing her children, each possessing a burning of their shattered selves.
I really like the takes in this video - it’s so much different from everything else I listen to; great work
The statue revelation is awesome! I love how they gave us a visual timeline of Marika through the ages.
That said, I have a theory that might throw a wrench in it. See, we know the Hornsent were using the Shamans to try and create a god. But I haven't seen anyone else ask WHY they wanted a god. It's possible they just wanted to make a god for the sake of doing so -- their culture was obsessed with spiritual ascension, after all -- but that doesn't seem narratively satisfying to me. So then, why did they need a god?
I think a clue is in the Furnace Visages, dropped from the Furnace Golems. They're described as depicting a Fell God of Fire that haunted the Hornsent. And although it lacks the one-eyed visage we're used to, I think this is almost certainly the same Fell God of the Fire Giants. And what was the first war Marika waged? That's right, the war against the Fire Giants. If Marika began her career as a god loyal to (or at least controlled by) the Hornsent, then I think they're the ones who had her wage this war. They needed a god to kill a god, and that's why they made her.
Then, later on, when Marika used Messmer to take her revenge against the Hornsent, she had him create the Furnace Golems as a twisted parody of everything they did to her; a sacrificial blending together of life, bearing the image of the very god they made her to destroy. They're Marika's violent way of telling the Hornsent, "This is why you deserve all this." They're images of all the pain they inflicted on her, turned into tools of vengeance.
That's just my theory, though. This DLC really turned Marika into one of my favourite characters in any piece of media, and I love how much the lore community is analyzing her now!
EDIT: Almost forgot that the Talisman of All Crucibles also hints at this, as it supposedly grew on one of the Giants. This, along with the fact that the Rauh Ruins have very similar architecture to the ancient ruins around the Forge of the Giants (among other places), suggests to me that the Giants actually had a stronger connection to the Crucible than the Hornsent. Maybe that's why the Hornsent wanted them and their Fell God out of the picture; they wanted to be the chosen people of the Crucible, and couldn't stand the Giants' apparently being more favoured.
Real nice theory! I think it fits!
I think it's also possible that the Fire Giants and their God are somehow opposed to the Elden Ring, and may be the reason that the previous God of the Elden Ring, Placidusax's God, fled. I think there was some kind of calamity in Placidusax's time that left the world with no God and possibly is also the time that Metyr and the Two Fingers lost contact with the Greater Will. This could have been to do with the Godskins and the Gloam Eyed Queen, but I doubt it as I think they came much later.
Metyr is stated to be the first star to fall upon the Lands Between, suggesting that she arrived before the Elden Ring. This makes me think that there may have been some form of life in the Lands Between before the Elden Ring. To me, it makes the most sense for a primordial culture of Giants to be the first things living in the Lands Between. Titanic giants form the foundations of several of Elden Ring's mountain ranges, and architecture similar to that around the Forge of the Giants seems to brace and underpin the entire world, even going deep underground. I believe the Fell God of Fire that they worship, the Flame of Ruin, may be tied to the Sun. The Flame of the Fell God incantation summons miniature suns to pursue foes. The eye of the Fell God resembles real magnetic storms that form on the surface of the Sun, and also resembles patterns made around meteorites embedded in the architecture of all of the divine towers. The Furnace Visage item is said to depict a fell god of fire and resembles heraldric depictions of the sun. And the Sun Realm Shield, one of very few items in the game that even mention the Sun, mentions a city "crowned by the sun" and an ancient "Seat of the Sun" that has long since faded away, suggesting at one point in the distant past there was a political power in the world that venerated the Sun. While this could be a Dark Souls reference, I think we are still supposed to believe there was an actual Seat of the Sun in Elden Ring's history.
As stated, very few items even mention the Sun, which is unusual as in every real world culture, the Sun is given great cultural importance. It could be that the Sun is simply inferior to the newer, closer star, the Elden Ring but alternatively it could be that the Sun is shunned for cultural reasons. Most of the items that mention the Sun are tied to the Eclipse, and seem to suggest ideas that run counter to our conventional idea of the Sun as a giver of life. The Eclipse Crest Greatshield states: "The eclipsed sun, drained of color, is the protective star of soulless demigods. It aids the mausoleum knights by keeping Destined Death at bay." What's interesting here is that eclipsing the sun, obscuring it, draining it of colour, is what keeps Destined Death at bay. The Sun's light is associated with Destined Death, and blocking that light prevents Death from taking hold. This idea is repeated in the Eclipse Shotel: "Storied sword and treasure of Castle Sol that depicts an eclipsed sun drained of color." Its skill reads: "Set the lusterless sun ablaze with the Prince of Death's flames, inflicting the death ailment upon foes." Once again we have a lusterless Sun that is not associated with death (the sword has no deathblight build up by default) but when the Sun becomes lit, becomes coloured, becomes inflamed, it inflicts Death, and is the *only* weapon in the game to do so.
I think the Sun burns with the Flame of Ruin, and that the Flame of Ruin is closely tied to Destined Death. This is why burning the right person in the Flame of Ruin at the Forge of the Giants directly transports you towards the Rune of Death at Farum Azula, an event the game never explicitly explains. I think that as the closest star to the Lands Between, the Sun was worshiped by the most ancient culture, the Giants, who built Rauh and other places. But eventually a new Star, the Elden Star, landed in the Lands Between, became the Elden Ring and empowered the Ancient Dragons to rival the Giants and claim Godhood for themselves. Eventually, either because of the Giants or for other reasons, Placidusax's God was forced to flee and the world was left with no God. The Hornsent, who revere the Divine Beasts who themselves were closely tied to the Ancient Dragons and their Storm, felt the world needed a new God to champion the Elden Ring, and set about experimenting with creating Saints by blending life, to artificially create a perfect candidate for Godhood. But rather than recreating the old Order of Placidusax's God and the Divine Beasts, Marika created a new Order of the Erdtree, and in doing so betrayed the Hornsent.
@@LuciferLucklessi really like this theory, makes a lot of sense that the original inhabitants of the lands between would worship the sun as their god in parallel to human history
Absolutely fitting
@@LuciferLuckless Good theory, but I personally think it's more likely that the Fell God WAS Placidusax's god. The only named gods in the lore are Marika and the Fell God (the outer gods like the Formless Mother and Scarlet Rot seem like a different class from "regular" gods, especially with DLC context), so there aren't really any other candidates. I doubt it would be an unmentioned third god, though I only believe this because of a vague sense of narrative cohesion.
We also know for a fact (according to Melina quoting Marika in the Second Church of Marika) that the Age of the Erdtree began immediately following the fall of the Giants. We also know that Placidusax was Elden Lord in the age before the Erdtree. The timeline seems to add up, with Placidusax losing his title of Elden Lord after the Fell God's defeat and Marika's consequential rise to power. This would also explain why the Ancient Dragons attacked Leyndell afterwards; they were seeking revenge for their god.
And finally, we know Farum Azula is the seat of Placidusax, the deposed Elden Lord. And how do we get to Farum Azula? Be reigniting the Giants' Forge. Maybe this was the signal Placidusax was waiting for, heralding the return of his Fell God, and that's why we get pulled to the seat of his power.
Honestly though, I don't think either of us are wring. One of my favourite things about From's method of storytelling through context clues and hints is that everyone has their own interpretation, and each theory can have merit. We're all reading a version of these stories that we most connect with, and that's awesome!
This is an amazing theory that gives a poetic and comolete feeling to the DLC, where it's all connected more. And it gives an interesting take on some of the demigods, if they're children in the way millicent is a bud of malenia, where the motivation for Marika's actions was also to remove aspects of herself after the revelation of her origin being such a terrifying merging of things. And that the origin of some of her children was the act of that removal.
It would mean mellina could be even nore confusing. She could be more like millicent, an aspect of Marika, and maybe one remvoed far later in the timeline. I always assumes she was like the last remnant of Marika's soul sent out because Marika was trapped within the erd tree. But she may still be an aspect of Marika, cast off and becoming a new life.
I wanted to comment earlier but it was taken down before I could post it so here it is again ^^ I'll edit it after I've watched the full video again if I said anything unnecessary :
Great video !!
Especially the observation on the statues and the storeroom, and Godfrey maybe being a highlander. Those blew my mind !
There's 2 things I want to add though that might change a bit of your theories :
1 - Messmer's theme song during his fight is very closely related to Radagon's boss theme, so it is I think suggested that Radagon is Messmer's father, and thus her first marriage was maybe with him ? Also the harp that plays during the shaman village is also present not only at the start menu but also at the beginning of the Elden Beast's boss theme so it might be to further emphasize that the Elden Beast is Marika herself.
2 - The snake skin found next to the "O Mother" gesture that is very similar to the one found in the temple of Eglay where in the lore you discover Rya's origins is a hint to the Lithuanian tale about Eglé, the Serpent queen, a young maiden that was forced to marry a serpent (who turned out to be extremely handsome afterwards ^^' = maybe Radagon ???). In the tale that can be found on Wiki, after the marriage she ends up having four children, 3 boys and 1 girl that for reasons end up all cursed and become trees.
Other than that I also loved the call back to Sephiroth and Jenova, very astute observation that scratches my FF fan itch
I wanted to add also that there is a lot of cases where the Fell God and serpents are closely associated, shown in other lore videos I've watched. And as the Fell God was also part of the Hornsent culture does that maybe explain Messmer and Melina's affinity with fire and Messmer's link to the base serpent ? Radagon hated his red hair also so maybe there's something there
Thank you so much!! I didn't notice that about Messmer's theme but I think that 100% fits!! I could totally see that being the case in the scenario that the seduction was of the Gloam-Eyed Queen via Radagon as well. I'll absolutely have to go read that tale you referenced, that sounds like it absolutely might be a reference!
@@zfezzanithe fell god is an original sun god as depicted by dung eater and his armor. Also this god later became the crucible God and finally the god the fire giants took power from in order to beat Godfrey.
Oh, this is so good.❤ I noticed the differences in statues as well. However, adding that Messmers statue with baby is so nice, it's really adds up a lot. Indeed, i believe Marika is a successful Jar experiment. And that's why Hornscent was okay with her. And I thought that her children were just part of her jar buddies. Like as you said, they chopped everything that could fit. So, for example, some Hornscent was added, some snakes, a bit of rot, a bit off children, a bit of warrior spirited person, or a blasphemous person. And then, when she had children, they shared those traits. Well, something like that comes to my mind. But anyway, great video. I will say this will be the ultimate look on things.😊
Am i the only one who thinks strumpet sounds like a great name for some kind of pastry or the like?
"Ok sir, would you like a coffee to go with your strumpets?"
"Lets sit down and have some tea and strumpets"
Maybe im just a weirdo or just hungry, but the word strumpet makes me think about food.
That’s “crumpet!” Don’t go to the bakery asking for tea and strumpets because you’re gonna walk out with something VERY different 😆
what if it is a combination of food and a musical instrument (trumpet) ..eat while you play
@@kitetales lol, i know what strumpet means, but for some reason the word just makes me hungry, lol. I think it would fit a food better than it's acual definition is all I'm saying, lol.
Oh wow. You had a lot of this figured out months ago. I do think Mesmer was born with the snake in him tho, as Marika, being a conduit of all the outer gods gave birth to children who were more susceptible to being their vessels, willingly or not.
"A perverted idea of......if i fits, i sits." The pause got me😂 also a super calming, smooth voice, great content, you're great.
Trying to fit in more things here.
I think that the clothes the Godskins wear are made from the flayed skins of the other shamans who were made into pots. And that the Godskin Nobles are instances where the pot-melding worked but on a smaller scale, not to the extent of creating "saints". (source: this video and the Godskin Noble Hood desc).
Then the GEQ was another Empyrean who had been found by the hornsent and was working with them as a backup/alternative/rival to Marika. She was backed by at least the Godskins.
As part of her journey, Marika had to come into conflict with GEQ to determine which of them got to ascend to divinity. However, Marika had a powerful ally in Maliketh who was able to defeat her and the Godskins.
(We know that the rune of death was "plucked from the golden order upon its creation". We know that the GEQ held/controlled the rune of death. Therefore she must have lost control before Marika ascended to divinity and formed the golden order).
Possibly the "seduction" and "betrayal" could apply here as well. It could be that Marika thought that the GEQ was too powerful to defeat due to her possession of the rune of death. Therefore, Marika/Radagon could have seduced her and stolen the rune of death in the process. Which would weaken her and her followers enough so that Maliketh could defeat them.
It could be that she gained godhood, had Messmer while still in the shadow realm. Then sent him to do his crusade before she would leave for her campaign in the lands between, promising to return. The idea that her kids weren't just cursed by fate but by her to rid herself of aspects she didnt want. Serpent, Melina with some kind of kindling the crucible in Mogh and Morgott, The Rot (although that's it's own god as far as I remember.) and probably her childish nature in Miquela. This is really interesting, good work.
But messmer did exist in the lands between, multiple items descriptions referring to him a ND gaius as being radahn seniors and close which wouldn't be possible if messmer never left the realm of shadow
Also Rellana followed him, which means he was known in the Lands Between, too
The crusade must've taken place after Godfrey was send away at the earliest. Otherwise Messmer wouldn't know what a Tarnished is.
@@boneman-calciumenjoyer8290 of all the points (which are good) this is the funniest one in a sense of imagine you walk in and he's like 'How do you keep coming back!? What sorcerry is this!?'
@@garbo3562 "oh yeah... so your mom made all of us effectively immortal, so that we can put the demigods to the sword and become Elden lord... you can call me stepdad, if you want." (Gets impaled and scorched again.)
This is utterly brilliant. It clears up so much that I didn't even realize I didn't know. I knew she hooked up with Radagon to make Mesmer, but the fact that they were married, and she left Radagon for Horah Loux, and that thats what makes her a strumpet. It also clears up another relationship I've been pondering, Miquella and St Trina. I was considering the possibility of St Trina actually being a separate entity from Miquella and not a discarded part of his body. Her being a Saint I figured then she must be a Jar Saint, like Molina Saint of the Bud, and I guess now Saint Radagon as well. The parentage of all Marika's children are clear to me, but how some ended up empyreans is not, I figured it was a curse on Marika that the Gods/Empyrians of various Outer Gods she defeated chose one of her children as their empyrean, but your theory adds so much to it, that since Marika is a Saint herself, her children each inherited an aspect of her that some outer Gods lusted after and forced their Empyrean mark onto them. I even get the Malenia, Miquella and Godwyn connection now. Godwyn being Marika's gold blessing without order, to Horah Loux the human warrior. He came out balanced. Marika tried to combine with Radagon again to complete the Rebis, the perfected hermaphrodite, since they both had gone on journeys of growth seeking perfection, Marika with her faith of Gold, and Radagon with the Glintstone soceries. Both had produced prodigies, Godwyn who slew dragons in the dragon war and Radahn who needs no explanation. Hoping to make the perfect order, the Golden Order that shall act forever. However everything being in perfect unity forever is essentially stagnation, and each of their twins were cursed by stagnation. Miquella to never grow and Melania to rot in place. Godwyn took pity on them, as he is the one they were meant to be like, and thats their statue at the Haligtree, the three embracing.
I wonder how Marika felt that if, after betraying the Gloam-Eyed Queen, that her second child, Melina, was born with a gloam eye. Perhaps the Gloam-Eyed Queen was akin to Radagon or St Trina, another piece of Marika, one which she cast off, one that opposed her new order, on any number of grounds. Marika is the goddess of life eternal whereas, I believe, the Gloam-Eyed Queen was the goddess of birth (think the swaddling cloth) and death (think god killing black flame). Similar but also incompatible ideas. I would caution that this is rampant speculation, but with the Gloam-Eyed Queen, that's the best we got. :)
This is genuinely the best Elden Ring I've ever heard! The connections, the motivations, the history, it all adds up to create something very cohesive and emotional. Fantastic stuff!
The later discovery of Marika's past remind me of Rya's questline and her own birth
Loved stumbling upon your channel, I love your soft narration and super interesting lore breakdown! ❤
Thank you so much!! 🥲❤️
The snake was Radagon who came to seduce Marika and as a consequence Mesmer was born.
Love it. Plays to the “original sin” biblical theme of Eve and the Serpent as well.
@@kitetales that makes alot of sense as to how there is allt of deep amazing ocult, mythological, botanical,and biblical references and connections in this experience of a game 🙏
Exactly
but how would they then be the same person? doesn't really make sense to call it a seduction in that context. and radagon has absolutely no snake imagery tied to him and the concept of order which he embodies is the complete opposite of what the snake embodies in literature/religion.
it also wouldnt make sense for her to reunite with radagon if he was the reason her child was cursed and had to be abandoned in the land of shadow.
Radagon is a champion that was elevated to elden lord by the greater will as he is a true believer to it. His Rune is much more orderly than any of the others.
Also by the information we receive from the duelist set, its appearance and the colloseum lore we find out that Radagon only was elevated to elden lord a long time after the colloseums have stopped being used. Putting his actions with renalla in a time after messmer's crusade.
I may be late with the response because I didn't see this, but holy moly, this entire video just clicks and fits with everything that. I have recently heard of others going over the DLC lore wise or possible theories of how this came to be as it fits so well. I could not be hooked on the entire video and didn't want to skip any of the parts that you told in this video.
I’m half amazed by your theories and half annoyed I didn’t think of it myself. Marika being a jar saint makes so much sense and explains so much! Great vid!
highly agree, i commented this 4 weeks ago under a vaati vid, with the same train of thought:
"Considering the theme of "creating a god" is all over Elden Ring, with the Nox, Rykard, Miquella, Mohg, Gowry and such. I doubt it started with Marika.
Personally i think Marika is a successful product of the "nigh-sainthood" production/massacre of the hornsent. Not a survivor/escapee, but an amalgation of beings after being chopped up and merged. For the hornsent to consider Marika a betrayer, there had to be a connection first. Many of the Innard-Beings look visually extremely similar to Marika down to the Symbol. They are failed products of what Marika became. The Empyrian Grandmother is a hornsent with Ties to Marika.
Since the hornsent consider the Crucible as holy, the origin of all, where everything was contained within, trying to recreate such a thing would be through merging "everything" back together once again. And since the Numen/Shamans merge harmonously, they act as glue, or base to this. This is rounded of by Marikas Rune being the Rune of Life (The crucible being the origin of life in the hornsent mythology)
This feels very familiar with the Kodaku lore/The myth of the venom pot. Marikas Self/Ego is what came out. The hornsent put their faith, their hopes in their newly created, man made Saint, who turned their back on them, and started a massacre in turn, enacted revenge and used the Gates of Divinity to ascend to actual Godhood. This would also provide an explanation to the Marika/Radagon duality, and why all of Marikas offspring are cursed to an extent or flawed by outer gods influence
Thus, within Marika, many Beings are accumulated, which had effect on her Offspring. Her being an artificial Crucible, although the life she was able to create, was flawed and it produced Omen Children, Cursed Children open to outer influences since they lacked a critical component.
Radagon also mightve been a different Person too pre-Pot Merge, of Giant-lineage. His actual Ego is dissolved, but appearance kept, in her Arsenal. Marika couldve either morphed into him at will, or even seperated too, offloading her sense of instilled/programmed loyalty to be able to enact her Revenge on her creators. Him being the personified Aspect Loyalty or Order, was the reason he stayed true to the Elden Beast/Metyr after the Shattering and tried to reforge the Elden Ring after Marika shattered it.
This would fit in the timeline, as the Minor Erdtree Miracle states the Erdtree was only with Marikas Golden Kindness but without the Order during her time at the Village with Messmer/Younger Sister. Similarily, Melina being the only one to know the secret Miracle is a clue to this.
Thus the Crusade was not only for Revenge, but mayhaps to put an End to their further production of Saints and their Treatment of other races. To entirely bury their Sins, but also Marikas past and her own Sins with them.
The supressing Pillar is in the middle of the Lands Between/Shadowlands, and the 6 Major Tower, who likely got erected under Marika. As such, whatever it is surpressing, was likely picked by Marika"