To be fair, he's trying to kill someone who basically started the entire apocalypse the game is set in Also the lean in he does when he talks about his scheme to you is hilarious, cool, and really fucking creepy
Haha exactly the point I was making. He's definitely a creep. But he's likable and if it wasn't for his creepiness, his actions would be seen as completely reasonable given the circumstances he's in
ranni was the straw that broke the camel's back. I dont get why everyone always says only ranni caused the shattering when it's pretty implied not only Rykard took part but Marika is also implied to have helped cause it as well. (you know the person who actually shattered the ring and directly caused the shattering?)
Literally no she didn’t? She killed herself, and it’s not clear how responsible or if she chose Godwyn to be killed as well. Marika shattered the Elden Ring. And stop treating the Golden Order as some utopia. It was built on blood just like any kingdom. They genocided the giants and other races to have to establish the order. The misgotten are enslaved, and the undead and omen are hunted for no better reason other than being what they are. Ranni, though her motives are somewhat selfish, has the solution of removing her order from the world so that the beings of the world can forge their fate by their own will and not by the coercion of the gods.
Rykard helping is quite literally just that. Helping. He didn't orchestrate. Plus he helped ranni as insurance against Marika and maliketh I believe ranni gave the claw to rykard because when she caused the the night of black knives she got godwyn killed to which whether it was rannis intention or not, it Definitely wasn't wasn't part of Marika plan, which is why ranni gave rykard the claw so he could protect himself if his involvement was ever discovered, Marika on the other hand, now out of options as her plot with ranni blew up in her face, shatters the elden ring to send the world into chaos. I think it's still rannis fault. Obviously Marika isn't blameless, she shattered the ring, but only because she was out of options
I know it's a comment fro ma year ago, but reason why Dung Eater is so terrified is not purely because of the potion. He is terrified, because all he worked for, all he cursed and defiled was for nothing, as the person who he believed would fullfil his goal tricked him and now, he'll be a slave for all eternity, working for someone else Order.
You say Gideon has no redeeming qualities, however I find that incredibly false. Every play-through he offers you a new chance to one shot him in horrific ways during his little speech before he fights you. That’s his redeeming quality!
Idk about redeeming but I enjoy his drive to become the all knowing and direct methods. No bullshit. He wanted the halig tree medallion? Fuck up the albinaurics. Need a strong arm to do some dirty work for you? Convince that dunce of a new tarnished to do it for you. I respect it
Lol he's soft tho. And he's wrong. In the end he's just another obstacle and a ridiculously weak one at that. All because he believed Marika about the tarnished and was proven wrong literally 10 minutes later. If he was so all knowing why did he attack me knowing I would one shot him with frenzied burst
I think the reason that Pidia recognizes you is because before you can reach him, you have to pass through the first floor of the church he resides in. He also seems immediately afraid of the player. I think this is because he's probably aware of many of the Manor's defences, and you just murder your way through a bunch of Raya Lucarian soldier puppet spirits, a Cuckoo Troll, and spirit Loretta, and you probably scared off Adula, one of the strongest fucking dragons in the game the second time you fight it. So he knew you had to fight through all of that and now you're right there next to him in his little hidey hole. I bet he sells you stuff as a way to disincentivize you killing him too, because after you buy everything, all he does is apologize and beg forgiveness for not having anything else to give.
The players finger maiden (I assumed) was the corpse you get the message finger from at the start of the game. She's dead sitting there and then we fight the grafted scion. I assumed Godrick did this because even though he's the weakest he was the most active shard bearer and knew the tarnished where his only competition so he wanted to eliminate them at the source.
Out of many of the npcs, Ranni's entire band is memorable to be sure. Selivus was on the bottom, and I loved Iji more than wolf boy, however Selivus is that evil npc that gives you unique rewards for horrible actions.
the fact you can get a dung eater pupper through using Seluvis' twisted means to your own ends is pretty dope and probably one of my favorite things in the game
@@TheHonoredMadman doing this to the poor dungeater sounds even more evil than giving it to the other one, also his summon is strong as fuck and i can understand why you did it.
@@thanquolrattenherz9665 To be fair, Dung Eater kinda deserves the puppet thing because he pulls out peoples souls through the anus and then eats them. A bit of an eccentric one he is
@@rikkhanny867 its not a crime to eat stuff from other peoples anuses but its loathsome and in america some students got corona from these kinds of acts but i think in their case it was alcohol and not souls.
@@thanquolrattenherz9665 they don’t call him the “dung-eater” in as much of a literal sense.. it’s more of just a “what is the nastiest insulting name for the nastiest person we’ve ever known to have lived?”
yeah when it comes down to it i prefer him over gideon but not over the dung eater. the dung eater may have killed boggart but i like that he spites the erdtree
@@TheHonoredMadman I make sure to kill Dung Eater as soon as possible, make him regret giving me that key lol. Save both Boggart and the purity of my Shirikodama every playthrough. Nobody touches my anus soulsphere.
One weird thing I noticed is that the inactive puppets in his hidden basement can get the same golden eyes effect that makes enemies drop extra runes. I specifically saw it on the swordstress puppet. I have no idea what it means, probably just that those puppet npcs are considered valid entities to gain golden eyes, even though you can't kill them. Just weird.
@@evanjrowley Different golden eye. The frenzy one has wisps of red and a flame-like graphic. The golden eyes of increased rune drops look like little golden orbs, with less of a trail left behind while moving than the frenzy eyes.
14:56 "Indicating that he tried on his own and failed in the same way". It could just be that Ranni was done with him and thought him as creepy as everyone else.
23:43 I like the Selevus puppet theory because I imagine Pidia, due to his experiences with being looked down upon by nobles, treating other people in the same condescending manner once he finally acquires power over others
To me it's more likely the finger maiden puppet wasn't the players but just some random tarnished. I only say this because I think it's heavily implied varre kills your maiden because he knows immediately your maidenless and is waiting for you right out the gate with this knowledge. Its just would make a lot more sense in my mind for varre to have done it
I’m convinced that Varre intended to make the player Tarnished a Bloody Finger from the get go, murdering your maiden to make you aimless and lost, offering the path to Mohg if you survived in the Lands Between(which is exactly what happens)
@@williamhanna9718 I believe pretty much the same although like pretty much everyone else in game he underestimates you and your ability to actually kill mogh
9:25 "She's very likely the player's original maiden". I'm pretty sure the dead maiden in the starting room in the Chapel of Anticipation was your maiden.
This game has the best evil options since New Vegas and Mass Effect 2. If you do the order right you can pretty much do every evil quest and then burn it all as the Lord of Chaos.
The fact that you called Gideon a witch king of the Angmar cosplay made me so happy because I’m made a cosplay of the witch king of Angmar using his helmet
Yknow with the whole Demigods constantly battling each other for their great runes to restore the elden ring and shit. It's kinda weird how Nepheli Loux isn't considered to be an contender of being Elden Lord. You would think being the daughter of Godfrey/Hoarah Loux she would be acknowledged as an rival for the Demigods. Also I'm surprised she didn't inherit Godfrey's inhuman strength.
@@TheHonoredMadman yes you must be born of at least one god to be a demi god, and in Miquella and Malenia case they were born of the same body, resulting in them both being able to ascend to full godhood at some point, hence Malenia becoming "the goddess of rot"
@@juliannagk9079 the Elden Lord can be anyone. Being the God chosen by the GW requires being an Empyrian. Nepheli just doesn't have the ambition to like the player character.
Seluvis is like the mean impatient schoolteacher, He's spiteful and venomous, and outright just doesn't give a shit. Though i can't help but like him. Seluvis also gradually becomes more respectful to you if you help him with the potion quest. Also, i'm not so certain he's actually dead by the end of ranni's questline, You're still able to learn sorcery and get puppets from him. He's probably simply in a bizarre dormant state much like Serren's puppet was.
Can you do a video on the Two Fingers? Like, what the hell are they? They're pretty significant things in the lore of Elden Ring, but why do they exist? Why are they fingers? How do they tie to the Greater Will? Why are so many of them dead? Why is Ranni's in that underground chamber area? Why do the dead ones look like they're made from wood? Why is the Great Will associated with Fingers at all?
it seems at the very least every demigod had their own set of fingers at one time butwhen the shattering happened the greater will abandoned them and im guessing thats why theyre all dead, but i think they jus serve as vassal or like emissary for the greater will to guide the offspring of marika to do the greater wills bidding. but then ranni killed hers and all that. i dont have a clear answer but thats a great suggestion ill definitely look into it i appreciate that
@@TheHonoredMadman I don’t know that all the demigods had Fingers, as the game goes out of its way to explain to you that Empyreans had Fingers, having Fingers is a sign of an Empyrean. And the other demigods are not Empyreans. I think the fingers on top of the divine towers are simply representatives of those holy places, kind of like the one is at the roundtable hold. Now why are they dead? No idea
They Fingers are only called fingers because that's the best way the primitives of the Lands Between can rationalize their being. Being vassals of outer gods, the Fingers morphology is likely natural to their species, and it just so happens that their form they present to the characters just happens to resemble fingers.
@@JonRinzRaccotterz I agree with this due to how Ranni's slain fingers look so strangely by comparison and due to the fact we never quite see what's below the "palm" of any of the fingers, not really anyway so who knows what they look like in their totality.
Seluvis is a neat character. Wears a cool mask, medieval fedora hat and is always straight to the point. Sigma grindset+Effectivenes= Seluvis. Most important of all, he takes care of his puppets while giving them tarnished love.
I don't think Rani uses them like pawns. I remember she had a dialog, as a miniature doll, I think, where before she leaves you, she tells the player to tell Iji and Blaid that she loves them.
i mean she still abandoned them to their fates whether they were okay with it or not. i mean ijis helmet said he was terrified of the consequences of his actions and blaidd was blindly loyal to her but his programming went haywire. either way they both end up dead and meanwhile whats she doing? trying to turn everyone into space gas lol im fucking around.
@@TheHonoredMadman I wouldn't say abandon. We could understand that the love those three shared was understanding that making Rannis goal a reality could lead to any of them dying. Also, Blaidds reaction to being freed and fighting the assassins outside her rise is proof he valued seeing her goal to its end was worse dying. One thing that does bother me is that Iji says that the PLAYER was the only champion for Ranni...but Blaidd grew up with and protected her and he was searching for Nokron before us. I dont get why Iji dissed Blaidd like that :/
@@JonRinzRaccotterz Blaidd is family, like a brother. The player is the queen consort, partner and thus gifted with great power aka the Dark Moon Great Sword.
18:20 Yeah, I mean the fingermaiden in darkroot depths does mention that Godwyn was supposed to die, but prolly fully die and not become an undead fish-monster
@@TheHonoredMadman I think it's pretty safe to assume that the Queen had some "ceremonial slaying" in mind for Godwyn. The fingermaiden's usage of "martyr" might hint at it being some veiled machination to kill and resurrect Godwyn, pinning the blame on the blackknifes I guess and further deifying him as a result. Ranny probably muscled in on the deal or something to that extend, I'm not sure, but I find it very weird how many hoops do you have to jump through in order to unlock Ranny's full potential so to speak. It's almost like Astel is a sort of jailer of hers.
So I don't think therolina was the tarnisheds original finger maiden but what I think is that she could've been out substitute one as she didn't have her own tarnished and we didn't have a maiden
15:00 why does anyone do something dangerous. The adrenaline of doing something that could possibly get you killed is exciting when you walk away unharmed. Assuming you did give him Nepheli Loux that's not a light crime. I'm sure he's done alot that could have got him a execution date. Ranni is almost a "I have one chance. If I fail I'm dead forsure" Look how tempting having a demi God as a puppet. Would easily put his entire collection to shame. 21:00 I think Seluvis had him killed before attempting the Ranni puppet mission. He simply knew too much and he looked like he was covering his ground. In case he failed didn't want anyone to talk.
It took me awhile to realize Lobo wasn't actually asleep. I just thought I had to get whatever quest condition that would let me talk to Latenna more and she would ride Lobo off. I was very sad when I showed her the medallion and she said goodbye to her companion
thanks dude. i originally was just going to rant about how gideon and seluvis were bffs and list off all of their respective crimes but when i was researching it i started to see like a whole other side of the commonly accepted narrative that surrounds seluvis
To address the murder of Iji and attempted murder of Blaidd at the hands of the Black Knife assassins, I am very much of the opinion that she is not responsible for them, and if she is, then it is very poorly communicated to the player. After you kill the Baleful Shadow, she asks you to tell Blaidd and Iji that she loves them, and it would be somewhat difficult to carry out that request if she had them killed. I think it is definitely likely that either Marika or maybe the Greater Will itself has command over them now. Blaidd doesn't wear a Mirrorhelm, which would make him an easy target for the Greater Will to track, and Iji takes his off after learning that Blaidd, even in his madness, still wished to serve Ranni, implying that he knew the assassins would be looking for the traitors, and he let himself be killed as a sort of capital punishment to himself for in his eyes betraying an friend. Why I think the Greater Will may have some control over the assassins is kind of pure speculation, but Marika seems to be cut off for the most part, both physically and in spirit, from the rest of the Lands Between. The only connection she seems to have left in the world are her stakes that can make the Tarnished's struggle slightly less agonizing, and the echoes of her words at certain sites of grace. The Greater Will, however, seems powerful enough to psychically interact with a bunch of things, literally guiding Tarnished through the guidance of grace, and can send malformed stars from space to destroy ancient cities. It takes Nox occult practices to fashion a helmet just to stave off the Greater WIll's influence. Though, Marika herself did say she would specifically return the grace of gold to the Tarnished at an appointed time, so she may still be fairly capable of god stuff while impaled in the Erdtree. This is mostly just a (probably wrong) crazy rant at this point, and completely disconnected from the point I was originally making, which is that Ranni (probably) didn't kill giant dad or wolf man.
yeah i dont think ranni had her companions killed i just think she sort of abandoned them to their fates, there wasnt much to be done for blaidd, him going insane was gonna happen if she was to truly achieve her goals, he was always going to be collateral damage despite his devotion to her. and iji had long ago accepted his fate at the hands of the golden order after spending his life in fear of their retaliation for his treachery. but i never meant to imply she had them killed i only meant that her actions led to their deaths. also the tone of this video i was trying to be alittle over the top against ranni and in favor of seluvis, im actually working on a video about rannis story currently
Here's something to consider for your rant: In combat Black Knife assassins use a red and black flame, like Malikath does, both of their blades containing the essence of the rune of death. When we find Iji dead, he is burning with the pure black flame of the godskin apostles. So perhaps black knife assassin's tried him and failed (we see their bodies scattered around) but godskin apostles/nobles joined in to finish him off. On top of this we have to fight a godskin noble trying to get into the divine Tower of Liurnia where Ranni's curse mark of death can be found. Maybe the godskins were after it, it maybe they were guarding it. It seems like it's something that would help them with their god-slaying goals. With Ranni's primary interest being severance from the greater will, maybe both the black knife assassin's consider her a traitor to their cause for not continuing to slay gods. One more point of interest is the Black Knife assassins have only one weakness: Cold. Ranni/Renna is known as the cold witch. It could be the black knife assassins feel increasingly threatened by her as you help her during her quest. There's probably also a connection with ringleader Alecto being imprisoned in an Evergaol on the moonlight altar. Who else could capture a black knife assassin alive? Instead of helping the black knife assassins to topple the golden order, Ranni is working with you as you attempt to become Elden Lord. The black knife assassins, who are women, are very motivated to stop Marika because she persecutes "heretical" births (demi-humans, misbegotten, albinaurics, the nox). My body my choice, right? Then some random tarnished comes along. Tarnished are called back to the lands between by the greater will. Ranni and you working together is treachery in their eyes. Similar motivation for godskins too.
It's cool you liked my random thought about Ensha perhaps being a puppet enough to repeat. If eventually this is definitively ruled out I apologize in advance. But I appreciate you pointing out why Pidia and Seluvis are likely NOT the same person, even if Seluvis' mind is in a doll after transferring bodies at least once. This would need an accomplice, as with us and Sellen, which explains Pidia's involvement. Seluvis even assumes the inert doll pose after his death. Also, when Pidia reacts to you like he knows you the first time, this is a result of mistranslation. In Japanese Pidia's line is more just surprise to see anyone at all.
i honestly think its the only reasonable explanation of ensha to me, hes super vague so it fits. and yeah i should have put more emphasis on the fact he would need a henchmen to pull off what hes doing
Thanks for another Elden Ring lore installment, man! To me, your vids are some of the most enjoyable lore vids out there! And I agree, Gideon is a bonafide SOB for puttin' that beautiful Lobo to the sword. That's when I decided the old coot had "to go". Lol
Oh, Seluvis is far worse than most people think. He literally turns people into his puppets, and even descendants of demigods like Nephali Loux are able to have this happen to them. Reminds me of a villian from Naruto, Sasori of the Red Sands.
Best part of the video is gideon killing the wolf and you saying, as a husky owner that pissed me off lol i do enjoy a lot your videos, nice explanation.
Yo not to simp but I’ve been playing your videos on repeat, you got the meat of the lore but you still talk like an actual person and not some imperial scholar of the fuck-off dimension so thank you and cheers
I thought the black knife assassins never attacked Ranni and her servants as long as Ranni was around due to whatever pact they had, but once you complete her quest she is “gone” until you progress to the ending, so I assumed the black knife assassins finally killed Rannis team once she is gone and no longer there to protect them and hold off the black knife assassins or their pact is completed because of your actions.
What do you mean? I even said in the video that when she wasn't around to protect her accomplices that that's why they were killed be cause she didn't stick around to protect them. Iji accepted his fat and tried to help blaidds not be too bad but in the end the knives come and blaidd gets driven insane but manages to kill his assassins
you make several good points but leave a lot out. 1. Selivus is a puppet, with no other body in game unlike sellen. but like sellen still sells afterwords. meaning that is the ending body. and both being trapped in husks. 2. If you kill Selivus by attacking him, he will come back with the church of absolution. You cannot bring back "dead" characters like this only reset "faction" points or whatever with him 3. Pidia is an albenoric, there is no way to where he is, there are no bars but it's a prison, he can't go anywhere. 4. Pidia has a map to all the ingredients to make the starlight amber draught. Which is strong enough to take over demo gods inhabiting puppets, but allows to take control of already made puppets. 5. Selivus most Likely made Ranni's body in the first place 6. Selivus is able to not age becuase he turned himself into a puppet as the ultimate expression of puppet making in japanese mythology. Even naruto does it. 7. Selivus and Pidia's death are not connected. Pidia's is trigger by the finger slayer blade. Maybe I tried on a different patch but Selivus was dead and Pidia didn't die till after I gave her the finger slayer blade which "is" the trigger for Pidia's event not selivus's death. 8. Pidia has the map for the potion to not only take over ranni but Selivus being a living puppet. The knights don't go haywire, it's insurance. Who is the only person Selivus apprenticed besides you? Pidia, Who can has the map and knowledge to take over puppet bodies? If Selivus died inside his puppet he didn't want pidia bringing him back and controlling him as he's trapped inside his puppet body just like ranni would have been. Would Ranni care if she could just have any other puppet made and be happy. The Tiny Ranni is a disguise but its a toy she needs a real vessel. The Mask, I honestly have no idea why they did it like this. But it could be more possible he'd tried to make a puppet out of someone with blaids head as a fake blaidd for further schemes if needed. He is a shadow and there for has to be half wolf according to lore. So yeah good job or bring quite a few things up but while some of this needs connected with hard evidence the connections are all there and while some may say this is all just theory the whole game is so. But I think the night of black knives was messed up because Merica was in Radagon form and Godwyn was in female form [like miquella can] and they were trying to concieve children in another way to get around the curses. So while Merica was the target of the night of black knives to kill her soul trapping the elden beast in a souless husk so it was trapped, but they mistook Godwyn in female form as merica and by the time they realize they had to go through or ranni would die completely also screwing the entire plan up. Merica was Radagon at this time because it was planned to get merica while radagon was away when they didn't know they were one in the same. So take it all with what you want. But I've been going through his quest multiple times just because I love the idea he made Ranni's puppet body and then made himself into a puppet possibly by the same glinstone essence trick sellen uses. They have a past, they have a shared up bringing and education system. Why would Selivus not know things like removing his own primal glinstone and putting it into a puppet being the puppet master of raya lucaria so high up that he was a preceptor. It only makes me sad that you can't keep the poption finish ranni's quest line and then give the potion to the slumped over selivus puppet to get a selivus puppet for yourself. That seems liek that would have been the optimal ending for the quest from soft really missed out on.
kinda random but could anyone explain why blaidd isnt already insane when we meet him? His whole thing is being a fail safe should ranni ever try and defy the greater will but for some reason it's no big deal ranni killed her own empyrean flesh which removes her from the influence of the two fingers? why does he wait YEARS until she murders her two fingers when shes supposedly already disconnected from their wifi and shouldnt be influenced anymore? shouldnt he have tried to kill her way back when?
Honestly he should've turned on her during the black knives night either thay or he's bad programming or perhaps her doll body through his programming off until she quite literally killed the fingers that gave blaidd to her maybe? Idk but I agree it's weird he waited so long to go berserk
It could be that Blaidd was always feeling the resist the urge to turn on Ranni ever since she killed her own body, but was able to ignore or resist it. However, the more anti-Golden Order actions she took, the harder it was for Blaidd to resist until he finally succumbed to his "programming".
Gideon is one of my favorite characters in the series due to his asshole nature. Such a manipulative and cunning bastard but at the same time hypocritical as hell. I love it😂
By the way the finger maiden puppet isn’t ur maiden. Ur maiden is at the beginning of the game where u get the purple finger before facing the grafted scion. She most likely got killed trying to escape the grafted scion or someone else tried to kill her but from most investigation it’s most likely she was killed by a grafted Scion or by one of godrick’s men some say it was a bloody finger but the only bloody finger or close by is mask varre but the thing is mask varre is in the first step there’s no way for him to have killed ur maiden unless he drops a imbued sword key upon death which he doesn’t.
Seluvis loving the puppets like they were his children actually makes a whole ton of sense when you realize that the biological birth process has been stopped in the lands between in favor of erdtree burial and erdtree rebirth. Seluvis has a very bloodborne-esque intense longing for a surrogate child
i thought selvius is actually pidias puppet. if you listen closely they sound very similar. also when selvius "dies" hes situated in the same way as all thenother puppets.
Your comparison is very wrong I kinda thought the same thing but the more I learn about the lore the more ranni’s actions as fucked up as they were isn’t evil and Sulivis is pretty fucking evil
You really didn't understand the lore did you? Is Seluvis trying to liberate the world from the Outer Gods? Also is it Ranni's fault the demigods went insane with power? That's a pretty horrible take I'll be honest
@@blizzardgaming7070 In Ranni's defense, all you mentioned was what we knew about Godwyn, which is precious little. For all we know he could've been Joffrey Baratheon behind the scenes.
I don't think the black knives were loyal to Ranni. I think they were basically mercenaries. The fact that Alecto is imprisoned by Ranni on the moonlight plateau suggests as much.
I believe there's a difference between the puppet body and the puppet spirit. I don't know how useful that information is, but the body of an imbiber of star shard potions remains seemingly comatose, while their spirit, and indeed whatever might have otherwise been a normal Spirit Ash becomes a bound spirit, summonable in the same fashion as Erdtree Spirit Ashes. So if Seluvis was controlling a puppet body to begin with, he would appear as a bound puppet spirit. The only possible exception is the Maiden who shows up at Radahn's festival. That seems to throw the idea into disarray as I believe it's possible to encounter the silent festival Maiden after gaining said Maiden's bound spirit. There's also Sellen maybe? She mentions that she's appearing as a projection (if I recall correct) but her third body in Seluvis's basement would seem to imply that one can both both a bound spirit AND a conscious being, although Seluvis doesn't have a puppet spirit of Sellen available so she might have escaped the whole process via her usual methods. Edit: I forgot about Pidia's killers. lol
I thought it said in the Nox puppets text that they had volunteered to become puppets? Not a big issue either way, just remembered reading it. Good discussion on a devious NPC with dubious motives. 👏
Yeah they volunteered but it also says that the puppets were made in the eternal cities although I still can't find any proof that the nox invented the puppeteers but it seems likely. Possibly they planned to turn a demigod into a puppet like seluvis did later on
You find the Selivus' puppet that shows that Selivus ain't actually a thing. You can interact with it. Selivus is a puppet. Pidea being an albernaric and have limited life spans is far, but magic exists.
the death of pidia and seluvis arent at the same time, in my playthrough i found seluvis dead in that puppet position and pidia was crying for mercy. maybe seluvis just leg it and killed pidia for loose ends
I'm honestly not sure about this one way or the other. I screened the maiden you find at the Chapel of Anticipation and the Therolina puppet who shows up at the festival or is found in Seluvis's cellar. They both seem identical albeit wearing different clothes. They both have the same hair style and colour plus eye colour. Face structure looks the same. The Chapel maiden is wearing a regular Finger Maiden set while Therolina wears a Travelling Maiden set. The clothing difference could have the simple explanation that Therolina was redressed in different clothing, but that would involve the assumption that what you see in the basement is a created copy of the Chapel maiden. Like how we see a copy of Sellen while her real body resides in the Witchbane Ruins. Plus the Therolina puppet description states she never met her Tarnished. You certainly fit that description. One detail supporting these maidens not being related though, is the Chapel maiden appears to be laying in a pool of her own blood. At least whatever process Seluvis uses to make puppets doesn't involve bloodshed of the victim. So again I'm not really sure one way or the other.
Selivus having the tarnished's finger maiden maiden makes sense, as carians and the stars are often associated with Fate. And currently the lands between are in arrested state of Fate
naw its not the tarnisheds finger maiden that was a dumb thing for me to have said what i should have said she could have filled that role for the tarnished if seluvis hadnt turned her into a puppet. him having a finger maiden as a puppet isnt that surprising i mean hes a collector of course hed want one of them as like a trophy. i mean cmon turning a fingermaiden into a puppet has to be a big middle finger to the golden order
I feel like, in the context of Ranni's motivations (that is, she wants to free herself and all others from the influence/oppression of the Outer Gods and Golden Order) and Seluvis' overarching creep factor by trying to enslave her as his personal puppet as well as him being a Preceptor and therefore an implied agent of Radagon, he's not as misunderstood as you think. Ranni wants to do away with the current order and retain her and everyone else's autonomy, to gain the freedom of choosing her own fate and for everyone else to be able to do the same by any means necessary; Radagon, and by extension the Preceptors and anyone else aligned with the Golden Order, had an extreme love and adherence to the Golden Order to a degree that he would do nothing to stand in the way of the Greater Will and thusly do everything he could to aid it. Ranni stood against that, so why wouldn't his Preceptor do away with Ranni in a way he knew how? Even if he was unsuccessful, even if he had a creepy and almost lustful desire for Ranni as a puppet, he was still essentially playing right into what his *actual* master wanted. I don't believe for a second that Seluvis was in any way *Ranni's* servant or even a servant of the Carian family et all. I don't fully believe he was necessarily aligned with Radagon either, but the actions he tried to take paint him in such a horrible light as well as an ally of the Golden Order and Radagon. Maybe that's deliberately meant to be 'muddying' things up, purposeful, but I just can't see him as anything but a tool for the Golden Order even if his ties are loose, or a skeezy pervert with extremely questionable personal motivations. I do think it's also possible that he is meant to contrast with Ranni's character. She is actively seeking autonomy for herself and others, and he is actively seeking to take that away from her or prevent her from accomplishing her goal, be that a primary or tertiary goal of his own. He doesn't seem to give a damn about anything but that. Anyway, I know these are just differing opinions and interpretations of the lore and that's okay!
I agree on some points like especially on how radagon is the one that was like in charge od the preceptors I do think whatever ties he had to caria were severed when he left, but that's just going off pope turtles dialogue
But I can't find anything that suggests he's a tool for the golden order. Him hindering ranni and trying to enslave her so he can have a demi God puppet stems from his obsession with puppets and annoyance at having had to serve her for generations. The preceptors served the nobles. But like you said that's the great part about the lore is that we can all have differing takes on what's going on and that always brings for interesting discussion
@@TheHonoredMadman Sorry. I should've clarified what I meant by that. I meant he was more or less indirectly helping them, not necessarily explicitly a 'tool'. Maybe in that set of circumstances but not directly. I've since thought about that a bit and changed my mind about it after learning more about Pidia. Also I maybe leaned a little too hard into the 'Preceptor' bit, since they were tied to Radagon. But yeah! What I like about Elden Ring's ambiguity is that every game can really be different from one person's experience to another, and sharing our theories helps to really fill in the gaps or even potentially change each other's minds. There are few 'hard' details and the rest is an ambiguous jumble left up to interpretation.
i am part of the group that found ur channel and binged the whole shit also idk if i am inebriated or ur jokes come outta no where and kill my laughing box every time
Ok, so I don't know if this is actually accurate or if it was just me, and I also realise this video is from really early after it came out so it might not have just been discovered yet if it IS accurate, but I always thought that Gideon was the one who turned Seluvis into a puppet, and that was what he meant by getting back at him when you give him the potion.
I Enjoy your lore videos! Very informative. Could you do a video on witch hunter jerren? I would definitely like to understand more about that character and here you take on him
To be fair, he's trying to kill someone who basically started the entire apocalypse the game is set in
Also the lean in he does when he talks about his scheme to you is hilarious, cool, and really fucking creepy
Haha exactly the point I was making. He's definitely a creep. But he's likable and if it wasn't for his creepiness, his actions would be seen as completely reasonable given the circumstances he's in
@@TheHonoredMadman totally agree man, he's a weirdo but he has understandable and even compelling motivations
ranni was the straw that broke the camel's back. I dont get why everyone always says only ranni caused the shattering when it's pretty implied not only Rykard took part but Marika is also implied to have helped cause it as well. (you know the person who actually shattered the ring and directly caused the shattering?)
Literally no she didn’t? She killed herself, and it’s not clear how responsible or if she chose Godwyn to be killed as well. Marika shattered the Elden Ring. And stop treating the Golden Order as some utopia. It was built on blood just like any kingdom. They genocided the giants and other races to have to establish the order. The misgotten are enslaved, and the undead and omen are hunted for no better reason other than being what they are. Ranni, though her motives are somewhat selfish, has the solution of removing her order from the world so that the beings of the world can forge their fate by their own will and not by the coercion of the gods.
Rykard helping is quite literally just that. Helping. He didn't orchestrate. Plus he helped ranni as insurance against Marika and maliketh I believe ranni gave the claw to rykard because when she caused the the night of black knives she got godwyn killed to which whether it was rannis intention or not, it Definitely wasn't wasn't part of Marika plan, which is why ranni gave rykard the claw so he could protect himself if his involvement was ever discovered, Marika on the other hand, now out of options as her plot with ranni blew up in her face, shatters the elden ring to send the world into chaos. I think it's still rannis fault. Obviously Marika isn't blameless, she shattered the ring, but only because she was out of options
"Seluvis took my tomboy GF and I have never forgiven him."
- Gideon
Real shit this was my reaction lmfaoooo
Understandable reaction from gideon
The fact that Dung Eater is terrified when you administer the potion is a true testament to how wicked Seluvius really is.
I know it's a comment fro ma year ago, but reason why Dung Eater is so terrified is not purely because of the potion. He is terrified, because all he worked for, all he cursed and defiled was for nothing, as the person who he believed would fullfil his goal tricked him and now, he'll be a slave for all eternity, working for someone else Order.
You say Gideon has no redeeming qualities, however I find that incredibly false. Every play-through he offers you a new chance to one shot him in horrific ways during his little speech before he fights you. That’s his redeeming quality!
This should be top comment.
%100 agree!
Idk about redeeming but I enjoy his drive to become the all knowing and direct methods. No bullshit. He wanted the halig tree medallion? Fuck up the albinaurics. Need a strong arm to do some dirty work for you? Convince that dunce of a new tarnished to do it for you. I respect it
Lol he's soft tho. And he's wrong. In the end he's just another obstacle and a ridiculously weak one at that. All because he believed Marika about the tarnished and was proven wrong literally 10 minutes later. If he was so all knowing why did he attack me knowing I would one shot him with frenzied burst
Nothing beats the classic staring contest
I think the reason that Pidia recognizes you is because before you can reach him, you have to pass through the first floor of the church he resides in. He also seems immediately afraid of the player. I think this is because he's probably aware of many of the Manor's defences, and you just murder your way through a bunch of Raya Lucarian soldier puppet spirits, a Cuckoo Troll, and spirit Loretta, and you probably scared off Adula, one of the strongest fucking dragons in the game the second time you fight it. So he knew you had to fight through all of that and now you're right there next to him in his little hidey hole. I bet he sells you stuff as a way to disincentivize you killing him too, because after you buy everything, all he does is apologize and beg forgiveness for not having anything else to give.
this is the best explanation ive heard
The players finger maiden (I assumed) was the corpse you get the message finger from at the start of the game. She's dead sitting there and then we fight the grafted scion. I assumed Godrick did this because even though he's the weakest he was the most active shard bearer and knew the tarnished where his only competition so he wanted to eliminate them at the source.
My theory is that Varre killed the player's finger maiden, although just as likely one of Godrick 's agents could have done so
I think it was the Grafted Scion that killed the maiden. Under orders from Godrick. I mean... why else is it there?
It's deffo Varre
You can actually kill Dung Eater's body a few moments after you feed him the potion and get his armor, and still get the puppet
Out of many of the npcs, Ranni's entire band is memorable to be sure. Selivus was on the bottom, and I loved Iji more than wolf boy, however Selivus is that evil npc that gives you unique rewards for horrible actions.
the fact you can get a dung eater pupper through using Seluvis' twisted means to your own ends is pretty dope and probably one of my favorite things in the game
@@TheHonoredMadman doing this to the poor dungeater sounds even more evil than giving it to the other one, also his summon is strong as fuck and i can understand why you did it.
@@thanquolrattenherz9665 To be fair, Dung Eater kinda deserves the puppet thing because he pulls out peoples souls through the anus and then eats them. A bit of an eccentric one he is
@@rikkhanny867 its not a crime to eat stuff from other peoples anuses but its loathsome and in america some students got corona from these kinds of acts but i think in their case it was alcohol and not souls.
@@thanquolrattenherz9665 they don’t call him the “dung-eater” in as much of a literal sense.. it’s more of just a “what is the nastiest insulting name for the nastiest person we’ve ever known to have lived?”
My favorite least favorite character. The man had that sass, and ambition to boot.
yeah when it comes down to it i prefer him over gideon but not over the dung eater. the dung eater may have killed boggart but i like that he spites the erdtree
Fuck I'm not using mobile to reply to shit anymore I accidentally clicked remove instead of heart God damnnit haha
@@TheHonoredMadman Oh dang 😂
@@TheHonoredMadman I make sure to kill Dung Eater as soon as possible, make him regret giving me that key lol. Save both Boggart and the purity of my Shirikodama every playthrough. Nobody touches my anus soulsphere.
@@Brunhaam lmao until that Zullie video I never knew about the anal soulspheres… Japanese folk lore goes deep no pun intended
I like that the voice delivery and general hoity attitude of Selivus seems to be more than a little bit informed by Snape
One weird thing I noticed is that the inactive puppets in his hidden basement can get the same golden eyes effect that makes enemies drop extra runes. I specifically saw it on the swordstress puppet. I have no idea what it means, probably just that those puppet npcs are considered valid entities to gain golden eyes, even though you can't kill them. Just weird.
That’s neat I always wondered if that could happen
Same happens sometimes with the albinauric spirits in Ordina before you enter the prison where u have to do the statue puzzle.
I always assumed that golden eye effect meant those enemies were under the influence of the flame of frenzy.
@@evanjrowley Different golden eye. The frenzy one has wisps of red and a flame-like graphic. The golden eyes of increased rune drops look like little golden orbs, with less of a trail left behind while moving than the frenzy eyes.
"Gideon the all blowing" made me laugh out loud🤣. Just stumbled upon your channel recently and it's good shit.
14:56 "Indicating that he tried on his own and failed in the same way". It could just be that Ranni was done with him and thought him as creepy as everyone else.
well him getting found out for plotting or outliving his usefulness could be seen as failing
23:43 I like the Selevus puppet theory because I imagine Pidia, due to his experiences with being looked down upon by nobles, treating other people in the same condescending manner once he finally acquires power over others
To me it's more likely the finger maiden puppet wasn't the players but just some random tarnished. I only say this because I think it's heavily implied varre kills your maiden because he knows immediately your maidenless and is waiting for you right out the gate with this knowledge. Its just would make a lot more sense in my mind for varre to have done it
I’m convinced that Varre intended to make the player Tarnished a Bloody Finger from the get go, murdering your maiden to make you aimless and lost, offering the path to Mohg if you survived in the Lands Between(which is exactly what happens)
@@williamhanna9718 I believe pretty much the same although like pretty much everyone else in game he underestimates you and your ability to actually kill mogh
I think the finger maiden may be Therolina from the radahn fight as no one from that fight is safe Okina, Leonard, Tragoth, Blaidd, Alexander, Jerren.
Maybe he just knows there's a dead maiden there and stands outside of where Tarnished are to attempt to indoctrinate into Mohgwyn
"Gideon the All-Blowing" Hah nice
Ensha killed the wolf. He’s the all hearing . But could be a puppet
amending a previous statement: you do not under any circumstance "gotta hand it to seluvis"
Thankfully, Gideon hasn't told the dolly botherer about his ideas involving that miniature Ranni avatar and a jar...
9:25 "She's very likely the player's original maiden". I'm pretty sure the dead maiden in the starting room in the Chapel of Anticipation was your maiden.
Poor wording on my part si should've said she could've been a substitute one as she had no tarnished of her own
This game has the best evil options since New Vegas and Mass Effect 2. If you do the order right you can pretty much do every evil quest and then burn it all as the Lord of Chaos.
I'd say Seluvis is GRRMs self insert character to blast his creepy sex fantasies to the entire population of Fromsoft gamers.
The fact that you called Gideon a witch king of the Angmar cosplay made me so happy because I’m made a cosplay of the witch king of Angmar using his helmet
i was also thinking eredin from the witcher series
When she says my other half I thought she meant of the haligtree medal. The dog makes so much more sense
Yknow with the whole Demigods constantly battling each other for their great runes to restore the elden ring and shit. It's kinda weird how Nepheli Loux isn't considered to be an contender of being Elden Lord. You would think being the daughter of Godfrey/Hoarah Loux she would be acknowledged as an rival for the Demigods. Also I'm surprised she didn't inherit Godfrey's inhuman strength.
apparently to be a demigod you have to come from radagon/marika or both
@@TheHonoredMadman yes you must be born of at least one god to be a demi god, and in Miquella and Malenia case they were born of the same body, resulting in them both being able to ascend to full godhood at some point, hence Malenia becoming "the goddess of rot"
She wasn’t a contender for elden lord because she lost the guidance of grace
@@juliannagk9079 the Elden Lord can be anyone. Being the God chosen by the GW requires being an Empyrian. Nepheli just doesn't have the ambition to like the player character.
I don’t think she is directly his daughter, but a distant descendant.
The way you describe Gideon Seluvis rivalry is hilarious
He is absolutely horrible, but when it comes to dark wizardry he is extremely smart. Sending puppets instead of going himself is genius! 🖤
Seluvis is like the mean impatient schoolteacher, He's spiteful and venomous, and outright just doesn't give a shit. Though i can't help but like him. Seluvis also gradually becomes more respectful to you if you help him with the potion quest.
Also, i'm not so certain he's actually dead by the end of ranni's questline, You're still able to learn sorcery and get puppets from him. He's probably simply in a bizarre dormant state much like Serren's puppet was.
Can you do a video on the Two Fingers? Like, what the hell are they?
They're pretty significant things in the lore of Elden Ring, but why do they exist? Why are they fingers? How do they tie to the Greater Will? Why are so many of them dead? Why is Ranni's in that underground chamber area? Why do the dead ones look like they're made from wood?
Why is the Great Will associated with Fingers at all?
it seems at the very least every demigod had their own set of fingers at one time butwhen the shattering happened the greater will abandoned them and im guessing thats why theyre all dead, but i think they jus serve as vassal or like emissary for the greater will to guide the offspring of marika to do the greater wills bidding. but then ranni killed hers and all that. i dont have a clear answer but thats a great suggestion ill definitely look into it i appreciate that
@@TheHonoredMadman I don’t know that all the demigods had Fingers, as the game goes out of its way to explain to you that Empyreans had Fingers, having Fingers is a sign of an Empyrean. And the other demigods are not Empyreans. I think the fingers on top of the divine towers are simply representatives of those holy places, kind of like the one is at the roundtable hold. Now why are they dead? No idea
They Fingers are only called fingers because that's the best way the primitives of the Lands Between can rationalize their being. Being vassals of outer gods, the Fingers morphology is likely natural to their species, and it just so happens that their form they present to the characters just happens to resemble fingers.
@@JonRinzRaccotterz I’ve actually never asked myself what exactly are those things cuz clearly they ain’t fingers fr
@@JonRinzRaccotterz I agree with this due to how Ranni's slain fingers look so strangely by comparison and due to the fact we never quite see what's below the "palm" of any of the fingers, not really anyway so who knows what they look like in their totality.
Seluvis is a neat character.
Wears a cool mask, medieval fedora hat and is always straight to the point.
Sigma grindset+Effectivenes= Seluvis.
Most important of all, he takes care of his puppets while giving them tarnished love.
I don't think Rani uses them like pawns. I remember she had a dialog, as a miniature doll, I think, where before she leaves you, she tells the player to tell Iji and Blaid that she loves them.
i mean she still abandoned them to their fates whether they were okay with it or not. i mean ijis helmet said he was terrified of the consequences of his actions and blaidd was blindly loyal to her but his programming went haywire. either way they both end up dead and meanwhile whats she doing? trying to turn everyone into space gas
lol im fucking around.
@@TheHonoredMadman i hate how much they butchered the translation of ranni’s quest and ending
@@TheHonoredMadman I wouldn't say abandon. We could understand that the love those three shared was understanding that making Rannis goal a reality could lead to any of them dying. Also, Blaidds reaction to being freed and fighting the assassins outside her rise is proof he valued seeing her goal to its end was worse dying.
One thing that does bother me is that Iji says that the PLAYER was the only champion for Ranni...but Blaidd grew up with and protected her and he was searching for Nokron before us. I dont get why Iji dissed Blaidd like that :/
@@JonRinzRaccotterz Blaidd is family, like a brother. The player is the queen consort, partner and thus gifted with great power aka the Dark Moon Great Sword.
Her actions were the same regardless. You can only put so much blame on the “translation”
I want the albanauric drip that Albus has and also pidia has
funny thing. when I take a closer look at Gideon art work on the opening cinematic, he have a bunch of "ears" buried with him in his coffin. nasty.
Tsundere Tomboy GF Dolores was turned into Puppet by dolly-botherer Seluvis and Gideon was triggered by this and they havent spoken since.
18:20 Yeah, I mean the fingermaiden in darkroot depths does mention that Godwyn was supposed to die, but prolly fully die and not become an undead fish-monster
This
@@TheHonoredMadman I think it's pretty safe to assume that the Queen had some "ceremonial slaying" in mind for Godwyn. The fingermaiden's usage of "martyr" might hint at it being some veiled machination to kill and resurrect Godwyn, pinning the blame on the blackknifes I guess and further deifying him as a result. Ranny probably muscled in on the deal or something to that extend, I'm not sure, but I find it very weird how many hoops do you have to jump through in order to unlock Ranny's full potential so to speak. It's almost like Astel is a sort of jailer of hers.
So I don't think therolina was the tarnisheds original finger maiden but what I think is that she could've been out substitute one as she didn't have her own tarnished and we didn't have a maiden
The hate for Gideon is leaking out of my phone atm😂
15:00 why does anyone do something dangerous. The adrenaline of doing something that could possibly get you killed is exciting when you walk away unharmed.
Assuming you did give him Nepheli Loux that's not a light crime. I'm sure he's done alot that could have got him a execution date.
Ranni is almost a "I have one chance. If I fail I'm dead forsure"
Look how tempting having a demi God as a puppet. Would easily put his entire collection to shame.
21:00 I think Seluvis had him killed before attempting the Ranni puppet mission. He simply knew too much and he looked like he was covering his ground. In case he failed didn't want anyone to talk.
Gideon has two redeeming qualities, he’s got a cool voice, and cool armor
voice is cool but im not a fan of the armor personally
I hate Gideon too, poor wolf. That was the deciding factor to me. I relished every strike against Gideon whilst fighting him.
It took me awhile to realize Lobo wasn't actually asleep. I just thought I had to get whatever quest condition that would let me talk to Latenna more and she would ride Lobo off.
I was very sad when I showed her the medallion and she said goodbye to her companion
omg, Dungeater puppet is the best aside Tiche. Him and I have been on some excellent adventures. He is my Shitlord.
I felt that this dude was a creep when I first met him.
And whadda ya know.
I’ve never realized Iji got clapped too shit tbh I forget about him every time I leave their area and literally never come back
I'm really glad you made this video. Overall this is an extremely small part of the lore, but even here there is a fascinating story
thanks dude. i originally was just going to rant about how gideon and seluvis were bffs and list off all of their respective crimes but when i was researching it i started to see like a whole other side of the commonly accepted narrative that surrounds seluvis
I swear caria manor is cursed, literally every npc except ranni from there gets game ended
You're not wrong . . .
To address the murder of Iji and attempted murder of Blaidd at the hands of the Black Knife assassins, I am very much of the opinion that she is not responsible for them, and if she is, then it is very poorly communicated to the player. After you kill the Baleful Shadow, she asks you to tell Blaidd and Iji that she loves them, and it would be somewhat difficult to carry out that request if she had them killed. I think it is definitely likely that either Marika or maybe the Greater Will itself has command over them now. Blaidd doesn't wear a Mirrorhelm, which would make him an easy target for the Greater Will to track, and Iji takes his off after learning that Blaidd, even in his madness, still wished to serve Ranni, implying that he knew the assassins would be looking for the traitors, and he let himself be killed as a sort of capital punishment to himself for in his eyes betraying an friend. Why I think the Greater Will may have some control over the assassins is kind of pure speculation, but Marika seems to be cut off for the most part, both physically and in spirit, from the rest of the Lands Between. The only connection she seems to have left in the world are her stakes that can make the Tarnished's struggle slightly less agonizing, and the echoes of her words at certain sites of grace. The Greater Will, however, seems powerful enough to psychically interact with a bunch of things, literally guiding Tarnished through the guidance of grace, and can send malformed stars from space to destroy ancient cities. It takes Nox occult practices to fashion a helmet just to stave off the Greater WIll's influence. Though, Marika herself did say she would specifically return the grace of gold to the Tarnished at an appointed time, so she may still be fairly capable of god stuff while impaled in the Erdtree. This is mostly just a (probably wrong) crazy rant at this point, and completely disconnected from the point I was originally making, which is that Ranni (probably) didn't kill giant dad or wolf man.
yeah i dont think ranni had her companions killed i just think she sort of abandoned them to their fates, there wasnt much to be done for blaidd, him going insane was gonna happen if she was to truly achieve her goals, he was always going to be collateral damage despite his devotion to her. and iji had long ago accepted his fate at the hands of the golden order after spending his life in fear of their retaliation for his treachery. but i never meant to imply she had them killed i only meant that her actions led to their deaths. also the tone of this video i was trying to be alittle over the top against ranni and in favor of seluvis, im actually working on a video about rannis story currently
Here's something to consider for your rant:
In combat Black Knife assassins use a red and black flame, like Malikath does, both of their blades containing the essence of the rune of death. When we find Iji dead, he is burning with the pure black flame of the godskin apostles. So perhaps black knife assassin's tried him and failed (we see their bodies scattered around) but godskin apostles/nobles joined in to finish him off.
On top of this we have to fight a godskin noble trying to get into the divine Tower of Liurnia where Ranni's curse mark of death can be found. Maybe the godskins were after it, it maybe they were guarding it. It seems like it's something that would help them with their god-slaying goals. With Ranni's primary interest being severance from the greater will, maybe both the black knife assassin's consider her a traitor to their cause for not continuing to slay gods.
One more point of interest is the Black Knife assassins have only one weakness: Cold. Ranni/Renna is known as the cold witch. It could be the black knife assassins feel increasingly threatened by her as you help her during her quest. There's probably also a connection with ringleader Alecto being imprisoned in an Evergaol on the moonlight altar. Who else could capture a black knife assassin alive?
Instead of helping the black knife assassins to topple the golden order, Ranni is working with you as you attempt to become Elden Lord. The black knife assassins, who are women, are very motivated to stop Marika because she persecutes "heretical" births (demi-humans, misbegotten, albinaurics, the nox). My body my choice, right? Then some random tarnished comes along. Tarnished are called back to the lands between by the greater will. Ranni and you working together is treachery in their eyes. Similar motivation for godskins too.
Seluvis probably had the best voice actor in the game.
It's cool you liked my random thought about Ensha perhaps being a puppet enough to repeat. If eventually this is definitively ruled out I apologize in advance. But I appreciate you pointing out why Pidia and Seluvis are likely NOT the same person, even if Seluvis' mind is in a doll after transferring bodies at least once. This would need an accomplice, as with us and Sellen, which explains Pidia's involvement. Seluvis even assumes the inert doll pose after his death. Also, when Pidia reacts to you like he knows you the first time, this is a result of mistranslation. In Japanese Pidia's line is more just surprise to see anyone at all.
i honestly think its the only reasonable explanation of ensha to me, hes super vague so it fits. and yeah i should have put more emphasis on the fact he would need a henchmen to pull off what hes doing
Thanks for another Elden Ring lore installment, man! To me, your vids are some of the most enjoyable lore vids out there! And I agree, Gideon is a bonafide SOB for puttin' that beautiful Lobo to the sword. That's when I decided the old coot had "to go". Lol
I think it would have been cool if we got a selivus ending, woulda been interesting to see what his ultimate scheme was
He mentions a demigod was turned into a puppet before so it felt like there was more there I honestly am mad I forgot to mention it
@@TheHonoredMadman Might have just been talking about Ranni. Her doll body is pretty much a puppet of her attached soul thing.
I've never heard the chapel dweller being referred to as the floor presence lmao
Seluvis is just Littlefinger with literal puppets
If seluvis would’ve picked any other demigod, one with a soul and a body, he probably would’ve succeeded
i wish we couldve kept the amber draught and gave it to malenia
Oh, Seluvis is far worse than most people think. He literally turns people into his puppets, and even descendants of demigods like Nephali Loux are able to have this happen to them. Reminds me of a villian from Naruto, Sasori of the Red Sands.
Dude....this is a really good video with a surprising amount of lore and humor.
Gideon the all blowing 🤣
This has become my favorite channel for eldin ring lore, keep up the good work man
You can really tell the quality of your stuff has gotten better. Congrats, I had never really thought too much about Seluvis
Ngl. When I found Selivus dead. I was pleased.
I feel like when you're being a pawn for ranni you at least know what you're getting into rather than Gideon, she has respect for her pawns I think
Best part of the video is gideon killing the wolf and you saying, as a husky owner that pissed me off lol i do enjoy a lot your videos, nice explanation.
This guy is literally sasori from Naruto
Yo not to simp but I’ve been playing your videos on repeat, you got the meat of the lore but you still talk like an actual person and not some imperial scholar of the fuck-off dimension so thank you and cheers
Thanks man I really appreciate that
I thought the black knife assassins never attacked Ranni and her servants as long as Ranni was around due to whatever pact they had, but once you complete her quest she is “gone” until you progress to the ending, so I assumed the black knife assassins finally killed Rannis team once she is gone and no longer there to protect them and hold off the black knife assassins or their pact is completed because of your actions.
What do you mean? I even said in the video that when she wasn't around to protect her accomplices that that's why they were killed be cause she didn't stick around to protect them. Iji accepted his fat and tried to help blaidds not be too bad but in the end the knives come and blaidd gets driven insane but manages to kill his assassins
I never saw the very end of pidia or ijis questline with their corpses. Thanks for showing it off in this video.
you make several good points but leave a lot out.
1. Selivus is a puppet, with no other body in game unlike sellen. but like sellen still sells afterwords. meaning that is the ending body. and both being trapped in husks.
2. If you kill Selivus by attacking him, he will come back with the church of absolution. You cannot bring back "dead" characters like this only reset "faction" points or whatever with him
3. Pidia is an albenoric, there is no way to where he is, there are no bars but it's a prison, he can't go anywhere.
4. Pidia has a map to all the ingredients to make the starlight amber draught. Which is strong enough to take over demo gods inhabiting puppets, but allows to take control of already made puppets.
5. Selivus most Likely made Ranni's body in the first place
6. Selivus is able to not age becuase he turned himself into a puppet as the ultimate expression of puppet making in japanese mythology. Even naruto does it.
7. Selivus and Pidia's death are not connected. Pidia's is trigger by the finger slayer blade. Maybe I tried on a different patch but Selivus was dead and Pidia didn't die till after I gave her the finger slayer blade which "is" the trigger for Pidia's event not selivus's death.
8. Pidia has the map for the potion to not only take over ranni but Selivus being a living puppet. The knights don't go haywire, it's insurance. Who is the only person Selivus apprenticed besides you? Pidia, Who can has the map and knowledge to take over puppet bodies? If Selivus died inside his puppet he didn't want pidia bringing him back and controlling him as he's trapped inside his puppet body just like ranni would have been. Would Ranni care if she could just have any other puppet made and be happy. The Tiny Ranni is a disguise but its a toy she needs a real vessel.
The Mask, I honestly have no idea why they did it like this. But it could be more possible he'd tried to make a puppet out of someone with blaids head as a fake blaidd for further schemes if needed. He is a shadow and there for has to be half wolf according to lore.
So yeah good job or bring quite a few things up but while some of this needs connected with hard evidence the connections are all there and while some may say this is all just theory the whole game is so.
But I think the night of black knives was messed up because Merica was in Radagon form and Godwyn was in female form [like miquella can] and they were trying to concieve children in another way to get around the curses. So while Merica was the target of the night of black knives to kill her soul trapping the elden beast in a souless husk so it was trapped, but they mistook Godwyn in female form as merica and by the time they realize they had to go through or ranni would die completely also screwing the entire plan up. Merica was Radagon at this time because it was planned to get merica while radagon was away when they didn't know they were one in the same. So take it all with what you want. But I've been going through his quest multiple times just because I love the idea he made Ranni's puppet body and then made himself into a puppet possibly by the same glinstone essence trick sellen uses. They have a past, they have a shared up bringing and education system. Why would Selivus not know things like removing his own primal glinstone and putting it into a puppet being the puppet master of raya lucaria so high up that he was a preceptor.
It only makes me sad that you can't keep the poption finish ranni's quest line and then give the potion to the slumped over selivus puppet to get a selivus puppet for yourself. That seems liek that would have been the optimal ending for the quest from soft really missed out on.
We're close to a dialectical materialism on the Demigods this episode. You love to see it.
Man your videos are awesome
Seluvis might use a hologram when he's right next door but I don't blame him on account of the dragon
10:20 dude has a bunch of heavily skilled warriors as sexdolls, how do you think lmao
Gideon the All Blowing 💀
kinda random but could anyone explain why blaidd isnt already insane when we meet him?
His whole thing is being a fail safe should ranni ever try and defy the greater will but for some reason it's no big deal ranni killed her own empyrean flesh which removes her from the influence of the two fingers?
why does he wait YEARS until she murders her two fingers when shes supposedly already disconnected from their wifi and shouldnt be influenced anymore? shouldnt he have tried to kill her way back when?
Honestly he should've turned on her during the black knives night either thay or he's bad programming or perhaps her doll body through his programming off until she quite literally killed the fingers that gave blaidd to her maybe? Idk but I agree it's weird he waited so long to go berserk
@@TheHonoredMadman "go berserk" 😆
It could be that Blaidd was always feeling the resist the urge to turn on Ranni ever since she killed her own body, but was able to ignore or resist it. However, the more anti-Golden Order actions she took, the harder it was for Blaidd to resist until he finally succumbed to his "programming".
Jarwhite might have been the last potender
Gideon is one of my favorite characters in the series due to his asshole nature. Such a manipulative and cunning bastard but at the same time hypocritical as hell. I love it😂
By the way the finger maiden puppet isn’t ur maiden. Ur maiden is at the beginning of the game where u get the purple finger before facing the grafted scion. She most likely got killed trying to escape the grafted scion or someone else tried to kill her but from most investigation it’s most likely she was killed by a grafted Scion or by one of godrick’s men some say it was a bloody finger but the only bloody finger or close by is mask varre but the thing is mask varre is in the first step there’s no way for him to have killed ur maiden unless he drops a imbued sword key upon death which he doesn’t.
Seluvis loving the puppets like they were his children actually makes a whole ton of sense when you realize that the biological birth process has been stopped in the lands between in favor of erdtree burial and erdtree rebirth. Seluvis has a very bloodborne-esque intense longing for a surrogate child
Gideon killed Elden rings sif? Starting a new playthrough just to kill him again
I'm assuming Dolores is aesthetically based on Irvine from Berserk. Another Berserk reference.
I’m still disappointed that there’s not a halberd that can do a 360’ slash special sending enemies up into the air called “Undisciplined FOOLS!”
Seluvis would be a perfect tevinter magister
i agree especially with the voice and cadence
Corypheus in a nutshell
I feel like the mask is almost a reference to Rob Stark in the books post red wedding
Omg I love all ur Gideon insults 💀
Yo I didn't mean to remove yo reply I got fat fingers so I accidentally click remove instead of Like sometimes
I honestly love him. One of my favorite npcs
At 7:32 I think the mask being there is bc that's where the assassin was found sneaking up on Seluvis and killed
Yeah that could be likely too, I don't think he made it but I see it brought up alot so it felt worth mentioning
i thought selvius is actually pidias puppet. if you listen closely they sound very similar. also when selvius "dies" hes situated in the same way as all thenother puppets.
I've been hoping someone would make video about him, thanks!
I love how everyone hates this dude for being a predator and a creep, but love Ranni who is a fucking murderer who brings about a kind of apocalypse.
Your comparison is very wrong I kinda thought the same thing but the more I learn about the lore the more ranni’s actions as fucked up as they were isn’t evil and Sulivis is pretty fucking evil
She also fixes the apocalypse after causing it to save humanity from the control of careless outer god who just wants a toy box to play with.
You really didn't understand the lore did you? Is Seluvis trying to liberate the world from the Outer Gods? Also is it Ranni's fault the demigods went insane with power? That's a pretty horrible take I'll be honest
Ranni went and murdered the soul of her step brother who had done nothing wrong, befriended dragons and was loved by everyone.
@@blizzardgaming7070 In Ranni's defense, all you mentioned was what we knew about Godwyn, which is precious little. For all we know he could've been Joffrey Baratheon behind the scenes.
I did a lot of the quest forgetting to talk to him again, finally did and he was already dead so I just finished everything up.
I don't think the black knives were loyal to Ranni. I think they were basically mercenaries. The fact that Alecto is imprisoned by Ranni on the moonlight plateau suggests as much.
i dont think they were either i only mentioned it because people kept sayin they worked for her. to me they obviously worked for marika
I believe there's a difference between the puppet body and the puppet spirit.
I don't know how useful that information is, but the body of an imbiber of star shard potions remains seemingly comatose, while their spirit, and indeed whatever might have otherwise been a normal Spirit Ash becomes a bound spirit, summonable in the same fashion as Erdtree Spirit Ashes.
So if Seluvis was controlling a puppet body to begin with, he would appear as a bound puppet spirit. The only possible exception is the Maiden who shows up at Radahn's festival. That seems to throw the idea into disarray as I believe it's possible to encounter the silent festival Maiden after gaining said Maiden's bound spirit.
There's also Sellen maybe? She mentions that she's appearing as a projection (if I recall correct) but her third body in Seluvis's basement would seem to imply that one can both both a bound spirit AND a conscious being, although Seluvis doesn't have a puppet spirit of Sellen available so she might have escaped the whole process via her usual methods.
Edit: I forgot about Pidia's killers. lol
I thought it said in the Nox puppets text that they had volunteered to become puppets?
Not a big issue either way, just remembered reading it.
Good discussion on a devious NPC with dubious motives.
👏
Yeah they volunteered but it also says that the puppets were made in the eternal cities although I still can't find any proof that the nox invented the puppeteers but it seems likely. Possibly they planned to turn a demigod into a puppet like seluvis did later on
You find the Selivus' puppet that shows that Selivus ain't actually a thing. You can interact with it. Selivus is a puppet.
Pidea being an albernaric and have limited life spans is far, but magic exists.
Also I knew blaidd died of course but goddam I never knew iiji died that just broke my heart
the death of pidia and seluvis arent at the same time, in my playthrough i found seluvis dead in that puppet position and pidia was crying for mercy. maybe seluvis just leg it and killed pidia for loose ends
I don’t think Therolina was our maiden, there’s the corpse right in the chapel of anticipation most likely killed by Varre.
I meant it more like she could've been a substitute one for us as we never met ours. Poor wording on my part
I'm honestly not sure about this one way or the other. I screened the maiden you find at the Chapel of Anticipation and the Therolina puppet who shows up at the festival or is found in Seluvis's cellar. They both seem identical albeit wearing different clothes. They both have the same hair style and colour plus eye colour. Face structure looks the same. The Chapel maiden is wearing a regular Finger Maiden set while Therolina wears a Travelling Maiden set. The clothing difference could have the simple explanation that Therolina was redressed in different clothing, but that would involve the assumption that what you see in the basement is a created copy of the Chapel maiden. Like how we see a copy of Sellen while her real body resides in the Witchbane Ruins. Plus the Therolina puppet description states she never met her Tarnished. You certainly fit that description.
One detail supporting these maidens not being related though, is the Chapel maiden appears to be laying in a pool of her own blood. At least whatever process Seluvis uses to make puppets doesn't involve bloodshed of the victim. So again I'm not really sure one way or the other.
Selivus having the tarnished's finger maiden maiden makes sense, as carians and the stars are often associated with Fate. And currently the lands between are in arrested state of Fate
naw its not the tarnisheds finger maiden that was a dumb thing for me to have said what i should have said she could have filled that role for the tarnished if seluvis hadnt turned her into a puppet. him having a finger maiden as a puppet isnt that surprising i mean hes a collector of course hed want one of them as like a trophy. i mean cmon turning a fingermaiden into a puppet has to be a big middle finger to the golden order
No bs you my fav RUclipsr rn
I feel like, in the context of Ranni's motivations (that is, she wants to free herself and all others from the influence/oppression of the Outer Gods and Golden Order) and Seluvis' overarching creep factor by trying to enslave her as his personal puppet as well as him being a Preceptor and therefore an implied agent of Radagon, he's not as misunderstood as you think. Ranni wants to do away with the current order and retain her and everyone else's autonomy, to gain the freedom of choosing her own fate and for everyone else to be able to do the same by any means necessary; Radagon, and by extension the Preceptors and anyone else aligned with the Golden Order, had an extreme love and adherence to the Golden Order to a degree that he would do nothing to stand in the way of the Greater Will and thusly do everything he could to aid it. Ranni stood against that, so why wouldn't his Preceptor do away with Ranni in a way he knew how? Even if he was unsuccessful, even if he had a creepy and almost lustful desire for Ranni as a puppet, he was still essentially playing right into what his *actual* master wanted.
I don't believe for a second that Seluvis was in any way *Ranni's* servant or even a servant of the Carian family et all. I don't fully believe he was necessarily aligned with Radagon either, but the actions he tried to take paint him in such a horrible light as well as an ally of the Golden Order and Radagon. Maybe that's deliberately meant to be 'muddying' things up, purposeful, but I just can't see him as anything but a tool for the Golden Order even if his ties are loose, or a skeezy pervert with extremely questionable personal motivations.
I do think it's also possible that he is meant to contrast with Ranni's character. She is actively seeking autonomy for herself and others, and he is actively seeking to take that away from her or prevent her from accomplishing her goal, be that a primary or tertiary goal of his own. He doesn't seem to give a damn about anything but that.
Anyway, I know these are just differing opinions and interpretations of the lore and that's okay!
I agree on some points like especially on how radagon is the one that was like in charge od the preceptors I do think whatever ties he had to caria were severed when he left, but that's just going off pope turtles dialogue
But I can't find anything that suggests he's a tool for the golden order. Him hindering ranni and trying to enslave her so he can have a demi God puppet stems from his obsession with puppets and annoyance at having had to serve her for generations. The preceptors served the nobles. But like you said that's the great part about the lore is that we can all have differing takes on what's going on and that always brings for interesting discussion
@@TheHonoredMadman Sorry. I should've clarified what I meant by that. I meant he was more or less indirectly helping them, not necessarily explicitly a 'tool'. Maybe in that set of circumstances but not directly. I've since thought about that a bit and changed my mind about it after learning more about Pidia. Also I maybe leaned a little too hard into the 'Preceptor' bit, since they were tied to Radagon.
But yeah! What I like about Elden Ring's ambiguity is that every game can really be different from one person's experience to another, and sharing our theories helps to really fill in the gaps or even potentially change each other's minds. There are few 'hard' details and the rest is an ambiguous jumble left up to interpretation.
i am part of the group that found ur channel and binged the whole shit
also idk if i am inebriated or ur jokes come outta no where and kill my laughing box every time
like the diss to ur manager in one of ur vids bro that killed me
thanks man i really appreciate that
Ok, so I don't know if this is actually accurate or if it was just me, and I also realise this video is from really early after it came out so it might not have just been discovered yet if it IS accurate, but I always thought that Gideon was the one who turned Seluvis into a puppet, and that was what he meant by getting back at him when you give him the potion.
I Enjoy your lore videos! Very informative. Could you do a video on witch hunter jerren? I would definitely like to understand more about that character and here you take on him
hell yeah dude jerren is badass hes definitely on the list