SOME COMMENTS AND AMENDMENTS: 1. I am pronouncing Scadutree wrong - I just can't get my brain to change it haha. Sorry 2. I agree with people's point re the Grandmother - she is likely the statue/remains in the Village under the tree and will revise this in future. 3. Some people disagree with my take on Radahn - that the vow was 'mutual' rather than foisted on Radahn. I am coming around to this idea, however there are issues with that as well. If I was to accept this idea, I would need to see it as a vow that was made...but broke down for some reason and thus Malenia was sent to 'collect'. I find it hard to believe that the Aeonian war was some kind of ritual send off for Radahn that was agreed on between the two parties, given hundreds of soldiers also needlessly died and an entire region was 'nuked'. Surely they should have just had a 1v1 duel if this was the case. However I will go into more detail on both sides of this debate in future videos but thanks to everyone who has presented this alternate theory - tbh it wasn't something I had even considered. As always continue to give me your thoughts in the comments below.
Absolutely love the visuals accompanied with the lore. I also appreciate you trying to remain as objective with regards to lore evidence and being thorough.
Whats your opinion on the absence of Gloam eyed queen and black flame lore? As far as I know there is not a SINGLE mention about her aside from the fact that snt Trinas knight ( the guy with the horse) had the code name : "Gloam eyed queen knight" in the files...
I'm just starting it (clearly, you just posted) but as a researcher/investigator that had to take leave Elden Ring lore has allowed me to sate my passion for discovery in a way that has been therapeutic. I had all this time and nothing to get my brain going and that was in Feb of 2022...then this game comes out. I legit broke it apart and got back to my roots as an artist capturing in game cinematics. I pieced together parallels between real world events, mythological similarity, creation/cosmogeny stories, and actual flora/fauna. For example Devonia, like Ordovis and Siluria, is also a time period in geological history and specifically is noted to be when jawless fish existed. Then you find Lamprey eels slithering around...a jawless fish. As an almost 40 year old woman people are surprised I play video games at all but even moreso that I have a few thousand hours in this game (counting the modding/cinematic video capture and leaving it on overnight). Dealing with an unexpected life event that left me without my usual outlet, this game has been the best therapy I could have found. Also those columns are known as Solomonic columns named after King Solomon. Thank you for your work and content. I hope to be able to contribute in some way and share my insight from a career that I can no longer fully partake in.
I feel awful for him. He was cursed from birth, got saddled with a job he didn't want but did anyway because his mother asked, was abandoned by said mother, and is ultimately killed by our Tarnished so we can use his flame. Never to be redeemed or appreciated, save by those closest too him, and never to have the truth of his story told.
As a side note, I love how Miquella is like "Oh I want a gentle rule" while Freyja is like "Yippee! Radahn will be resurrected for war and conquest!!!"
radahn would prob have to do some conquering before miq can bewitch everyone and there are those too powerful to have their heart stolen like I imagine astels couldn't be swayed along with you if you manage to avoid direct contact
@@garcalejGenuinely love the parallels between Marika and Miquella. Obviously they parallel each other in their actions and beings down to their double selves (Marika-Radagon and Miquella-Trina) but beyond that, Radahn parallels Godfrey and Radagon in his love for war and of course, his idolization of the lords himself. I’d even say Malenia, as Miquella’s loyal blade and warrior, parallels Maliketh to an extent. She’s not a Shadow, but the two serve a similar purpose of fighting to further the agenda of their Empyreans, whether that would be Maliketh battling the Gloam-Eyed Queen and sealing Destined Death, or Malenia battling Radahn to send Miquella his desired lord.
@@captainblue5096 It seems as though whatever vessel the Greater Will chooses, no matter how pure, how innocent, the outcome will always be the same, for the simple reason that power cannot sustain itself absent the ability to use force and violence. Marika dreamed of world without death or bloodshed, yet to birth that world into being she had to first create its opposite by means of a ghastly genocide. Miquella preaches a world without discrimination or slavery, yet to achieve these ends he controls the minds and wills others. It’s not even that they’re hypocrites; the world they inhabit is simply defined by that inescapable duality: life and death, order and disorder, growth and decay. What they created is thus always doomed to be destroyed, for the simple reason of their own founding contradictions. Nothing is static. Nothing constant. There is no universal truth that will always be unassailable. Even the motives of the Greater Will remain inscrutable, other than a vague desire to keep the ball rolling, figuratively speaking. They are all caught within the eternal cycle, the Great Circle…….the Elden Ring.
Something i like about the idea of melina being messmer's sister is the irony of godwyn's fate. Messmer and Melina, Mohg and Morgott, Malenia and Miquella. All linked at birth by something as twins. And then there is godwyn, who isn't born with a twin but gets one in death in the form of ranni.
It’s like his tragic half-death is symbolic of him not receiving full closure during childhood, with any twins etc. He was lonely in his youth, and his Soul and Body both became individually separated and lonely at his death.
There's a theory I've seen online that Godwyn and Ranni were supposed to be the God/ Lord consort of the next age. But Ranni told Godwyn about how she didn't want to aquise to the 2 fingers, and he agreed to sacrifice his soul so she could undermine the Golden Order. The Golden Sun and Dark Moon become the Eclipse. Kinda is based on the idea that Godwyn believed more in the ancient dragon cult or believed in himself becoming the Prince of Death rather than the Golden order itself. To be honest, makes me a little sad Godwyn didn't have more of a role in Shadow of the Erdtree.
@@MGHL9898 yeah, but it makes sense since both miquella and ranni's narratives revolve around souls and ranni made it so godwyn lost his forever. Radhan can be revived cause we don't kill him with the rune of death and so his soul is still out there
Its also a point of duality, good and evil. Godwyn was the perfect chill dude. But the pressure on Ranni to take him as king consort is why she had to off him.
The mention of Shaman flesh melding well with others makes things in the base game make so much. How did Radahn survive the Rot? How did Rykard resurface after being digested by the Great Serpent? How is Godrick's grafting possible? Because their Shaman flesh is able to take in and integrate it. Why were Messmer, Miquella, Malenia, and possibly Melina born as the incarnations of Outer Gods of Flame, Sleep, Rot, and Destined Death? It's a stretch, but it can even explain why Godwyn's body was able to live on after death, spreading and mutating as his flesh along the GreatTree roots
It's that very text, and the lore about the Hornsent and their Jar rituals, that have me convinced. Everyone calling Marika's betrayal the original sin is smoking crack. The Hornsent beat, brand, whip, and flay the flesh of the shaman to facilitate their Jar ritual. It's no coincidence that Marika's village is empty. Every last man, woman, and child, has been brutalized and stuffed into jars. Even the Hornsent knew this was vile, wearing masks that suppressed the guilt and disgust of their actions. Whether Marika convinced Grandam that she was already a saint, or suffered the Jar ritual and came out the other side, doesn't matter. Her turning on them was Justice imo.
The Rykard question is fair but I highly doubt it has to do with the shaman. If anything, the demigods of Marika are half-shaman (half-Numen). Godrick isn't the only one who can graft, as we see with the grafted scions. Radahn survived the rot because his great rune burned to keep it from disintegrating him entirely. As for Godwyn, I think anyone would have survived that particular attack, since the ritual was intended to destroy only the soul, thus leaving the body alive. The more interesting question, in my opinion, is which happened first: the Hornsent persecuting the Numen/shaman, or Marika ascending to godhood. I'd be surprised if the Hornsent performed their jar rituals on the Numen solely because of their flesh.
I find it very interesting that the one statue of Marika we find in the dlc, that isn’t headless, is the one in Messmer’s chamber depicting her holding a baby Messmer. This observation coupled with Messmer consulting the aforementioned statue before plucking out his false eye goes to show that after all that transpired he still holds love for his mother.
@@anonfinally1692 Ya, after making this comment I remembered I made a mistake in saying that this is the only one in the dlc. What I should’ve said, and meant when posting, is that this is the only non-beheaded statue in the shadow keep, which still conveys the same significance in its presence being literally at Messmer’s back.
It's kinda funny to me that as soon as we saw Messmer for the first time so many people just said "Nope, Melina isn't the child of Marika. The fire butterfly is clearly Messmer." I still believed Melina was the fire butterfly and Marika's child, and low and behold, it was confirmed that she indeed is Marika's child and the fire butterfly since Messmer is the Black Pyrefly
Visiting Bonny Village and Seeing how the Hornsent potentates would treat the Shamans.. and then making it to the Shaman’s village.. dear gosh the feels were hit.. it was all a story of an unending cycle of a broken Order being toppled and replaced by another broken one..
I remember entering the shaman village and hearing the music and the golden braid made me realise this is where Marika was born, it was an incredible moment of revelation. Perhaps the numens were from the shadow realm and not from space.
In the wise words of Naruto, the helix is a spiral that can move in three dimensions. I think what Smough meant when saying a spiral - he actually meant a helix. And like helixes, the symbol can be built up - and up - dynasties and civilizations stacking together, cycles of violence and peace forever striving towards something that may or may not exist
this might be a stretch, but isn't it such a sad detail that the jars in Jarburg, who probably distantly come from the shamans, are filling their village with flowers like the Hinterland is? and that the little ones dance around the flowers that grow around minor erdtrees, like the spell marika left behind in her home?
Bear in mind that the Jarburg jars and the Shadow Realm jars are different. The ones in base game are like the Egyptian canopic jars, filled with organs to honor the dead. Hornsent jars are shamans that have been melded together in a fate worse than death.
@@shayposting that's a fair point, but i doubt they're completely unrelated- it would be quite lazy if the answer was as simple as 'they're just different jar people who look the same'. i imagine they probably have similar origins but have evolved to be more autonomous and smarter with their own small culture over time
The shadow jars were a punishment that was forced on merika's people but the base game ones were looked at as an honor or atleast for honor to try to be closer to the shamans of old and therefore closer merika herself just a twisted understanding of why
I may be making a pretty bold claim here but I'll say that unlike Miquella, who mainly uses his powers to compel people into following him, Messmer inspires genuine loyalty from his followers without resorting to power or coercion despite seeming like a grim, sullen demigod who knows nothing but war and slaughter. - Rellana renounced her royal title to swear fealty to him along with some Carian knights and sorcerers, becoming known as his loyal “Sword”. - Commander Gaius is one of his close friends who leads his ground forces. Despite being an albinauric who would normally be shunned by the Golden Order, he remains loyal to Messmer and holds a high ranking and respected position. - His Lordsworn soldiers and knights are devoted to him (With spirit of one going as far as being outraged that Marika has never embraced him). They've proven to be difficult enemies with many tricks up their sleeve, implying a level of training and discipline higher than even some knights in the Lands Between. - The Fire Knights, his personal guard, came from Leyndell’s upper echelons and noble families. It's stated they didn't mind being ostracized and disowned by their noble families back in Leyndell if it meant being at their lord's side, and tried to put Messmer's flame into themselves, to show their unwavering support. On top of all that, they did all of this knowing they’ll be shunned by society and erased from record with their deeds unsung and forced to wage an unending war without mercy or honor. They also have no real reason to stay in the Land of Shadow anymore. The Golden Order has collapsed, Queen Marika is imprisoned in the Erdtree and the Lands Between was ravaged in the Shattering, all before the Tarnished comes to kill any and all remaining demigods left. Messmer and his army could’ve deserted the Golden Order, splinter up and resort to banditry. Yet, even after all this time, Messmer’s army remained at their posts, unaware of the developments in the Lands Between, with little to no hint of any rebellion or mutiny aside from a few black knights who abandoned Messmer after discovering his “serpentine nature” and was imprisoned for it. Even after Messmer quashed their rebellion, he gave them an honorable burial and mourned for their loss.
I remember reading all that in various item descriptions and thinking, "Messmer sounds like a pretty decent person - at least without his crusade taken into account."
@@ALLMINDmercenarysupportsystem even with his crusade. He’s really just oppressing a group that kidnapped and killed his people, and we even see a hospital in the Shadow Keep being a place where the remains of him and Marika’s people are being treated with care. Not justifying his actions at all, but he did it less out of malice, but more out of revenge. Other than that, he seems like a pretty reasonable lord
> They also have no real reason to stay in the Land of Shadow anymore. How would they leave? Even after The Shattering, the Land of Shadow is still a prison, not easy to get to and not easy to escape.
Miquella abandoned fundamentalism because it coun't cure Malenia. And then dedicated his life to help her. That is why she is loyal to him and not because he charmed her. The same thing about Halightree. It was a safe heaven for misbegotten and albinauric. That is why they are there. Same thing with npc in dlc. After charm rune is broken most of the npc remain loyal to him.
That one line from Messmer where he curses his mother, made him one of the most interesting characters in all of Elden Ring. Just one line of dialogue changed how you viewed his character completely.
@@jamesnorman9160fits well with lots of mythic lore too, Messmer "gained sight" after removing an eye. He finally saw Marika for what she was - using him completely and ruthlessly.
@@jstar3382 Yeah, at least the Golden Order massively toned down the grossness of that. The Pots in their control just have regular dead bodies; not living beings fused together.
@@stephenjenkins7971 But it makes one wonder why Marika would sanction such a practice in the Lands Between if it is reminiscent of a very traumatic personal experience for her.
@@VictorIV0310She changed the culture. Marika turned it from gruesome sacrifices into a commendable practice. She's making peace with her past by turning the pots into a symbol of wholesomeness, not torture.
@VictorIV0310 In the Shadow Keep there is what looks like a hospital filled with Jars and their innards. I don't think Marika hated the Jars, but instead wanted to save them. The practice of Jars in the Lands Between also uses regular dead bodies instead of bringing living beings together. Perhaps it's her own way of honoring her people? 🤔
My theory on Radahn being Miquella's "promised" consort is that when they were children (which we know was when Miquella first saw a lord in Radahn), Miquella asked Radahn to promise to be his lord, and Radahn agreed. But then after the Shattering, Radahn went to war, what he had always wanted, and his childhood vow was forgotten, no more than the words of an immature child. But Miquella was afflicted with eternal youth. To him, their promise was just as real when Radahn went to war as it had been all those years ago when Radahn was still a child. So, when Radahn forgot their promise, Miquella asked Malenia to wage war on Radahn so he could finally uphold his part of their childhood vow.
@@geneangrypenguin5876 Thought that too at first, but checked and it specifically mentions Godwyn: "A sword made to commemorate the death of Godwyn the Golden, first of the demigods to die. Infused with the humble prayer of a young boy: 'O brother, lord brother, please die a true death.'"
This is great I've had a hard time understanding why radhan was ever needed over her blade But this would be a very interesting theory and shows it is just a flaw of miquella doing all of this
Yeah I can't help but feel the final cutscene being only Miquella's side of the vow, with Radahn being entirely absent, hints at some kind of disconnect in how seriously both sides took this promise.
Once I was finished with the DLC and the last boss was defeated, I put down my controller, took a long exhale, and said to myself: "Now to wait for SmoughTown."
An interesting idea I thought of, is the idea that the reason why Radahn is holding back the stars, was not to save others from a potential threat that the stars might bring upon the lands between, but to instead halt HIS OWN FATE of becoming Miquella's consort. I know a theory people had of why Radahn holds back the stars is because the stars couldve destroyed the town he learned gravity magic from. But why keep holding the stars back even after Malenia nuked Caleid? He mustve known everything would be destroyed anyways. But he keeps holding them back. Not for the town or for Ranni, but to halt his own fate. To spare himself what he believes would be a humilation by becoming consort to Miquella. To stop Miquellas plans of bringing about a new age.
Freyja reinforces a specific characteristic about Radahn that the fan base have been having for years. She says that Radahn does not woship death, nor does he worship change. And unlike Jerren, she believes that Radahn wants to live life eternally and continue fighting conquests. The reason why it’s important is that explains why he changes his mind on Miquellas promise. Radahn’s very essence reflects the idea of stagnation. He was apart of the Golden Order. I think he agreed to become Miquella’s consort while Marika, and the Elden Ring, still remained untouched and unharmed... BUT, once Marika shattered the Elden Ring, and Radahn’s very Order, he took it upon himself to try his best to KEEP that order alive. He arrested his own fate because he knew that, since Marika shattered the Elden Ring, his betrothal to Miquella would take shape of an Age OUTSIDE the Golden Order. And since Radahn wishes for no change, he arrests his fate. Miquella and Radahn made that vow under the safety of the Golden Order. Once the Golden Order was shattered, both had different outlooks on whether or not the Golden Order should be changed/surpassed. Perhaps the contents of Miquella’s Vow also changed, on his behalf. Perhaps, initially Miquella intended to have a normal Betrothal, but when Marika shattered the Elden Ring, MIQUELLA had a change of plans and decided to enact their “vow” under the pretence or a NEW order. Something that may‘ even been not agreed upon initially. It’s why Malenia was sent to sacrifice Radahns soul, with his change of heart.
@@HeevaEgoyeah I’d have to agree with that I don’t think he initially disagreed with the vow at all since he’s called the promised consort the cutscene at the end isn’t even the vow it’s taking place sometime after the vow is made since it’s miquella asking him to promise that he will uphold the vow and based on the bosses name he did uphold his end of the vow
He wanted to stop the stars because he seen they were about to work him like marika did godfrey then kick his ass to the curb. He didn't want to lose grace like godfrey did
@@HeevaEgo You know that's even more Poetic with Malenia being the one that kills him. Her rot is personified as something evil, but it is defined by its followers rapid change and renewal.
The biggest piece of evidence for me beside's Messmer's kindling eluding to the fact that he and Melina are related is the fact that both of them have their left eye closed.
Also if you look at Melinas eyes in the Frenzy Flame ending; her right eye that was gold is now a pale white, almost as if a gold lens has fallen off? Could Messmer also be the one who burned Melinas body? Perhaps on the order of Marika herself for Melinas rebellion for seeking to put the gods to the sword as the Gloam Eyed Queen? So many questions!!
@@tibot4228either From screwed up with their own lore and Melina shouldn’t be able to contact us cause I assume what she is now is akin to a soul, or he didn’t kill her with with destined death maybe he stabbed her for the killing blow? Which would be weird for him to do. They completely dropped the ball not doing anything with her character
"the Shamans' flesh was said to meld harmoniously with others" all I'm gonna say is maybe Godrick has more of Marika's genes than we initially assumed...
One major spiral design from the base game is the Elden Stars which would explain why the Hornsent are venerating that shape, and having the reference of the "golden Crucible" could imply that the Golden Star was the thing that became the Crucible. An another observation is that the omens are probably not Hornsent, they are likely the resoult of a curse by the Hornsent. Near the schorched ruins there is a ghost who says that she will forge a curse on Marik's children out of the resentment of the dead. The omens are also haunted by evil spirits and those spirits look like a horned face according to the omen smirk mask. We can also see them having nightmares while they are sleeping and I doubt the Hornsent having the same issues. (The Gandam can doze off seemingly peacfully) The Omen bairn calls the Omen curse born, while the Horned Bairn doesn't mention any curse and it is depicted having horns only on it's head while the omens are having horns all over theit bodies. Similarly all other animals in the land of shadow have horns only on their heads.
Yup. Even more believable when you consider that Hornsent culture revolves around spiritual ascetics. To many extremes, they vitalise the spirits of their dead kin to birth it into new life. They even forbade the Abyssal Woods because the Frenzied Flame is the very thing that can kill spirits. So it’s very believable to assume that the Hornsent’s most divine placed a demonic curse upon the age of the new order. Marika’s new age hinges on the very thing that the Hornsent sacrifice spirits to - the great tree. Marika failed to completely rid the previous era of everything, so it came back to haunt her through the Erdtree
@@HeevaEgo Really like your comment, I think you're spot on about the Hornset, they appear very divine and religious but are also pretty gruesome, violent, needlessly cruel in their punishments and sacrifices are a big thing in their culture, all the trees in Enir Ilim have people in them, sort of reminiscent to the great tree roots (tho in Enir Ilim the bodies are located in the trunk of the trees, and also appear to be mostly female) and most important of all their Gate of Divinity is filled to the brim with corpses, corpses with horns.
There is also the spiral columns in Rykard's throne room in Volcano Manor, not dissimilar to those of the tower. The magic of the tower inquistors is also refered to as hexes, just like Rykard's own brand of sorceries. Everyone likes to mock him, haha togethaa funny snek man, but my guy knew things.
@@jelle6325 You're right, I remember that design now. It also makes me think that maybe some part of the Volcano Manor such as the temple to Eiglay was built by the Hornsent. It would make sense for them to worship the snake and maybe that also led to Messmers curse.
Reading between the lines, I think we can assume that the hornsent were unkind to the Numen people living in the land of shadow, so Marika flipped the script, created a system that would empower herself and oppress the horned race that wiped out her tribe. The fingers told Marika what she needed to hear, fed her desire for power and revenge, all the while setting themselves up as important oracles in Marika’s vengeful golden order.
Gets worse when you realize why she probably hated mohg and morgott she hated them because she didn't see them as mohg and morgott her sons she saw the as hornsent she saw them for there appearance and crucible power not as there own individuals
Anyone else think the "Spiral" pattern of the crucible is meant to represent DNA? The crucible, after all, is meant to represent the primordial source of life.
Of course, its represents death too. Life and death. "Why is it everything in spira seems to revolve around people, dieing?"-tidus "Ah, the spiral of death"-auron Gotta have a shadowtree to prop up and support the tree of life. Life must die to evolve.
It was always suspicious how all the spiral symbolism was like DNA and I'd people mention it before, but there was never enough evidence for it to seem more that wild speculation to me. But now knowing the Crucible is a current like the primeval current but related to life rather than fate, it definitely symbolically represents DNA.
The shadow realms pulling in all manner of death so perfectly explains Godwyn's presence in that one place. I also maintain that his corpse is becoming a sort of anti-crucible with his twisted form representing the end of all life in the lands.
Another idea is that if the land of shadow is in fact at the center of the lands between and is merely obscured by the veil; then the divine towers may be the anchor points on which the veil is anchored. The Scadutree being the central pillar. The tree and towers acting almost like a tent structure for the land of shadow.
bro you are a genius,this would be incredible,however,the scadutree was said to be born at the same time with the erdtree since the scadutree is the "shadow of the erdtree"
@@ll-ll5gtI’m looking at the map and they do line up pretty well. A big pointer if it’s the “shadow of the erdtree” is the fact that the place it would go on the map is directly under leyndel. There’s also a big ass island in the original map in the middle of the sea, which is exactly where the shadow tree is in the shadow map.
I don't think the statue we get O Mother from, the same statue in the hollowed tree, is meant to be Marika. I think it's meant to be a young version of The Grandmother of the Shamans, possibly a leader figure of their entire group. Marika has always been depicted as fairly full figured, and the figure of this statue is withered, thin, and frail. The other headless statues of Marika in the DLC don't have that withered, thin depiction either. That's just my assumption anyway.
@@SmoughTown Yeah, I'm not 100% sure on it, but Ymir's dialogue places blame on the mother of the fingers for the actions of the fingers, but he also mentions Marika in that statement, possibly implying the Marika's own mother figure as Marika's original motivator, maybe the "Grandmother".
Yes, my first inclination was that the statue couldn't be marika. Perhaps this grandmother in the tree is where marika learned the magic that led to the erdtree? I wonder, was her "first sin " her sacrificing the villagers for her ascension? Surely she wouldn't feel the need to hide her war against the hornsent that mistreated her people. That doesn't seem to be the shameful act that she feels the need to hide, it's something the marika of the base game would build a church for and brag about.
I agree that it's not Marika but I'm wondering if her iconography (specifically the pose Marika is normally depicted in) is actually an inheritance of her people, or perhaps specifically the Grandmother specifically.
I think the lands of shadow was shrouded not when the Erdtree was created, but when the rune if Death was removed from the Elden Ring. These likely happened at the same time of course. But there is another thing. The fact that Marika sealed away Messmer suggests the shrouding was a very deliberate act, and if they once were in the center of the Lands Between, I think the Divine Towers might have something to do with it. Ever since the game launched people have noticed how they form a hexagon around the center of the map. I think they were built to help seal the Lands of Shadow away. The fact that the ppace in the LoS called the SEALING Tower shares a very similar design is also not a coincidence.
it is clearly so Mesmer crusade includes carian royalty, so it happened well after the radagon-renalla affair, and so the shadowland was sealed even after that
One nice touch is that when Radahn goes into his second phase, he starts burning with BLOODFLAME before Miquella shows up and quells it I think Mohg’s body is fighting back in that instant and Miquella shows up to quell/suppress/charm him again so that Radahn’s soul can wrestle back control
Everyone to Mohg before the DLC: *what a creepy little Mohg-lester....* Everyone to Mohg after the DLC: *........................................sorry Mohg.*
1:33:51 I like to believe when he praises his "loyal blade" he's referring to Malenia instead of Leda. Despite the obvious with her being the Blade of Miquella, she was the one who started the process of bringing back Radahn as Miquella's consort by infecting him with Scarlet Rot, which results in Jerren starting the Festival of Radahn to finally give him a warrior's death, which eventually (knowingly or not) finishes what the loyal Blade of Miquella started at the end of the Shattering. Which explains why he says how his "loyal blade" and "champion of the festival" shall forever be praised in song in his new Age of Compassion he seeks to bring with Radahn as his consort.
Yeah, I was going to comment on that myself. It makes much more sense that the "loyal blade" he's referring to is Malenia, as she and the player are the two people who have effectively delivered Radahn to him. Plus, I vaguely recall that Malenia is sometimes referred to as the "blade" of Miquella. Not quite sure where I heard it, but it does ring a bell...
Messmer's eye is basically the "Marika's Rune" item. The item description even says that it was bestowed onto warriors who fought in her crusade by Marika herself.
"They were never saints. They just happened to be on the losing side of the war." -Leda One of my favourite quotes in the DLC. Marika and the Golden Order did plenty of horrific things to those related to the Crucible and other groups, but plenty of horrific things were done to Marika's people too. And then with the Shattering and beyond, many more horrible things were perpertrated. It's a cycle, over and over again, and you can argue it just gets worse the further in you go. And even you could argue that Miquella's 'Age of Compassion' isn't even that, since he had basically abandoned everything pure of himself by that point, and with the mightiest demigod at his command you can be sure he would crush anyone that didn't follow the order.
@@cloroxusthestainlessone4324 Also the Elden Ring itself. Miquella's symbol was also a ring with his Circlet of Light, symbolizing it would've been more of the same.
Meanwhile Miquella "I'll make the world a gentler place" wellll we can't have that now, there'll be no Elden Ring 2. With his charm, he was the only one who could get people to work together: the Hornsent didn't even need the charm to fight alongside Leda in the final battle. Stupid shame we have to kill them.
@@cloroxusthestainlessone4324 Yes, that was what I meant, lol. Not sure why I put cycle, but you could look at the entire Dark Souls triology for examples of that. I read Junji Ito's Uzumaki recently, where again, the spiral is key to everything.
@@CreativeUsernameEh Tbh if there's an Elden Ring 2 I don't think it can be in the Lands Between. I think we killed literally everyone on the continent who could wield a sword or cast a spell.
Now knowing what the Greater Potentates’ job was in Bonny village gives a whole different meaning to why the little jar of Jarburg wanted someone with soft hands… It also makes the story of the living jars even more deeply tragic. They don’t know what horrors their kind were born from - they just want to live and grow their flowers. But to Marika and her perfumers they must represent something far more disturbing.
One key clarification - the guidance of grace actually appears before you kill messmer. It first appears when you kill the divine dragon lion beast boss, and is pointing you towards messmer in the shadow keep.
One thing I find quite interesting is that, in the DS trilogy, all things happened because gwen feared the fire would die out; and in ER a shit ton happened because Marika feared the fire would burn down her rule.
Both represent the stagnation of each order, in different ways. With Gwyn, he keeps the fire lit so as to alleviate the fear of his Age dying. In Elden Ring, the Erdtree represents Order and Age - and the passing of it - and so, it makes perfect sense that Marika feared any ‘Change’, she feared the one thing that could ‘change’ the Erdtree, and its very influence on an Age, and that’s Flame.. Both characters represent the same idea of a stagnating Order, in different ways. Gwyn with Fire, Marika with the Erdtree (which requires Fire to be ‘changed’)
My headcanon because i love ds lore and kind of dislike a lot of eldenring lore (especially the outer god, alien and finger parts) Is that marika was the last one who collected all lord souls but instead of sacrificing her body and rekindling the flame with it was to bind these powers to one of the last arch trees similar probably how to the bed of chaos was created by linking the chaos flame to an archtree. With this power she created the eldenring which sets the rules for physics in her new world. Bringing the age of gold. Thats why she fears fire and declares it as sin because she knows that the giants want to rekindle the first flame. With Melina being the last firekeeper. And the flame of frenzie is last remains of the chaos flame. As we saw in lothric in ds3 holy power and gold seems to come from those familys connected to rekindling the flame Meanwhile rykard was seduced by the primordial snakes which became irrelevant after marika banishing the circle of fire and dark
@@samueln.rnascimentodosreis6918 haha yeah i guess you are right. But mostly because i think that the world that darksouls has built with the circle of flame and dark and that we now practically the whole genesis story feels so much denser and better crafted than eldenring. Eldenring might have a better present story but to be honest the genesis part of it is more than lackluster just a bunch of random outer gods and alien stuff
@@TheSolarium18 well, I guess you prefer it out of the difference in power. No matter how much you try the player will never be able to fight the outer gods who embody the aspects of nature like death and renewal (rot), death (that bird god), the creator (greater will), the desire to not be (frenzy) and destruction (fell god). Meanwhile in dark souls we actively become equal to the gods (we kill Nito, Gwyn, and the others), we actively become the greatest in terms of power. I personally prefer the idea of imortal and gods that can't be defeated but I understand preferring mortal gods that are more human. After all, going from random undead in a asylum to a godlike being that murders gods is awesome. In elden ring you start as a lowly tarnished with the outer gods above all and remain with them above all (frenzy takes control of you, ranni's ending the only difference is that there's no lord and god controlling humanity, nothing is now putting the outer gods in check since they don't care about the ring, and the rune endings... is the greater will who makes runes.) In the end you are still under the influence and personally I like that.
For why the Shamans were persecuted, my guess is that they likely didn’t have horns or any other indications of the Crucible on their bodies. Looking at Marika we can see that she doesn’t have any horns and it’s more likely than not that the omens are persecuted in her order because they remind her of the hornsent. If her people also had horns then her hatred would be towards the hornsent as a people and not towards anything containing horns as well. As for the brand on the forehead, I have no idea what it means but I do think that it’s where Marika’s iconic pose cones from. It sorta looks like her pose and rune but with extra lines added on. I think she might have chosen it as her symbol as an act of defiance. Taking this symbol of persecution and turning it into a symbol of strength.
i would agree, however Midras manse contradicts this. He's referred to as "The Great Midra", ghost hornsent npcs refer to the inquisitors(also hornsent) as their brethren, and Midra and Nanaya have no horns to be seen anywhere on them.
@@Shtummyyy That’s certainly a good point and I concede that it may very well be the case that Marika’s people were persecuted for different reasons, however I also think that it may be a case similar to the ancient dragons or the Carians for the Golden Order where the other factions was simply too powerful/useful to destroy and so was rather incorporated into the ruling order.
It is said in an item description that Shaman flesh blend well with others, I don't think they were hunted by hate, but because it was needed to perform pot ritual
Another reason for slaying Miquella could be because St.Trina, also known as Miquella's love, was ''detached'' from Miquella like a shadow version. This implies that St.Trina represents a part of Miquella that is more ''alien'' to him. For why have your love manifest as a seperate ''shadow'' if Miquella was a ''paragon'' of love? This to me implies that Miquella might actually be a narcissistic-sociopath, further compounded by the fact that he manipulates and abandon his sister, betrothed, order/congregation not to mention potentially forcing Radahn to become consort. The Hornsent even sugests that Miquella is a monster, not unlike a Sociopath, for one of the most trade mark signs of a narcissistic-sociopath is that the individual belive themselves to be loving and compassionate despite everything they do is completley selfcentered without regard for consequence of others. Imagine what world he would create; a world that is completley devoid of individual will, a world that only worships an venerates a god devoid of compassion who thinks itself the source of all love, a ''gentle'' pacified world that wich only exists to serve a deity who has no care for anyone but itself.
Miquella is just Griffith from berserk. Sacrifice everything for dream and godhood, turns out that methods not quite good, but it rly makes him evil? Intentions was good, and age of his godhood can be heaven in lands beetween, just like Griffiths Falconia for peoples who don't know anything about how it was builded
he is griffith 2, he trhows away his humanity and everithing to ascend. even his afection, in order to make a peacefull world by force and power, not love
This is why I think Miquella himself being the last boss would have been so much more satisfying, especially if the now-separated St Trina could potentially help you or guide you to/in the fight if they had identified St Trina as the *actual* virtuous driving force that we heard about Miquella in base game
I want to like Miquella, but perhaps I'm falling for the charm too. The main problem with him is his ability to charm, which is an attack on free will. This isn't a problem for the demigods, as they have a role to fill (Goldmask T-pose), with their fate being dictated by stars, humanity isn't dictated by fate, but free will. Henceforth, Miquella's charm is more evil than it seems; one who is loving wouldn't force your love in return. Take Jesus for example; Jesus did not charm anyone. He spent a great deal of his time arguing and debating with others to win them over. Not to mention His sacrifice on the cross to forgive our sins. While Miquella sacrificed much of his self for his ambition of godhood, to charm someone is to deny forgiveness, to say "I don't trust you not to sin, so I won't allow you to because I won't forgive you." tl;dr don't feel bad about slaying Miquella, for he deceives you with sweet words and golden appearance.
I don't really get why people believe everything is black or white in the lore when we know FromSoft games and Miyazaki ( and hell, GRRM too) have a very different idea of worldbuilding and character building. The great majority of characters operate in a grey area that is different from good or bad: they each have their motives and ideals and they act in different ways which could be perceived in different ways. Miquella is obviously depicted as a demigod with motives that can be perceived as good - creating a new order that doesn't leave anyone behind, putting kindness as the basis for his age. The tragic element of the story is that by ascending to godhood he divests himself of all that made him different from the old order, thus becoming very similar to his mother who we now know had motives for the awful things she did as well. What's the point of turning the game narrative into literal fandom wars? Miquella is not an exclusively EVIL character just how Marika Ranni or the hornsent aren't. I think it's important that we excercise critical thinking with a game that obviously puts the gray morality of the characters as a center piece.
GEOFF!! Big theory re: marika's origin. Very interesting regarding the term "invaders" used by the hornsent to describe the shaman, which implies that they were from another place.. Echoing this, we see a number of large ships on the cerulean coast that echo the architecture of the eternal cities, even including glovewort, which has an association with them as well. In addition, at the ship on the westernmost coast, there is a fight with the demi-human queen "Marigga." Along with the language "first set foot," this would seem to support that she disembarked one of these vessels, first setting foot in this world via the cerulean coast before moving on to settle in the locations where we find the gaols (including charo's grave nearby), and the shaman village. Using the language "first set foot" rather than calling it her home or where she was born confers some ambiguity that i think lends itself to this interpretation. After settling these various locations, the shaman/numen eventually became victims of the hornsent's genocide, being marked as "invaders" from another world with potentiallly heretical practices.
I agree. I think Marika’s people (Numens) traveled to the Lands Between from afar. And then, a small section of the Numens (Shamans) who were Marika’s CLOSEST peoples (family, even??) were then sacrificed as being seen as foreigners, to further the Hornsent’s cycle of life within their worship of the Divine Crucible. All life blended together. We see this practice all over Enir Ilm, where the trees, towering spires, and the divine gate, are all made up of Bodies offered up as sacrifice by the Hornsent. It seems like the Hornsent culturally, and willingly, sacrificed themselves to the Divine Crucible. But they also had UNwilling subjects that they saw as foreigners too (Marika and Messmer’s closest people)
"Across the fog, the lands between" in the intro is a bit undertranslated- Its closer to "Across the [sea of fog] in the [land of rifts]" Its meant to imply the land could possibly be traveled to by boats, and possibly only through dieing, and the place being a reincarnating afterlife--- A common japanese theme of crossing the ocean being equivalent to dieing. Like crossing the river styx, or the river of life in european cultures. I assume the ships are meant to say "here is where the history lies, now translated only into culture and mythology by the current inhabitants" Oh and yeah, the example of the tower pretty much confirming that, even though it was obvious, by the place basically being valhalla for the tarnished. "The very center of the lands between. All manners of death wash up here, only to be suppressed."
There is a chance that the Numen Are nomads that seemingly moved from one place to another with them having might have stopped at land of shadows/Hornsent realm and another in the Lands between possibly both groups with marika being from the group that went to the Hornsent’s realm
I’m simmering on an interpretation that Miquella’s enchantment/bewitching might not even be always by choice and part of his “affliction”. In the same way Malenia can spread rot and “infect” people, maybe Miquella (at least at times) couldn’t help that people were charmed by him. Maybe only later did he start using it for his own purposes.
He controls and is abusive with it, even his spell tells you from his remembrance he normally charms everyone but was rejected by one, which more than likely made him go nuts and do what he did to get his way.
@@hamjime More likely Radahn, Miquella doesnt know us yet, he has to charm you in person, at least everyone whos charmed by him did meet him at least once, so I thought.
I don't think the statue inside the tree in Shaman Village is a statue of Marika, but is instead "The Grandmother" that Marika offered her braid to, which is why we find the braid here and not in Belurat, with the Empyrean Grandam. The braid says that there is no one left to answer, so I believe that The Grandmother of Shaman Village and the Empyrean Grandam of Belurat were two different people with similar roles; One of them a Shaman, who we find inside the tree with the braid, and the other a Hornsent, who we meet in Belurat and would be able to tell someone what Marika's offering was for, if the offering was indeed made to her.
Anyone else reminded of DNA and RNA by the crucible/erdtree parallel? RNA being a single helix and DNA a double helix. It also makes sense in terms of an idea of ‘primordial’ life as some theorise abiogenesis to have come in the form of something similar to retroviruses first.
I think with the final memory that Radahn did initially agree to be his consort, but that it happened when Miquella was still a believer in the Golden Order. When he turned away from the golden order is when I think Radahn rejected him.
Miquella turned away from fundamentalism becuase it couldn't cure Malenia's rot. But then Miquella orders Malenia to nuke Caelid to get Radahn back? It doesn't make sense, considering what we knew of Miquella's motivations.
@@CreativeUsernameEhHe wanted Radahn dead, and I believe her blooming wasn't an intentional act by her, it just happened when she was about to be defeated.
@@CreativeUsernameEhHis ultimate goal above everything is a "gentler world". We see at the end of the day he is willing to resort to any depth to accomplish that goal (killing his siblings and getting rid of his flesh and mind controlling everyone). So while it isn't out of the realm of possibility he would order her to sacrifice herself for his goal, he probably expected her to win the fight in the first place because she had never known defeat.
@@nullandvoid7524 The blooming was intentional; she removed the golden needle used to hold the Scarlet Rot at bay prior to using it. What wasn't intentional was the bombing of all of Caelid.
I'm wondering if Radahn holding back the stars was a way of him resisting Miquella's influence? Can't have your fate changed if your fate never moves 🤔 We dont really see any other characters meaningfully resist Miquella's embrace, and I think it explains why Radahn had to die and be resurrected
I'm of the opinion that The Stars are under the influence of another unknown outer god. Rahdan was sent by the Greater Will to hold back The Stars so it would have no competition in influencing The Lands Between. I think that's what Ranni's ending is about, she is going to use the powers of The Stars to kill the Greater Will and ascend as a goddess.
@@ThwipThwipBoomI think the Greater Will is a part of “the stars”, as in it’s an entity that is a part of the lovecraftian eldritch horror that are the Outer Gods, residing in the void and seeking to spread their influence to worlds beyond number. It sends its agents, the fingers, to worlds to find a host (Marika) and use that host to implant its order and sap power or something (all souls return to the erdtree now). Radahn halting the stars was maybe an attempt to stop other outer gods from interfering on the Greater Will’s territory, though the other gods still manage to try by infecting Empyreans, the possible successors to Marika. Side note, I think that’s what all the golden trees that we see during the Elden Beast fight mean. All those trees are other Erdtrees on other worlds that the Greater Will has conquered, and the lands between are just one more world to devour.
Small but hopefully enlightening note: I don't think that Marika continued the practice of making jar-folk, but instead wanted them to live on in her new world if possible. Remember, they are still her people - stuffed into pots but living nonetheless. We also see from Alexander that they don't really die - they smash but eventually reconstitute (like our pot items), so long as their pottery isn't being poached (note poached, implying what Perfumers were doing is illegal). It makes the jar folk in the Marika's lands a newly free people with a very bittersweet story. Their creation was a thing of horror, but they're so kind and valiant now, and can be found everywhere taking on different professions. Some live in peace in a secret village, while others join Raya Lucaria to become sorcerers. There's also an encampment outside of Caria manor. Actually, there might be something to so many Jar folk living in Liurnia, but not sure what yet. Others seem to challenge Erdtree Avatars en masse and failed.
I think those broken pots near the minor erdtrees were (willingly or unwillingly) used as "fuel" for them to grow. We know that the Erdtree absorbs dead bodies to give them new life. so why not?
''The first significant evolutionary radiation of life on land occurred during the Devonian'' -Wikipedia page on the Devonian Era. Devonia is the longest serving of the Crucible knights. I love this symbolism.
@@threemeters1425 I'm currently of the opinion that Miquella's compulsion of Mohg was more akin to subtle suggestions slowly feeding the victim with temptation until they end up already walking the path of their own volition and not just straight-up brainwashing unless it needs to be. Kinda reminds me of the Laer Blade tempting the Primarch Fulgrim of the Emperor's Children from the Horus Heresy series of Warhammer 40,000.
@@VictorIV0310 It was brainwashing though. Ansbach himself says it. That he even tried to stop Miquella after he bewitched Mohg, and got bewitched himself.
I think the Gloam-Eyed Queen was the Empyrean queen of the Hornsent. The trailer speaks about 'a seduction and a betrayal' on Marika's part, and clearly shows her hand taking something from a corpse that looks a lot like Godskin - we know the Gloam-Eyed Queen led the Godskin cult. I think it would have looked something like this: - Marika, among the last of her shaman/Numen people, seduces the Gloam-Eyed Queen in the form of Radagon. - This coupling bears two children, Messmer and Melina. Messmer has Radagon's hair, and Melina has a funky gloam-eye, as shown in the Frenzied Flame Ending. - Marika, having made contact with the Fingers (perhaps for power to avenge her people?), receives her shadow from the Greater Will: Maliketh. - The 'betrayal' is Marika using Maliketh to kill the Gloam-Eyed Queen. The linking piece of evidence is the Godslayer's Greatsword, which we know was the Gloam-Eyed Queen's personal weapon. And it's indisputably a spiral, the sacred symbol of the Hornsent. Presumably, what Marika is seen taking from the Queen's corpse is the Rune of Death. Maybe I'm lost in the sauce, I dunno.
I think this is the best theory yet! I've been floating around something similar, but this also has the benefit of keeping historical characters to a minimum. If Messmer's original curse was the Abyssal Serpent this makes even more sense, with the Godskin associations with snakes. Perhaps the Gloam Eyed Queen is a Numen Empyrean who became vessel to the Serpent, whose shed skin we see in Bonny Village.
I like this idea a lot. The Melina = Gloam-eyed Queen theory never quite fit for me due to Maliketh's defeat of the Queen. The timeline just didn't fit. If the jars harmoniously blend everything together with a Shaman, maybe Marika made it through that process being melded with giants of the fire, snakes, and all matter of living creatures, thus had those things present within herself when she had children and inadvertently passed them on to her children. And Radagon could be an amalgamation of warrior and giant within Marika that , for whatever reason, retained a personality that Marika either used or succumbed to through the ages. Edit: though I guess then a question to answer is: did the union of Radagon/GEQ result in the Queen giving birth, or Marika? Because the statue of Marika holding baby Messmer definitely seems like a more motherly connection to Marika than to the Queen. Though I suppose also that baby could be Melina, and both Marika AND the Queen could have given birth from the union? lol
@@will5110 Initially I had pinned Messmer as a child of MarikaRadagon and the GEQ in this theory, which didn't really have any other backing than Messmer's remembrance which discusses his younger sister having a vision of fire, which must be Melina. The theory has actually strengthened since then, because FromSoft removed that description from Messmer's remembrance, meaning he can fit as the third cursed child of Marika/Radagon and leave Melina as the sole child of MarikaRadagon and the GEQ. This would make Melina the eldest child, probably.
Down in the deeproot depths, just below the roots of the Erd Tree, you’ll find the remains of a much older dead tree that’s protected by crucible knights. In fact you find several crucible knights littered around the underground areas. My interpretation was that Marika planted HER Erd Tree on top of the Crucible tree and then let it sink into the depths along with everything else Marika despised and wanted gone or forsaken.
The scadu tree seems to arc in a circular motion around the erd tree. Perhaps before the realm shattered and separated the scadu tree use to wrap around the erd tree like a spiral perfectly coinciding with the spiral imagery .
@@M_reapr 100% agree! I've been staring at the scadutree when taking final boss breaks since that grace has a great view. It looks very much like the scadutree is the twisting trunk and the straight trunk is the erdtree. Phantom erdtree branches arise only from the straight trunk's canopy, and it also seems to be the one trunk that is oozing gold. The warped wrapping reminds me of the self-mutilating twisting growth of Mohg's horns, with the Scadutree having pierced the Erdtree causing the oozing we see. From Scadutree Base it also seems clear the Scadutree begins from two intertwining trunks that are then twisted around the listing Erdtree, which originates far from the Scadutree base. The Hinterlands also gives a view that indicates it may be a great twisting with many origin points, perhaps better representing the Crucible. All thi may be representative of Marika's attempt to suborn the Crucible in creating Order. Straightening one arm of the Spiral and veiling the discarded half seems extremely potent imagery for Marika, and also relevant to the themes of Miquella.
For me now, the big question is what is Mohg's true nature? Ansbach seems like a decent guy so why would he follow the Formless Mother? An outer god who craves for torture and violence endlessly? Are there deeper aspects to her nature that aren't so inherently terrible?
@@eurongreyjoy2 I did hear that the formless mother could be accepting of outsiders since alburnarics are present in Moghwyn, as well as the bloodfiends turning torwards her when they were at their lowest point, but at the same time, being a "nice guy" doesn't mean you're neccesarily good. Ansbach is smart, wise, and polite, but that doesn't mean he's a good person. He could easily be a monster on the battlefield and be perfectly fine with whatever atrocities his faction commits. You would think he would call out Miquella even harder, saying stuff like "oh he tricked all of us into going down a path of mindless and excessive bloodshed". He would have a lot of reason to say it, but the only part he's concerned with is how Mogh was treated. Which is honestly consistent with how the faction is structured because Mogh is literally a figure of worship, second only to the formeless mother. Sanguine Nobles literally dress like him.
What's interesting about the spell you find in the shaman village is that it mentions Marika being bathed in gold. When I read those words I remember godrick mentions returning to a place bathed in gold so it makes me wonder did she tell her children stories about the shaman village or was it just about the erdtree in general.
What I really love about the dlc is how much it changed my perspective on Marika. I honestly thought she was just evil but knowing what the Hornsent did to her people really puts a perspective on things. I understand why she put Mohg and Morgott in the sewer. Quite frankly the fact she didnt cut of their horns just shows me that there might have been a small part pf her that still loved them.
Does it though? She did the same thing when she became god. Her little Erdtrees are surrounded by pots, there's a giant one in Caelid, she is very much so an evil goddess.
@@CreativeUsernameEhI'm pretty sure the pot in the land between simply collect dead body like Alexander did to radahn and they aren't filled with... The abomination created by hornesent
She commited genocide against the giants caused multiple wars with multiple types of people, shunned and exiled large groups of people for being different and not following her beliefs, she is a wrathful god nothing can justify what she does after what happens to her
@@CaladirYour using modern morality to judge an ancient culture. By modern Western standards all the different cultures we see in the game are evil and most of the things they do 'cannot be justified'. It's pointless to use modern standards of conduct to judge these various parties because it gives the same final judgement on them. So it is pointless to use modern standards at all when discussing them.
What I've really been contemplating is how the Miquella/Radahn info in the DLC impacts the lore of Castle Sol. I don't think Commander Niall's mission was anything to do with Godwyn in light of Miquella's wish, but I haven't seen anyone discussing the implications of this.
@@tibot4228 Yeah I got that feeling too in a way. It's said that Godwyn and Miquella were very close. It would have made a lot of sense. I personally thought that the barechest man with Golden hair we see grabbing a rune in the air was Godwyn back when it released since he looked adult and wore a grey skirt, something we saw Godwyn wear while being killed by the Black Knives. Miquella was always shown fully clothed and wearing seemingly white. I also thought Miquella wanted to be in the Land of Shadows because he was convinced he could do something for his brother there
I actually think it fits together very well. It is quite possible that Godwyn's soul was Miquella's first choice as the heroic lord, and when Castle Sol operation failed, he went for his 2nd best choice which is Radahn.
@@tibot4228yeah okay and so what did Malenia whisper in Radahn's ear in the first trailers? "You have nothing to do with Godwyn but I still want to tell you that he's gonna be Miquella's consort; however I still want to kill you for some reason"? The whole thing was set in place from the start (as Miyazaki confirmed in recent interviews), people just don't want to accept it cause it's not what they had thought
The "statue" in Marika's village isn't a statue. It looks like the mummified remains of a numan women, likely referring to "The Grandmother". We see many mummified people, hornsent and otherwise, in places of sacred significance to their people. We get the spirit ashes upgrade from mummified Hornsent. There's also an irl practice where monks would basically mummify themselves alive so maybe the Devs were inspired by that.
@@ArcessitorIt was an actual practice from 1081 to 1903, and apparently the Meji government even outlawed it in 1877, which didn't stop at least one Monk named Bukkai. His and 9 other mummies are historically recorded as well.
it's not a maybe, they most definitely were, you even read about it in item descriptions - it's called Asceticism - the curseblades were ascetic and so on
I read on twitter that "Shaman" in Japanese is would more accurately describe something like the "Miko" of Japanese Shintoism who are female priests, shrine maidens. Also isn't the statue under the tree in the Shaman Village of the Grandmother? After all the statue does look like an old lady and the golden braid of Marika looks like an offering to it. The description talks of Marika praying.
I don’t actually think this is a mistake in translation. The only thing it wouldn’t communicate was that they were all women, but honestly that was my baseline assumption.
Can’t believe how fast you got something of this quality released. So stoked. Also Scadu is just pronounced “Shadow/Shadoo”. It just uses the Old English root, like its siblings the Erdtree (earth tree/world tree) and Haligtree (holy tree)
@@SmoughTown haha yeah Scadu is just another ‘Siofra’ situation where everyone is going to say it wrong until we get used to it. I literally learned it yesterday when I got suspicious and looked up the root. The video is just as incredible as ever and I can’t believe how much research you must have been doing. Thanks for what you do m8
@@maxthepaladin2147 amber heard has nothing to do with this. Depp was found guilty of abuse in court. They went to court in London and he lost, then he took another case in America to argue that she impacted his career the case in America didn’t prove that he was innocent. That’s just how it was spun in the media.
The map overlap, I have to say, blew me away. That was awesome and made so much sense! This is a great video and thanks for all the time you put into this!
I think Gate of Divinity works by absorbing and gathering the runes of those that are sacrificed to it. Considering it's built from corpses and we see it's literally full of blood in the story trailer. It's a massive human sacrifice, which allows to create a massive rune, the power of which makes one a god. Marika just cheated the system and absorbed it all. From the hornsent, from the sacrifices made by the hornsent and later from their gods. The culminated power allowed her to manifest a rune strong enough to power up the reality. The Elden Ring, probably previously divided up into life in general, when Elden Beast first hit the Lands Between.
i thought that she command to kill the hornsent in the crusade.. thats waaaaay after she became a god.. so i still dont know what corpses she used in the story trailer... im having issues to figure out a consistent timeline.. first of all corpses were needed (who knows from whom) then she became a god.. then magically the erdtree appeared with that size? doubt it.. as every tree it might need time to grow that huge size (same for scadutree at the same time) ...then in the interim of the trees growing i asume many events happened like the war with the giants so that radagon is cursed and got red hair and so now we can speak of the birth of messmer and not a second before (because he have red hair anda radagon is the only possible connection).. then the crusade starts.. so the corpses in the story trailer? whose would they be? D:
It looks like a bunch of shamans shoved together, to form a gate, like that of the Jar innards. Marika didn't cheat, she revolted and took the destruction of her people as a tool for her power and eventual childrens hope of supremacy
There is an incantation from the DLC that reveals the Crucible is a current like the primeval current, so it is more a force of the universe layered over everything which the Gate of Divinity is designed to allow people to somewhat access it. Marika's blood sacrifice of the hornsent is probably more related to Erdtree's needing blood to grow somehow or what allowed her to not need to sacrifice her flesh like Miquella did (probably why the Erdtree and Haligtree are so big and special compared to all the minor erdtrees in the based game). Or it could be related to Marika somehow tying the Erdtree directly into/with the Crucible somehow.
Cool detail that occurred to me: you have to kill both Mohg and Radahn to enter the Land of Shadow, thus you can only get there after collecting two Great Runes and gaining the right to become Elden Lord. Also, a thought regarding St. Trina: Miquella appearing to call her 'my love' may mean that, rather than her embodying his love and attachment, that they share a relationship similar to that of Marika and Radagon, i.e. that Miquella is in love with her. His abandoning of St. Trina may not only be part of shedding his connections to the old order, but he may have felt was necessary to 'make room' for Radahn to be his consort. It makes me wonder if this may also be part of why Marika physically separated herself from Radagon and sent him to fight the wars in Liurnia-- she had chosen Godfrey to be her Elden Lord, needed his strength and his battle prowess, and thus Radagon had to go, especially if they already had children together. Radagon is noted as having aspired to be complete, and it makes me wonder if there's some inherent pull between the two personas-- that once they become separate identities, they feel an innate need to be together so as to be complete. The idea that a Lord must be present for a god to ascend is interesting, since it begs the question: which Lord was present when Marika became a god? Was it Godfrey? Or, if Mesmer and Melina truly are the first generation of demigods, born to Marika and Radagon, did Radagon fill that role? Since St. Trina exists as a part of Miquella when he's still just an Empyrean and not a god, I think Radagon could have also existed before Marika became a god, though maybe he only gained a body of his own upon her ascension. Maybe, similar to how Miquella used Mohg's body as a vessel for Radahn's soul, someone else's body (maybe the person who Marika 'seduced' and killed) was used as a vessel for Radagon? That raises the possibility that, since the resurrected Radahn still carries traces of Mohg, Radagon might similarly show some characteristics of that person. What immeadiately jumps to mind is Radagon's red hair, which we know he despised, possibly because of some connection to the giants. Maybe the original owner of his body was a giant, or in some way related to them? If that person was also the god or Lord of the Hornsent, that would certainly add an interesting dimension to the giants' faces and the visage of the Fell God being used on the Furnace Golems. I would push back slightly on the assertion that Mesmer's crusade took place after the banishing of Godfrey and the Tarnished. As I understand it, once Godfrey was banished, Radagon immediately left Rennala to take his place as Elden Lord, thus breaking her heart and leaving her as the shell of her former self we see in-game, which doesn't really mesh well with the description of Rennala giving Rellana her blessing and gift, which to me sounds much more like Rennala in her prime, i.e. before Radagon left her. I think considering things and people from the Lands Between keep showing up in the Land of Shadows, it's entirely possible for Mesmer to have learned of the Tarnished after he was stranded in the Land of Shadows.
"Cool detail that occurred to me: you have to kill both Mohg and Radahn to enter the Land of Shadow, thus you can only get there after collecting two Great Runes and gaining the right to become Elden Lord." I don't think that really has anything to do with being able to be Elden lord... they just both need to be dead to make the DLC story work
Radagon probably co existed in some form with marika way before she ended up with godfrey. I’m thinking messmer must be amongst the oldest of her children, if not her firstborn. All of marikas childrens order of birth is crucial to get a proper timeline of all the events in the game.
I find it quite interesting that Marika adopted symbols associated with Hornsent inquisition as sings of divinity: shape similar to rune arc was interpreted as barbs used in interrogation in Hornsent society, and color gold was generally a color of punishment devices, such as the sword Midra was impaled with. This only strengthens her association with christian symbolism
The biggest thing for me lorewise was the last part of ”Messmer’s kindling” where it said: SPOILER ”Messmer, much like his younger sister, bore a vision of fire.”
Nah, imo the craziest was the revelation of metyr being the mother of all two fingers, and even she hasn't heard from the greater will in a long time. Have the two fingers actually been conversing with metyr, and metyr was just winging it due to the absence of the greater will? And she was the first meteor to hit the lands between. Dlc lore was awesome. Wish we got more godwyn and gloam eyed queen stuff, though.
@@Cas-ed9obthe Ymir questline in general has some massive revelations about the Greater Will in general, most importantly of which being that its not an Outer God, instead its like.. capital G God God
In reference to how they got their army to the land of Shadow, it probably required those that followed to willingly give up their golden grace, this is supported by the fact that we have to give knight Queelign grace in order for him to become spirit ashes, this would explain why the ppl in the lands between viewed them negatively and also why Andreas rebelled after learning Messmers secret
Visiting the Shaman Village and discovering the 2 lore items there made me feel the same way I felt when I was reading Ymir Fritz's backstory in AoT. Absolute chill and this otherworldly fantastical feeling.
Marika's like Ymir Fritz after her village was raided, sacked and its people meeting a grisly fate but instead of becoming a slave to a king after making contact with a mysterious, otherworldly power, she used that power to become a god, usurped that king’s place and become a vengeful, genocidal tyrant (though not without her reasons).
@@SmoughTown the bgm I think is also similar to the beginning of the starting theme when we open the game. Those few harp strung, probably symbolizing a beginning
Here’s an interesting comment I found by user “lost-in-the-enigma” under Gingy’s Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree - Story & Ending Explained “The DLC has changed my views of Miquella's curse of eternal youth from being one that focuses on his fate to never come to fruition and instead is simply a curse that keeps him as a child. As powerful and talented as he is, in my eyes Miquella has always had the mindset of a naive child. Instead of having his curse doom his endeavors to fail, its his childlike tendency to abandon a task in search of a new idea or plan that has been causing him to fail time and time again. Miquella failed to find a way to fully cure Malenia's Scarlet Rot, and instead moved on to the Haligtree as his next project when he got a temporary fix. His safe haven to the oppressed was left to wither and rot when he entered his cocoon to possibly free himself of his curse. Without any sign of looking back at the horrors he is doing by abandoning his projects and goals time and time again, Miquella fails to ever consider the true ramifications of his actions. The DLC makes this all the more clear. His plan to enter the Shadow Lands to become a god make his theft from the Haligtree into him abandoning it, leaving his followers to wait for him endlessly as the Scarlet Rot overtakes them. His desire to have Radahn be his Lord due to his kindness and strength comes off as a child idolizing an older brother, failing to see Radahn as his true self: a blood thirsty warrior who craved glory and battle endlessly. His journey through the Shadow Lands shows him walking a path that I truly do not believe Miquella understood the ramifications of. He abandons his core characteristics as a part of his ascension to godhood, not realizing that he will become "caged by divinity" as he naively condemns himself to being a puppet of the Greater Will or some other Outer God. Even his Age of Compassion is corrupted by his childlike view on the world. Instead of truly leading and changing the world, Miquella charms people into following him. And judging by his dialogue in the final fight, I don't think Miquella understands how brainwashing people into compassionate and kind people is no better than making them his puppets. Overall, I find Miquella to be a very interesting character: A godlike being with the naivety of a child.”
This is a great comment, Radahn is not a good guy and would be a horrible lord for an age of compassion. I'd think Malenia or Godwyn would likely be better choices for Miquella, or hell what about the player character? We now know there was a cut Miquella ending, wonder what the thought process was there? Anyways, Miquella is a naive child with the powers of a god, definitely twilight zone worthy.
I really wish we had more info on the gate of divinity. When I got to the final boss I was so excited to defeat it and learn what the hell it was and how it works, so I was a bit disappointed when we get almost nothing. Its such a cool and important set piece that it feels unsatisfying to have almost nothing on it.
We know it was built by Belurat to better be able to interact with the "Crucible Currents". It can't be yhe only way to touch the Crucible Currents though because gods and the Elden Ring existed before Belurat existed.
Can we really call what Marika did a "betrayal" of the Hornsent when she clearly never owed them any loyalty? If anything, her actions are just the turning of the wheel of violence. The people in power abuse those below them, their victims eventually rise up, only to repeat their tormentor's mistakes later on. Hurt people hurt people until something (or someone) comes along to break the cycle. And Miquella is NOT that person, as we come to learn.
I think the “betrayal” refers to her maybe infiltrating their culture. Maybe seducing their ruler or something and that’s how she got access to the divinity gate and became a god. Then she waged her war
@Leftside08 indeed. I'm primarily critiquing the use of the term by lore scholars. Betrayal should be used sparingly, with heavily implied quotation marks, as it conveys the biased perspective of the Hornsent. An unbiased replacement word could be rebellion or revenge.
@@emilybroderick2421 100% agree, remember they compared being turned into a jar as to becoming a Saint. Meaning if I was forcing you into a jar, from my POV you'd have to be ungrateful and maybe even evil to not want to become a living embodiment of my faith. Versus from your POV I'd be a psychotic forest creature trying to whip you and stuff you into a jar. I could call you killing me a betrayal, but we both know that isn't what it is. It's rebellion.
Like others said, I imagine the betrayal mentioned came from her entering and then subverting the Crucible power structure: specifically through Godfrey and his forces. Given the very name of the Crucible Knights, he was very clearly associated with them and likely held some position of renown. My guess is she turned him against the Hornsent/Crucible Order alongside his knights, that being the seduction and betrayal the trailers mentioned
I've been staring at the Scadutree when taking final boss breaks since that grace has a great view. It looks very much like the Scadutree is the twisting trunk and the straight trunk is the Erdtree. The Sealing Tree seeming to be a simulacra of the Scadutree alone supports this, I believe. I'll discuss this twinned tree thusly in this post. Phantom Erdtree branches arise only from the straight trunk's canopy, and it also seems to be the one trunk that is oozing gold. The map art bears this out as well, to the point I'm surprised I haven't seen it discussed yet. There are also the veils that directly mimic the veils in Marika's Bedchamber, connecting at the canopy of the Erdtree here, and at the center of the ceiling in that room. The locations of these don't seem to cleanly align with either the divine towers or Marika's Bedchamber, though I still like the theory that the Divine Towers are involved in the sealing. From the three primary vantage points of Divine Gate Front, Suppressing Pillar, and Jagged Peak Mountainside, the veils never quite line up just right. The Jagged Peak section also provides a stunning view of the silvery Phantom Erdtree branching. If overlapping the maps, I believe based on this that you must overlap them at the actual Erdtree/Scadutree base. The warped wrapping reminds me of the self-mutilating twisting growth of Mohg's horns, with the Scadutree having pierced the Erdtree causing the oozing we see. This could be an indication of the resistance of the Crucible to being straightened or confined by Order, with the chaotic growth turning on the unnatural order imposed on it. Alternatively, this could be a representation of the metaphysical entanglement of God and Tree, and the oozing either coming from Marika's wounds after the shattering or from her psychic injuries that lead to her pursuing godhood, representing the inherently damaged nature of the Erdtree Order and mirroring the brokenness of Metyr. From Scadutree Base it also seems clear the Scadutree begins from intertwining trunks that form a singular trunk that is then twisted around the listing Erdtree, which originates far from the Scadutree base. The Hinterlands also gives a view that indicates it may be a great twisting with many origin points, perhaps better representing the Crucible. This Scadutree also branches several times along the trunk, while the Erdtree does not. All this may be representative of Marika's attempt to suborn the Crucible in creating Order, perhaps both trees were twisted and intertwining before her involvement. Whether this was as a literal paired, intertwined spiral tree or a Crucible Current manifested into these trees isn't super important here. Straightening one arm of the Spiral and veiling the discarded half seems extremely potent imagery for Marika, and also relevant to the themes of Miquella. Depending on how this is interpreted, it could have major implications for the Crucible, Marika's ascension, the Erdtree origin, the metaphysics of twinning, shadows, and spirals, and the timeline of the veiling of the Land of Shadow. I'd love to hear more diverse thoughts and takes on the twinned tree, how it came about and if these parts are indeed connected, but I think this is a good starting point for theorizing. Edits for formatting and clarity.
I think I got it figured out, guys. There used to be one single tree, the one depicted in crucible imagery and in Placidusax’s boss fight arena. Upon becoming god via the mechanism of the Divine Gate, Marika had her then-youngest child, Melina, burn the Crucible Great tree, and via some other mechanism (god power lol) literally inverted the area of Shadow Realm, including the charred remains of the Crucible tree (Scadu tree looks charred). Then, by re-arranging the runes of the Elden Ring Marika created the Golden Order (of runes in the Elden Ring), which created the golden (spirit) Erdtree, having the Scadutree as its roots (i.e., charred remains of the previous great tree). I feel, somehow, the reason for the crusade wasn’t just vengeance, but rather that the endless rebirths of the Golden Order are ”paid for” by the never-ending slaughter in the Shadow Realm. Also, the Erdtree root system, which is the Scadutree, rebirths (or at least used to until the Elden Ring was shattered) things accepted by Golden Order back to the Lands Between, and the things rejected by it to the Shadow Realm, hence what we see therein. Furthermore, the great sin referenced in multiple places is likely the act of burning the former Crucible Great Tree to create the Scadutree and/or the slaughter of the inhabitants of the Shadow Realm to ’feed’ the Golden Order. The roots ’feed’ a tree, the same is occurring here.
you're wrong because Marika clearly led the crusade vs the hornsent long after she became a god meaning that first she ascended with divine gate then she built the golden order then a lot of stuff happened like giants war, renalla etc then she led the crusade vs hornsent and then she sealed the land of shadows and left mesmer behind
@@PrinceBilliamTheFourth well, for one, we're assuming messemer is radagons son cause of the red flowing hair, so it was at least at the point where marika became two beings in one. She has echoes in the lands between that speak about radagon "not yet becoming me," implying that their spiritual joining has yet to happen. It isn't until after these references that we start to see the empyreans referenced in the chronology. So we can assume, if messemer is indeed radagons son, that the following events are in chonronological order 1) Marika becomes a god and leaves the land of shadows, 2) Marika establishes the Golden Order in the lands between, 3) There is a war against the Giants and the Empyreans are born, but in what order? are they simultaneous? idk, somebody might but I'm just reiterating what I remember. 4) Now that messemer is alive, the invasion of the lands of shadow and the burning of its land and the hornsent happens, how far ahead in the future? Idk. Before or after the shattering? Probably before? But again, idk. All I can say for sure is the order of events of those 4 specific time periods. (the sealing of the land of shadows obviously coming after the invasion, didn't feel the need to distinguish between the two periods as really the latter is just the ending moment of the former)
you are the best fromsoft youtuber to date. I have frequently shared my respect and love for your content, and i will continue my patronage! Keep it up man
@@SmoughTown If you remain loyal to your calling, then no matter what you do, no matter what happens to me, I will never cease to support your videos. Until you have one to slay a god.
Doesn’t the ending kind of recontextualize the Golden Epitaph Sword? „Dear Brother, Lord Brother, please die a true death“ - maybe he was praying for Radahn to not end up like his golden brother down at the roots because he needed Radahns soul in the shadow realm and not to get it destroyed for his plan to work out?
Which is why I wish we could have fought Godwyn instead. The way Fromsoft designed it, though a bit strangely, was Kill Radahn and use his soul Kill mohg and use his body Put Radahns soul into mohgs body ➡ Radahns younger body with bits of horns on the arms Since it was mohgs body being used, why did only a few horns come through? Does that mean that if it was reversed, and mohgs soul was put in Radahns body, would you get a young Mohg who can use a bit of gravity magic? Weird. If it was up to me, I'd put Radahns soul into Godwyns body. @@spacefaringyoshi
@@es-rh8oo in a different video a fellow theorized that Miquella would fully revive Godwyn's soul and place it in Mogh's body, resulting in the final boss being Moghwyn, the Promised Consort. That would have been so peaaaaaak.
@@spacefaringyoshi yeah you know I still don't know where godwyns soul went. Because the whole night of the black knives plot was that ranni "killed" her body (which you can find in the Liurnia divine tower, black and burnt with some red hair). But her soul remained. She somehow kept it intact and preserved, and put it inside the Doll body which she animates and talks through even though it's not flesh and bone. And Godwyn's soul was "killed". But his body remained intact. How do you even kill a soul? And when you do kill it, does it just disappear forever? Also, why did Godwyn's body turn like that (disgusting, gross, fly ridden, diseased) just because his soul was killed? Would any living being turn exactly like that if their souls were "killed" with their bodies left intact? Or is it somehow only Godwyn who turns like that? Poor dude. I suppose his soul is gone so he's not technically suffering. He effectively doesn't exist anymore because his soul somehow doesn't exist. Even if you got him his old body back, there would be no soul to fill it with... No memories... Too many questions and not enough answers... My brain hurts
@@es-rh8oo so from what I understood.... Godwyn's appearance is meant to look like a yokai that is sort of like a mermaid or fish but once killed it curses the murderer. The in game explanation would be that death is associated with water (tibias marines), so the first undead being a mermaid since he's the most undead of them all tracks.(all undead are corpses with souls, Goldwyn is even more dead than them).
29:19 I'd like to point out that I think this isn't a statue of Marika. It clearly shows someone more frail, someone with thin, old limbs and rough hair. In fact, it's even the same statue as the beheaded one which gives you the gesture. The golden braid mentions Marika's offering to the Grandmother, an offering which was left at a statue. In my playthough, all these things pieced together into a conclusion that the statue depicts the Grandmother, not Marika. I thought it something unarguable, and yet I suppose interpretations vary among people.
I believe that lady Tanith was a dancer of Ranah in the past. That would mean that rykard meet her in the land of shadows(giving more proof to your timeline of the war and the sealing).
This would contradict the nox having numen ties. If the shaman are numen then how could they even gain enough respite to create the nox/sellia? When do astrologers go from being a small group to forming a faction capable of creating raya lucaria and a royal family like the carians? Why does the practice of crucible look so much less refined and crude than that of the hornsent? To me it means that messmer crusade and marika ascent to power and then sealing of the land of shadow happen in an era before the rise of godfrey and their worship of the crucible. Some numen/shaman survived the hornsent and clearly had enough time to remake a civilization of their own before they made a big enough transgretion agaisn't the greater will.
1:32:00 re Prime Radahn being enthralled by Miquella - I thought the phase 2 transition cutscene hinted at this too. Radahn starts glowing red as he's losing, almost Mohg red, then Miquella comes out of the gate and all that red aura is suddenly transformed into gold
I believe you should rescale the maps relative to eachother for them to connect properly. The surpressing pillar needs to be in the middle of the lands between and the scadutree should roughly overlap with the erdtree. Then the jagged peak sits just off the coast near caelid, next to the bestial sanctum.
When you think about it, it makes a twisted amount of sense as to there seems to be so many spirits of people and creatures in the Land of Shadow and why Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring; It's to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends. Marika hates the Hornsent so much that she didn't simply want them to die, she wanted them to suffer for all eternity, turning the Land of Shadow, their own homeland, into hell where the crusaders can brutalize, scorch and impale its denizens even when they've long passed into nothing but spirits, all the while Messmer's Shadow Keep looms over the land like Barad-dûr from Lord of the Rings and the Scadutree stands tall and mighty as the Erdtree's shadow, a constant reminder that the Hornsent are condemned to an eternity of brutality under Messmer's rule without even the benefit of an afterlife. Since every hell needs a devil, Marika chose her son Messmer to fulfill that role. On a related note, the design of the furnace golems seems to be a sort of twisted karmic retribution towards the Hornsent approved by Messmer and Marika. The shamans were mutilated, then stuffed into jars to become saints by the Hornsent so in response, Marika orders her son Messmer to wage a brutal, genocidal war against the Land of Shadow with his most prominent war machine being the massive furnace golems where Hornsent themselves are stuffed inside to serve as fuel for the machine as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery with its horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
I’m glad you were satisfied with the lore of the dlc as well. As a lore fiend, I had so much fun with this dlc. People who were dissatisfied by the lore definitely just rushed to bosses without combing through item descriptions and ignoring quests. There was a lot of sufficient build up to the final encounter via ansbach, freyja and leda dialogue. Not to mention all the other lore threads woven with the main narrative (marika origins, crucible, hornsent, frenzy flame, st. trina, finger origins, rot etc). Keep up the great work on the lore vids!
As a lore enthusiast, I combed through all the item descriptions, did or researched all the quests, explored the vast majority of the map, and I'm still disappointed with the final boss. Why don't you stop strawmanning people's disappointments with the DLC and accept the possibility that FromSoft don't always do everything perfectly for everyone? In my opinion, every new lore around everyone other than Radahn is done very well. I would've wished for more on St. Trina (especially new sleep spells) but what we got was acceptable. However, how shoehorned Radahn felt and the complete absence of new lore for Godwyn and deathblight (in the land where all manner of death ends up in no less) is just depressing, especially considering this DLC is likely the last of the Elden Ring IP.
@@jzt727could it be you were too excited about the possibility of godwyn and mostly disappointed cuz of that? No matter what our headcanons and fan theories, miyazaki will tell the story he wants to tell. It’s pretty much repeatedly said, godwyn’s soul has died. He’s not regular dead like the rest of the demigods when we’re done with them, he’s dead dead. Personally wouldn’t make sense seeing him come back in the dlc. But everyone’s allowed to have an opinion whether they like the story bring told or not. We can agree tho that we have a lot of lore to chew on for a while
@@vongolamistowl Again, you are making assumptions. I never said I wanted him revived. I never said I wanted him to be the final boss or even a remembrance boss for that matter. All I wanted was a scrap of new lore. Something that elaborated just a tiny bit more on Miquella's relationship with him that was alluded to so much in the base game. Instead we got nothing (apart from the death knights, but that doesn't tell us anything we don't already know). I mean, forgive me, but surely you must see how that might be wholly unsatisfying to a lot of people. Look, I wished I enjoyed the final boss as much as you and many other people did, but unfortunately, narrative-wise, I didn't, and no amount of taking time with the bosses, exploring, combing through item descriptions, doing the questlines etc. is going to change that. Maybe one day I will grow to like it, but that's not gonna be any time soon.
@@jzt727 That’s totally fair tbh, I wouldn’t have minded some extra lore on godwyn and the nature of his death. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for gloam eyed queen lore as well but I tempered my expectations since I know fromsoft tend to go in completely unexpected directions lmao. Hopefully we, the community can have fun with lore theory crafting regardless.
Each and every time I see a smoughtown video drops, I know I’m in for a good one. Makes me wonder how much of the stuff I haven’t gathered on my play through and usually forces me to go back and gather what I haven’t.
For me the DLC has somewhat rescued ER from the family politics story (though you'll never sell me on this Radahn-Miquella twist, bleh) and improved the worldbuilding. This video lays it all out very nicely. I particularly appreciate the beautiful screenshots you took. It's one of the most visually stunning FromSoft DLCs, and you really bring that out here. I believe you're right about the Crucible being more intangible than a literal thing. Since it encompassed all early life itself, struggling and growing in different directions, it's like the principle of Evolution in miracles & magic. It was probably akin to the principle of Causality (because it leads to diversity of life), but mixed with Regression's law, because various aspecst (such as wings, tails, claws, horns, etc.) can manifest in single persons and represent true unity of being. Basically Marika's order freezes everything so perfectly that it has to deny evolutionary theory. You know, Alexander the Great was depicted with Omen-like horns when he declared himself Son of Ammon. Ptolemaic coinage and statues reflect it. Horns were divinity in almost all cultures before monotheism. Marika as one true god demonised horns, just like Christians and other monotheists demonised horned gods and serpents in real life. The DLC really drives home the ancientness of the crucible, and Marika's deeply personal reasons to reject it all, with this meaningful real-world historical symbolism too. With this new context, I particularly like the fact that Ordovis' greatsword spins before slamming down. It's not exactly a spiral, but the whirligig motion is remniscent.
I don't really think you're lost in the sauce when talking about The Crucible. You didn't mention him in this video but Ymir honestly has some great insights when it comes to not only The Greater Will, but the Crucible and what the relationship may be between the two. Through doing Ymir's questline (disregarding his own "lost in the sauce" nature obsessing over the fingers), he has dialogue that implies/confirms that The Greater Will is more so a moment in time than a genuine force or god of the universe. He also talks of how The Greater Will would had to have created all life, as all life does indeed hold a piece of the Will inside of them. But looking at everything to do with the Hornsent, they say that it was The Crucible that did all of the above instead. Furthermore, they too almost view it as a moment in time rather than a traditional God/Force as we would think of it. So obviously it can't be that both are true; that they are essentially two separate "Big Bangs" that helped create the ER universe. I think, much how you said with the Hornsent and the Crucible knights + Crucible, that the two are one in the same. That The Greater Will is nothing but a different interpretation of the Crucible, one of Order and the power that comes from it. Furthermore, it entirely makes more sense why Ymir would say that the Order was flawed from the start. Though he only relates it to the fingers and them supposedly "communing" with the Will, he's quite literally correct when we look at HOW Marika created the Order. Through her crusade, she pilled countless bodies atop Bellurat to "call upon the gods". Whether or not she created the gate with the bodies I can't say, but regardless she did use the Hornsent as a sacrifice. And remembering how ALL LIFE has a piece of the Will inside of them (at this point though, it would mainly be viewed as the Crucible/raw power) I would conclude what Marika pulls from that flesh in the cutscene was just the coalesced power of countless hornsent. She would then take this power, and then use the gateway to "Call upon the Elden Beast" and thus forming The Golden Order and establishing The Greater Will. The Greater Will is nothing more than the perspective, the wish of order if you will, that Marika has for the world and wants to force upon it. A "small" addition to the point of Crucible = Greater Will = Beginning of time, is pretty much the entirety of Shaman Village. By looking at the enviornment (untouched by war/undamage, reclaimed by nature, ancient in appearance) and the items within (mainly Minor Erdtree), we learn that Marika was indeed a ""miraculous birth". She was born during the Age of Hornsent and the Crucible to a small group of people that believed in the coming of a new god (see Ghost that is close by in Hinterlands). Before even forming the Golden Order, she seemingly was already eternal. 'Minor Erdtree' talks of how Marika cast the spell "knowing full well there was no one left to heal". She seemingly outlived everyone within her village, and 'Minor Erdtree' was not only just her form of grieving...it was unknowlingly her first act of defiance against The Age of Crucible. As she would then go over to the statue of her grandmother (with Ymir's quest, one could infer she somehow didn't have a mom. That's a stretch tho, don't hold me to it. Postulating based on how much overlapping symbolism there is), and then casting off her braid while making an unknown wish. BUT based on how during this time the BRAID-THE SPIRAL- would be a direct symbol of the age she was born off, and infering a certain level of rage that would come with being born a god and watching all your loved ones die without true guidance...I would guess that she simply wished of the end of the Age of Crucible. Lastly, I do want to bring up Bonny Village. It being so close to Shaman, and Bonny itself having to do with pots. Pots within ER basically being; an entity formed by taking the essance of multiple people/entities, and shoving that essance within the pot.....I can't help but find some similarity between this hand how Marika created The Order. I genuinely believe this small yet judicial village had a massive impact on just how Marika viewed the world and operated after reaching true godhood. Sorry for yapping, I just love this game and have been going crazy over all the new item descriptions
This is not yapping my friend this is the definition of cooking i love the interpretation that the elden beast as we know it is what seeded life in the first place and that those are all just the interpretations of people at the time
I love this! I've been having trouble justifying how the Finger Mother landed down before the Elden Beast, but the "two big bangs" comment just clicked a TON of pieces into place for me! The first big bang would be "the one grate" described by Hyetta, which created the empty foundation the world would be built upon. I'm getting into a bit of speculation but this may be the "base" invoked by Mesmer's "base serpent" which does seem fitting as a giant abyssal creature. Now here's the real bombshell... The one grate was NOT an act of the Greater Will, but some even greater force of the universe. The Greater Will is an outer god like any other, and Metyr was its scout who landed in this void and began populating it with fingers who transmit to the Greater Will, eventually leading to the second big bang (or as Hyetta calls it, the Mistake) the Elden Beast/Elden Ring is sent to establish order and begin populating the world with life. Notably this is when the Greater Will cuts its connection to the Lands Between, having already done its job of establishing what it sees as a self-sufficient order. So begins the generations-long game of telephone between the fingers and finger-readers that would eventually mislead Marika into seeking ascension. I actually love this characterization of religion as an agnostic who thinks if there is a god then systems like evolution were designed as a means for them to be hands-off and move on to other projects. This also explains the intent of the Frenzied Flame, to return the Lands Between to its base state as a lifeless void. The Frenzied flame almost seems like the universe's immune system causing a fever in trying to sweat out the influence of the Greater Will. I'm buzzing with thoughts but this is getting way too long so I'll just go make another comment and shout you out.
One small thing I want to mention regarding your comment: I believe Marika returned to the Shaman Village *after* the genocide of her people at the hands of the Hornsent, and *after* she became a God. When the Minor Erdtree mentions there being "nobody left to heal", I think it's referring to the fact that Marika is the sole survivor of the Hornsent turning the shamans into pots. She returned home after ascending the tower and becoming divine. As one final offering to her dead people, she leaves a Minor Erdtree as perhaps a form of consolation to herself, and she leaves a gold braid of hair behind as an affirmation of a vow or promise. Marika never returned home again.
@@partydeer1640 The Golden Braid specifically says after cutting it off, that is when she didn't return home. If she truly had disdain for the Hornsent, I don't think it makes a lot of sense that she would parade around their symbol during the crusade only to then cast it off after reaching godhood. Also keeping in mind the actual symbols of the crusade, that being The fire and serpent found on Messmer's flag. Especially considering how base game items reference braids AT ONE POINT being a symbol of divinity, it makes a lot more sense to me that she would cast it off before the crusade as a true show of where she stands. I'm guessing you also just watched Vaati's video, and I genuinely don't think he has the timeline quite correct. Yes, I can concede that the Hornsent may have even killed off some of the Numen in Shaman. But I do genuinely believe Marika was just the last to survive. And if you want to be very specific, the Golden Braid is very vague and simply says "Home". Not "homeland" or even specifically "the Shadow Lands", just simply "home". And getting into another part of the Golden Braid, it says Marika made a "prayer, or wish, or confession". If Marika truly was born already with godlike power, which many items do say, I think it makes sense to say that even while young she would have great impact without truly realizing. Ask yourself this; What do both Messmer and Melina represent individually? Messmer, "the Abyssal Snake", fire always been a part of him, the Champion of the Crusade, even harboring hatred towards Marika that required an eye of grace to quell (Marika being born from Crucible power, the hatred could have been for the power that was within her). And Melina, even disregarded the theory/possibility of her being the Gloam Eyed Queen; she also viewed the same vision of fire that Messmer had. She ultimately helped with the burning of The Erdtree, which is essentially The Crucible in a different form (think the whole pot imagery in Bonny and how Erdtree was formed). I would genuinely argue that Marika's prayer, wish, confession (as all terms must be true); She hated the Crucible, the same power that granted her even the possibility for godhood, and wished for it's death in the hopes (prayer part) for a new god/order. Messmer and Melina, simply, embodied Marika's very wishes and prayers. and to connect the last two monstrosity of points (my fault og, I'm a yapper lol); it would make no sense for Marika to have her braid at the time of Messmer's birth when he was given an eye of Grace (symbol of Marika). Once again, she would not be parading around and embodying her old symbol while at the same time holding power over her new one. Miguella himself had to give himself a new symbol when destroying his old rune. It makes sense Marika would have to do the same on her crusade to godhood
Just finished it after about 100 hours and while I got a lot of the concepts, it was nice having a summary cementing all the individual aspects I came across over my playthrough. Really deserving to be called an expansion with just how much tasty lore, exploration and gameplay is packed into it.
A theory I liked was that the Erd tree is actually just the dead rune pile left by a dead Crucible tree, When we the player die we leave a lil tree of runes to collect and that when the Crucuble was suplanted and destroyed it left the Urd tree with no one able to collect it, so it became the Urd tree and a new symbol of the new order. The Erd tree is just a very shiny corpse. Its a fun theory to me anyway.
@@moosiemoose1337 Well yeah, we are only little after all, The runes are "energy" right, So we can only grab so many in a certain amount of time, The crucible would have an indefinate amount of time, so it could in theory could be a million years old holding trillions of runes from the everything that dies around it, Its not a solid theory but it is a fun one.
19:15 I Think the reason why the hornsent kept Midra alive was because if he died the Lord of flame of frenzy would pass on like how shabriri and hyetta took Yura and Irina’s bodies.
I think the ancient spiral symbology is meant to represent the natural cycles of life and death. When Marika, traumatized by the death of her people, became a God and finished exacting her revenge, she removed the Rune of Death and created a new divine tree that is a single shoot rather than the helical spiral we see with the Scadutree. Life and death became one under her order, per Erdtree burials. Then she hid the Scadutree and all the death associated with the Land of Shadow to create her perfect kingdom. I think the statues suggest that the Erdtree was cultivated from the Crucible (one branch rising out of the others). That's why Omen continue to pop up; no matter how much Marika wants to replace the era of the Crucible, her divine tree came from it and she can't escape its influence. She and Godfrey themselves even came from the Crucible era, hence their Omen children.
The suppressing pillar tells us the lands of shadow are the center of the lands between. If the Numen came from a different land it wasn't the shadow realm because that's still part of the lands between.
The Empyrian Grandmother wears the same clothes as Nanaya’s body has. For this reason, I believe the fetus we saw in the trailers, pregnant womans child by Midra, was Marika.
@@vongolamistowl in the trailer, we see the photo of Midra and a pregnant woman beside him. I believe the pregnant woman is Nanaya, based off of clothing and story, and with her clothing matching the Grandma, it makes sense to me. The only empyrean not born of Marika, that we know of, is Marika herself. I don’t feel like the Grandma character is Marika’s grandmother. Imagine ordering your son to kill all of your grandmothers people. Yeah, Marika is horrible, but idk. That story doesn’t make sense to me.
@@jonahsampson4843 more connections between Marika and Midra. Midra’s sword is said to be imbued with Golden Order magic, and he actually uses the Golden Order audio cue on one of his attacks. So he’s associated with the Golden Order, yet his mansion is Hornsent-inspired. This MAY provide the implication Marika’s early relationship with the Hornsent was initially civil, and perhaps even complementary. Considering Midra’s manse is actually a Hornsent location (architecture in his mansion share the exact same entrance doors, and share the exact same Solomonic columns as Belurat), I don’t think it’s too far fetched that Marika would take revenge upon her adoptive family for massacring her people. And to point of “adoptive family”, I actually agree that the Shaman storyline wouldn’t make sense if the Grandam was Marika’s literal blood grandmother. That’s why I think there’s some typical GRRM complex adoption situation going on here. I don’t think everyone is blood related, and that’s all because of Nanaya OR Midra. One of them aren’t related to the Hornsent culture AT ALL. I’m mainly of the opinion that Marika, and her people, are the adoptive children of the Hornsent (Grandam, Midra, Nanaya, etc.). And I believe the child in Nanaya’s womb, in the painting, isn’t actually Marika - and I believe it’s a random child of Midra and Nanaya, with slight evidence being that Nanaya cradles a “small” spine of what I assume to be their child, who prematurely died due to inheriting the Flame of its father. And just like that, here ensues another multi-year long Miyazaki classic investigative mystery story. We will never know the answers. But that’s just how we like it
@@jonahsampson4843Except her grandmother and her peolle had already been killed and scrificed by the hornsent. Whichbwas the reason Marika ordered the war in the first place; revenge for the genocide of her people. Horrible as she seemed to be, I'll give her that one, as the hornsent are barbaric c*nts.
I think the Messmer's orb incantation is one of the most important sources of information on his own state of mind, hinting towards some form of betrayal he experienced, I assume via Marika. He may have been made out as the sole guilty party for his crusade. But the incantation tells us that he despised his own flame & he tried to get rid of it, some form of self-loathing , carrying blasphemous symbols to the golden order (flames & snakes). His own self hatred could have driven him to carry on with the extermination of graceless beings, even after getting betrayed by his mother. (this also plays into his last words after being defeated, cursing Marika)
(Sorry in advance for the long post) I think an alternate potential explanation for Malenia fighting Radahn is that it was part of the vow on Radahn's part as well. Divesting himself of his flesh was a required part of the process, in order to separate himself from the influence of Marika's order. And that requires, essentially, the body to die. Radahn really doesn't seem the type to me, to want to go on a peaceful walk through a field and spout poetry as he divests himself of his Golden Flesh. Nor the type to personally do some Ranni-Esk sacrifice of someone else's soul. So I think it would be very in-character for Radahn to want his body to meet its end in a glorious battle. It's fitting for all the characters, as each one who divests themselves of their body, does so in a way which fits their character. Ranni, who is a schemer, got rid of her body through a murder plot. Miquella, who is more selfless and sympathizes with the plight of the downtrodden, takes a more self-sacrificial rout, of travelling through the lands burned and oppressed, atoning for his sins by slowly giving up his past bit by bit while walking in Marika's footsteps. And Radahn, a glorious warlord who lives for battle, does it by fighting a duel against the only warrior who could truly rival him at the peak of his strength. We see from Freyja's character throughout the DLC, that the Redmane's do not view battle against others as something bad or unfortunate. They love it. To the extent that, after growing to respect and like her 'teammates' in the Land of Shadow, she regrets the fact she she couldn't have met them as enemies on a battlefield. They don't view it the way we might view it, as tragic. They love it, and almost seem to want to battle against the people they like and respect. So Radahn and Malenia fighting doesn't necessarily have to mean they were in conflict. Radahn's people don't seem to view battle in that way at all. It's more about respect for a worthy opponent. (Edit: An additional thought after posting. Seeing as, in Lordship, Radahn and Malenia would be allied, it is also possible that he, as a warrior, wanted the opportunity to face Malenia in battle before it was too late to. Similar to how Freyja views it as a shame that she wasn't able to face her allies in battle) We also know through Godfrey, that Godfrey's ideology was "Strength befits a crown". Given how much Radahn idolized Godfrey, I don't think it's unreasonable to think he may have had a similar perspective. On top of that, it is also possible that, as an Elden Lord, Radahn would have had to put his waring ways behind him somewhat. Not entirely, of course, as we know Godfrey still fought in wars and such too. And Miquella did seem to have war planned as part of his promise to Radahn. But even so, Godfrey is clearly different to Hoarah Loux, even within war. And so Radahn may have had to, at least somewhat, abandon who he was, to become someone more fitting for the role of Elden Lord (This idea is not required for the overall theory to work though, it's just potential additional context). And I don't think this is something Radahn would have been unwilling to do, considering how much he respected Godfrey, who also did it. At no point is it hinted that Radahn lost respect for Godfrey when he took on the role of Elden Lord and put his warring ways behind him somewhat, so I don't think it would be fair to just assume Radahn would be against the idea for himself either, if given the right reason. So I think it's entirely possible that Radahn did agree to the vow. However either A) Radahn wished for the end of his current life to be in a final, glorious battle, before he was to settle into the life of a Lord, who yes, may still war and fight, but it wouldn't be the same as before, as we see in the contrast between Godfrey and Hoarah Loux (Or if you don't buy into the idea of that contrast, maybe he's just such a warrior that he simply chose a warrior's death as his way of divesting his flesh, regardless). Or possibly B) he took the "strength befits a crown" mentality and agreed to the vow under the requirement of "if you can best me in battle, I will join you", which would fit nicely into his idolizing of Godfrey, who took a similar "strength befits a crown" mentality. An issue I can see with this theory is "But wasn't Radahn Loyal to the Golden Order?" To that, I would argue he was not loyal to the Golden Order, he was loyal to Godfrey, Radagon, and their ideologies. Particularly Godfrey. And so while it can be interpreted as "Radahn loved the Golden Order". I would argue that it could easily also be interpreted as "Radahn idealized Godfrey, and thus was loyal to the order Godfrey helped establish", and that by extension of that, he would have also been loyal to the idea that strength befits a crown, and thus, would be willing to usher in a new order if the person earned the right to it in a show of strength which Radahn felt was fitting. In a similar manner to how, despite facing you in battle, Godfrey does not seem angry that you defeat him, and instead praises you for your strength and seems to all but give you a pat on the back for besting him. There is nothing wrong with the interpretation given in this video, and I think it makes plenty of sense for Radahn's character. But I am just offering up this idea as a potential alternative, to show that, at least in my opinion, Radahn being unwilling isn't the only possible explanation. This is also just my personal taste, but I do prefer the idea that Radahn was willing. I think it makes for an overall more interesting story, and makes the idea of us battling against a God and their Lord, to decide the fate of the next age, even more compelling. At least to me. One feels more like a singular person manipulating people into siding with him. While the other feels more like a genuine conflict between two ideologies and the powerful, influential people who support them. And so on top of my arguments and evidence, I also just genuinely think this makes for a more compelling story, at least in my opinion anyway. Maybe I'm alone on that. Anyway, sorry for the super long post, just had a lot to say. Even if you don't agree with the theory, I hope y'all can at least see where I am coming from with the idea.
Biggest thing I have against the “Radahns vow was a great battle” is that he would not have wanted what happened to Caelid. It’s either he never agreed and so miquella sent malenia to kill him or he did agree and malenia couldn’t uphold her end of the vow and decided to do a very unsportsmanlike play.
Solid reasoning - I still think there are some issues. Seems rather convoluted to destroy a whole region for like a ritual combat? Surely Radahn and Malenia could have just don’t a 1v1 fight? Someone on twitter suggested to me that maybe Radahn went back on the deal?
@@Ale-ey3xv I think that's a very reasonable argument. But keep in mind, Malenia wanted to kill Radahn, not leave him wounded. Part of Miquella's backstory is attempting to cure the scarlet Rot. And he was able to come pretty close, even as a Demi-God with far less power than he would have had as a true God. Malenia may have felt that she could inflict a killing blow to Radahn, and then any short-term consequences to the land of Caelid, could be resolved by Miquella in Godhood, since he got pretty close even as a Demi-God. Having Caelid be wrecked by scarlet rot for potentially thousands of years, was probably not her intention, but instead an unfortunate result of everything which could have gone wrong, going wrong. Malenia wasn't strong enough to defeat Radahn. And then her attempt at a final blow failed, resulting in Caelid suffering the unintended long-term consequences. I still think your argument is totally valid and reasonable, that would just be my argument against it.
@@SmoughTown These are all fair arguments. I'll go over them 1 by 1 and how I would explain them 1) I don't think destroying a whole region would have been part of the original plan. I think that may have been more of a Malenia issue specifically. She was incredibly dedicated to Miquella's mission. And when she realized she couldn't defeat Radahn 1 on 1 in a fair match-up, took it upon herself to use a last-resort nuke attack. This works particularly well if you go with the idea that Radahn agreed to it ONLY if he was defeated in battle. It may be seen by us as a cheap-shot, but it would have been a legitimate victory had it worked. Something important to keep in mind with this also, is that her intentions were not to harm Radahn, they were to kill him. She wanted Radahn to die so that Miquella could ascend to Godhood. Not to simply wound Radahn and have him and Caelid rot away for thousands of years. We already know that as a Demi-God, Miquella was working to try to cure the Scarlet Rot, and he came pretty close despite his limitations. Whether he could or not is an entirely different conversation, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think that Miquella being able to cure scarlet rot as God, would be something that Malenia would have taken into account. After all, we know that he helped to heal and help Frejya, despite only being a Demi-God at that point. And his needles seemed to do the job perfectly fine of halting the rot, just not curing it entirely. if he can do all of that as a Demi-God, then who's to say he couldn't do even more as a full God? Or even if he couldn't, that people would have faith that he could, at least. So essentially, Caelid may not be in the spot it is in now: Totally overrun by Rot, if Malenia had successfully killed Radahn, Miquella had ascended to Godhood much earlier, and been able to do something as a God about the Rot. I don't think the intention, on either side of the battle, was to leave Caelid in the state it is now. I think that is just an unfortunate consequence of Melania using her rot, but still not being able to finish the job even then. Because that's important to keep in mind, when discussing Caelid's current situation. Whatever the plan was, it failed. Malenia didn't kill Radahn despite trying to. And so the state Caelid is in now, could simply be the result of the plan failing. If she had succeeded, things may have turned out differently with Miquella as a God with a specific interest in curing the Rot. 2) You are right in that they COULD have done a 1 v 1. But I think we have reason to believe that Redmane culture values battle, and war. Miquella didn't promise to Radahn an endless supply of elite 1 v 1 competition, or countless warriors to challenge his skill. He specifically promised war. And when you fight Frejya at the end, she doesn't say anything like "I must stop you from preventing the return of my lord" Or anything like that. instead, she faces you in a battle with many people, and says that this will be "A battle befitting the birth of a new lord" (I don't have the exact quote on me right now, but you know the line I am referencing). She views the battle you and all these other people are in, as a glorious one which is fitting for the rise of a new Lord into this world. So I think the idea of a large-scale battle between warriors, a war to decide the fate of the world, and the coming of a new lord, would have been the sort of things the Redmanes would have wanted. After all, if you are Radahn, and his warriors, what could possibly be more enticing than a war to decide the fate of the world? It would be seen to them as the ultimate battle to decide fate itself. A battle of such scale and importance, that nothing else in their lives to that point could even compare to it. As for Melania and her Knights, they don't really get a say in that, since Radahn is the one who has the power to refuse the terms of the deal. She and her knights would have to play along if that is what Radahn wishes. 'In order to get him to agree, I have to face him in battle? Then so be it, for Miquella.' 3) Yeah, that's very possible. He may have simply gone back on the deal. I don't have much of an argument against that. But as I mentioned, I am not really arguing that your theory is wrong. I think is very easily could be true. I am just presenting an alternative theory. And trying to show that, at least in my opinion, Radahn being unwilling isn't the only explanation. it is AN explanation, for sure, and a very valid one. But I would argue there are also other explanations which make sense.
I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this, but my interpretation of the woman in the tree in the Shaman Village is that she was the “Grandmother” Marika spoke of. In fact, all the grey strange trees around the Shadowlands are Shaman corpses, their bodies merging with the trees as part of their death rituals.
SOME COMMENTS AND AMENDMENTS:
1. I am pronouncing Scadutree wrong - I just can't get my brain to change it haha. Sorry
2. I agree with people's point re the Grandmother - she is likely the statue/remains in the Village under the tree and will revise this in future.
3. Some people disagree with my take on Radahn - that the vow was 'mutual' rather than foisted on Radahn. I am coming around to this idea, however there are issues with that as well. If I was to accept this idea, I would need to see it as a vow that was made...but broke down for some reason and thus Malenia was sent to 'collect'. I find it hard to believe that the Aeonian war was some kind of ritual send off for Radahn that was agreed on between the two parties, given hundreds of soldiers also needlessly died and an entire region was 'nuked'. Surely they should have just had a 1v1 duel if this was the case.
However I will go into more detail on both sides of this debate in future videos but thanks to everyone who has presented this alternate theory - tbh it wasn't something I had even considered.
As always continue to give me your thoughts in the comments below.
Absolutely love the visuals accompanied with the lore. I also appreciate you trying to remain as objective with regards to lore evidence and being thorough.
@@vongolamistowl Appreciate that my friend. Know my style isn't for everyone!
Whats your opinion on the absence of Gloam eyed queen and black flame lore? As far as I know there is not a SINGLE mention about her aside from the fact that snt Trinas knight ( the guy with the horse) had the code name : "Gloam eyed queen knight" in the files...
I'm just starting it (clearly, you just posted) but as a researcher/investigator that had to take leave Elden Ring lore has allowed me to sate my passion for discovery in a way that has been therapeutic. I had all this time and nothing to get my brain going and that was in Feb of 2022...then this game comes out.
I legit broke it apart and got back to my roots as an artist capturing in game cinematics. I pieced together parallels between real world events, mythological similarity, creation/cosmogeny stories, and actual flora/fauna. For example Devonia, like Ordovis and Siluria, is also a time period in geological history and specifically is noted to be when jawless fish existed. Then you find Lamprey eels slithering around...a jawless fish.
As an almost 40 year old woman people are surprised I play video games at all but even moreso that I have a few thousand hours in this game (counting the modding/cinematic video capture and leaving it on overnight). Dealing with an unexpected life event that left me without my usual outlet, this game has been the best therapy I could have found.
Also those columns are known as Solomonic columns named after King Solomon.
Thank you for your work and content. I hope to be able to contribute in some way and share my insight from a career that I can no longer fully partake in.
I do not believe that it is a statue of Marika on the Shaman Village, i believe its a tutelary deity, akin to the ones strewn about the Land of Shadow
It's deeply sad to see Messmer as a figure like Hades, having a duty he doesn't want, doing things he hates, and being hated by everyone
And also dying like a bitch in the easiest boss fight of the dlc
I feel awful for him. He was cursed from birth, got saddled with a job he didn't want but did anyway because his mother asked, was abandoned by said mother, and is ultimately killed by our Tarnished so we can use his flame. Never to be redeemed or appreciated, save by those closest too him, and never to have the truth of his story told.
At least he had a Carian Princess girlfriend
@@rileyspeck4918word? She does live in his keep, but was there anything else that pointed to them being a thing? I definitely missed it if so
It's a tie between him and Midra for the one I feel the most sorry for.
As a side note, I love how Miquella is like "Oh I want a gentle rule" while Freyja is like "Yippee! Radahn will be resurrected for war and conquest!!!"
radahn would prob have to do some conquering before miq can bewitch everyone and there are those too powerful to have their heart stolen like I imagine astels couldn't be swayed along with you if you manage to avoid direct contact
His mom probably thought the same thing, first day of her rule.
@@garcalejGenuinely love the parallels between Marika and Miquella. Obviously they parallel each other in their actions and beings down to their double selves (Marika-Radagon and Miquella-Trina) but beyond that, Radahn parallels Godfrey and Radagon in his love for war and of course, his idolization of the lords himself. I’d even say Malenia, as Miquella’s loyal blade and warrior, parallels Maliketh to an extent. She’s not a Shadow, but the two serve a similar purpose of fighting to further the agenda of their Empyreans, whether that would be Maliketh battling the Gloam-Eyed Queen and sealing Destined Death, or Malenia battling Radahn to send Miquella his desired lord.
@@captainblue5096 It seems as though whatever vessel the Greater Will chooses, no matter how pure, how innocent, the outcome will always be the same, for the simple reason that power cannot sustain itself absent the ability to use force and violence. Marika dreamed of world without death or bloodshed, yet to birth that world into being she had to first create its opposite by means of a ghastly genocide.
Miquella preaches a world without discrimination or slavery, yet to achieve these ends he controls the minds and wills others.
It’s not even that they’re hypocrites; the world they inhabit is simply defined by that inescapable duality: life and death, order and disorder, growth and decay. What they created is thus always doomed to be destroyed, for the simple reason of their own founding contradictions. Nothing is static. Nothing constant. There is no universal truth that will always be unassailable. Even the motives of the Greater Will remain inscrutable, other than a vague desire to keep the ball rolling, figuratively speaking.
They are all caught within the eternal cycle, the Great Circle…….the Elden Ring.
Yeah, everything about miquelas and Radhan relation makes no sense, I wish it was Godwin in some form
Something i like about the idea of melina being messmer's sister is the irony of godwyn's fate. Messmer and Melina, Mohg and Morgott, Malenia and Miquella. All linked at birth by something as twins.
And then there is godwyn, who isn't born with a twin but gets one in death in the form of ranni.
Yeh think that is a great shout!
It’s like his tragic half-death is symbolic of him not receiving full closure during childhood, with any twins etc.
He was lonely in his youth, and his Soul and Body both became individually separated and lonely at his death.
There's a theory I've seen online that Godwyn and Ranni were supposed to be the God/ Lord consort of the next age. But Ranni told Godwyn about how she didn't want to aquise to the 2 fingers, and he agreed to sacrifice his soul so she could undermine the Golden Order. The Golden Sun and Dark Moon become the Eclipse. Kinda is based on the idea that Godwyn believed more in the ancient dragon cult or believed in himself becoming the Prince of Death rather than the Golden order itself.
To be honest, makes me a little sad Godwyn didn't have more of a role in Shadow of the Erdtree.
@@MGHL9898 yeah, but it makes sense since both miquella and ranni's narratives revolve around souls and ranni made it so godwyn lost his forever. Radhan can be revived cause we don't kill him with the rune of death and so his soul is still out there
Its also a point of duality, good and evil. Godwyn was the perfect chill dude. But the pressure on Ranni to take him as king consort is why she had to off him.
The mention of Shaman flesh melding well with others makes things in the base game make so much. How did Radahn survive the Rot? How did Rykard resurface after being digested by the Great Serpent? How is Godrick's grafting possible? Because their Shaman flesh is able to take in and integrate it. Why were Messmer, Miquella, Malenia, and possibly Melina born as the incarnations of Outer Gods of Flame, Sleep, Rot, and Destined Death? It's a stretch, but it can even explain why Godwyn's body was able to live on after death, spreading and mutating as his flesh along the GreatTree roots
That is a nice theory
It's that very text, and the lore about the Hornsent and their Jar rituals, that have me convinced.
Everyone calling Marika's betrayal the original sin is smoking crack.
The Hornsent beat, brand, whip, and flay the flesh of the shaman to facilitate their Jar ritual.
It's no coincidence that Marika's village is empty. Every last man, woman, and child, has been brutalized and stuffed into jars. Even the Hornsent knew this was vile, wearing masks that suppressed the guilt and disgust of their actions.
Whether Marika convinced Grandam that she was already a saint, or suffered the Jar ritual and came out the other side, doesn't matter.
Her turning on them was Justice imo.
100@vahlak6554
maybe marika did the same with the fingers ( the spiraled fingery shape behind her statue)
The Rykard question is fair but I highly doubt it has to do with the shaman. If anything, the demigods of Marika are half-shaman (half-Numen). Godrick isn't the only one who can graft, as we see with the grafted scions. Radahn survived the rot because his great rune burned to keep it from disintegrating him entirely. As for Godwyn, I think anyone would have survived that particular attack, since the ritual was intended to destroy only the soul, thus leaving the body alive.
The more interesting question, in my opinion, is which happened first: the Hornsent persecuting the Numen/shaman, or Marika ascending to godhood. I'd be surprised if the Hornsent performed their jar rituals on the Numen solely because of their flesh.
I find it very interesting that the one statue of Marika we find in the dlc, that isn’t headless, is the one in Messmer’s chamber depicting her holding a baby Messmer. This observation coupled with Messmer consulting the aforementioned statue before plucking out his false eye goes to show that after all that transpired he still holds love for his mother.
Agreed!
What we learn of this? You can do shitty things but if you have boobies, its allright
@@olgagaming5544what?
The statue of Marika in the Shaman Village is not headless
@@anonfinally1692 Ya, after making this comment I remembered I made a mistake in saying that this is the only one in the dlc. What I should’ve said, and meant when posting, is that this is the only non-beheaded statue in the shadow keep, which still conveys the same significance in its presence being literally at Messmer’s back.
I like that on messmers kindling, it confirms that Melina is his sister bc it talks about how his younger sister also had a vision of fire
Yeah, I thought about that too. Very subtle. There's also something up with her eye, similar to Messmer.
@@SleepyMatt-zzzGloom eyed Queen 👑 theory be cooking more everyday
It's kinda funny to me that as soon as we saw Messmer for the first time so many people just said "Nope, Melina isn't the child of Marika. The fire butterfly is clearly Messmer."
I still believed Melina was the fire butterfly and Marika's child, and low and behold, it was confirmed that she indeed is Marika's child and the fire butterfly since Messmer is the Black Pyrefly
@@simonjohnson3424 so you also noticed that the Black Pyrefly is connected to Messmer.
@@jacktheomnithere2127 kinda hard not to notice when the item description specifically mentions the guy
Visiting Bonny Village and Seeing how the Hornsent potentates would treat the Shamans.. and then making it to the Shaman’s village.. dear gosh the feels were hit.. it was all a story of an unending cycle of a broken Order being toppled and replaced by another broken one..
100% so poignant
I remember entering the shaman village and hearing the music and the golden braid made me realise this is where Marika was born, it was an incredible moment of revelation.
Perhaps the numens were from the shadow realm and not from space.
In the wise words of Naruto, the helix is a spiral that can move in three dimensions. I think what Smough meant when saying a spiral - he actually meant a helix. And like helixes, the symbol can be built up - and up - dynasties and civilizations stacking together, cycles of violence and peace forever striving towards something that may or may not exist
Didn't expect tranquility...
Therfore time for sadness
May chaos take the world...
this might be a stretch, but isn't it such a sad detail that the jars in Jarburg, who probably distantly come from the shamans, are filling their village with flowers like the Hinterland is? and that the little ones dance around the flowers that grow around minor erdtrees, like the spell marika left behind in her home?
I think you might be onto something there tbh.
Bear in mind that the Jarburg jars and the Shadow Realm jars are different. The ones in base game are like the Egyptian canopic jars, filled with organs to honor the dead. Hornsent jars are shamans that have been melded together in a fate worse than death.
@@shayposting that's a fair point, but i doubt they're completely unrelated- it would be quite lazy if the answer was as simple as 'they're just different jar people who look the same'. i imagine they probably have similar origins but have evolved to be more autonomous and smarter with their own small culture over time
The shadow jars were a punishment that was forced on merika's people but the base game ones were looked at as an honor or atleast for honor to try to be closer to the shamans of old and therefore closer merika herself just a twisted understanding of why
Right in the feels.
I may be making a pretty bold claim here but I'll say that unlike Miquella, who mainly uses his powers to compel people into following him, Messmer inspires genuine loyalty from his followers without resorting to power or coercion despite seeming like a grim, sullen demigod who knows nothing but war and slaughter.
- Rellana renounced her royal title to swear fealty to him along with some Carian knights and sorcerers, becoming known as his loyal “Sword”.
- Commander Gaius is one of his close friends who leads his ground forces. Despite being an albinauric who would normally be shunned by the Golden Order, he remains loyal to Messmer and holds a high ranking and respected position.
- His Lordsworn soldiers and knights are devoted to him (With spirit of one going as far as being outraged that Marika has never embraced him). They've proven to be difficult enemies with many tricks up their sleeve, implying a level of training and discipline higher than even some knights in the Lands Between.
- The Fire Knights, his personal guard, came from Leyndell’s upper echelons and noble families. It's stated they didn't mind being ostracized and disowned by their noble families back in Leyndell if it meant being at their lord's side, and tried to put Messmer's flame into themselves, to show their unwavering support.
On top of all that, they did all of this knowing they’ll be shunned by society and erased from record with their deeds unsung and forced to wage an unending war without mercy or honor. They also have no real reason to stay in the Land of Shadow anymore. The Golden Order has collapsed, Queen Marika is imprisoned in the Erdtree and the Lands Between was ravaged in the Shattering, all before the Tarnished comes to kill any and all remaining demigods left. Messmer and his army could’ve deserted the Golden Order, splinter up and resort to banditry. Yet, even after all this time, Messmer’s army remained at their posts, unaware of the developments in the Lands Between, with little to no hint of any rebellion or mutiny aside from a few black knights who abandoned Messmer after discovering his “serpentine nature” and was imprisoned for it. Even after Messmer quashed their rebellion, he gave them an honorable burial and mourned for their loss.
I remember reading all that in various item descriptions and thinking, "Messmer sounds like a pretty decent person - at least without his crusade taken into account."
@@ALLMINDmercenarysupportsystem even with his crusade. He’s really just oppressing a group that kidnapped and killed his people, and we even see a hospital in the Shadow Keep being a place where the remains of him and Marika’s people are being treated with care.
Not justifying his actions at all, but he did it less out of malice, but more out of revenge. Other than that, he seems like a pretty reasonable lord
I kept thinking his soldier swore fealty to him similarly to Radahn.
Man I wish we could just sit and talk to some of these guys 😔
> They also have no real reason to stay in the Land of Shadow anymore.
How would they leave? Even after The Shattering, the Land of Shadow is still a prison, not easy to get to and not easy to escape.
Miquella abandoned fundamentalism because it coun't cure Malenia. And then dedicated his life to help her. That is why she is loyal to him and not because he charmed her. The same thing about Halightree. It was a safe heaven for misbegotten and albinauric. That is why they are there. Same thing with npc in dlc. After charm rune is broken most of the npc remain loyal to him.
That one line from Messmer where he curses his mother, made him one of the most interesting characters in all of Elden Ring. Just one line of dialogue changed how you viewed his character completely.
Not really. The ghosts around the place were hard setting that up.
@@Arcessitor idk dog I thought he was obsessed with her due to all the statues of her having their heads cut off, EXCEPT for his
"Fuck you, Mom." - Messmer
Everyone else in his army knew she had abandoned them, but he was in denial right to the end. Blind loyalty is a bitch.
@@jamesnorman9160fits well with lots of mythic lore too, Messmer "gained sight" after removing an eye. He finally saw Marika for what she was - using him completely and ruthlessly.
The new Pot lore is still terrifying. I still remember the first time I saw them outside of their pots.
I think these pots are different from the ones we know. The ones we know have dead dudes in them
@@jstar3382 Yeah, at least the Golden Order massively toned down the grossness of that. The Pots in their control just have regular dead bodies; not living beings fused together.
@@stephenjenkins7971 But it makes one wonder why Marika would sanction such a practice in the Lands Between if it is reminiscent of a very traumatic personal experience for her.
@@VictorIV0310She changed the culture. Marika turned it from gruesome sacrifices into a commendable practice. She's making peace with her past by turning the pots into a symbol of wholesomeness, not torture.
@VictorIV0310 In the Shadow Keep there is what looks like a hospital filled with Jars and their innards. I don't think Marika hated the Jars, but instead wanted to save them. The practice of Jars in the Lands Between also uses regular dead bodies instead of bringing living beings together. Perhaps it's her own way of honoring her people? 🤔
My theory on Radahn being Miquella's "promised" consort is that when they were children (which we know was when Miquella first saw a lord in Radahn), Miquella asked Radahn to promise to be his lord, and Radahn agreed. But then after the Shattering, Radahn went to war, what he had always wanted, and his childhood vow was forgotten, no more than the words of an immature child. But Miquella was afflicted with eternal youth. To him, their promise was just as real when Radahn went to war as it had been all those years ago when Radahn was still a child. So, when Radahn forgot their promise, Miquella asked Malenia to wage war on Radahn so he could finally uphold his part of their childhood vow.
i love this theory wow
Also consider the Epitaph blade is referring to Radahn and not Godwyn...
@@geneangrypenguin5876 Thought that too at first, but checked and it specifically mentions Godwyn:
"A sword made to commemorate the death of Godwyn the Golden, first of the demigods to die.
Infused with the humble prayer of a young boy: 'O brother, lord brother, please die a true death.'"
This is great I've had a hard time understanding why radhan was ever needed over her blade
But this would be a very interesting theory and shows it is just a flaw of miquella doing all of this
Yeah I can't help but feel the final cutscene being only Miquella's side of the vow, with Radahn being entirely absent, hints at some kind of disconnect in how seriously both sides took this promise.
Once I was finished with the DLC and the last boss was defeated, I put down my controller, took a long exhale, and said to myself: "Now to wait for SmoughTown."
"Can't wait to hear what the fuck that was all about! 🍿🤠"
When the dlc came out my first thought was I can’t wait for all the lore videos that will be out in a week or two
@@alexanderperez5636Exactly. 😂
«Smoufftown? Smougtown? Whatever lets just wait for that guy»
An interesting idea I thought of, is the idea that the reason why Radahn is holding back the stars, was not to save others from a potential threat that the stars might bring upon the lands between, but to instead halt HIS OWN FATE of becoming Miquella's consort. I know a theory people had of why Radahn holds back the stars is because the stars couldve destroyed the town he learned gravity magic from. But why keep holding the stars back even after Malenia nuked Caleid? He mustve known everything would be destroyed anyways. But he keeps holding them back. Not for the town or for Ranni, but to halt his own fate. To spare himself what he believes would be a humilation by becoming consort to Miquella. To stop Miquellas plans of bringing about a new age.
Freyja reinforces a specific characteristic about Radahn that the fan base have been having for years. She says that Radahn does not woship death, nor does he worship change. And unlike Jerren, she believes that Radahn wants to live life eternally and continue fighting conquests.
The reason why it’s important is that explains why he changes his mind on Miquellas promise. Radahn’s very essence reflects the idea of stagnation. He was apart of the Golden Order. I think he agreed to become Miquella’s consort while Marika, and the Elden Ring, still remained untouched and unharmed... BUT, once Marika shattered the Elden Ring, and Radahn’s very Order, he took it upon himself to try his best to KEEP that order alive. He arrested his own fate because he knew that, since Marika shattered the Elden Ring, his betrothal to Miquella would take shape of an Age OUTSIDE the Golden Order. And since Radahn wishes for no change, he arrests his fate.
Miquella and Radahn made that vow under the safety of the Golden Order. Once the Golden Order was shattered, both had different outlooks on whether or not the Golden Order should be changed/surpassed. Perhaps the contents of Miquella’s Vow also changed, on his behalf. Perhaps, initially Miquella intended to have a normal Betrothal, but when Marika shattered the Elden Ring, MIQUELLA had a change of plans and decided to enact their “vow” under the pretence or a NEW order. Something that may‘ even been not agreed upon initially. It’s why Malenia was sent to sacrifice Radahns soul, with his change of heart.
@@HeevaEgoyeah I’d have to agree with that I don’t think he initially disagreed with the vow at all since he’s called the promised consort the cutscene at the end isn’t even the vow it’s taking place sometime after the vow is made since it’s miquella asking him to promise that he will uphold the vow and based on the bosses name he did uphold his end of the vow
He wanted to stop the stars because he seen they were about to work him like marika did godfrey then kick his ass to the curb. He didn't want to lose grace like godfrey did
@@HeevaEgo You know that's even more Poetic with Malenia being the one that kills him. Her rot is personified as something evil, but it is defined by its followers rapid change and renewal.
Or it stops the greater will from sending any more acolytes of change
The biggest piece of evidence for me beside's Messmer's kindling eluding to the fact that he and Melina are related is the fact that both of them have their left eye closed.
Also if you look at Melinas eyes in the Frenzy Flame ending; her right eye that was gold is now a pale white, almost as if a gold lens has fallen off?
Could Messmer also be the one who burned Melinas body? Perhaps on the order of Marika herself for Melinas rebellion for seeking to put the gods to the sword as the Gloam Eyed Queen?
So many questions!!
And both have a curse sealed within their eye
@@itzamedio5427 We know that the GEQ perished in Maliketh's black flame, did she not?
@@tibot4228either From screwed up with their own lore and Melina shouldn’t be able to contact us cause I assume what she is now is akin to a soul, or he didn’t kill her with with destined death maybe he stabbed her for the killing blow? Which would be weird for him to do. They completely dropped the ball not doing anything with her character
That you will never get an answer to because eff you says fromsoft. @@itzamedio5427
"the Shamans' flesh was said to meld harmoniously with others"
all I'm gonna say is maybe Godrick has more of Marika's genes than we initially assumed...
Not just godrick, also rykard who is able to meld with the serpent
everyone in the lands between has that ability under marika's reign
One major spiral design from the base game is the Elden Stars which would explain why the Hornsent are venerating that shape, and having the reference of the "golden Crucible" could imply that the Golden Star was the thing that became the Crucible.
An another observation is that the omens are probably not Hornsent, they are likely the resoult of a curse by the Hornsent.
Near the schorched ruins there is a ghost who says that she will forge a curse on Marik's children out of the resentment of the dead.
The omens are also haunted by evil spirits and those spirits look like a horned face according to the omen smirk mask. We can also see them having nightmares while they are sleeping and I doubt the Hornsent having the same issues. (The Gandam can doze off seemingly peacfully)
The Omen bairn calls the Omen curse born, while the Horned Bairn doesn't mention any curse and it is depicted having horns only on it's head while the omens are having horns all over theit bodies. Similarly all other animals in the land of shadow have horns only on their heads.
Yup. Even more believable when you consider that Hornsent culture revolves around spiritual ascetics. To many extremes, they vitalise the spirits of their dead kin to birth it into new life. They even forbade the Abyssal Woods because the Frenzied Flame is the very thing that can kill spirits.
So it’s very believable to assume that the Hornsent’s most divine placed a demonic curse upon the age of the new order. Marika’s new age hinges on the very thing that the Hornsent sacrifice spirits to - the great tree. Marika failed to completely rid the previous era of everything, so it came back to haunt her through the Erdtree
@@HeevaEgo Really like your comment, I think you're spot on about the Hornset, they appear very divine and religious but are also pretty gruesome, violent, needlessly cruel in their punishments and sacrifices are a big thing in their culture, all the trees in Enir Ilim have people in them, sort of reminiscent to the great tree roots (tho in Enir Ilim the bodies are located in the trunk of the trees, and also appear to be mostly female) and most important of all their Gate of Divinity is filled to the brim with corpses, corpses with horns.
There is also the spiral columns in Rykard's throne room in Volcano Manor, not dissimilar to those of the tower. The magic of the tower inquistors is also refered to as hexes, just like Rykard's own brand of sorceries.
Everyone likes to mock him, haha togethaa funny snek man, but my guy knew things.
@@jelle6325 You're right, I remember that design now. It also makes me think that maybe some part of the Volcano Manor such as the temple to Eiglay was built by the Hornsent. It would make sense for them to worship the snake and maybe that also led to Messmers curse.
Reading between the lines, I think we can assume that the hornsent were unkind to the Numen people living in the land of shadow, so Marika flipped the script, created a system that would empower herself and oppress the horned race that wiped out her tribe.
The fingers told Marika what she needed to hear, fed her desire for power and revenge, all the while setting themselves up as important oracles in Marika’s vengeful golden order.
Gets worse when you realize why she probably hated mohg and morgott she hated them because she didn't see them as mohg and morgott her sons she saw the as hornsent she saw them for there appearance and crucible power not as there own individuals
@@Actionzombie98 Also makes you wonder if that is why she began to reject Godfrey
@@zsaltz907 must have been since they clearly followed the crucible in some form and has a lion on his back.
Unkind is sugarcoating genocide and mutalation a bit much
@@ramoraid The lion was placed on his back after the war. To check his powerand lust for combat. I don't think it's crucible related.
Anyone else think the "Spiral" pattern of the crucible is meant to represent DNA?
The crucible, after all, is meant to represent the primordial source of life.
This is actually a huge connection.
Of course, its represents death too. Life and death.
"Why is it everything in spira seems to revolve around people, dieing?"-tidus
"Ah, the spiral of death"-auron
Gotta have a shadowtree to prop up and support the tree of life. Life must die to evolve.
This is a fire comment
It is spiral energy
It was always suspicious how all the spiral symbolism was like DNA and I'd people mention it before, but there was never enough evidence for it to seem more that wild speculation to me. But now knowing the Crucible is a current like the primeval current but related to life rather than fate, it definitely symbolically represents DNA.
The shadow realms pulling in all manner of death so perfectly explains Godwyn's presence in that one place. I also maintain that his corpse is becoming a sort of anti-crucible with his twisted form representing the end of all life in the lands.
How fitting it would be for godwyns rotting corpse to destroy the lands between in the end
I was in bed and just received the notification, I bolted to my computer to watch this. I've been waiting for this since the DLC came out
Same. So early 😂❤
Hahah - really appreciate that! Hope you enjoy
Haha so was I only differenceis I'm still in bed watching this on my phone thanks smough 😂
I was thinking the same thing than I saw this comment
Same!!!
Another idea is that if the land of shadow is in fact at the center of the lands between and is merely obscured by the veil; then the divine towers may be the anchor points on which the veil is anchored. The Scadutree being the central pillar. The tree and towers acting almost like a tent structure for the land of shadow.
It wouldn’t fit perfectly, but a lot of things do line up with the map from the base game. I think this is true but in a more fantastical sense.
suppressing tower is the center
bro you are a genius,this would be incredible,however,the scadutree was said to be born at the same time with the erdtree since the scadutree is the "shadow of the erdtree"
this is absoltely genius
@@ll-ll5gtI’m looking at the map and they do line up pretty well. A big pointer if it’s the “shadow of the erdtree” is the fact that the place it would go on the map is directly under leyndel. There’s also a big ass island in the original map in the middle of the sea, which is exactly where the shadow tree is in the shadow map.
I don't think the statue we get O Mother from, the same statue in the hollowed tree, is meant to be Marika. I think it's meant to be a young version of The Grandmother of the Shamans, possibly a leader figure of their entire group. Marika has always been depicted as fairly full figured, and the figure of this statue is withered, thin, and frail. The other headless statues of Marika in the DLC don't have that withered, thin depiction either. That's just my assumption anyway.
Think is a good shout tbh and something I will revise in later videos!
@@SmoughTown Yeah, I'm not 100% sure on it, but Ymir's dialogue places blame on the mother of the fingers for the actions of the fingers, but he also mentions Marika in that statement, possibly implying the Marika's own mother figure as Marika's original motivator, maybe the "Grandmother".
Yes, my first inclination was that the statue couldn't be marika.
Perhaps this grandmother in the tree is where marika learned the magic that led to the erdtree?
I wonder, was her "first sin " her sacrificing the villagers for her ascension?
Surely she wouldn't feel the need to hide her war against the hornsent that mistreated her people. That doesn't seem to be the shameful act that she feels the need to hide, it's something the marika of the base game would build a church for and brag about.
I agree that it's not Marika but I'm wondering if her iconography (specifically the pose Marika is normally depicted in) is actually an inheritance of her people, or perhaps specifically the Grandmother specifically.
The statue looks a lot like Radagon. In other words, Marika
I think the lands of shadow was shrouded not when the Erdtree was created, but when the rune if Death was removed from the Elden Ring. These likely happened at the same time of course. But there is another thing. The fact that Marika sealed away Messmer suggests the shrouding was a very deliberate act, and if they once were in the center of the Lands Between, I think the Divine Towers might have something to do with it. Ever since the game launched people have noticed how they form a hexagon around the center of the map. I think they were built to help seal the Lands of Shadow away. The fact that the ppace in the LoS called the SEALING Tower shares a very similar design is also not a coincidence.
it is clearly so
Mesmer crusade includes carian royalty, so it happened well after the radagon-renalla affair, and so the shadowland was sealed even after that
One nice touch is that when Radahn goes into his second phase, he starts burning with BLOODFLAME before Miquella shows up and quells it
I think Mohg’s body is fighting back in that instant and Miquella shows up to quell/suppress/charm him again so that Radahn’s soul can wrestle back control
Make you really think that the fusion is never seamless
And here my dumbass was thinking “ah that red aura must mean he raised his attack power” or something
Thank you. That makes so much sense.
Kinda the same way serosh quells Godfrey's bloodlust, miquella hangs from Radahn and quells mogh from breaking free
Over 9000 @@fourdayz1414
Everyone to Mohg before the DLC: *what a creepy little Mohg-lester....*
Everyone to Mohg after the DLC: *........................................sorry Mohg.*
Turns out Mohg was the one being Miquellested this whole time 😨😰
@@SteebenWeebendude these jokes aren’t funny.
@GonadsOfGodrey they are tho
there's a joke about cancel culture but I'm not making it
I can see it clear as day. The lord of blood beating the allegations. MOHGWYN!!!
1:33:51 I like to believe when he praises his "loyal blade" he's referring to Malenia instead of Leda. Despite the obvious with her being the Blade of Miquella, she was the one who started the process of bringing back Radahn as Miquella's consort by infecting him with Scarlet Rot, which results in Jerren starting the Festival of Radahn to finally give him a warrior's death, which eventually (knowingly or not) finishes what the loyal Blade of Miquella started at the end of the Shattering. Which explains why he says how his "loyal blade" and "champion of the festival" shall forever be praised in song in his new Age of Compassion he seeks to bring with Radahn as his consort.
Makes much more sense
Yeah, I was going to comment on that myself. It makes much more sense that the "loyal blade" he's referring to is Malenia, as she and the player are the two people who have effectively delivered Radahn to him.
Plus, I vaguely recall that Malenia is sometimes referred to as the "blade" of Miquella. Not quite sure where I heard it, but it does ring a bell...
this is it this is what i believe
Messmer's eye is basically the "Marika's Rune" item. The item description even says that it was bestowed onto warriors who fought in her crusade by Marika herself.
“I don’t care what they teach you at schools, the Crucible was a bird!”
The crucible is just what the hornsent called the Elden ring.
The real Crucible was the friends we made along the way.
@@mistakai4226 The crucible was before the elden ring
@@devastatheseeker9967 hence why they called it the crucible.
This would jive with Angel’s Egg a movie I’m sure From has seen
"They were never saints. They just happened to be on the losing side of the war."
-Leda
One of my favourite quotes in the DLC. Marika and the Golden Order did plenty of horrific things to those related to the Crucible and other groups, but plenty of horrific things were done to Marika's people too. And then with the Shattering and beyond, many more horrible things were perpertrated.
It's a cycle, over and over again, and you can argue it just gets worse the further in you go. And even you could argue that Miquella's 'Age of Compassion' isn't even that, since he had basically abandoned everything pure of himself by that point, and with the mightiest demigod at his command you can be sure he would crush anyone that didn't follow the order.
A cycle moving forward also describes a spiral. Just a thought i had
@@cloroxusthestainlessone4324 Also the Elden Ring itself. Miquella's symbol was also a ring with his Circlet of Light, symbolizing it would've been more of the same.
Meanwhile Miquella "I'll make the world a gentler place" wellll we can't have that now, there'll be no Elden Ring 2. With his charm, he was the only one who could get people to work together: the Hornsent didn't even need the charm to fight alongside Leda in the final battle. Stupid shame we have to kill them.
@@cloroxusthestainlessone4324 Yes, that was what I meant, lol. Not sure why I put cycle, but you could look at the entire Dark Souls triology for examples of that.
I read Junji Ito's Uzumaki recently, where again, the spiral is key to everything.
@@CreativeUsernameEh Tbh if there's an Elden Ring 2 I don't think it can be in the Lands Between. I think we killed literally everyone on the continent who could wield a sword or cast a spell.
Now knowing what the Greater Potentates’ job was in Bonny village gives a whole different meaning to why the little jar of Jarburg wanted someone with soft hands…
It also makes the story of the living jars even more deeply tragic. They don’t know what horrors their kind were born from - they just want to live and grow their flowers. But to Marika and her perfumers they must represent something far more disturbing.
One key clarification - the guidance of grace actually appears before you kill messmer. It first appears when you kill the divine dragon lion beast boss, and is pointing you towards messmer in the shadow keep.
much appreciated!
Oh snap good eye I hadn't noticed
One thing I find quite interesting is that, in the DS trilogy, all things happened because gwen feared the fire would die out; and in ER a shit ton happened because Marika feared the fire would burn down her rule.
Both represent the stagnation of each order, in different ways. With Gwyn, he keeps the fire lit so as to alleviate the fear of his Age dying. In Elden Ring, the Erdtree represents Order and Age - and the passing of it - and so, it makes perfect sense that Marika feared any ‘Change’, she feared the one thing that could ‘change’ the Erdtree, and its very influence on an Age, and that’s Flame..
Both characters represent the same idea of a stagnating Order, in different ways. Gwyn with Fire, Marika with the Erdtree (which requires Fire to be ‘changed’)
My headcanon because i love ds lore and kind of dislike a lot of eldenring lore (especially the outer god, alien and finger parts)
Is that marika was the last one who collected all lord souls but instead of sacrificing her body and rekindling the flame with it was to bind these powers to one of the last arch trees
similar probably how to the bed of chaos was created by linking the chaos flame to an archtree.
With this power she created the eldenring which sets the rules for physics in her new world.
Bringing the age of gold.
Thats why she fears fire and declares it as sin because she knows that the giants want to rekindle the first flame.
With Melina being the last firekeeper.
And the flame of frenzie is last remains of the chaos flame.
As we saw in lothric in ds3 holy power and gold seems to come from those familys connected to rekindling the flame
Meanwhile rykard was seduced by the primordial snakes which became irrelevant after marika banishing the circle of fire and dark
@@TheSolarium18 be honest, you just want dark souls 4.
@@samueln.rnascimentodosreis6918 haha yeah i guess you are right.
But mostly because i think that the world that darksouls has built with the circle of flame and dark and that we now practically the whole genesis story feels so much denser and better crafted than eldenring.
Eldenring might have a better present story but to be honest the genesis part of it is more than lackluster just a bunch of random outer gods and alien stuff
@@TheSolarium18 well, I guess you prefer it out of the difference in power. No matter how much you try the player will never be able to fight the outer gods who embody the aspects of nature like death and renewal (rot), death (that bird god), the creator (greater will), the desire to not be (frenzy) and destruction (fell god). Meanwhile in dark souls we actively become equal to the gods (we kill Nito, Gwyn, and the others), we actively become the greatest in terms of power. I personally prefer the idea of imortal and gods that can't be defeated but I understand preferring mortal gods that are more human. After all, going from random undead in a asylum to a godlike being that murders gods is awesome. In elden ring you start as a lowly tarnished with the outer gods above all and remain with them above all (frenzy takes control of you, ranni's ending the only difference is that there's no lord and god controlling humanity, nothing is now putting the outer gods in check since they don't care about the ring, and the rune endings... is the greater will who makes runes.) In the end you are still under the influence and personally I like that.
For why the Shamans were persecuted, my guess is that they likely didn’t have horns or any other indications of the Crucible on their bodies.
Looking at Marika we can see that she doesn’t have any horns and it’s more likely than not that the omens are persecuted in her order because they remind her of the hornsent. If her people also had horns then her hatred would be towards the hornsent as a people and not towards anything containing horns as well.
As for the brand on the forehead, I have no idea what it means but I do think that it’s where Marika’s iconic pose cones from. It sorta looks like her pose and rune but with extra lines added on. I think she might have chosen it as her symbol as an act of defiance. Taking this symbol of persecution and turning it into a symbol of strength.
i would agree, however Midras manse contradicts this. He's referred to as "The Great Midra", ghost hornsent npcs refer to the inquisitors(also hornsent) as their brethren, and Midra and Nanaya have no horns to be seen anywhere on them.
@@Shtummyyy That’s certainly a good point and I concede that it may very well be the case that Marika’s people were persecuted for different reasons, however I also think that it may be a case similar to the ancient dragons or the Carians for the Golden Order where the other factions was simply too powerful/useful to destroy and so was rather incorporated into the ruling order.
Pretty ironic that two of his children grew horns at their birth
It is said in an item description that Shaman flesh blend well with others, I don't think they were hunted by hate, but because it was needed to perform pot ritual
@@ribvra Right, I forgot about that. That’s probably it then. Thanks for that.
Another reason for slaying Miquella could be because St.Trina, also known as Miquella's love, was ''detached'' from Miquella like a shadow version. This implies that St.Trina represents a part of Miquella that is more ''alien'' to him. For why have your love manifest as a seperate ''shadow'' if Miquella was a ''paragon'' of love? This to me implies that Miquella might actually be a narcissistic-sociopath, further compounded by the fact that he manipulates and abandon his sister, betrothed, order/congregation not to mention potentially forcing Radahn to become consort. The Hornsent even sugests that Miquella is a monster, not unlike a Sociopath, for one of the most trade mark signs of a narcissistic-sociopath is that the individual belive themselves to be loving and compassionate despite everything they do is completley selfcentered without regard for consequence of others. Imagine what world he would create; a world that is completley devoid of individual will, a world that only worships an venerates a god devoid of compassion who thinks itself the source of all love, a ''gentle'' pacified world that wich only exists to serve a deity who has no care for anyone but itself.
Miquella is just Griffith from berserk. Sacrifice everything for dream and godhood, turns out that methods not quite good, but it rly makes him evil? Intentions was good, and age of his godhood can be heaven in lands beetween, just like Griffiths Falconia for peoples who don't know anything about how it was builded
he is griffith 2, he trhows away his humanity and everithing to ascend. even his afection, in order to make a peacefull world by force and power, not love
This is why I think Miquella himself being the last boss would have been so much more satisfying, especially if the now-separated St Trina could potentially help you or guide you to/in the fight if they had identified St Trina as the *actual* virtuous driving force that we heard about Miquella in base game
I want to like Miquella, but perhaps I'm falling for the charm too. The main problem with him is his ability to charm, which is an attack on free will. This isn't a problem for the demigods, as they have a role to fill (Goldmask T-pose), with their fate being dictated by stars, humanity isn't dictated by fate, but free will. Henceforth, Miquella's charm is more evil than it seems; one who is loving wouldn't force your love in return. Take Jesus for example; Jesus did not charm anyone. He spent a great deal of his time arguing and debating with others to win them over. Not to mention His sacrifice on the cross to forgive our sins. While Miquella sacrificed much of his self for his ambition of godhood, to charm someone is to deny forgiveness, to say "I don't trust you not to sin, so I won't allow you to because I won't forgive you."
tl;dr don't feel bad about slaying Miquella, for he deceives you with sweet words and golden appearance.
I don't really get why people believe everything is black or white in the lore when we know FromSoft games and Miyazaki ( and hell, GRRM too) have a very different idea of worldbuilding and character building. The great majority of characters operate in a grey area that is different from good or bad: they each have their motives and ideals and they act in different ways which could be perceived in different ways. Miquella is obviously depicted as a demigod with motives that can be perceived as good - creating a new order that doesn't leave anyone behind, putting kindness as the basis for his age. The tragic element of the story is that by ascending to godhood he divests himself of all that made him different from the old order, thus becoming very similar to his mother who we now know had motives for the awful things she did as well. What's the point of turning the game narrative into literal fandom wars? Miquella is not an exclusively EVIL character just how Marika Ranni or the hornsent aren't. I think it's important that we excercise critical thinking with a game that obviously puts the gray morality of the characters as a center piece.
GEOFF!! Big theory re: marika's origin. Very interesting regarding the term "invaders" used by the hornsent to describe the shaman, which implies that they were from another place.. Echoing this, we see a number of large ships on the cerulean coast that echo the architecture of the eternal cities, even including glovewort, which has an association with them as well. In addition, at the ship on the westernmost coast, there is a fight with the demi-human queen "Marigga." Along with the language "first set foot," this would seem to support that she disembarked one of these vessels, first setting foot in this world via the cerulean coast before moving on to settle in the locations where we find the gaols (including charo's grave nearby), and the shaman village. Using the language "first set foot" rather than calling it her home or where she was born confers some ambiguity that i think lends itself to this interpretation. After settling these various locations, the shaman/numen eventually became victims of the hornsent's genocide, being marked as "invaders" from another world with potentiallly heretical practices.
I agree. I think Marika’s people (Numens) traveled to the Lands Between from afar. And then, a small section of the Numens (Shamans) who were Marika’s CLOSEST peoples (family, even??) were then sacrificed as being seen as foreigners, to further the Hornsent’s cycle of life within their worship of the Divine Crucible. All life blended together. We see this practice all over Enir Ilm, where the trees, towering spires, and the divine gate, are all made up of Bodies offered up as sacrifice by the Hornsent.
It seems like the Hornsent culturally, and willingly, sacrificed themselves to the Divine Crucible. But they also had UNwilling subjects that they saw as foreigners too (Marika and Messmer’s closest people)
"Across the fog, the lands between" in the intro is a bit undertranslated-
Its closer to "Across the [sea of fog] in the [land of rifts]"
Its meant to imply the land could possibly be traveled to by boats, and possibly only through dieing, and the place being a reincarnating afterlife---
A common japanese theme of crossing the ocean being equivalent to dieing. Like crossing the river styx, or the river of life in european cultures.
I assume the ships are meant to say "here is where the history lies, now translated only into culture and mythology by the current inhabitants"
Oh and yeah, the example of the tower pretty much confirming that, even though it was obvious, by the place basically being valhalla for the tarnished.
"The very center of the lands between. All manners of death wash up here, only to be suppressed."
those aren’t ships they’re called coffins many times
Ps, Godfrey's axe has an octopus/squid on it, implying there's literally a kraken in the sea of fog 🐙
There is a chance that the Numen Are nomads that seemingly moved from one place to another with them having might have stopped at land of shadows/Hornsent realm and another in the Lands between possibly both groups with marika being from the group that went to the Hornsent’s realm
I’m simmering on an interpretation that Miquella’s enchantment/bewitching might not even be always by choice and part of his “affliction”. In the same way Malenia can spread rot and “infect” people, maybe Miquella (at least at times) couldn’t help that people were charmed by him. Maybe only later did he start using it for his own purposes.
I think it’s a fair interpretation. An extra downside to being an empyrean.
Naw its his ability.
Thats why his rune shattering broke it for people.
He controls and is abusive with it, even his spell tells you from his remembrance he normally charms everyone but was rejected by one, which more than likely made him go nuts and do what he did to get his way.
@@JJJ42069 the one not charmed by Miquella is the tarnished...
@@hamjime More likely Radahn, Miquella doesnt know us yet, he has to charm you in person, at least everyone whos charmed by him did meet him at least once, so I thought.
I don't think the statue inside the tree in Shaman Village is a statue of Marika, but is instead "The Grandmother" that Marika offered her braid to, which is why we find the braid here and not in Belurat, with the Empyrean Grandam. The braid says that there is no one left to answer, so I believe that The Grandmother of Shaman Village and the Empyrean Grandam of Belurat were two different people with similar roles; One of them a Shaman, who we find inside the tree with the braid, and the other a Hornsent, who we meet in Belurat and would be able to tell someone what Marika's offering was for, if the offering was indeed made to her.
Anyone else reminded of DNA and RNA by the crucible/erdtree parallel? RNA being a single helix and DNA a double helix. It also makes sense in terms of an idea of ‘primordial’ life as some theorise abiogenesis to have come in the form of something similar to retroviruses first.
I think with the final memory that Radahn did initially agree to be his consort, but that it happened when Miquella was still a believer in the Golden Order. When he turned away from the golden order is when I think Radahn rejected him.
Miquella turned away from fundamentalism becuase it couldn't cure Malenia's rot. But then Miquella orders Malenia to nuke Caelid to get Radahn back? It doesn't make sense, considering what we knew of Miquella's motivations.
@@CreativeUsernameEhHe wanted Radahn dead, and I believe her blooming wasn't an intentional act by her, it just happened when she was about to be defeated.
@@nullandvoid7524 Yes, just like it does in our fight with her.
@@CreativeUsernameEhHis ultimate goal above everything is a "gentler world". We see at the end of the day he is willing to resort to any depth to accomplish that goal (killing his siblings and getting rid of his flesh and mind controlling everyone). So while it isn't out of the realm of possibility he would order her to sacrifice herself for his goal, he probably expected her to win the fight in the first place because she had never known defeat.
@@nullandvoid7524 The blooming was intentional; she removed the golden needle used to hold the Scarlet Rot at bay prior to using it. What wasn't intentional was the bombing of all of Caelid.
Appreciate you taking the dive and being the first big lore guy to make an in depth vid on the lore of the DLC
Thanks Jacob!
I'm wondering if Radahn holding back the stars was a way of him resisting Miquella's influence? Can't have your fate changed if your fate never moves 🤔 We dont really see any other characters meaningfully resist Miquella's embrace, and I think it explains why Radahn had to die and be resurrected
I'm of the opinion that The Stars are under the influence of another unknown outer god. Rahdan was sent by the Greater Will to hold back The Stars so it would have no competition in influencing The Lands Between. I think that's what Ranni's ending is about, she is going to use the powers of The Stars to kill the Greater Will and ascend as a goddess.
@@ThwipThwipBoomI think the Greater Will is a part of “the stars”, as in it’s an entity that is a part of the lovecraftian eldritch horror that are the Outer Gods, residing in the void and seeking to spread their influence to worlds beyond number. It sends its agents, the fingers, to worlds to find a host (Marika) and use that host to implant its order and sap power or something (all souls return to the erdtree now). Radahn halting the stars was maybe an attempt to stop other outer gods from interfering on the Greater Will’s territory, though the other gods still manage to try by infecting Empyreans, the possible successors to Marika.
Side note, I think that’s what all the golden trees that we see during the Elden Beast fight mean. All those trees are other Erdtrees on other worlds that the Greater Will has conquered, and the lands between are just one more world to devour.
Small but hopefully enlightening note: I don't think that Marika continued the practice of making jar-folk, but instead wanted them to live on in her new world if possible.
Remember, they are still her people - stuffed into pots but living nonetheless. We also see from Alexander that they don't really die - they smash but eventually reconstitute (like our pot items), so long as their pottery isn't being poached (note poached, implying what Perfumers were doing is illegal).
It makes the jar folk in the Marika's lands a newly free people with a very bittersweet story. Their creation was a thing of horror, but they're so kind and valiant now, and can be found everywhere taking on different professions. Some live in peace in a secret village, while others join Raya Lucaria to become sorcerers. There's also an encampment outside of Caria manor. Actually, there might be something to so many Jar folk living in Liurnia, but not sure what yet. Others seem to challenge Erdtree Avatars en masse and failed.
I think those broken pots near the minor erdtrees were (willingly or unwillingly) used as "fuel" for them to grow. We know that the Erdtree absorbs dead bodies to give them new life. so why not?
''The first significant evolutionary radiation of life on land occurred during the Devonian'' -Wikipedia page on the Devonian Era.
Devonia is the longest serving of the Crucible knights. I love this symbolism.
Yeh true - alongside 'Siluria'
@@SmoughTownone of the Crucible knight duo is also named. Ordovis after the Ordovian period
So, Mohg wasn't a creep? He was being used by his half brother. And Miquella was using us to kill Mohg so he could use his corpse to resurrect Radahn?
Yup!
The most GRRM writing style ngl
Personally, I still think he’d be a massive creep without Miquella
@@threemeters1425 I'm currently of the opinion that Miquella's compulsion of Mohg was more akin to subtle suggestions slowly feeding the victim with temptation until they end up already walking the path of their own volition and not just straight-up brainwashing unless it needs to be. Kinda reminds me of the Laer Blade tempting the Primarch Fulgrim of the Emperor's Children from the Horus Heresy series of Warhammer 40,000.
@@VictorIV0310 It was brainwashing though. Ansbach himself says it.
That he even tried to stop Miquella after he bewitched Mohg, and got bewitched himself.
I think the Gloam-Eyed Queen was the Empyrean queen of the Hornsent. The trailer speaks about 'a seduction and a betrayal' on Marika's part, and clearly shows her hand taking something from a corpse that looks a lot like Godskin - we know the Gloam-Eyed Queen led the Godskin cult. I think it would have looked something like this:
- Marika, among the last of her shaman/Numen people, seduces the Gloam-Eyed Queen in the form of Radagon.
- This coupling bears two children, Messmer and Melina. Messmer has Radagon's hair, and Melina has a funky gloam-eye, as shown in the Frenzied Flame Ending.
- Marika, having made contact with the Fingers (perhaps for power to avenge her people?), receives her shadow from the Greater Will: Maliketh.
- The 'betrayal' is Marika using Maliketh to kill the Gloam-Eyed Queen.
The linking piece of evidence is the Godslayer's Greatsword, which we know was the Gloam-Eyed Queen's personal weapon. And it's indisputably a spiral, the sacred symbol of the Hornsent. Presumably, what Marika is seen taking from the Queen's corpse is the Rune of Death.
Maybe I'm lost in the sauce, I dunno.
I think this is the best theory yet! I've been floating around something similar, but this also has the benefit of keeping historical characters to a minimum. If Messmer's original curse was the Abyssal Serpent this makes even more sense, with the Godskin associations with snakes. Perhaps the Gloam Eyed Queen is a Numen Empyrean who became vessel to the Serpent, whose shed skin we see in Bonny Village.
I like this idea a lot. The Melina = Gloam-eyed Queen theory never quite fit for me due to Maliketh's defeat of the Queen. The timeline just didn't fit. If the jars harmoniously blend everything together with a Shaman, maybe Marika made it through that process being melded with giants of the fire, snakes, and all matter of living creatures, thus had those things present within herself when she had children and inadvertently passed them on to her children. And Radagon could be an amalgamation of warrior and giant within Marika that , for whatever reason, retained a personality that Marika either used or succumbed to through the ages.
Edit: though I guess then a question to answer is: did the union of Radagon/GEQ result in the Queen giving birth, or Marika? Because the statue of Marika holding baby Messmer definitely seems like a more motherly connection to Marika than to the Queen. Though I suppose also that baby could be Melina, and both Marika AND the Queen could have given birth from the union? lol
@@will5110 Initially I had pinned Messmer as a child of MarikaRadagon and the GEQ in this theory, which didn't really have any other backing than Messmer's remembrance which discusses his younger sister having a vision of fire, which must be Melina.
The theory has actually strengthened since then, because FromSoft removed that description from Messmer's remembrance, meaning he can fit as the third cursed child of Marika/Radagon and leave Melina as the sole child of MarikaRadagon and the GEQ. This would make Melina the eldest child, probably.
Amazing theory!
Down in the deeproot depths, just below the roots of the Erd Tree, you’ll find the remains of a much older dead tree that’s protected by crucible knights. In fact you find several crucible knights littered around the underground areas.
My interpretation was that Marika planted HER Erd Tree on top of the Crucible tree and then let it sink into the depths along with everything else Marika despised and wanted gone or forsaken.
That map you displayed was spot on because that would put Ymir and all the finger stuff near Liurnia which makes sense.
Another fun note about the overlaying of the maps; The Erdtree sits right on top of a finger ruin. The one in which we find Metyr.
100% very compelling
The scadu tree seems to arc in a circular motion around the erd tree. Perhaps before the realm shattered and separated the scadu tree use to wrap around the erd tree like a spiral perfectly coinciding with the spiral imagery .
@@M_reapr 100% agree! I've been staring at the scadutree when taking final boss breaks since that grace has a great view. It looks very much like the scadutree is the twisting trunk and the straight trunk is the erdtree. Phantom erdtree branches arise only from the straight trunk's canopy, and it also seems to be the one trunk that is oozing gold. The warped wrapping reminds me of the self-mutilating twisting growth of Mohg's horns, with the Scadutree having pierced the Erdtree causing the oozing we see.
From Scadutree Base it also seems clear the Scadutree begins from two intertwining trunks that are then twisted around the listing Erdtree, which originates far from the Scadutree base. The Hinterlands also gives a view that indicates it may be a great twisting with many origin points, perhaps better representing the Crucible. All thi may be representative of Marika's attempt to suborn the Crucible in creating Order. Straightening one arm of the Spiral and veiling the discarded half seems extremely potent imagery for Marika, and also relevant to the themes of Miquella.
I've been so hyped for this video. There's just so much new lore it's insane. Especially for Mogh and his entire story.
Unreal how much new lore right?
@@SmoughTown i really do love what they did with Mogh the most. It puts him in entirely new light.
@@polo5760yh victimises a child rapist. Amazing right.
For me now, the big question is what is Mohg's true nature? Ansbach seems like a decent guy so why would he follow the Formless Mother? An outer god who craves for torture and violence endlessly? Are there deeper aspects to her nature that aren't so inherently terrible?
@@eurongreyjoy2 I did hear that the formless mother could be accepting of outsiders since alburnarics are present in Moghwyn, as well as the bloodfiends turning torwards her when they were at their lowest point, but at the same time, being a "nice guy" doesn't mean you're neccesarily good. Ansbach is smart, wise, and polite, but that doesn't mean he's a good person. He could easily be a monster on the battlefield and be perfectly fine with whatever atrocities his faction commits. You would think he would call out Miquella even harder, saying stuff like "oh he tricked all of us into going down a path of mindless and excessive bloodshed". He would have a lot of reason to say it, but the only part he's concerned with is how Mogh was treated. Which is honestly consistent with how the faction is structured because Mogh is literally a figure of worship, second only to the formeless mother. Sanguine Nobles literally dress like him.
What's interesting about the spell you find in the shaman village is that it mentions Marika being bathed in gold. When I read those words I remember godrick mentions returning to a place bathed in gold so it makes me wonder did she tell her children stories about the shaman village or was it just about the erdtree in general.
...oh gods there's a jar family outside Godrick's arena...
What I really love about the dlc is how much it changed my perspective on Marika. I honestly thought she was just evil but knowing what the Hornsent did to her people really puts a perspective on things.
I understand why she put Mohg and Morgott in the sewer. Quite frankly the fact she didnt cut of their horns just shows me that there might have been a small part pf her that still loved them.
Does it though? She did the same thing when she became god. Her little Erdtrees are surrounded by pots, there's a giant one in Caelid, she is very much so an evil goddess.
@@CreativeUsernameEhI'm pretty sure the pot in the land between simply collect dead body like Alexander did to radahn and they aren't filled with... The abomination created by hornesent
She commited genocide against the giants caused multiple wars with multiple types of people, shunned and exiled large groups of people for being different and not following her beliefs, she is a wrathful god nothing can justify what she does after what happens to her
@@user-op6kt8pg9y The fact people jump to protect her and say she's justified is fucking mentally insane.
@@CaladirYour using modern morality to judge an ancient culture. By modern Western standards all the different cultures we see in the game are evil and most of the things they do 'cannot be justified'. It's pointless to use modern standards of conduct to judge these various parties because it gives the same final judgement on them. So it is pointless to use modern standards at all when discussing them.
What I've really been contemplating is how the Miquella/Radahn info in the DLC impacts the lore of Castle Sol. I don't think Commander Niall's mission was anything to do with Godwyn in light of Miquella's wish, but I haven't seen anyone discussing the implications of this.
Almost as if the DLC's story was originally meant for Godwyn, and not for someone Miquella had expressed interest in literally once in the main game.
@@tibot4228 Yeah I got that feeling too in a way. It's said that Godwyn and Miquella were very close. It would have made a lot of sense. I personally thought that the barechest man with Golden hair we see grabbing a rune in the air was Godwyn back when it released since he looked adult and wore a grey skirt, something we saw Godwyn wear while being killed by the Black Knives. Miquella was always shown fully clothed and wearing seemingly white. I also thought Miquella wanted to be in the Land of Shadows because he was convinced he could do something for his brother there
I actually think it fits together very well. It is quite possible that Godwyn's soul was Miquella's first choice as the heroic lord, and when Castle Sol operation failed, he went for his 2nd best choice which is Radahn.
@@tibot4228 The DLC story wouldn't work for Godwyn at all, though. Godwyn's soul is destroyed, and his body is a monstrosity.
@@tibot4228yeah okay and so what did Malenia whisper in Radahn's ear in the first trailers? "You have nothing to do with Godwyn but I still want to tell you that he's gonna be Miquella's consort; however I still want to kill you for some reason"? The whole thing was set in place from the start (as Miyazaki confirmed in recent interviews), people just don't want to accept it cause it's not what they had thought
The "statue" in Marika's village isn't a statue. It looks like the mummified remains of a numan women, likely referring to "The Grandmother". We see many mummified people, hornsent and otherwise, in places of sacred significance to their people. We get the spirit ashes upgrade from mummified Hornsent.
There's also an irl practice where monks would basically mummify themselves alive so maybe the Devs were inspired by that.
I agree
That's a legend, not an actual practice.
@@ArcessitorIt was an actual practice from 1081 to 1903, and apparently the Meji government even outlawed it in 1877, which didn't stop at least one Monk named Bukkai. His and 9 other mummies are historically recorded as well.
@@sebastianb.3978nice detail
it's not a maybe, they most definitely were, you even read about it in item descriptions - it's called Asceticism - the curseblades were ascetic and so on
Been waiting for this one. Killer work as always mate, can always rely on the GOAT to bring some incredible content. Cheers 🍻
I read on twitter that "Shaman" in Japanese is would more accurately describe something like the "Miko" of Japanese Shintoism who are female priests, shrine maidens.
Also isn't the statue under the tree in the Shaman Village of the Grandmother? After all the statue does look like an old lady and the golden braid of Marika looks like an offering to it. The description talks of Marika praying.
I don’t actually think this is a mistake in translation. The only thing it wouldn’t communicate was that they were all women, but honestly that was my baseline assumption.
Pretty sure thats not a statue at all, just a woman's preserved body
That was my read as well. That before she left on her crusade Marika left the braid at the shrine/grave of some figure important to her people/village
@@buckyhurdle4776 It's a statue. There's another identical one in Bonny Village, except headless.
@@colovianhastur5962 what if that one is a statue of this real woman?
Can’t believe how fast you got something of this quality released. So stoked. Also Scadu is just pronounced “Shadow/Shadoo”. It just uses the Old English root, like its siblings the Erdtree (earth tree/world tree) and Haligtree (holy tree)
Much appreciated my friend
Haha - yeh thanks, I am unfortunately to used to saying it wrong now. Will try to fix for the next one!
@@SmoughTown haha yeah Scadu is just another ‘Siofra’ situation where everyone is going to say it wrong until we get used to it. I literally learned it yesterday when I got suspicious and looked up the root. The video is just as incredible as ever and I can’t believe how much research you must have been doing. Thanks for what you do m8
Handing out Mohg apology forms
I'm sorry mohg, I thought you were a mohglester.
Chop chop,back on the clock,please make a new video it's been 2months already
Sorry Mohg. I never realised that Miquella pulled an Amber Heard on you
@@maxthepaladin2147 amber heard has nothing to do with this. Depp was found guilty of abuse in court. They went to court in London and he lost, then he took another case in America to argue that she impacted his career the case in America didn’t prove that he was innocent. That’s just how it was spun in the media.
Mogh got catfished
The map overlap, I have to say, blew me away. That was awesome and made so much sense! This is a great video and thanks for all the time you put into this!
What's the time stamp on that?
I think Gate of Divinity works by absorbing and gathering the runes of those that are sacrificed to it. Considering it's built from corpses and we see it's literally full of blood in the story trailer. It's a massive human sacrifice, which allows to create a massive rune, the power of which makes one a god. Marika just cheated the system and absorbed it all. From the hornsent, from the sacrifices made by the hornsent and later from their gods. The culminated power allowed her to manifest a rune strong enough to power up the reality. The Elden Ring, probably previously divided up into life in general, when Elden Beast first hit the Lands Between.
i thought that she command to kill the hornsent in the crusade.. thats waaaaay after she became a god.. so i still dont know what corpses she used in the story trailer... im having issues to figure out a consistent timeline.. first of all corpses were needed (who knows from whom) then she became a god.. then magically the erdtree appeared with that size? doubt it.. as every tree it might need time to grow that huge size (same for scadutree at the same time) ...then in the interim of the trees growing i asume many events happened like the war with the giants so that radagon is cursed and got red hair and so now we can speak of the birth of messmer and not a second before (because he have red hair anda radagon is the only possible connection).. then the crusade starts.. so the corpses in the story trailer? whose would they be? D:
Except the Elden Ring (which is the Elden Beast) already existed prior to Marika, as shown by the engravings in Farum Azula.
It looks like a bunch of shamans shoved together, to form a gate, like that of the Jar innards. Marika didn't cheat, she revolted and took the destruction of her people as a tool for her power and eventual childrens hope of supremacy
There is an incantation from the DLC that reveals the Crucible is a current like the primeval current, so it is more a force of the universe layered over everything which the Gate of Divinity is designed to allow people to somewhat access it. Marika's blood sacrifice of the hornsent is probably more related to Erdtree's needing blood to grow somehow or what allowed her to not need to sacrifice her flesh like Miquella did (probably why the Erdtree and Haligtree are so big and special compared to all the minor erdtrees in the based game). Or it could be related to Marika somehow tying the Erdtree directly into/with the Crucible somehow.
why was my message erased?
Cool detail that occurred to me: you have to kill both Mohg and Radahn to enter the Land of Shadow, thus you can only get there after collecting two Great Runes and gaining the right to become Elden Lord.
Also, a thought regarding St. Trina: Miquella appearing to call her 'my love' may mean that, rather than her embodying his love and attachment, that they share a relationship similar to that of Marika and Radagon, i.e. that Miquella is in love with her. His abandoning of St. Trina may not only be part of shedding his connections to the old order, but he may have felt was necessary to 'make room' for Radahn to be his consort. It makes me wonder if this may also be part of why Marika physically separated herself from Radagon and sent him to fight the wars in Liurnia-- she had chosen Godfrey to be her Elden Lord, needed his strength and his battle prowess, and thus Radagon had to go, especially if they already had children together. Radagon is noted as having aspired to be complete, and it makes me wonder if there's some inherent pull between the two personas-- that once they become separate identities, they feel an innate need to be together so as to be complete.
The idea that a Lord must be present for a god to ascend is interesting, since it begs the question: which Lord was present when Marika became a god? Was it Godfrey? Or, if Mesmer and Melina truly are the first generation of demigods, born to Marika and Radagon, did Radagon fill that role? Since St. Trina exists as a part of Miquella when he's still just an Empyrean and not a god, I think Radagon could have also existed before Marika became a god, though maybe he only gained a body of his own upon her ascension. Maybe, similar to how Miquella used Mohg's body as a vessel for Radahn's soul, someone else's body (maybe the person who Marika 'seduced' and killed) was used as a vessel for Radagon? That raises the possibility that, since the resurrected Radahn still carries traces of Mohg, Radagon might similarly show some characteristics of that person. What immeadiately jumps to mind is Radagon's red hair, which we know he despised, possibly because of some connection to the giants. Maybe the original owner of his body was a giant, or in some way related to them? If that person was also the god or Lord of the Hornsent, that would certainly add an interesting dimension to the giants' faces and the visage of the Fell God being used on the Furnace Golems.
I would push back slightly on the assertion that Mesmer's crusade took place after the banishing of Godfrey and the Tarnished. As I understand it, once Godfrey was banished, Radagon immediately left Rennala to take his place as Elden Lord, thus breaking her heart and leaving her as the shell of her former self we see in-game, which doesn't really mesh well with the description of Rennala giving Rellana her blessing and gift, which to me sounds much more like Rennala in her prime, i.e. before Radagon left her. I think considering things and people from the Lands Between keep showing up in the Land of Shadows, it's entirely possible for Mesmer to have learned of the Tarnished after he was stranded in the Land of Shadows.
"Cool detail that occurred to me: you have to kill both Mohg and Radahn to enter the Land of Shadow, thus you can only get there after collecting two Great Runes and gaining the right to become Elden Lord." I don't think that really has anything to do with being able to be Elden lord... they just both need to be dead to make the DLC story work
Radagon probably co existed in some form with marika way before she ended up with godfrey. I’m thinking messmer must be amongst the oldest of her children, if not her firstborn. All of marikas childrens order of birth is crucial to get a proper timeline of all the events in the game.
I find it quite interesting that Marika adopted symbols associated with Hornsent inquisition as sings of divinity: shape similar to rune arc was interpreted as barbs used in interrogation in Hornsent society, and color gold was generally a color of punishment devices, such as the sword Midra was impaled with. This only strengthens her association with christian symbolism
Oof it really all pulls together
1:25:53 so much "that's it?" energy I can't even fathom how they thought this would be at all satisfying
Thanks for not using a spoiler thumbnail, cant wait to watch!
Thanks my friend! Yeh tried to choose an image that didn't reveal more than the trailers.
The biggest thing for me lorewise was the last part of ”Messmer’s kindling” where it said: SPOILER
”Messmer, much like his younger sister, bore a vision of fire.”
agreed - massive revelation
Nah, imo the craziest was the revelation of metyr being the mother of all two fingers, and even she hasn't heard from the greater will in a long time. Have the two fingers actually been conversing with metyr, and metyr was just winging it due to the absence of the greater will? And she was the first meteor to hit the lands between. Dlc lore was awesome. Wish we got more godwyn and gloam eyed queen stuff, though.
@@Cas-ed9obthe Ymir questline in general has some massive revelations about the Greater Will in general, most importantly of which being that its not an Outer God, instead its like.. capital G God God
Is it referring to Malenia? If so, what does that actually mean?
@gavinallen2955 it's referring to Melina, as she is the only other person in the game it describes as "seeing a vision of fire"
I JUST came home from work. This is so perfect.
In reference to how they got their army to the land of Shadow, it probably required those that followed to willingly give up their golden grace, this is supported by the fact that we have to give knight Queelign grace in order for him to become spirit ashes, this would explain why the ppl in the lands between viewed them negatively and also why Andreas rebelled after learning Messmers secret
Also those labeled criminals were probably stripped of grace and conscripted , explaining their specific misgivings with the crusades goal
Visiting the Shaman Village and discovering the 2 lore items there made me feel the same way I felt when I was reading Ymir Fritz's backstory in AoT.
Absolute chill and this otherworldly fantastical feeling.
Same, I actually just sat there and contemplated....
'this is Marika's hometown'
What a moment
@@SmoughTown the beginning of all our curses and blessings began in a quaint little village... man that was such a revelation to me
Marika's like Ymir Fritz after her village was raided, sacked and its people meeting a grisly fate but instead of becoming a slave to a king after making contact with a mysterious, otherworldly power, she used that power to become a god, usurped that king’s place and become a vengeful, genocidal tyrant (though not without her reasons).
@@VictorIV0310 yeah, also considering how close it is to Finger Ruins of Deos... there's many parallels here
@@SmoughTown the bgm I think is also similar to the beginning of the starting theme when we open the game. Those few harp strung, probably symbolizing a beginning
Here’s an interesting comment I found by user “lost-in-the-enigma” under Gingy’s Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree - Story & Ending Explained
“The DLC has changed my views of Miquella's curse of eternal youth from being one that focuses on his fate to never come to fruition and instead is simply a curse that keeps him as a child. As powerful and talented as he is, in my eyes Miquella has always had the mindset of a naive child.
Instead of having his curse doom his endeavors to fail, its his childlike tendency to abandon a task in search of a new idea or plan that has been causing him to fail time and time again. Miquella failed to find a way to fully cure Malenia's Scarlet Rot, and instead moved on to the Haligtree as his next project when he got a temporary fix. His safe haven to the oppressed was left to wither and rot when he entered his cocoon to possibly free himself of his curse. Without any sign of looking back at the horrors he is doing by abandoning his projects and goals time and time again, Miquella fails to ever consider the true ramifications of his actions.
The DLC makes this all the more clear. His plan to enter the Shadow Lands to become a god make his theft from the Haligtree into him abandoning it, leaving his followers to wait for him endlessly as the Scarlet Rot overtakes them. His desire to have Radahn be his Lord due to his kindness and strength comes off as a child idolizing an older brother, failing to see Radahn as his true self: a blood thirsty warrior who craved glory and battle endlessly.
His journey through the Shadow Lands shows him walking a path that I truly do not believe Miquella understood the ramifications of. He abandons his core characteristics as a part of his ascension to godhood, not realizing that he will become "caged by divinity" as he naively condemns himself to being a puppet of the Greater Will or some other Outer God.
Even his Age of Compassion is corrupted by his childlike view on the world. Instead of truly leading and changing the world, Miquella charms people into following him. And judging by his dialogue in the final fight, I don't think Miquella understands how brainwashing people into compassionate and kind people is no better than making them his puppets.
Overall, I find Miquella to be a very interesting character: A godlike being with the naivety of a child.”
absolute banger, thank you for this
This is a great comment, Radahn is not a good guy and would be a horrible lord for an age of compassion. I'd think Malenia or Godwyn would likely be better choices for Miquella, or hell what about the player character? We now know there was a cut Miquella ending, wonder what the thought process was there? Anyways, Miquella is a naive child with the powers of a god, definitely twilight zone worthy.
@@eurongreyjoy2I wonder if st trina would’ve worked somehow
I really wish we had more info on the gate of divinity. When I got to the final boss I was so excited to defeat it and learn what the hell it was and how it works, so I was a bit disappointed when we get almost nothing. Its such a cool and important set piece that it feels unsatisfying to have almost nothing on it.
Just say Nothing. You don't have to cushion it.
We know it was built by Belurat to better be able to interact with the "Crucible Currents". It can't be yhe only way to touch the Crucible Currents though because gods and the Elden Ring existed before Belurat existed.
Finally beat dlc and man was I waiting to watch this. Gonna be a good time listen to this while painting some necrons
Can we really call what Marika did a "betrayal" of the Hornsent when she clearly never owed them any loyalty? If anything, her actions are just the turning of the wheel of violence. The people in power abuse those below them, their victims eventually rise up, only to repeat their tormentor's mistakes later on. Hurt people hurt people until something (or someone) comes along to break the cycle. And Miquella is NOT that person, as we come to learn.
I think the “betrayal” refers to her maybe infiltrating their culture. Maybe seducing their ruler or something and that’s how she got access to the divinity gate and became a god.
Then she waged her war
it's not in an objective sense, it's from the POV of who is giving the info- which is the hornsent woman.
@Leftside08 indeed. I'm primarily critiquing the use of the term by lore scholars. Betrayal should be used sparingly, with heavily implied quotation marks, as it conveys the biased perspective of the Hornsent. An unbiased replacement word could be rebellion or revenge.
@@emilybroderick2421 100% agree, remember they compared being turned into a jar as to becoming a Saint. Meaning if I was forcing you into a jar, from my POV you'd have to be ungrateful and maybe even evil to not want to become a living embodiment of my faith. Versus from your POV I'd be a psychotic forest creature trying to whip you and stuff you into a jar. I could call you killing me a betrayal, but we both know that isn't what it is. It's rebellion.
Like others said, I imagine the betrayal mentioned came from her entering and then subverting the Crucible power structure: specifically through Godfrey and his forces. Given the very name of the Crucible Knights, he was very clearly associated with them and likely held some position of renown. My guess is she turned him against the Hornsent/Crucible Order alongside his knights, that being the seduction and betrayal the trailers mentioned
I've been staring at the Scadutree when taking final boss breaks since that grace has a great view. It looks very much like the Scadutree is the twisting trunk and the straight trunk is the Erdtree. The Sealing Tree seeming to be a simulacra of the Scadutree alone supports this, I believe. I'll discuss this twinned tree thusly in this post.
Phantom Erdtree branches arise only from the straight trunk's canopy, and it also seems to be the one trunk that is oozing gold. The map art bears this out as well, to the point I'm surprised I haven't seen it discussed yet. There are also the veils that directly mimic the veils in Marika's Bedchamber, connecting at the canopy of the Erdtree here, and at the center of the ceiling in that room. The locations of these don't seem to cleanly align with either the divine towers or Marika's Bedchamber, though I still like the theory that the Divine Towers are involved in the sealing. From the three primary vantage points of Divine Gate Front, Suppressing Pillar, and Jagged Peak Mountainside, the veils never quite line up just right. The Jagged Peak section also provides a stunning view of the silvery Phantom Erdtree branching. If overlapping the maps, I believe based on this that you must overlap them at the actual Erdtree/Scadutree base.
The warped wrapping reminds me of the self-mutilating twisting growth of Mohg's horns, with the Scadutree having pierced the Erdtree causing the oozing we see. This could be an indication of the resistance of the Crucible to being straightened or confined by Order, with the chaotic growth turning on the unnatural order imposed on it. Alternatively, this could be a representation of the metaphysical entanglement of God and Tree, and the oozing either coming from Marika's wounds after the shattering or from her psychic injuries that lead to her pursuing godhood, representing the inherently damaged nature of the Erdtree Order and mirroring the brokenness of Metyr.
From Scadutree Base it also seems clear the Scadutree begins from intertwining trunks that form a singular trunk that is then twisted around the listing Erdtree, which originates far from the Scadutree base. The Hinterlands also gives a view that indicates it may be a great twisting with many origin points, perhaps better representing the Crucible. This Scadutree also branches several times along the trunk, while the Erdtree does not. All this may be representative of Marika's attempt to suborn the Crucible in creating Order, perhaps both trees were twisted and intertwining before her involvement. Whether this was as a literal paired, intertwined spiral tree or a Crucible Current manifested into these trees isn't super important here. Straightening one arm of the Spiral and veiling the discarded half seems extremely potent imagery for Marika, and also relevant to the themes of Miquella.
Depending on how this is interpreted, it could have major implications for the Crucible, Marika's ascension, the Erdtree origin, the metaphysics of twinning, shadows, and spirals, and the timeline of the veiling of the Land of Shadow. I'd love to hear more diverse thoughts and takes on the twinned tree, how it came about and if these parts are indeed connected, but I think this is a good starting point for theorizing.
Edits for formatting and clarity.
Oh how I've been waiting for this! Time to get comfy and delve into lore!
Thanks for being here Ross! Means the world to me
Let’s go!
I'll have you know, I searched "SOTE video" intending to search for the trailer and your video was the first result. You have certainly made it
As someone who never pays attention to the lore while playing, you are always appreciated!
Means the world to me, thank you so much
I think I got it figured out, guys.
There used to be one single tree, the one depicted in crucible imagery and in Placidusax’s boss fight arena. Upon becoming god via the mechanism of the Divine Gate, Marika had her then-youngest child, Melina, burn the Crucible Great tree, and via some other mechanism (god power lol) literally inverted the area of Shadow Realm, including the charred remains of the Crucible tree (Scadu tree looks charred). Then, by re-arranging the runes of the Elden Ring Marika created the Golden Order (of runes in the Elden Ring), which created the golden (spirit) Erdtree, having the Scadutree as its roots (i.e., charred remains of the previous great tree).
I feel, somehow, the reason for the crusade wasn’t just vengeance, but rather that the endless rebirths of the Golden Order are ”paid for” by the never-ending slaughter in the Shadow Realm. Also, the Erdtree root system, which is the Scadutree, rebirths (or at least used to until the Elden Ring was shattered) things accepted by Golden Order back to the Lands Between, and the things rejected by it to the Shadow Realm, hence what we see therein.
Furthermore, the great sin referenced in multiple places is likely the act of burning the former Crucible Great Tree to create the Scadutree and/or the slaughter of the inhabitants of the Shadow Realm to ’feed’ the Golden Order. The roots ’feed’ a tree, the same is occurring here.
So burning the crucible does not kill her then but burning the erdtree does? I'm not so sure about that theory...
@@Kokosnuss We see her in an ethereal form, the aftermath of having her corporeal body burnt.
you're wrong because Marika clearly led the crusade vs the hornsent long after she became a god
meaning that first she ascended with divine gate
then she built the golden order
then a lot of stuff happened like giants war, renalla etc
then she led the crusade vs hornsent
and then she sealed the land of shadows and left mesmer behind
@@TheExai pls provide source
@@PrinceBilliamTheFourth well, for one, we're assuming messemer is radagons son cause of the red flowing hair, so it was at least at the point where marika became two beings in one. She has echoes in the lands between that speak about radagon "not yet becoming me," implying that their spiritual joining has yet to happen. It isn't until after these references that we start to see the empyreans referenced in the chronology. So we can assume, if messemer is indeed radagons son, that the following events are in chonronological order 1) Marika becomes a god and leaves the land of shadows, 2) Marika establishes the Golden Order in the lands between, 3) There is a war against the Giants and the Empyreans are born, but in what order? are they simultaneous? idk, somebody might but I'm just reiterating what I remember. 4) Now that messemer is alive, the invasion of the lands of shadow and the burning of its land and the hornsent happens, how far ahead in the future? Idk. Before or after the shattering? Probably before? But again, idk. All I can say for sure is the order of events of those 4 specific time periods. (the sealing of the land of shadows obviously coming after the invasion, didn't feel the need to distinguish between the two periods as really the latter is just the ending moment of the former)
you are the best fromsoft youtuber to date. I have frequently shared my respect and love for your content, and i will continue my patronage! Keep it up man
Means the absolute world to me my friend! So grateful for your support.
@@SmoughTown If you remain loyal to your calling, then no matter what you do, no matter what happens to me, I will never cease to support your videos. Until you have one to slay a god.
Doesn’t the ending kind of recontextualize the Golden Epitaph Sword? „Dear Brother, Lord Brother, please die a true death“ - maybe he was praying for Radahn to not end up like his golden brother down at the roots because he needed Radahns soul in the shadow realm and not to get it destroyed for his plan to work out?
The description does explicitly say that the sword was made to commemorate Godwyn and his death.
Which is why I wish we could have fought Godwyn instead. The way Fromsoft designed it, though a bit strangely, was
Kill Radahn and use his soul
Kill mohg and use his body
Put Radahns soul into mohgs body ➡ Radahns younger body with bits of horns on the arms
Since it was mohgs body being used, why did only a few horns come through? Does that mean that if it was reversed, and mohgs soul was put in Radahns body, would you get a young Mohg who can use a bit of gravity magic? Weird.
If it was up to me, I'd put Radahns soul into Godwyns body.
@@spacefaringyoshi
@@es-rh8oo in a different video a fellow theorized that Miquella would fully revive Godwyn's soul and place it in Mogh's body, resulting in the final boss being Moghwyn, the Promised Consort.
That would have been so peaaaaaak.
@@spacefaringyoshi yeah you know I still don't know where godwyns soul went. Because the whole night of the black knives plot was that ranni "killed" her body (which you can find in the Liurnia divine tower, black and burnt with some red hair). But her soul remained. She somehow kept it intact and preserved, and put it inside the Doll body which she animates and talks through even though it's not flesh and bone.
And Godwyn's soul was "killed". But his body remained intact. How do you even kill a soul? And when you do kill it, does it just disappear forever? Also, why did Godwyn's body turn like that (disgusting, gross, fly ridden, diseased) just because his soul was killed? Would any living being turn exactly like that if their souls were "killed" with their bodies left intact? Or is it somehow only Godwyn who turns like that?
Poor dude. I suppose his soul is gone so he's not technically suffering. He effectively doesn't exist anymore because his soul somehow doesn't exist. Even if you got him his old body back, there would be no soul to fill it with... No memories...
Too many questions and not enough answers... My brain hurts
@@es-rh8oo so from what I understood.... Godwyn's appearance is meant to look like a yokai that is sort of like a mermaid or fish but once killed it curses the murderer. The in game explanation would be that death is associated with water (tibias marines), so the first undead being a mermaid since he's the most undead of them all tracks.(all undead are corpses with souls, Goldwyn is even more dead than them).
29:19 I'd like to point out that I think this isn't a statue of Marika. It clearly shows someone more frail, someone with thin, old limbs and rough hair. In fact, it's even the same statue as the beheaded one which gives you the gesture. The golden braid mentions Marika's offering to the Grandmother, an offering which was left at a statue. In my playthough, all these things pieced together into a conclusion that the statue depicts the Grandmother, not Marika. I thought it something unarguable, and yet I suppose interpretations vary among people.
I believe that lady Tanith was a dancer of Ranah in the past.
That would mean that rykard meet her in the land of shadows(giving more proof to your timeline of the war and the sealing).
defo - Zullie also showed that her model is more or less identical to Tanith's
@@SmoughTown Cool!!!
@@WyllBG3 I always thought she was a Dancer from Eochaid but I assumed it could’ve been a part of the land of shadow but yea that makes sense!
This would contradict the nox having numen ties. If the shaman are numen then how could they even gain enough respite to create the nox/sellia? When do astrologers go from being a small group to forming a faction capable of creating raya lucaria and a royal family like the carians? Why does the practice of crucible look so much less refined and crude than that of the hornsent?
To me it means that messmer crusade and marika ascent to power and then sealing of the land of shadow happen in an era before the rise of godfrey and their worship of the crucible. Some numen/shaman survived the hornsent and clearly had enough time to remake a civilization of their own before they made a big enough transgretion agaisn't the greater will.
1:32:00 re Prime Radahn being enthralled by Miquella - I thought the phase 2 transition cutscene hinted at this too. Radahn starts glowing red as he's losing, almost Mohg red, then Miquella comes out of the gate and all that red aura is suddenly transformed into gold
I believe you should rescale the maps relative to eachother for them to connect properly. The surpressing pillar needs to be in the middle of the lands between and the scadutree should roughly overlap with the erdtree. Then the jagged peak sits just off the coast near caelid, next to the bestial sanctum.
When you think about it, it makes a twisted amount of sense as to there seems to be so many spirits of people and creatures in the Land of Shadow and why Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring; It's to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends. Marika hates the Hornsent so much that she didn't simply want them to die, she wanted them to suffer for all eternity, turning the Land of Shadow, their own homeland, into hell where the crusaders can brutalize, scorch and impale its denizens even when they've long passed into nothing but spirits, all the while Messmer's Shadow Keep looms over the land like Barad-dûr from Lord of the Rings and the Scadutree stands tall and mighty as the Erdtree's shadow, a constant reminder that the Hornsent are condemned to an eternity of brutality under Messmer's rule without even the benefit of an afterlife. Since every hell needs a devil, Marika chose her son Messmer to fulfill that role.
On a related note, the design of the furnace golems seems to be a sort of twisted karmic retribution towards the Hornsent approved by Messmer and Marika. The shamans were mutilated, then stuffed into jars to become saints by the Hornsent so in response, Marika orders her son Messmer to wage a brutal, genocidal war against the Land of Shadow with his most prominent war machine being the massive furnace golems where Hornsent themselves are stuffed inside to serve as fuel for the machine as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery with its horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
I’m glad you were satisfied with the lore of the dlc as well. As a lore fiend, I had so much fun with this dlc. People who were dissatisfied by the lore definitely just rushed to bosses without combing through item descriptions and ignoring quests. There was a lot of sufficient build up to the final encounter via ansbach, freyja and leda dialogue. Not to mention all the other lore threads woven with the main narrative (marika origins, crucible, hornsent, frenzy flame, st. trina, finger origins, rot etc). Keep up the great work on the lore vids!
Agreed - ansbach and freyja's quests in particular really enriched the story!
As a lore enthusiast, I combed through all the item descriptions, did or researched all the quests, explored the vast majority of the map, and I'm still disappointed with the final boss. Why don't you stop strawmanning people's disappointments with the DLC and accept the possibility that FromSoft don't always do everything perfectly for everyone?
In my opinion, every new lore around everyone other than Radahn is done very well. I would've wished for more on St. Trina (especially new sleep spells) but what we got was acceptable. However, how shoehorned Radahn felt and the complete absence of new lore for Godwyn and deathblight (in the land where all manner of death ends up in no less) is just depressing, especially considering this DLC is likely the last of the Elden Ring IP.
@@jzt727could it be you were too excited about the possibility of godwyn and mostly disappointed cuz of that? No matter what our headcanons and fan theories, miyazaki will tell the story he wants to tell. It’s pretty much repeatedly said, godwyn’s soul has died. He’s not regular dead like the rest of the demigods when we’re done with them, he’s dead dead. Personally wouldn’t make sense seeing him come back in the dlc. But everyone’s allowed to have an opinion whether they like the story bring told or not. We can agree tho that we have a lot of lore to chew on for a while
@@vongolamistowl Again, you are making assumptions. I never said I wanted him revived. I never said I wanted him to be the final boss or even a remembrance boss for that matter. All I wanted was a scrap of new lore. Something that elaborated just a tiny bit more on Miquella's relationship with him that was alluded to so much in the base game. Instead we got nothing (apart from the death knights, but that doesn't tell us anything we don't already know). I mean, forgive me, but surely you must see how that might be wholly unsatisfying to a lot of people.
Look, I wished I enjoyed the final boss as much as you and many other people did, but unfortunately, narrative-wise, I didn't, and no amount of taking time with the bosses, exploring, combing through item descriptions, doing the questlines etc. is going to change that. Maybe one day I will grow to like it, but that's not gonna be any time soon.
@@jzt727 That’s totally fair tbh, I wouldn’t have minded some extra lore on godwyn and the nature of his death. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited for gloam eyed queen lore as well but I tempered my expectations since I know fromsoft tend to go in completely unexpected directions lmao. Hopefully we, the community can have fun with lore theory crafting regardless.
Each and every time I see a smoughtown video drops, I know I’m in for a good one. Makes me wonder how much of the stuff I haven’t gathered on my play through and usually forces me to go back and gather what I haven’t.
Means the world to me to hear that - hope you enjoy my take on the DLC!
For me the DLC has somewhat rescued ER from the family politics story (though you'll never sell me on this Radahn-Miquella twist, bleh) and improved the worldbuilding. This video lays it all out very nicely. I particularly appreciate the beautiful screenshots you took. It's one of the most visually stunning FromSoft DLCs, and you really bring that out here.
I believe you're right about the Crucible being more intangible than a literal thing. Since it encompassed all early life itself, struggling and growing in different directions, it's like the principle of Evolution in miracles & magic. It was probably akin to the principle of Causality (because it leads to diversity of life), but mixed with Regression's law, because various aspecst (such as wings, tails, claws, horns, etc.) can manifest in single persons and represent true unity of being. Basically Marika's order freezes everything so perfectly that it has to deny evolutionary theory.
You know, Alexander the Great was depicted with Omen-like horns when he declared himself Son of Ammon. Ptolemaic coinage and statues reflect it. Horns were divinity in almost all cultures before monotheism. Marika as one true god demonised horns, just like Christians and other monotheists demonised horned gods and serpents in real life. The DLC really drives home the ancientness of the crucible, and Marika's deeply personal reasons to reject it all, with this meaningful real-world historical symbolism too.
With this new context, I particularly like the fact that Ordovis' greatsword spins before slamming down. It's not exactly a spiral, but the whirligig motion is remniscent.
Ive been watching this while laying down, twice now i tried to watch it but wnded up falling asleep easily, your voice is just that calming i guess.
That's honestly great to hear tbh. Thank you
@@SmoughTown no problem sir 🫡
I don't really think you're lost in the sauce when talking about The Crucible. You didn't mention him in this video but Ymir honestly has some great insights when it comes to not only The Greater Will, but the Crucible and what the relationship may be between the two. Through doing Ymir's questline (disregarding his own "lost in the sauce" nature obsessing over the fingers), he has dialogue that implies/confirms that The Greater Will is more so a moment in time than a genuine force or god of the universe. He also talks of how The Greater Will would had to have created all life, as all life does indeed hold a piece of the Will inside of them.
But looking at everything to do with the Hornsent, they say that it was The Crucible that did all of the above instead. Furthermore, they too almost view it as a moment in time rather than a traditional God/Force as we would think of it. So obviously it can't be that both are true; that they are essentially two separate "Big Bangs" that helped create the ER universe. I think, much how you said with the Hornsent and the Crucible knights + Crucible, that the two are one in the same. That The Greater Will is nothing but a different interpretation of the Crucible, one of Order and the power that comes from it.
Furthermore, it entirely makes more sense why Ymir would say that the Order was flawed from the start. Though he only relates it to the fingers and them supposedly "communing" with the Will, he's quite literally correct when we look at HOW Marika created the Order. Through her crusade, she pilled countless bodies atop Bellurat to "call upon the gods". Whether or not she created the gate with the bodies I can't say, but regardless she did use the Hornsent as a sacrifice. And remembering how ALL LIFE has a piece of the Will inside of them (at this point though, it would mainly be viewed as the Crucible/raw power) I would conclude what Marika pulls from that flesh in the cutscene was just the coalesced power of countless hornsent. She would then take this power, and then use the gateway to "Call upon the Elden Beast" and thus forming The Golden Order and establishing The Greater Will. The Greater Will is nothing more than the perspective, the wish of order if you will, that Marika has for the world and wants to force upon it.
A "small" addition to the point of Crucible = Greater Will = Beginning of time, is pretty much the entirety of Shaman Village. By looking at the enviornment (untouched by war/undamage, reclaimed by nature, ancient in appearance) and the items within (mainly Minor Erdtree), we learn that Marika was indeed a ""miraculous birth". She was born during the Age of Hornsent and the Crucible to a small group of people that believed in the coming of a new god (see Ghost that is close by in Hinterlands). Before even forming the Golden Order, she seemingly was already eternal. 'Minor Erdtree' talks of how Marika cast the spell "knowing full well there was no one left to heal". She seemingly outlived everyone within her village, and 'Minor Erdtree' was not only just her form of grieving...it was unknowlingly her first act of defiance against The Age of Crucible. As she would then go over to the statue of her grandmother (with Ymir's quest, one could infer she somehow didn't have a mom. That's a stretch tho, don't hold me to it. Postulating based on how much overlapping symbolism there is), and then casting off her braid while making an unknown wish. BUT based on how during this time the BRAID-THE SPIRAL- would be a direct symbol of the age she was born off, and infering a certain level of rage that would come with being born a god and watching all your loved ones die without true guidance...I would guess that she simply wished of the end of the Age of Crucible.
Lastly, I do want to bring up Bonny Village. It being so close to Shaman, and Bonny itself having to do with pots. Pots within ER basically being; an entity formed by taking the essance of multiple people/entities, and shoving that essance within the pot.....I can't help but find some similarity between this hand how Marika created The Order. I genuinely believe this small yet judicial village had a massive impact on just how Marika viewed the world and operated after reaching true godhood.
Sorry for yapping, I just love this game and have been going crazy over all the new item descriptions
This is not yapping my friend this is the definition of cooking i love the interpretation that the elden beast as we know it is what seeded life in the first place and that those are all just the interpretations of people at the time
I love this! I've been having trouble justifying how the Finger Mother landed down before the Elden Beast, but the "two big bangs" comment just clicked a TON of pieces into place for me! The first big bang would be "the one grate" described by Hyetta, which created the empty foundation the world would be built upon. I'm getting into a bit of speculation but this may be the "base" invoked by Mesmer's "base serpent" which does seem fitting as a giant abyssal creature.
Now here's the real bombshell... The one grate was NOT an act of the Greater Will, but some even greater force of the universe. The Greater Will is an outer god like any other, and Metyr was its scout who landed in this void and began populating it with fingers who transmit to the Greater Will, eventually leading to the second big bang (or as Hyetta calls it, the Mistake) the Elden Beast/Elden Ring is sent to establish order and begin populating the world with life. Notably this is when the Greater Will cuts its connection to the Lands Between, having already done its job of establishing what it sees as a self-sufficient order. So begins the generations-long game of telephone between the fingers and finger-readers that would eventually mislead Marika into seeking ascension. I actually love this characterization of religion as an agnostic who thinks if there is a god then systems like evolution were designed as a means for them to be hands-off and move on to other projects.
This also explains the intent of the Frenzied Flame, to return the Lands Between to its base state as a lifeless void. The Frenzied flame almost seems like the universe's immune system causing a fever in trying to sweat out the influence of the Greater Will. I'm buzzing with thoughts but this is getting way too long so I'll just go make another comment and shout you out.
One small thing I want to mention regarding your comment:
I believe Marika returned to the Shaman Village *after* the genocide of her people at the hands of the Hornsent, and *after* she became a God. When the Minor Erdtree mentions there being "nobody left to heal", I think it's referring to the fact that Marika is the sole survivor of the Hornsent turning the shamans into pots. She returned home after ascending the tower and becoming divine. As one final offering to her dead people, she leaves a Minor Erdtree as perhaps a form of consolation to herself, and she leaves a gold braid of hair behind as an affirmation of a vow or promise.
Marika never returned home again.
@@partydeer1640 The Golden Braid specifically says after cutting it off, that is when she didn't return home. If she truly had disdain for the Hornsent, I don't think it makes a lot of sense that she would parade around their symbol during the crusade only to then cast it off after reaching godhood. Also keeping in mind the actual symbols of the crusade, that being The fire and serpent found on Messmer's flag. Especially considering how base game items reference braids AT ONE POINT being a symbol of divinity, it makes a lot more sense to me that she would cast it off before the crusade as a true show of where she stands.
I'm guessing you also just watched Vaati's video, and I genuinely don't think he has the timeline quite correct. Yes, I can concede that the Hornsent may have even killed off some of the Numen in Shaman. But I do genuinely believe Marika was just the last to survive. And if you want to be very specific, the Golden Braid is very vague and simply says "Home". Not "homeland" or even specifically "the Shadow Lands", just simply "home".
And getting into another part of the Golden Braid, it says Marika made a "prayer, or wish, or confession". If Marika truly was born already with godlike power, which many items do say, I think it makes sense to say that even while young she would have great impact without truly realizing. Ask yourself this; What do both Messmer and Melina represent individually? Messmer, "the Abyssal Snake", fire always been a part of him, the Champion of the Crusade, even harboring hatred towards Marika that required an eye of grace to quell (Marika being born from Crucible power, the hatred could have been for the power that was within her). And Melina, even disregarded the theory/possibility of her being the Gloam Eyed Queen; she also viewed the same vision of fire that Messmer had. She ultimately helped with the burning of The Erdtree, which is essentially The Crucible in a different form (think the whole pot imagery in Bonny and how Erdtree was formed). I would genuinely argue that Marika's prayer, wish, confession (as all terms must be true); She hated the Crucible, the same power that granted her even the possibility for godhood, and wished for it's death in the hopes (prayer part) for a new god/order. Messmer and Melina, simply, embodied Marika's very wishes and prayers.
and to connect the last two monstrosity of points (my fault og, I'm a yapper lol); it would make no sense for Marika to have her braid at the time of Messmer's birth when he was given an eye of Grace (symbol of Marika). Once again, she would not be parading around and embodying her old symbol while at the same time holding power over her new one. Miguella himself had to give himself a new symbol when destroying his old rune. It makes sense Marika would have to do the same on her crusade to godhood
Wooohooo. some lore videos. I have been craving this after besting this.
Let's go!
Just finished it after about 100 hours and while I got a lot of the concepts, it was nice having a summary cementing all the individual aspects I came across over my playthrough.
Really deserving to be called an expansion with just how much tasty lore, exploration and gameplay is packed into it.
A theory I liked was that the Erd tree is actually just the dead rune pile left by a dead Crucible tree, When we the player die we leave a lil tree of runes to collect and that when the Crucuble was suplanted and destroyed it left the Urd tree with no one able to collect it, so it became the Urd tree and a new symbol of the new order. The Erd tree is just a very shiny corpse.
Its a fun theory to me anyway.
But our little tree doesn't change size or shape regardless of the amount of runes we die with.
@@moosiemoose1337 Well yeah, we are only little after all, The runes are "energy" right, So we can only grab so many in a certain amount of time, The crucible would have an indefinate amount of time, so it could in theory could be a million years old holding trillions of runes from the everything that dies around it, Its not a solid theory but it is a fun one.
@@WingsOfShadows yeah, that's a good point. It is a fun theory for sure
19:15 I Think the reason why the hornsent kept Midra alive was because if he died the Lord of flame of frenzy would pass on like how shabriri and hyetta took Yura and Irina’s bodies.
They were trying to keep him contained, the spear through his head was quite literally a cork in a bottle.
I think the ancient spiral symbology is meant to represent the natural cycles of life and death. When Marika, traumatized by the death of her people, became a God and finished exacting her revenge, she removed the Rune of Death and created a new divine tree that is a single shoot rather than the helical spiral we see with the Scadutree. Life and death became one under her order, per Erdtree burials. Then she hid the Scadutree and all the death associated with the Land of Shadow to create her perfect kingdom.
I think the statues suggest that the Erdtree was cultivated from the Crucible (one branch rising out of the others). That's why Omen continue to pop up; no matter how much Marika wants to replace the era of the Crucible, her divine tree came from it and she can't escape its influence. She and Godfrey themselves even came from the Crucible era, hence their Omen children.
The suppressing pillar tells us the lands of shadow are the center of the lands between. If the Numen came from a different land it wasn't the shadow realm because that's still part of the lands between.
The Empyrian Grandmother wears the same clothes as Nanaya’s body has. For this reason, I believe the fetus we saw in the trailers, pregnant womans child by Midra, was Marika.
what fetus are you referring to?
@@vongolamistowl in the trailer, we see the photo of Midra and a pregnant woman beside him. I believe the pregnant woman is Nanaya, based off of clothing and story, and with her clothing matching the Grandma, it makes sense to me. The only empyrean not born of Marika, that we know of, is Marika herself.
I don’t feel like the Grandma character is Marika’s grandmother. Imagine ordering your son to kill all of your grandmothers people. Yeah, Marika is horrible, but idk. That story doesn’t make sense to me.
@@jonahsampson4843we also see that painting in Midra's mansion.
its an illusionary wall so it might not be there if you played through that level
@@jonahsampson4843 more connections between Marika and Midra. Midra’s sword is said to be imbued with Golden Order magic, and he actually uses the Golden Order audio cue on one of his attacks. So he’s associated with the Golden Order, yet his mansion is Hornsent-inspired. This MAY provide the implication Marika’s early relationship with the Hornsent was initially civil, and perhaps even complementary. Considering Midra’s manse is actually a Hornsent location (architecture in his mansion share the exact same entrance doors, and share the exact same Solomonic columns as Belurat), I don’t think it’s too far fetched that Marika would take revenge upon her adoptive family for massacring her people. And to point of “adoptive family”, I actually agree that the Shaman storyline wouldn’t make sense if the Grandam was Marika’s literal blood grandmother. That’s why I think there’s some typical GRRM complex adoption situation going on here. I don’t think everyone is blood related, and that’s all because of Nanaya OR Midra. One of them aren’t related to the Hornsent culture AT ALL.
I’m mainly of the opinion that Marika, and her people, are the adoptive children of the Hornsent (Grandam, Midra, Nanaya, etc.). And I believe the child in Nanaya’s womb, in the painting, isn’t actually Marika - and I believe it’s a random child of Midra and Nanaya, with slight evidence being that Nanaya cradles a “small” spine of what I assume to be their child, who prematurely died due to inheriting the Flame of its father.
And just like that, here ensues another multi-year long Miyazaki classic investigative mystery story. We will never know the answers. But that’s just how we like it
@@jonahsampson4843Except her grandmother and her peolle had already been killed and scrificed by the hornsent. Whichbwas the reason Marika ordered the war in the first place; revenge for the genocide of her people. Horrible as she seemed to be, I'll give her that one, as the hornsent are barbaric c*nts.
I think the Messmer's orb incantation is one of the most important sources of information on his own state of mind, hinting towards some form of betrayal he experienced, I assume via Marika. He may have been made out as the sole guilty party for his crusade. But the incantation tells us that he despised his own flame & he tried to get rid of it, some form of self-loathing , carrying blasphemous symbols to the golden order (flames & snakes). His own self hatred could have driven him to carry on with the extermination of graceless beings, even after getting betrayed by his mother. (this also plays into his last words after being defeated, cursing Marika)
(Sorry in advance for the long post) I think an alternate potential explanation for Malenia fighting Radahn is that it was part of the vow on Radahn's part as well. Divesting himself of his flesh was a required part of the process, in order to separate himself from the influence of Marika's order. And that requires, essentially, the body to die. Radahn really doesn't seem the type to me, to want to go on a peaceful walk through a field and spout poetry as he divests himself of his Golden Flesh. Nor the type to personally do some Ranni-Esk sacrifice of someone else's soul. So I think it would be very in-character for Radahn to want his body to meet its end in a glorious battle. It's fitting for all the characters, as each one who divests themselves of their body, does so in a way which fits their character. Ranni, who is a schemer, got rid of her body through a murder plot. Miquella, who is more selfless and sympathizes with the plight of the downtrodden, takes a more self-sacrificial rout, of travelling through the lands burned and oppressed, atoning for his sins by slowly giving up his past bit by bit while walking in Marika's footsteps. And Radahn, a glorious warlord who lives for battle, does it by fighting a duel against the only warrior who could truly rival him at the peak of his strength.
We see from Freyja's character throughout the DLC, that the Redmane's do not view battle against others as something bad or unfortunate. They love it. To the extent that, after growing to respect and like her 'teammates' in the Land of Shadow, she regrets the fact she she couldn't have met them as enemies on a battlefield. They don't view it the way we might view it, as tragic. They love it, and almost seem to want to battle against the people they like and respect. So Radahn and Malenia fighting doesn't necessarily have to mean they were in conflict. Radahn's people don't seem to view battle in that way at all. It's more about respect for a worthy opponent. (Edit: An additional thought after posting. Seeing as, in Lordship, Radahn and Malenia would be allied, it is also possible that he, as a warrior, wanted the opportunity to face Malenia in battle before it was too late to. Similar to how Freyja views it as a shame that she wasn't able to face her allies in battle)
We also know through Godfrey, that Godfrey's ideology was "Strength befits a crown". Given how much Radahn idolized Godfrey, I don't think it's unreasonable to think he may have had a similar perspective. On top of that, it is also possible that, as an Elden Lord, Radahn would have had to put his waring ways behind him somewhat. Not entirely, of course, as we know Godfrey still fought in wars and such too. And Miquella did seem to have war planned as part of his promise to Radahn. But even so, Godfrey is clearly different to Hoarah Loux, even within war. And so Radahn may have had to, at least somewhat, abandon who he was, to become someone more fitting for the role of Elden Lord (This idea is not required for the overall theory to work though, it's just potential additional context). And I don't think this is something Radahn would have been unwilling to do, considering how much he respected Godfrey, who also did it. At no point is it hinted that Radahn lost respect for Godfrey when he took on the role of Elden Lord and put his warring ways behind him somewhat, so I don't think it would be fair to just assume Radahn would be against the idea for himself either, if given the right reason.
So I think it's entirely possible that Radahn did agree to the vow. However either A) Radahn wished for the end of his current life to be in a final, glorious battle, before he was to settle into the life of a Lord, who yes, may still war and fight, but it wouldn't be the same as before, as we see in the contrast between Godfrey and Hoarah Loux (Or if you don't buy into the idea of that contrast, maybe he's just such a warrior that he simply chose a warrior's death as his way of divesting his flesh, regardless). Or possibly B) he took the "strength befits a crown" mentality and agreed to the vow under the requirement of "if you can best me in battle, I will join you", which would fit nicely into his idolizing of Godfrey, who took a similar "strength befits a crown" mentality.
An issue I can see with this theory is "But wasn't Radahn Loyal to the Golden Order?" To that, I would argue he was not loyal to the Golden Order, he was loyal to Godfrey, Radagon, and their ideologies. Particularly Godfrey. And so while it can be interpreted as "Radahn loved the Golden Order". I would argue that it could easily also be interpreted as "Radahn idealized Godfrey, and thus was loyal to the order Godfrey helped establish", and that by extension of that, he would have also been loyal to the idea that strength befits a crown, and thus, would be willing to usher in a new order if the person earned the right to it in a show of strength which Radahn felt was fitting. In a similar manner to how, despite facing you in battle, Godfrey does not seem angry that you defeat him, and instead praises you for your strength and seems to all but give you a pat on the back for besting him.
There is nothing wrong with the interpretation given in this video, and I think it makes plenty of sense for Radahn's character. But I am just offering up this idea as a potential alternative, to show that, at least in my opinion, Radahn being unwilling isn't the only possible explanation. This is also just my personal taste, but I do prefer the idea that Radahn was willing. I think it makes for an overall more interesting story, and makes the idea of us battling against a God and their Lord, to decide the fate of the next age, even more compelling. At least to me. One feels more like a singular person manipulating people into siding with him. While the other feels more like a genuine conflict between two ideologies and the powerful, influential people who support them. And so on top of my arguments and evidence, I also just genuinely think this makes for a more compelling story, at least in my opinion anyway. Maybe I'm alone on that.
Anyway, sorry for the super long post, just had a lot to say. Even if you don't agree with the theory, I hope y'all can at least see where I am coming from with the idea.
Biggest thing I have against the “Radahns vow was a great battle” is that he would not have wanted what happened to Caelid. It’s either he never agreed and so miquella sent malenia to kill him or he did agree and malenia couldn’t uphold her end of the vow and decided to do a very unsportsmanlike play.
If the latter is the case then I lost even more respect for malenia tbh lol.
Solid reasoning - I still think there are some issues. Seems rather convoluted to destroy a whole region for like a ritual combat?
Surely Radahn and Malenia could have just don’t a 1v1 fight?
Someone on twitter suggested to me that maybe Radahn went back on the deal?
@@Ale-ey3xv I think that's a very reasonable argument. But keep in mind, Malenia wanted to kill Radahn, not leave him wounded.
Part of Miquella's backstory is attempting to cure the scarlet Rot. And he was able to come pretty close, even as a Demi-God with far less power than he would have had as a true God.
Malenia may have felt that she could inflict a killing blow to Radahn, and then any short-term consequences to the land of Caelid, could be resolved by Miquella in Godhood, since he got pretty close even as a Demi-God. Having Caelid be wrecked by scarlet rot for potentially thousands of years, was probably not her intention, but instead an unfortunate result of everything which could have gone wrong, going wrong.
Malenia wasn't strong enough to defeat Radahn. And then her attempt at a final blow failed, resulting in Caelid suffering the unintended long-term consequences.
I still think your argument is totally valid and reasonable, that would just be my argument against it.
@@SmoughTown These are all fair arguments. I'll go over them 1 by 1 and how I would explain them
1) I don't think destroying a whole region would have been part of the original plan. I think that may have been more of a Malenia issue specifically. She was incredibly dedicated to Miquella's mission. And when she realized she couldn't defeat Radahn 1 on 1 in a fair match-up, took it upon herself to use a last-resort nuke attack. This works particularly well if you go with the idea that Radahn agreed to it ONLY if he was defeated in battle. It may be seen by us as a cheap-shot, but it would have been a legitimate victory had it worked.
Something important to keep in mind with this also, is that her intentions were not to harm Radahn, they were to kill him. She wanted Radahn to die so that Miquella could ascend to Godhood. Not to simply wound Radahn and have him and Caelid rot away for thousands of years. We already know that as a Demi-God, Miquella was working to try to cure the Scarlet Rot, and he came pretty close despite his limitations. Whether he could or not is an entirely different conversation, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think that Miquella being able to cure scarlet rot as God, would be something that Malenia would have taken into account. After all, we know that he helped to heal and help Frejya, despite only being a Demi-God at that point. And his needles seemed to do the job perfectly fine of halting the rot, just not curing it entirely. if he can do all of that as a Demi-God, then who's to say he couldn't do even more as a full God? Or even if he couldn't, that people would have faith that he could, at least.
So essentially, Caelid may not be in the spot it is in now: Totally overrun by Rot, if Malenia had successfully killed Radahn, Miquella had ascended to Godhood much earlier, and been able to do something as a God about the Rot. I don't think the intention, on either side of the battle, was to leave Caelid in the state it is now. I think that is just an unfortunate consequence of Melania using her rot, but still not being able to finish the job even then.
Because that's important to keep in mind, when discussing Caelid's current situation. Whatever the plan was, it failed. Malenia didn't kill Radahn despite trying to. And so the state Caelid is in now, could simply be the result of the plan failing. If she had succeeded, things may have turned out differently with Miquella as a God with a specific interest in curing the Rot.
2) You are right in that they COULD have done a 1 v 1. But I think we have reason to believe that Redmane culture values battle, and war. Miquella didn't promise to Radahn an endless supply of elite 1 v 1 competition, or countless warriors to challenge his skill. He specifically promised war. And when you fight Frejya at the end, she doesn't say anything like "I must stop you from preventing the return of my lord" Or anything like that. instead, she faces you in a battle with many people, and says that this will be "A battle befitting the birth of a new lord" (I don't have the exact quote on me right now, but you know the line I am referencing). She views the battle you and all these other people are in, as a glorious one which is fitting for the rise of a new Lord into this world. So I think the idea of a large-scale battle between warriors, a war to decide the fate of the world, and the coming of a new lord, would have been the sort of things the Redmanes would have wanted. After all, if you are Radahn, and his warriors, what could possibly be more enticing than a war to decide the fate of the world? It would be seen to them as the ultimate battle to decide fate itself. A battle of such scale and importance, that nothing else in their lives to that point could even compare to it. As for Melania and her Knights, they don't really get a say in that, since Radahn is the one who has the power to refuse the terms of the deal. She and her knights would have to play along if that is what Radahn wishes. 'In order to get him to agree, I have to face him in battle? Then so be it, for Miquella.'
3) Yeah, that's very possible. He may have simply gone back on the deal. I don't have much of an argument against that. But as I mentioned, I am not really arguing that your theory is wrong. I think is very easily could be true. I am just presenting an alternative theory. And trying to show that, at least in my opinion, Radahn being unwilling isn't the only explanation. it is AN explanation, for sure, and a very valid one. But I would argue there are also other explanations which make sense.
I don’t know if anyone’s mentioned this, but my interpretation of the woman in the tree in the Shaman Village is that she was the “Grandmother” Marika spoke of. In fact, all the grey strange trees around the Shadowlands are Shaman corpses, their bodies merging with the trees as part of their death rituals.