Empyreans Deep Dive | Elden Ring Lore & Theory
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- MAJOR SPOILERS! #eldenring #fromsoftware #gaming
This video has a LOT of speculation so please take my conclusions and connections with a grain of salt. This is a DEEP DIVE into the Empyreans and what it means to be an Empyrean in the Lands Between.
I covered Who the Empyreans are, What is an Empyrean, What is an Empyrean's Shadow(who gets them), and what is an Empyrean's Offshoot.
Thank you so much for watching and I hope you enjoyed it! Please make sure to leave any corrections or suggestions down in the comment section. If you have any theories please leave them down below in the comments so we can all discuss them together~
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Music credit: Epidemic Sound www.epidemicso...
Almandite - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
Of Sober Mind - Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
Drifting Emotions - Howard Harper-Barnes
Incomplete - Gavin Luke
Illusory Motion - Gavin Luke
Absinthe-Minded - Damon Greene
Melancholic Reflections - Magnus Ludvigsson
Galactic Battle - Bonnie Grace
Elden Ring and all imagery from it is the exclusive property of Bandai Namco. I claim no ownership of the original content.
Thumbnail was created with Adobe Express Beta Text to Image generator.
All gameplay provided by: Me/RUclips(Stratek, Honored Madman)
Console: PS5/PC
Sources: In game dialogue, item descriptions, Elden Ring Wiki eldenring.wiki...
Thank you for the Support on this video! It's such an interesting topic that ALMOST broke my brain a few times, so I'm glad to see everyone's enjoying it :)
I'm not exactly sure what an Empyrian is, but I always mark it on college applications
feeling downright silly for never noticing Melina and Millicent wear the exact same clothes. That's huge for the symbolic storytelling here. Great eye.
Also worth nothing that the embroidery on the clothes is the same as the engravings you can see on eternal city architecture.
O_O @@Magiya93
Great video :) I'm now quite fond of the off-shoot idea being more prevalent!
It fits quite nicely as a parallel to grafting when you consider the process of cloning plant cuttings :) very on brand!
Ahh u mentioned my comment i feel famous!❤😂
You ARE famous! 😄 thanks for commenting! It was a great question.
Awww thanks❤️ ur an awesome content creator and I’ll continue to say u deserve 10x as many views as ur getting until it comes true😂 i may not agree with every little detail u say but that would be impossible in a game with so much speculation. But ur line of questioning/reasoning is very similar to my own so even if i disagree with some of what u say i can still never say ur flat out wrong because u explain ur reasoning very well and ur very convincing! I will continue to leave all my questions on ur videos, even if u can’t answer them i hope they help u think of new perspectives! Keep up the good work!
What if Radagon were, in fact, an "usurper"? We know very little about him him but here is what we know:
1) he came out of nowhere and everyone was bewildered when he became Elden Lord from his lowly position,
2) he "aspire to be complete",
3) he had the egg and so he knew about reincarnation,
4) he believed he would need both sorceries AND incantations,
5) Once he had the power of the Elden Ring, he didn't absolutely want to let it go, he tried to repair it, blocked the path to the Elden Ring with an incredible spell and defended the Elden Ring to the very end,
So, maybe he believed that he needed the Elden Ring to be complete and he did everything he could to replace Marika via the forbidden art of reincarnation. Maybe Radagon used his marriage to Rennala to further his own studies on reincarnation too... just "to be complete".
In other words: if reincarnation were to work on living things (as Rennala seems to be using it on herself), could it be used to transmigrate one's "spirit" or "soul" in another body, reincarnating Radagon as Marika? Or is it just me having played too much Elder Scrolls?
In fact the RUclipsr Jar Head69 has a video about the Radagon usurper theory
So i think you learn more towards the idea of melina being marika’s offshoot. I have heard theories of melina and ranni being the same person but i never really paid it much mind until you said “burned and body-less” and it all kind of clicked. I think there is still the issue with motivation bc it seems like meilna wants to improve the golden order by restarting it while ranni wants to discard it all together but besides that i think it makes so much sense for melina to be an offshoot of ranni. Or maybe melina is an offshoot of markia bc she’s trying to return to the erdtree and knows whats seems to be marikas thoughts that no one else would know. Or she is an offshoot of the gloam eyed queen. You’ve given me a lot to think about. Ur definitely onto something we just have to look for more connections
Melina being an offshoot of the GEQ is also something I considered, I just wish there was more evidence for it! Maybe we'll get some in the DLC. Thanks so much for watching! :)
I’m starting to believe that Ranni is not Renalla’s actual daughter. There’s a lot of Cuckoo imagery associated with Raya Lucaria and Cuckoos are known for slipping their eggs in other bird’s nests. IF being born of a single god is the prerequisite for being an empyrean then it would fit really well for this. Maybe Marika had hoped to save Ranni from the greater will by disguising her as Renalla’s daughter rather than her own.
Radagon gave Ranni's egg to Rennala, her hair was also red like his (confirmed by her corpse). That explains why she was Empyrean but Radahn and Rykard not.
I like to believe when miquella decided to go his own way he told malenia "we need to get rid of these shadows" and she was like *cracks knuckles* "bet"
Ez
I think Malenia is Miquella’s shadow temporarily. If Miquella’s plans to ascends to full godhood actually worked (becoming an outer god), Malenia would become his empyrean vessel. With Miquella’s divine essence probably producing unalloyed gold, Malenia would be cured from scarlet rot, and Miquella would probably remove the influences of other outer gods like Marika tried to do. And the twins would both be cured and inseparable until the end of the age.
Really enjoyed this. You’re pretty much the last commentator who’s making good videos. Kudos for still being interested in the elden mystery. The central question concerning empyreans, I think, is whether they’re born or chosen - is it a biological distinction or a cultural/social one? Being an empyrean seems related to possessing numen DNA in some respect. Its partial incidence in human/numen offspring could indicate it’s the result of the casino of inherited genetics.
This raises the question of numen biology and reproduction. Everyone has assumed that numen and human biology is similar. What if it isn’t? Numen/Nox societies are linked to ants. When ant queens produce offspring, they have the choice of using DNA from males or they can create offspring with just their own. A detailed explanation of this would be a tad unseemly here, but its actually worth looking into in the context of Marika’s final set of children. The fact they’re born of a single god would hold different significance if Marika was more ant than human.
My final point concerns the shadows. In elden ring, there’s two kinds of species - the created and the creators. Somebody, maybe the numen, are experts in biotechnology and know how to create and possibly combine different forms of life. It could be that shadows are created from empyreans by combining their DNA with those of an animal. I completely agree with you on their role -they’re a system of control. But when it comes to shadows, nobody is looking at the important one. Serosh is similar to Maliketh in every respect, even down to their armour, a pointed visual clue. Nobody has even wondered whose shadow he was and whether his conjunction with Godfrey eventually served the same purpose as Maliketh’s isolation in Farum Azula. Godfrey took Serosh on his back to become a lord. Not elden lord, just a lord - it was a requirement of marrying Marika (see darkmoon ring). Who insisted on this? Does the possibility their shadow was a lion imply they were related to Marika in some way? Anyway, I’ll keep it to that. Please, keep the videos coming. High-grade dragoncrack is getting hard to find.
Love love LOVE this! I wanted to bring up Serosh so badly but he's not technically called a "shadow" so I didn't want to upset anyone but YES. Serosh is so interesting and his connection to Godfrey is, well, odd! I'm thinking about doing a separate video on just him alone.(If I ever get through my backlog)
Also, the DNA aspect is another interesting detail! Blaidd says, "I'm a part of her very being" which to me sounds like her DNA was mixed with his at the time of his creation(birth?). It's a little crackpot but I think we're on the same wavelength here!
also love your take on Radagon. I have long suspected Radagon is some kind of a very advanced/perfected mimic. This possibility is suggested directly in the cut Asimi questline, but in context with the stuff in this video, I'm even more convinced. He's a mimic with a piece of Marika's soul so that it's truly indistinguishable from her in the eyes of the Greater Will and the Elden Beast. This way, Radagon becomes the vessel, and Marika dies/escapes, hoping that Melina will recover the rest of her soul over time.
I have the theory that Malenia decided to be Miquella's blade after she had to kill his Shadow wolf.
Miquella's plan is to create an order where no outer god is involved, and it seems that includes the greater will since he made the Haligtree without the "patronage" of a god, but out of his own efforts and divine blood. This would be heresy to the greater will ando so his shadow would be bound to try to kill him, but Malenia "has never known defeat".
And as for her own shadow, let's remember she already lost three limbs and her vision by the time Miquella created the unalloyed gold needle; her shadow might have already succumbed to the rot of their lady.
you are making lots of assumptions here
@@colorpg152 that's why it's a theory
I really like this theory!
@@AHumanJusticar then you are pretty bad at the lore, here is a hint any theory that tries to blame the greater will for anything is automatically wrong, its probably wasted on you but i will give it anyway
A new Human Justicar video! Finally I can sleep well tonight~
I think the purpose of empyreans is to be hosts/vassals for outer gods. Malenia = Scarlot Rot Goddess, Miquella = Formless Mother, Marika = The Greater Will, Ranni = The Moon? The last one is a stretch since we dont know if the moon is considered an outer god
Something I think most people miss… all of the empyreans have female aspects. Including Miquella as St. Trina. There has been no male Empyrean at all.
Miquella may actually have three shadows. The Wolf Ashes you get from Ranni are said to belong to Torrent's former master, who is heavily implied to be Miquella.
The more I hear the more I believe the elden ring, the tree, the eldin beast they are nothing more than a lovecraftian parasitic cosmic horror.
Same 👀
OOOOO I like your content very much. SUBSCRIBED!
Good lord, you cooked with this video. Ranni being planted by Radagon to sabotage the Age of the Stars allows her Empyrean status to remain entirely consistent, putting the speculation that Empyreans are just those chosen by the Two Fingers to bed as well. Bravo.
Thank you so much! I’m currently working on the next part to this Empyrean series so if you’re interested keep a lookout! I’ve definitely got more to say 😁
It seems only Melina and Ranni know of Torrent, which can be explained by their link.
I really want the DLC asap, there are way too many mystery surrounding Miquella and Malenia. Malenia was known as "Malenia the Severed" before she was known as "blade of Miquella" so I guess it does support your point where Miquella was denied to be given a shadow at some point so Malenia herself took the role. Now idk if Malenia introduced herself as "the Severed" before but I think the title "blade of Miquella" will be notoriously known throughout the lands between if she has always been using it(to the point where "the Severed" probably wouldn't even exist), hell I bet she's famous in Armored Core universe too just because of how annoyingly she repeats it lmao.
Great video!
The DLC won't answer anything, and will just bring up more unanswered vital questions. From don't have the answers.
Woooowww. Fragmenting something then stitching different parts to make it whole sounds exactly like grafting
And we know grating was popular across many different cultures in the Lands Between!
Great video, dlc supports a lot of this while also presenting new questions lol.
Thank you! I plan on making a proper part 2 about the similarities of my ideas from this video and the reality we learn from the DLC 😁
You have a pleasant voice that makes listening to lore relaxing besides also being informative or, at the least interesting. Keep up the good work!
Thank you so much! 😁
Another amazing video! Thank U :))
I have one question/doubt: about the mausoleums... i don't remember where but, in game, it said that the mausoleum was made in honor or made by a demigod. who? why? do you have any info about it?
Thank you and yes! It’s strongly implied that the Walking Mausoleums are made after the death of Godwyn, the first of the demigods to die.
The mausoleum soldiers and knights all pledged their service to him in death.
There is a little shaky translation that makes it seem like there’s many dead demigods but most people conclude this is a translation error from Japanese to English. 😀
l @AHumanJusticar Thank u! I've lost the connection between the mausoleums and Godwyn... perhaps this could justify why we can double the memories? the proximity to godwyn's body and the mimic tears in the eternal cities? and who is the guy lying dead inside? lol
FYI we can't hear anything when you play character dialogue, so that needs adjusting.
The audio will be the death of me! Thank you for letting me know, I will continue to work on it. It always sounds fine before I upload to RUclips.
@@AHumanJusticar You'll get it! Great work on the videos!
As for Radagon the most enigmatic figures and in my point of view villain. When he became elden lord the age of plenty started from Godfrey violently end, Godfrey exiled among his comrades and brothers in arms and became tarnished ( yeah as players we related to those), Radagon as Elden Lord stops the ritual fights to honor the Erdtree at Colloseums. Restrict and prohibit anyone to be near the Fortified Manor (the first ever Roundtable hold), he gives birth to haters to all people to the lands between to hate the tarnished, he seals the entrance of the Erdtree (an action that means he has more than 1 secrets to hide), even though he was named as loyal hound of Golden Order he leaves his son Rykard to do his thing and become lord of blasphemy, even if he knew that serpents are considered enemies to the Erdtree Radagon himself or the Golden Order under Radagon's command DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to put him down. So Radagon just left his blasphemous son to become lord of blasphemy, he don't want to exist any other elden lord after him and he seals the entrance of the Erdtree. The Japanese text when Melina recreate the words of Marika after we kill Morgott she says in one point that Radagon STILL NOT BE A GOD.
Is the unknown tarnished an "offshoot" of someone, perhaps? Im still trying to figure out why US. Why were WE picked as the chosen tarnished? Not sure if we'll ever get an answer to that.
As Tarnished Archaeologist noted, four of the five Empyreans are female, with the fifth being ambiguous (I'm sure some terrible people have some stuff to say). Conversely, all of the female demigods are Empyreans. That's probably not a coincidence. Similarly, every character who is called "Lord" in their boss fights are males who have either married a god (Rykard, Placidusax, and Godfrey) or intend to (Mohg). Admittedly, this is somewhat muddled by the fact that you can play as a female and become a Lord, but the consort's role in the creation and regulation of life might be ceremonial rather than literal, so it still works.
As for why only Ranni of the three Empyreans descended from Marika is known to have been given a shadow, I suspect that Malenia and Miquella were initially chosen by their Fingers but were later rejected. Miquella for his eternal childhood, Malenia for being the vessel of the wrong Outer God. The Fingers serve the Greater Will, and I suspect they have little tolerance for other Outer Gods.
exceptional lote dive.
my take on the 'off-shoot" would be in relation to the growth of flowers, trees and plants. it lends itself to the idea of each hyperion having their own counterpart and the ever present symbol of trees, flowers etc depicting growth death rebirth we see thru out the game and woven into the lore.
I agree, the ideas of grafting and buds and saplings all throughout the game lends itself to a nature theme. Thanks for watching!
You've probably got sick of this, but I can't hear the game audio
awesome stuff, I think the family ties here are spot on. It made me think of shadow bound beasts and Radahn. I always thought Melania "had" to fight him if she wanted Miquella's fate to proceed. And I think theres merit to that, but. What if Radahn was Melania's shadow bound beast and if she wanted to abandon her fate, she would have to defeat him. But there's more, beast blood is stated to never rot or decay. And there Radahn still is, howling at the sky and feasting on corpses like a dog. Like all the other animals feasting in Caelid, as long as they devour like beasts, the rot wont kill them. It's almost like Melania wanted to be more like a shadow bound beast for Miquella and discard her fate, but fighting Radahn caused the opposite to happen. She bacame a god to defeat the mightiest demigod and Radahn became a beast to hold off that goddess's rot. The beast is holding the stars of a world already decaying, but I'm sure the old Radahn thinks hes holding the stars for the golden order so the world tree wont age. It also makes me think of how Maliketh is Burdening the death within him and why he fought the gloam eyed queen.
A -> B =/= B -> A. Am empyrean doesn't HAVE to be born of a single god
Being born of a single god is not the prerequisite for being an empyrean, it is more likely that because they are born of a single god that it makes them automatically candidates. They are referred as prodigies after all. Think of it like how people are born into a position where it's easier to pursue a certain career. That doesn't mean it's the only way to get into that line of work.
The game tells you in multiple ways Radagon is Marika.
But Ranni is of Rennala and Radagon?
That's what we're told!
Awesome theory. Theory confirmed if the “miquella” character in the dlc has similar traits as the other offshoots (memory loss, searching for purpose, separate but a part of their empyrean, etc)
I also thought Rahdan, and Rykard were also empyreans
This was a great video
Thank you!
Awesome video
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it!
You honestly helped me understand and clear some things up as far as the “offshoots” and empyrean shadowbounds. Such a great video and subbed 🙏
Thank you! 😁
Basically all of marikas kids and not radagons.
Given the idea that an Empyrean must be born of one God, Ranni’s bloodline has been tossed up in the air. I’d like to add on to your theory to discuss some things to do with that, as well as other aspects of her Empyreanhood.
Please consider the following:
Ranni already threw off the control of the Greater Will by casting off her body.
The fingers did not have Blaidd turn on Ranni for her betrayal of Godwyn nor her sacrifice of her own flesh.
Ranni needs to be born of Marika to qualify as an Empyrean.
Ranni, in her current state, is a free soul.
Offshoots (within the bounds of your theory) are souls given life and body.
Melina is seemingly a bodiless soul as well.
Melina has some weird relationships with both Marika and Ranni.
Ranni may not be an Empyrean in the same way Malenia is. If this theory were true, Ranni is probably an Offshoot of Marika. She is a free soul, much like the concept of an Offshoot. Despite casting off her flesh, the Fingers did not force Blaidd to take revenge on Ranni, as though her breaking from their control was somehow part of the plan. Ranni seems like an Offshoot of Marika, labeled an Empyrean, and given life. She represents something to do with spirits or maybe Death. As such, if she returns to her natural state as a spirit, this lines up with the Greater Will’s picture of her in the same way Malenia rotting would.
This would, in a way, resolve the issues of Melina and Torrent as well. Melina seems much more related in goal and story to Marika, though her ‘body’ and state point toward Ranni (also, the whole business with Torrent and the Bell). If Ranni and Melina were both Offshoots of Marika, it could explain the weird place Melina is in relation to them both. Meanwhile, Torrent’s ‘previous owner’ entrusting the Spirit Bell to Ranni doesn’t make much sense if they trusted Melina with Torrent himself. However, I’d think that it’d all line up if we propose the idea that Hewg gives us, being that Marika was a gifted Spirit Tuner. We’ll say Marika was the owner of the Bell. This lines up with Ranni and her spirit-y business, and also gives us that Torrent is owned by Marika. Melina, also being an Offshoot, would then get Torrent, as he is kinda all Marika has left to give aside from starting to hand out bits of the Elden Ring. I don't know where all this fits, but I like the idea of Ranni as an Offshoot of Marika. It explains a fair bit and even gives some fun points to extrapolate weird stuff from. Sure, I'm not sure of a key factor (what in the world does Ranni represent, I don't know) but this is a decent mini theory to tack on.
So I blacked out after writing all that down and when I woke up I had the most crackpot theory to follow it up, so I just cut it from the original bit and will now paste it into the comments.
This also supports the theory from last year which I presented to you and you made a video about, being that the butterflies of Elden Ring represent Marika’s children. Melina in this case would have come straight from Marika, rather than being a child of her, which all but guarantees she’d have a butterfly relating to her state. Ranni, on the other hand, does not have a butterfly, which feels out of place in this scenario until you recognize that there are two options. Ranni seems most linked with her state, in this theory at least, with her status as a soul. Malenia gets the Rot shtick, Miquella gets Youth for a shtick, Melina gets the Flame, but Ranni’s shtick would be a soul. Obviously, you’re not gonna see a soul butterfly, or be able to catch it.
But I actually prefer the theory that Ranni’s butterfly is clearly seen: The Smoldering Butterfly. Yes, that’s Melina’s, but Melina and Ranni have a weird connection that is inexplicable. Ranni’s second face maps perfectly to Melina, Melina’s covered eye is colored just perfectly as Ranni’s deep blue, their relationship to Torrent and spirits in general (again, Ranni having the Spiritcalling Bell is weird), they all point to something I’d like to put forth as a wild crackpot theory that is unrelated to everything I’ve presented so far. I actually kinda believe the theory so far, but this next bit is just me being nuts and putting together pieces that shouldn’t be put together.
Ranni and Melina are one and the same, somehow. With the Frenzied Flame ending, the Melina we see there looks like I’d expect if their souls were to merge and become ‘whole’. The Flame of Frenzy, melting the world into a uniform goop, would merge the remaining pieces of Marika’s soul that are floating around into one. This, being just Melina and Ranni, would simply act as a merger for the two to unify them into something of a facsimile of Marika.
I always wondered if maybe the GEQ and Marika were sisters whose parent was the twin birds
Interesting! I like that idea 💡
22:20 it isn't one in which I believe very strongly anymore, but one of the first theories I had about the game back when it released was that Radagon was a part of Marika that was split off from her by the Greater Will in order to subjugate Liurnia after many other attempts and methods to bring it to heel had failed to bear results. I figured that Radagon would've been the most loyal, fanatical, and zealous part of Marika's, and that this would end up being the Greater Will's greatest mistake, as without this zeal and fanatical devotion, Marika would have started to question her faith and started down a path of investigating and questioning the roots of the Order. Meanwhile, Radagon would end up tempered by Rennala's love and his newfound family. I imagined that the Greater Will would've scrambled to rectify the situation once it realized what was happening, by calling Radagon back to the capitol and reincorporating him back into Marika before she could do anything to challenge the Greater Will, but that it was too late in the end, and the consequences of Marika having changed due to the loss of her devotion and Radagon having changed due to the love of his family with Rennala would alter the course of history forever. Marika would've set in motion some grand design and Radagon's children would be forever changed by their father's disappearance and set on the path to war and total upheaval of the existing order. Just total disaster spawning from a simple mistake that cascades into a chain of unforseen consequences, similar to things you can find in the ASOIAF books.
Been studying lilacs a lot. One of the main sources of new cultivars are "sports". This is when a branch mutates noticeably, usually distinguished by a difference in color. This sport is then grafted onto temporary rootstock until it can root for itself.
Feels familiar.
This is some excellent work as always! In a game that is clearly all about families and botany, your ability to pull the two together for insights on Melina relative to Millicent is really great. I took the opportunity to google what tree offshoots actually look like and everything you get is about 'suckers'. These offshoots are on or near the tree base, and here is the best description I found:
"Trees send up suckers as a reaction to stress. Your smart tree is putting up an effort to survive in a less-than-perfect environment. Those suckers are a way of multiplying, ensuring the lineage of the tree lives on. If the tree can’t survive, the suckers will grow in its place."
Sounds an awful lot like Melina's purpose, especially when she begs you not to partake of the chaos flame!
great video is it ok if I ask you a question
Yes of course!
i think marika and the geq are the same person, but sisters is new. maybe also possible. i think the situation was, the GEQ was chosen as an empyrean and refused. Maliketh, her shadow, became Baleful and defeated her, forcing her to become the vessel of the elden ring. Then, as Marika the Eternal, she plotted to be free of this burden and so her only use of Maliketh was to betray him by allowing a fragment of death to be stolen. Then after Godwyn's death as the jumping off point she would shatter the elden ring and seal away Destined Death inside Maliketh for later, so that eventually a Tarnished would come back, kill him to take it, burn the erdtree, and destroy the Elden Beast, all so she could get revenge.
Marika is not an Empyrean because she is the God, Empyrean is a candidate for Godhood. Please read the lore more carefully.
Maliketh was a shadowbound beast given to his Empyrean. Marika's sole need of her shadow was a vessel to lock away Destined Death. - The Remembrance of the Black Blade.
Love the tailoring connection! First time I’ve heard that. 🧵
Right?! I felt pretty proud of that! Thanks for watching (: