One thing that I find very intriguing is that when he kills you in the first phase he repeats his "embrace of messmers flame" speech but he sounds incredibly board, even tired, like a minimum wage worker who would rather do anything else. I think this shows that he is only still going through with the crusade because of his obligation, and he feels no pleasure in his actions anymore, if he ever did to begin with.
Maybe that's why I got so tilted by that. His tone and delivery got under my skin because he sounded bored. Meanwhile almost every other boss didn't feel like that
He did what he did to those people for his mother. Granted those ppl literally kidnapped and turned his mothers ppl into jars which caused said crusade in the first place. Messmer id not evil and was not killed by us because he was evil or a traitor he simply held the tool we needed.
@@Obsidian-ut4luWe didn’t even kill him because he had something we needed. He was killed because of a misunderstanding on his part. He says it’s his duty to kill any who are “-stripped of the grace of gold”. The problem is, our Tarnished is BEING DIRECTED by the grave of gold. He thinks we’re just some random Tarnished with zero merit, but by this point players must have killed at least two demigods and have the backing of the Golden Order.
The fact that Messmer ends up dying alone and abandoned with no legacy to leave behind because he was erased from history is extremely tragic. Unlike Miquella who only inspired love and loyalty from others because of his enchantment, Messmer seemed like a genuinely good leader who was well liked and respected by those around him. Messmer also seems to be genuinely compassionate considering he has a whole clinic in his castle for treating and trying to cure the shaman jars. That same castle is also built in a way that protects his mother’s village. When one of his black knights betrayed him, he doesn’t torture or kill him, he just imprisons him and mourns the loss of a brother at arms. Radahn himself even looked up to him as a big brother so that tells you a lot about who Messmer is at heart. Between his strength, intelligence, and affectionate nature, I truly believe Messmer could have been one of the most revered demi gods right up there with Radahn and Godwyn. If only he had the chance to pursue his own goals and ambitions. But instead he lives his life as a tool for Marika’s vengeance and is unloved despite his loyalty, he’s abandoned by her simply for being born with an affliction he had no control over. Shit sucks, the man deserved better.
Marika really has a habit of turning her kids into monsters by just abandoning them for no real reason. At this point it's what, 3 actually raised and 3 dumped? And for the 3 raised we only really get mentions of Radagon raising Miquella etc, not actually Marika herself.
The man is tied to every single heretical aspect of the Golden Order while championing it. He was never going to have a place. His Red hair, his affinity for fire calling upon the power of the Abyssal Serpent. As far as the dominant religion was concerned Messmer is the devil.
Nah Mesmer would still be feared regardless due to his curse. Even if he was seen as a legend he wouldn’t have the pure/godlike status that godwyn had.
@@ratioratio7354That's the thing though, these symbols like snakes or features from the crucible are seen as vile because marika made it so. they aren't inherently evil
Well messmer would’ve been a symbol of fear even if he wasn’t hidden away, messmer was crazy strong, easily stronger than more than half of the demigods and all the while without possessing a great rune.
The problem seems to be that for all his positive traits, Messmer has no AMBITION. Ranni wishes to be free of her fate, Morgott wants to preserve the Golden Order, everyone has a goal… except Messmer. He is LITERALLY ‘just following orders’. And given the words Melina told us from Marika, about seeking and striving, the fact that Messmer doesn’t is probably why he’s the unloved child. He’s content to be his mother’s tool, even as he curses the fact he is and laments what he’s doing, so Marika treats him like one. Because for all his positive traits, Messmer if Messmer had been among the demigods scrambling around after the shattering… all signs point to him doing nothing but merely following Marika’s orders, with no aims of his own.
One thing I love about Messmer is his self awareness. He fully acknowledges how the hornsent perceive him. He doesn’t try to cover up, deny, or atone for his crimes and slaughter. Because he knows there’s no point. He’s aware enough to know he’s a villain, but he’s also aware enough to know there’s no point in trying to make up for it. What’s done is done, and it’s partially his fault.
It's pretty interesting to compare and contrast Messmer and Miquella when it comes to the loyalty and trust of their followers because while Miquella can earn genuine loyalty from people like Leda and Malenia, he's prone to using his powers of compulsion to maintain his followers' loyalty. On the other hand, Messmer seems to inspire 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. While indeed, they're trapped with having no way of knowing how to get out and despite being war weary in what amounts to uncounted ages of genocidal slaughter, Messmer's army remains rather organized in the Land of Shadow despite major events happening outside their reach. 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, they 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 such as father and son duo Andreas and Huw, respectively, who rebelled 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. Not saying that their deeds should necessarily be seen as justified and honorable but it's certainly an interesting look into Messmer's character.
Godwyn is another foil to miquella in a way, were he actually turns enemies into friends by compation and actual care and frienship as he did with the ancient dragons, while Miquella wants to do the same in a global scale but without the effort of actually trying to understand and forgive one another just brute forcing it with love magic.
Totally agree, Messmer is almost a perfect foil to Miquella. I love when writers can create fleshed out character dynamics with characters who never even interact.
@@MarcellusMaize Speaking of Miquella, it’s interesting that you can find one of his crosses inside the Shadow Keep, implying that for whatever reason, Miquella entered/snuck into the keep and may or may not have interacted with Messmer. Kinda weird how Messmer was just chilling next door as one of his demigod siblings is busy ascending to godhood while using someone he was buddies with in the past as his consort. Imagine how shocked and horrified Messmer would be if he were to find out what happened to Radahn.
Marika was already one of the most fascinating characters in the lore to me, and learning how her tendencies for self-serving treachery stretch so far back and so throughly ruined the lives of so many, including a son who could have rivalled Godwyn in nobility, makes her all the more compelling. Its like Goldmask said: the gods are too fickle and human to be afforded such power
I think Goldmask’s statement is even more interesting when it’s revealed that Marika grew up not as a royal scion of divine blood, but as a humble townsperson in Shaman Village. Marika was never born a god, she became one through the want to exact vengeance on the Hornsent who delivered her people a fate worse than death. As such, Marika was the most human of all.
TBF, the hornsent were kinda just as horrible as Marika would become, and even worse in some places. I really don't think much of value was lost there. SPOILER if that still matters to some: Bonny village and gaol, shaman village, Midra's estate... basically their entire culture revolves around slaughter and torture being justified through the most mundane reasons. No wonder their gods be ghosting them for ages.
The dlc really made Marika feel human. Being able to visit her empty and somewhat eerie but beautiful village was one of the highlights of the dlc for me. The 2 items there completely recontexualize her entire character. Not to mention that music 🤌🏾
Messmer is a good parallel to Morgott. They are both screwed over by the world but choose to be loyal anyway. The difference is Morgott seems to be loyal to the Erdtree and the idea of order itself, and keeps his loyalty to the end. Messmer meanwhile is loyal to his mother specifically, and turns against her in the very end.
The contrast between their ultimate fates as well. Morgott seems to have his Omenhood removed upon his death and even turns into grace when held by his father, as if to show the Erdtree blessed him in his final moments for his devotion. Meanwhile, Messmer just dies after being abandoned in the realm of Shadows despite staying loyal to Marika his entire crusade, only spurring her with his last words.
@@idontcare9661 my bad, must have phrased it wrongly. It's weird for me that he turns against her. He is loyal until his dying breath, which he uses to curse and spite Marika
@@dominiklange8382 he turns because he sees the player, who is a lord without grace. He sees that Marika is a hypocrite and screwed him over unfairly. The characters in shadow of the Erdtree seem to operate under the knowledge that the player will be Elden lord
Something that you really should’ve mentioned: At the bottom of the Shadow Keep is what appears to be a sick bay for the Living Jars. Given what we learn from the DLC about what the Hornsent did to the people of the Shaman Village, it's heavily implied that for all the atrocities Messmer commits in Marika's name, even he cannot stomach what the Hornsent have done and does his best to care for them. It also seems to be another reason that fueled his brutality towards them.
Because Marika is a Shaman which is the people that are being stuffed into jars. I think he sees in them a mirror of his mother given that they are his people too and wants to help their affliction.
@@SecretMarsupial To add onto this, the naked shaman jars are all shaped like Marika, even having her rune on their forehead, and the item description for the jar flesh describes that the raw meat is held together by "golden strings" which could be her hair. That in itself is further reinforced by the SOTE trailer where we see her dive her hand into a pile of what very much looks like jar flesh before pulling out several golden strings that are shining like her hair does (and Miquella's.) Additionally, in that same trailer right as she plucks out the golden string before ascending to godhood, we can see that Marika has some old circular scars and bruises on her wrist (which she covers up with her golden bracelets) that are clearly older than the fresh blood on her hands. If you remember the item description of the tooth-whip (the only whip that inflicts poison) it describes that the back-handed blows of the whip which only bruise and lacerate rather than poison are intended to cause subjugation and obedience. So it seems that not only Marika was originally a Shaman, but she vividly experienced the mass sacrifices, abuse, and disfigurement of her people at the hands of the Hornsent, as well as receiving their cruelty herself. My theory is that the "seduction" that is spoken of in the SOTE trailer is the Two Fingers convincing Marika to become a goddess with the power of the Greater Will so she has the strength to not only break free of the vicious cycle of violence that her people had been subjected, but also to have the capacity to make sure that such cruelty is never repeated under her control.
“Yet…my purpose standeth unchanged”. This could be Mesmer reaffirming that he will purge us despite Marika’s supposed blessing. Or an accusation that his mother could not find a different purpose for him while a Tarnished could become Elden Lord.
It’s him realizing that even though her mother can choose someone with no golden grace she hasn’t done anything to change her order to him, to turn him into something else. That’s the difference between us and Messmer, we chose to be something, the grave did guide us but we kept our choices even if it means to burn everything (Frenzy) or to either continue or even solidify the golden order (Gold mask) or to abandon the Lands Between (Ranni), to curse it (Dung Eater), or to start the opposite cycle order of Death (Godwyn ends). Messmer however accept his roles without trying to do anything to change it because it was the will of God. It’s the theme Miura had on Berserk, although Griffith order was good, it was part of the same spiral made by the same evil god. Gutz on the other hand fought to what night cause worse world than what Griffith has build but he does not resign to what the fate has wrote just because it’s came from a god.
"I am Messmer, Spear of Mommy Issues, and I have never known any reason to stop." DOCTOR FREUD, paging Dr. Freud, also the fire department and probably Steve Irwin.
bro ur comment about messmer and marika really hit me because of how i percieve my own relationship with my mom. its crazy. a comment section about elden ring makes me understand more about myself than my family or society ever could, i need a therapis
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; Aside from preventing more of those she cares about from dying and removing a threat to her power, it could also be to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends. Marika hated 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.
My question is why did the "stuffing people into jars" thing continue in the Lands Between? Surely Marika would have wanted to end that practice after it was done to her own people by her sworn enemies, and yet thr Golden Order seemingly continues the Hornsent tradition, but stuffing warriors in jars rather than shamans. I'm pretty sure the wax seals on the Lands Between versions of Living Jars depict the Erdtree, showing how these jars were created by Marika's Golden Order, or at the very least someone else created them to serve the Golden Order. Since tons of jars are found at the bases of Minor Erdtrees, maybe they serve as a form of Erdtree Burial, but instead of having dedicated catacombs like the Erdtree does, Minor Erdtree Burial use living jars? That doesn't explain Alexandet, the independent village of Jarburg or the giant living Jar outside the coliseum in Caelid. Maybe the warrior jars and Jarburg's citizens are jars who rebelled against their purpose of being food for Minor Erdtrees? Idk... If I remember correctly, Minor Erdtrees and the Erdtree Avatars didn't appear until after the Shattering, so maybe none of the living jar stuff was Marika's doing. To me it seems like the existence of Living Jars in the Lands Between precedes the Shattering. Sorry for writing so much, but my whole point here is that it confuses me why Marika would continue a practice that was likely a huge trauma for her and was literally the genocide of her people. Maybe the warriors inside the jars are Hornsent that were put inside as revenge? But then the Omens would have been put in jars too, since they are basically the same as Hornsent, or at least somewhat related given the horns? I don't know lol
@@LtCdrXander if we talk from the theory of OP: i believe marika may have continued the living jar tradition as an unfathomably big insult to hornsent who are stuck in an eternal losing war where they are genocided by messemer; "look at all the people in my golden order being stuffed into jars only to be reborn into another happy life through my erdtree, unlike what you did to my fellow shaman".
@@LtCdrXander It could be the creation of jars is something that's so deeply culturally ingrained that even Marika couldn't erase it, or it could be that the Lands Between jars can make themselves, but the important distinction is the Lands Between jars only use dead warriors to fill themselves, instead of tortured and maimed criminals or other captives. At least they're supposed to, I assume any aggressive jars in the game are trying to stuff us into them. My theory is that they're used to feed the minor erdtrees. We know from golden order burial practice and Miquella's efforts with the haligtree that the erdtree feeds off of flesh, blood, and serves as some kind of conduit for souls to reincarnate (in actuality its probably feeding the souls to the greater will or the elden beast). The minor erdtrees might not have roots that go deep enough to form catacombs around so the jars provide a solution; gorge themselves with strong warriors, aka people of high physical quality, and when they're full enough head to a minor erdtree and deposit. I thought of this not only because of the non shattered jars around the erdtrees, but because Alexander kept getting stuck in holes. He could be subconsciously trying to deposit his contents near an unsprouted erdtree seed.
I think Mesmer must have been present when Marika addressed her children, imploring them to make something of themselves. When she tells them if they don’t amount to anything they’ll become sacrifices, I think she’s saying a tarnished will absorb their strength. Mesmer may be the only one who knew what that means. When he sees the tarnished, he immediately knows he’s looking at the Elden Lord and not some random tarnished. Mesmer did everything his mother asked, in his mind he became something greater, and now he’s a sacrifice to the tarnished. No wonder he curses Marika when he is defeated.
@@Xer405Maliketh, Messmer and Radagon all deserve to be pissed at Marika. Honestly I was when she throws Godfrey at us, as if she can make us do all the bullshit and have him step in at the end and claim the throne for himself. I get it, he is the main character Tarnished and a Megachad, and he's also a formidable test of our resolve, but still damn Marika that's cold as hell to try and throw us to the side.
In the first cutscene, I think we already hear the cracks that have been forming in Messmer's resolve over all this time. When he asks "Mother, wouldst thou truly Lordship sanction, in one so bereft of Light?" he sounds absolutely devastated. Not only was his mission to purge people like you, he himself, Marika's own flesh and blood was sent away, discarded and ordered to perform an endless genocide - but you, some (presumably) random schmuck, some _nobody_ have been chosen to become Elden Lord? Now, more than ever, he must feel truly abandoned. But he still clings to his duty - it's probably the last thing keeping him sane. Only, once we prove a bit too much a challenge... Well, even on phase transition, he _wants_ to keep believing. He _wants_ Marika to be right, because if she isn't, he has to admit he was thrown away like trash. So even then he makes it about "Grace" and "light" - but when we kill him, when it's all about to end, he finally admits to himself - he _hates_ Marika. How could he not? She ruined his life, and for what? For what, truly?
She ruined just about everyone ones lives. I'm 100% she helped have had Godwyn killed. Sure the hornsent had it coming but she only saw her family as tools for her rule and vengrnace. Even her other half radagon did the same. It reminds me of Odin in god of war.
Also, at the lower part of his keep, messmer has been experimenting on the jars. Which knowing how important these people are to marika, it can be assumed messmer was trying to use the knowledge he collected from the hornsent to undo the jar sainthood. With the iris of grace being important in these trails.
Yep I can definitely see Messmer finding ways to undo what happened to his mother’s people. Probably why messmer has so many documents on the Hornsent at the shadow keep.
@@noamias4897 commenter probably was referring to experimenting in a means to undo what was done to them and probably the reason why he has their info the shadow keep.
@@noamias4897Experimenting on them to find a cure to treat them, both are not mutually exclusive, beside the iris of grace placed there implies he has good intentions as it can be used to soothe ppl of pain with grace light
@@noamias4897 That room setup looks more like field hospital than torture chamber/laboratory imo. It's was a mess but you still see them lying on bed not bound by chains or torture rack and the living Jars still wandering around. You wouldn't let your experimental subjects roaming around freely, would you?
God Messmer is by far my favorite character and boss fight in the dlc, and he’s quickly overcoming Gael as my favorite from soft boss/character. His story is so sad yet I love the way the handle the slow reveal he isn’t the stereotypical tyrant ruling the lands with an iron fist.
honestly Gael perfectly captures all the themes of DS3, and the fact that the last battle after all these gods and monsters is another human is so cool
I always interpreted Messmer's delivery as just straight up depressed, and filled with self-loathing. He hates his flame, because it made him the perfect weapon in Marika's crusade.
I'd like to point out that, in my opinion, Messmer's snake was not at all meant to be a negative aspect of him, but I think it rather was made into one by the Golden Order. Note that, in his transformation, the snake coiled around him is a WHITE snake. This is extremely important if we take the connotations of this animal in asian cultures. In China, white snakes are associated with immortality and transformation. In Japan, some myths see them as messengers of the gods, bringers of good fortune, and protectors against plagues like mice. Moreover, the winged serpent that is with him when he is "sealed" is also a positive, revered symbol in Aztec culture (Quetzalcoatl, literally "The Feathered Serpent" is a god of the Sun, art and knowledge). It's likely that Messmer's snake was not a curse, but a blessing of the Crucible. As we know, the crucible grants people animal characteristics. In their efforts to approach sanctity in their worship of the Crucible, the Hornsent had turned to torturing innocents, creating monstrous abominations. Marika, a priestess who could commune with gods, wanted to rebel against them. It's possible that the Crucible initially blessed her lineage in order to incite this change in the world, to punish those who had turned the worship of life into a cult of torturers. However, the Golden Order did not see this as a blessing, but a reviled curse. It even plays into the fact that the Golden Order is very much associated with European Aesthetic and Christian religious symbolism (focus on purity, light and even the crucifixion of Marika). To a Western audience that is culturally influenced by milennia of Christian tradition, snakes are a symbol of the Devil, of sin. But to someone without that cultural background, they may be something positive. Messmer's whole character plays with the fact that different cultures see very different meanings in snakes, and shows how following only one interpretation can make people see what is meant to be something positive as an abominable defect.
one thing to note is that Messmer has several different snakes with different in-universe connotations the winged serpents that are sticking out of his body (red in his first phase, white in his second) are supposedly there to help suppress the Base Serpent that's inside of him. his constant friends and companions, described as being wise. he presents them with pride as one of his main symbols and they seem to function as his eyes. but the Base Serpent inside him seems to be a closely held secret, one that he hates and one that others hate him for. it's very much treated as a curse, seemingly reviled as much as (if not more than) Malenia's rot (at least we don't know of any notable examples of Malenia's soldiers rebelling against her because of the rot. if anything it seemed that the rot actually drew some additional people to her side) there's also another type of snake that he briefly summons through portals during his second phase (distinguished from the Base Serpent by being a bit smaller and having both eyes intact (at least both normal eyes. notably both the Base Serpent and these summoned ones have numerous eyes along their bodies, including some inside their mouths), as far as I can tell these summoned serpents are unexplained. so even in-universe, there's seemingly a range of meanings that different snakes could be given. the base game even had some lore about snakes being associated with treachery, likely due to Rykard. this'd be an entire third branch of meaning for snakes since regardless of what you might think about Messmer he certainly isn't a traitor to anyone. as an extra little point, there's Messmer's Flame. I feel like this should be linked to the snakes on account of the main incantation of Messmer's Flame being Flame Serpent, which clearly moved in a snake-like fashion in the story trailer. unlike the Base Serpent Messmer's Flame seems to be no secret (Flame Serpent seems to be pretty widely used among his followers) nor does anyone besides Messmer himself seem to hate it.
@@Eclipsed_Embers Funny you mentioned that the serpent is considered to be a sign of treachery with Rykard's case, while in Messmer's case, he's not a traitor to anyone but there are people who betray him for knowing his serpentine nature (the black knight Huge and Andreas) maybe the base serpent is not turning him into a traitor but turning people into the traitor of him? Treachery is used to refer the betrayal of low cast to their higher up after all.
What i love about Messmer´s design, is how well it embodies those images of Ancient Evil from medieval writings. Like, Elden Ring has a lot of amazing designs, but they all have a sense of modern coolness baked into them that, while amazing in its own right, just doesn´t quite get that. Messmer looks like something ripped straight out of the Codex Gigas, with the wings, the serpent coiling around his frame...
@@slipstream5762 Very Lucifer-esque, in a way. The whole dragon wing motif, the palette, the pressence of the serpent corrupting what would in other circumstances be a beautiful visage.
@@Murakami2077 Even better! I mostly meant how the shilouette of the character ended up looking, but now that i think about it, it reminds me of a character from a myth, Zahk, Zahhak or something like that, about a good king who, after being cursed to have two snakes sprout from his shoulders, ended up becoming a vicious and terrifying ruler.
"Last of all Kings." Also, King, during a time of crisis and a civil war, after a life in the damn sewers, protecting Leyndell himself as Margit. And all of this half naked with a stick.
I love Morgott but I wouldn't call his kingship very admirable either, which adds to his character. Nobody even knew that he, as a person, was the king. If someone saw HIM they wouldn't think "it's the great king Morgott who protected the capital from Rykard and Radahn", they'd think "that's Margit the devil, a twisted, cursed and monstrous omen".
@noamias4897 isn't it funny that a damned Omen/Hornsent, literally and figuratively, became the only one with the ability and will to keep her crumbling empire alive? And he's the only child to have been given grace and acknowledged but his father on screen? I'm truly losing it Scoob, these are Greek Gods.
@@noamias4897 And that's what happened in a cutted quest about a noble that, after be received by Morgott, ask us to kill him because he's a Omen. But at the same time he ruled and empire maybe for centuries without being founded and at least keeping it a little alive. If you think about what's the situation of other kings, sharbearers, he and Mohg are quite damn good at rule. Not talking about morality of course.
It wasnt much a sigh of relief but a sigh of adrenaline and clarity kicking in. He is feeling his blood rush and the abyssal serpents power flow in, which probably restored his stamina
I find it interesting that he finally *see* and accepts the reality that he was indeed abandoned when he removed the thing that Marika gave him and defeated by a tarnished.
More than anything he seems tired. Tired of his mother's shenanigans, tired of being the Impaler. More than anything, in his tone, you hear a tinge of regret unique to crest fallen soldiers. Seriously, any movie, show or game with a soldier forced to do things they likely didn't enjoy or even believe in always have that mixed tone of regretful and jaded indifference. The Hound from GoT is a good example. Messmer probably was once a great and honorable warrior, clearly honorable and great enough to seemingly influence Radahn as much as he did, but was , for reasons he didn't truly know about, made to do and sanction horrible and , as the lore states, blatantly honorless acts. You hafta wander if he, at some point, didn't realize the true nature of his mother's "holy" war. He, like many characters in fromsoft games, is a tragedy. A scorned son and a once proud and honorable warrior now tarnished and bloodstained. His mother made him her monster in pursuit of justifiable but ultimately petty revenge and, likely, to cover up her own sins.
Extremely well put! You do gotta wonder on his awareness throughout the "holy war", did it take until the tarnish fight for it to really kick in for Messmer that he had been abandoned? To your point, I wonder if the seal on his eye served more than one purpose. Like did that seal put a literal filter over Messmer's perspective distorting it somehow, considering it replaces his only human eye? There's so many questions Messmer raises but beyond that he's a great addition to the rouge's gallery that is Marika's family.
I love how they made Marika little less evil showing her history and give a motivation about the Crucible and at the same time showing her absolute worst. And people say this dlc is bad, ahah!
I like how you laugh so unaware of your own non sequitur. Yes, the lore and story in the DLC is bad. And it will never get better because you happily lap up every bit of slop they give you, no matter how minor.
it always struck me in a special way, when you die to phase 1, he repeats his "catchphrase" about meeting death in Messmer's flame, but he sounds so resigned and defeated because so many others have met the exact same fate, and he's pretty over the whole ordeal
Messmer's tone is of someone bound by his loyalty and obligation to his mother, someone who he loved and worshipped completely. But the story is peppered with indications that he took no pleasure in anything he did, it was an act, he was the vengeful monster Marika could NOT be. You can see this in how the Shadow Keep surrounds a church district, holy sites, and places of worship. The Specimen Archives meant to preserve the story and culture of the Hornsent, to be remembered and studied. The hospital inside the castle to treat and aid those that had been jarred. This was Marika's revenge, she wanted punishment brought upon the Hornsent, a people that wiped out her entire culture, presumably being its last survivor. A people that, while practically wiped out themselves, were just as conquering and brutal as her own Golden Order. "They were never saints, they just happened to be on the losing side of a war." And because Messmer and her other children were all born with HER curses and sins, she could never accept them into her new world and Order, they could never be with her, for they represented her failures, her weaknesses, her HUMANITY. She abandoned Messmer to play the role of a God, absorbing and twisting the outdated and decrepit belief system of the Two Fingers, to create a world in HER image. And she did... you look upon the Lands Between and tell me that it isn't a rotten core wrapped in a golden costume of pretentious Order, like she was... For all his faults, Messmer deserved better.
Love the fact the people in the land of shadow speak more Shakespearean dialogue than in the lands between as it shows how they were sent a long time ago and their language hasn’t been in synchronicity with its counterpart from the lands between and shows they were sent away a long time ago
I’d like to note that Messmer doesn’t just *think* that the tarnished is sanctioned as a lord, the winged serpent stares into the tarnisheds eyes and can see the guidance of grace in them. He’s surprised that one who has been stripped of grace has had it returned, he doesn’t know why it’s been restored, but he’s still oathbound to kill the tarnished for losing the guidance of grace in the first place even if they are sanctioned and guided by the greater will
While I definitely think you have a point, as "those stripped of the Grace of Gold" could be referring to the Tarnished in past tense, it could also be argued that he knows not of the return of the Grace of Gold in the Tarnished, as he refers to us as being shorn of light in present tense with the following lines: "Mother, wouldst thou truly Lordship sanction, in one so bereft of light?" "I will not suffer... A lord devoid of light." "O lightless creature... Embrace thine oblivion, as shall I." All presently referring to us as lightless. If he could really see the Grace of Gold in the Tarnished, I'm not sure he would refer to them that way. Perhaps the winged serpent staring into the Tarnished's eyes is him simply recognizing the Tarnished as such: a Tarnished. Then, with his preconceived notions before entering the Realm of Shadow, he believes he must enact his duty to kill all Tarnished presently stripped of grace. His reference to sanctioning lordship could be him seeing the power of the Great Runes the Tarnished carries, as to reach the Realm of Shadow, each player has to kill shardbearers Godrick and Radahn, and inferring only a lord guided by grace would be able to defeat them as opposed to any old Tarnished wandering about.
Even Messmer's theme sounds like a young childs plea for help, very desperate and shows how alone and terrified he likely is due to the serpent inside him and his abandonment
Mommy issues, never a nice sight. Marika's children could have been decent people if she didn't allow her hatred to colour her perception of them. That a few of them still grew up honourable is something.
It is truly heartbreaking to see just how loyal Messmer and Radahn were. The way Messmer apologizes to Marika, turning to face the one statue that was not beheaded and looks at her for one last time before removing the golden seal eye, that is brutal.
Lets not forget that they made the jars knowing how funny it would be. NOOO DONT PUT ME IN THE JAR PLEASE ILL DO ANYTHING is now lore accurate in the lands between
That's the thing, none of them knows. They still believe Marika would not forsake them, not knowing they're all condemned to remain in the land without the grace of gold
@thecommentguy9380 There's a spirit of one of Messmer's knights in Shadow Keep castle who talks about Marika abandoning them and her own son. That's probably the mood amongst Messmers army: Many are beginning have doubts or question their fate. Some probably already know they've been abandoned.
I think maybe something to consider is that Messmer's crusade happened at the time when Erdtree empire was already well established, with other demigods in the picture. Marika abandoning Messmer feels more like a consequence of her being trapped because of the Shattering then genuinely leaving him to rot, especially since he's likely her true firstborn
One big clue: Rellana and her forces joining up with Messmer’s crusade. There’s no way pre-Liurnian war Raya Lucaria would allow Carian royalty to join the Golden Order in a massive military campaign outside the Lands Between unless Radagon and Rennala were already married and firmly established both sides’ loyalty to the Erdtree.
@@VictorIV0310Well, as a slight counter to that, there’s nothing to imply anyone LET Rellana go with Messmer, since she kinda explicitly abandoned the royal family to do so. A much simpler clue is that Radahn looked up to Messmer, meaning he was born before Messmer’s banishment.
@@jeremytewari3346looked up and considered him a big bro (assuming that he didn't know, Messmer was Radahon's child), meaning they grew up together/trained together
I think what defines Messmer the most is his willingness to sacrifice, but not in a noble or selfless way. He was so dedicated to Marika, his family, that he was willing to slaughter and torture an entire realm of mostly innocent people. His own demi-god royalty status and grace was thrown away by him, so that he could express his loyalty to his mother and her wishes. He threw away anything redeemable about himself, knowing he was a monster in more ways than one. He’s much more of a reflection of his brother Miquella like that. Both are characters who are willing to sacrifice so much of themselves and everyone around them to do what they think is right, becoming or embracing something horrifying in the process. But Messmer is much more tragic that, at some point, there *was* something admirable about him.
Innocent? Lets not forget that the hornsent torrrturred and killlled shamans. And the queen was a shaman who escaped their persecution before becaming a goddess. And the once persecuted girl went back with a crusede out of revenge.
To be fair, just because members of the culture did that doesn’t mean everyone did it. You can’t call every part of a race evil because their leadership was cruel
I highly believe that Messmer was Marika's firstborn and is Melina's half-brother. I also believe that he was condemned to eternally crusade in the Shadow Lands not only to carry out Marika's wishes, but also to get him out of the way. Marika has been shown time and time again to be utterly ruthless. She likely saw an opportunity to kill several birds with one stone. Assigning Messmer to the Shadow Lands satisfies her desire to eradicate the Hornsent, takes various members of Leyendell and Carian royalty out of the picture who may have otherwise posed a problem, denies any claim to succesion Melina could have feasibly made, imprisons the Abyssal Base Serpent far away, and removes the true firstborn from the picture entirely. That last point is especially important. With Messmer practically erased from history, Marika's carefully cultivated image of perfection could not be damaged by the existence of a child born outside of the Radagon/Renalla, Radagon/Marika, Marika/Godfrey marriages. Additionally, it removes him entirely from the line of succession, which prevents a potential conflict and allows Marika to set her "actual" firstborn up to take charge if necessary. Messmer was yet another tool for Marika to use. He has every right to curse her with final breaths.
And with the removal of the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring, Marika has not only replaced death with rebirth via Erdtree burial AND got rid of a potential threat to her reign, she also turned the entire Land of Shadow into hell where the Hornsent are condemned to be forever persecuted by the crusaders, unable to die even as spirits and shades. And since every hell needs a devil, Marika chose Messmer for the task.
@@VictorIV0310 And in true poetry, the actual status of the Devil in hell is not of a king, but as yet another prisoner also condemned to suffer for eternity… That’s absolutely fitting for Messmer.
I do think Messmer and Melina were Marika and Radagon's children but they were children before official/coronation/out of wedlock, the hint is from the red hair, most of Radagon's children were of that red hair, even Melina's hair was combination of red and blond, hence why Messmer is kind of a "secret" child not so official childeren
Messmer is the first character I can honestly say I want to adopt, which hasn't happened since Francis from Secret Saturdays. I love him so much. I want to turn him into a child and feed him soup.
The strugglers in the comments keep saying "Marika isn't the bad guy, she loved her son, she'd have come back with the milk to release Messmer if the Shattering didn't happen". But if she loved Messmer and wanted him back, then why did she command him to carry out a crusade without an end and why did she erase him from the historical record? She still calls people back into the Lands Between even if she's imprisoned inside the Erdtree, that's the reason why tarnished without grace were granted their grace back, but she didn't choose Messmer.
@@user-op6kt8pg9y It's a problem you see a lot in both literary works and unfortunately reflected in real life. The cycle of violence has to end somewhere. Marika's people's horrific treatment at the hands of the Hornsent does not justify their genocide, nor the genocides of the Fire Giants and Nomads that Marika perceived as a threat to her new order.
There's a line in the DLC when you speak with Leda after going through Ensis Castle, and she tells you about what happened with the Hornsent: "They were never saints. They just happened to be on the losing side of a war." Marika had every right to see the Hornsent dead, but the Golden Order went on to persecute the Omen and anything else that lay outside of the Golden Order's world view. It's just a spiral of death and warfare and persecution: if not the Golden Order, some other power would go to war with anything that threatened them. You see it all across Fromsoft's back catalogue. And Marika had so many cursed children, it makes you wonder if she was being punished for the betrayal she committed so she could ascend to godhood.
One thing I find interesting about Messmer's story is that when he leaves for the Crusade it's described as a "flight" as if he is escaping, or is being chased away. This leads me to believe that while Marika told Messmer he was going on a holy war, she told the people of the erdtree something different, maybe that Messmer was planning to burn the erdtree, to commit the first cardinal sin, or that she didn't sanction the eradication of the hornsent and Messmer doing so was an act of treason. Either way I believe Messmer also knew that Marika did this, since his armor description says "direct thine ire, thine maledictions, all of it unto me", I don't believe he's entirely talking about the hornsent, since the hornsent still curse Marika they are still directing their ire and maledictions too her, I believe he meant the erdtreee faithful to do this, since none seem to hate Marika for Messmer's actions. Marika told him to become this symbol of hatred to the people of the erdtree, and to runaway on a holy war, maybe even promising that once he was finished his actions would be praised by erdtree society and he would be redeemed. All this would also explain a big part of erdtree culture, that being the hatred of snakes, being described as "traitors to the erdtree". Messmer was painted as a traitor and as a result his visage of snakes was turned into a symbol of scorn. Which makes those who he inspired loyalty in, Rellana and Gaius, all the more compelling. As for Andreas, I don't think he turned against Messmer because he had serpentine qualities, because the winged serpent was always part of Messmer's motifs it wouldn't make sense for him to follow Messmer all the way to the shadow realm and commit atrocities if the fact he had serpents around him was the reason for his eventual revolt. I think it was more that he discovered it was a "malevolent serpent" that inhabited Messmer's body. The base serpent is odd, and I don't really know where it comes from or what it's nature is, but I think the fact it is described as malevolent is the reason Andreas rebelled against Messmer.
messmer and his soldier knew: it was no holy war guided by grace. So he was not manipulated, neither his soldiers, only instructed to get rid of the old religion, thats why it is a crusade.
To me it seems messmer was just desperate to get his mothers love and acceptance, he got over his need for his mothers approval…after he was at deaths door lol
@@dmarjs1574 and than we know what happened to marika, he is still in the dark i think, so has she abandoned the shadow lands, i don't think so. I think marika gave her best for the children, but had to many enemies and to many deals with the devil.
With the additional lore provided by the dlc, Marika's motivation seems to almost mirror the Dung Eater's. Dung Eater wanted to spread his "curse", making everyone an omen so that the omens could no longer be persecuted. In much the same way, I think everything Marika did, from becoming the vessel of the elden ring, shattering it to remove the rune of death and institute her own cycle of rebirth, and her crusade against the hornsent was all to eliminate all signs of the crucible from the lands between. Partially as an act of revenge against the hornsent, and partially because the numen couldn't persecuted if EVERYONE was a numen.
Funny thing. All the stuff everyone does in Elden Ring is caused by the Mother of All Fingers, an Insane Broken Extension of the Greater Will. So, Messmer, Marika and all her/his Children were doomed from the Start. For They all feel GW's Energy, but know Not the Greater Will's Will. Like interpretation of very Ancient Text hidden by the Priest Cast. The Fingers Speak indeed.
Yeah. The DLC outright says Godhood is a prison. The fingers elevated a broken, traumatized survivor of a prosecuted slave population into godhood to use as their puppet. And even before the DLC, the base game itself called into question how much agency Marika actually had at times. There's definitely a reason why she lost faith in the Golden Order and caused the shattering. Even Radagon at the final battle didn't seem anything more than a hollowed out puppet. So I don't know if I agree with Fatbretts conclusion of assigning Marika as the ultimate main villain of the entire story.
@@RaytheonThunder Fingers are vassals of GW and probably have their own mind for few things, as we see with their assassins and are they, thinking this is what the GW wants, who send us to slay demigods and repair the Elden Ring. At the same time, nothing suggest that Marika was controlled or influenced by them or their Mother that... literally just try to call the GW like her Daughters. Abouth faith in Golden Order, she lost her mind probably after a life of suffering, her best son died and turned into a monster fish, other children cursed, her other self turning into a God like her, part of her World corrupted more and more by the Death Roots... in the more Human and Divine way to do, in her madness she decided to End everything and f*ck everyone else. Both asshole and sad. Also yes, Radagon in his bossfight is a puppet. The dark energy inside him is the same that then becomes the Elden Beast and a little strange the big scholar of any kind of spell and magic, Int and Faith, uses only faith. But that is just a hurted Elden Beast and both Radagon and Marika are alive but... well, literally broken shattered bodies.
Yeah. Marika seems to have been fueled by sheer hatred towards the Hornsent, building her entire kingdom around erasing them from the face if the world. Gwyn on the other hand was just a stubborn old man, too unwilling to let go of the power and control he got his hands on. He acted out of fear of losing that power, and while it doesn't absolve him of what he made happen to the Hollowed, it does make him come off as pitiable, unlike Marika
@@Late0NightPC Despite this, Gwyn had as big an impact on the world of DS as Marika did on the world of ER. The curse of the undead is something that permeates all humans and cannot be undone in any way. The souls are the same, the desires are the same, and this creates a cycle. I think it's much worse than taking the death rune from the elden ring.
Hey man. Gwyn is pettier than Marika that he would erase every bit of your history if you just befriend a dragon. At least Marika, especially Godwyn, was pretty chill with their enemies as long as you're chill yourself.
@@silenthero2795 Marika has some reason to hate the people who worshipped the crucible, since her people were tortured by them. But Gwyn expelled his son because he allied himself with an enemy. The two were already settled, the Nameless King had already chosen his own side. Messmer waited for years for his mother to return, but she only left him in that devastated land at her will. Marika was much more cunning, while Gwyn seemed to have a harsher ideology.
The moment he clocks you as Tarnished, everything he was secretly suspicious of but refused to accept was confirmed. The war wouldn't end, Marika would never return. Messmer had been abandoned. The player character is a walking contradiction to Messmer's entire existence, and he simply could not bring himself to accept this. The iris of Grace had blinded him. Only when he removed it did he fully fathom the truth.
This many different types of fire in Elden Ring, and they still manage to make Messmer's flavor stand out as its own thing. Vibrant red like the Fire Giant's flame of ruin, but instead of burning white-hot in its core from sheer power, it swirls with black like the Godskins' flame. Destruction and death, represented together in one terrible package.
Morgott and Messer both deserved better fates than what was imposed on them. Both of them are prisoners of their curses, unloved and forgotten by their mother, yet both of them fought for the Golden Order in spite of it. I wanna give both of them a hug.
Marika and her ascension, is so vastly similar to The Emperor of Mankind from 40k, it’s incredible. A shaman born individual, born millennia old, who bide their time until they were powerful enough to enact their own plan of dominance over the world. This dominance being bolstered by their powerful godlike children, who in reality, were nothing more than tools of war. This power of this Being was bolstered through communion with outer gods of vast power, through a ritual that has been all but scrapped from history. Now obviously the story lose their similarities as time goes on, but the origins are remarkably similar
Not sure if it was pointed out but Messmer's dialog also changes when he kills you during his second phase. I'm paraphrasing but "Embrace your oblivion lightless creature, as shall I."
Messmer is a great example of what I love about fromsoft: subtlety. There is so much we can learn and assume based off information given in the game. Some people call it lazy but I absolutely love it because by letting one interpret such things themselves you can get attached to the character way easier. That’s to say I love messmer and thank you for this video!
I think of the impalement of the Hornsent as an ironic joke. The Hornsent inquisitors used barbs to impale their victims from within. In fact, they themselves seemed to have a fascination of torture, as seen from the residents of Midra’s Manse and the Shamans. Honestly, I find their consequences befitting. They hurt people, desecrated the shamans, and tried to play God by making a Saint. It’s like Leda said. The Hornsent were never saints. They were just on the losing side of the war, and I bet if they weren’t, they’d be doing the same torture on Messmer’s soldiers.
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 the Hornsent themselves are rounded up in droves, dead or alive (but most likely still alive for extra cruelty), to be stuffed in the golems and lit aflame to bring it to life. Imagine the screams and howls of terror and agony and the smell of burning flesh as the golem surges to life; An instrument of death’s first gasps of “life” brought forth by the deaths of so many within its frame to serve as fuel for the golem as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery as it wears the horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
Marika found the monster in the flesh of man named Horaux Loux and brought him with her to the gate of divinity and together the slaughtered the keepers of the tower and he called Marika back from the gate of Divinity allowing her to ascend and return to the world a god in flesh Also just like Vlad the truth of both impalers stories are more complicated than the surface leads you to believe
Honestly while I think the idea of Horaux Loux being the Lord that ushered her in. I think it was her other half, Radagon. That brought her in. We know the Empyreans tend to have a "other half". Messmer and the serpent, Miquella and St Trina, Melania and the Rot goddess. Hell even Ranni killed her body but not her soul. I think Marika's original sin was betraying and slaughtering the hornsent, and using whatever divine powers they had from their corpses to Ascend herself to Godhood
@@JH-gu4hj look at what Miquella abandoned his other half he is a parallel to Marika and she abandoned Radagon just like Miquella did for Trina this is why Radagon isn't a god until the shattering
I love how Messmer and Miquella are very much foils of each other. Messmer is outwardly evil. He does terrible things to innocent people and causes death and destruction on a massive scale, inspiring fear and terror wherever he goes, in a great, zealous crusade. Yet in reality, he cares very deeply for his men and subjects, and only seeks love and acceptance from someone who gives him nothing in return. He fights hard to protect those he loves and does everything he can to prevent their deaths. Miquella is supposedly a compassionate, kind, and loving individual, who does not care what you are or who you are, and only wants to bring everyone together and stop the constant conflict between the different peoples of the Land Between. Yet in reality, Miquella wants to become an all powerful despot, who sacrificed his own followers and family for his own ambitions. He wants to carve the world in his image, regardless of how many lives it would cost. Like all FromSoft games, appearances are often deceiving.
Absolutely love the point about all of the various characters hiding or suppressing parts of themselves to fit within the Golden Order, an incredibly common phenomenon under anything resembling fundamentalism of any kind. The one child who didn’t fit but refused to be ashamed, Mohg, is the most used and abused in the entire game-and not only everyone in the world but we as players viewed him as an irredeemable villain until the DLC’s release.
I'm going to go on a tangent and say that Messmer isn't a scorned child, but rather was one of the most beloved children that Marika had, and that love between the two of them is what sealed his tragic fate. There are many reasons why I believe this but the main ones are that it's highly likely that Marika declared snakes as heretical to the Golden Order after the abyssal serpent cursed Messmer at birth (since we know that Rykard was born long after Messmer.) Marika also declared an entire outer god as "fell" and banned all their reverence from the Lands Between because it had afflicted Messmer with visions of fire (a treatment that she did not give Malenia despite her also being cursed at birth by an outer god). She went through the trouble of actually creating a special seal with her rune and gifting it to Messmer to help him contain the curse of the abyssal serpent rather than keeping him underground like she did with the Omen twins despite them being born with afflictions of their own. Finally Messmer seems to be keenly aware of Marika's past and her life as a Shaman which no other demigod shows to be. In the original japanese description of his armor it is said that he marched to the Land of Shadow for Marika's sake. He also built a massive, extremely well defended, and nearly impenetrable fortress around the Shaman village where Marika grew up. Within said fortress he has an infirmary where his followers try to cure or at least comfort the living remains of the Shaman jars created by the Hornsent. We also know that he directly carried out the crusade against them which starts to make a lot of sense as an act punishment out of his love for Marika because of what they did to her and her people. Then there's all the little things like that he has a giant statue of her holding a baby rather than doing her costume pose which is also bigger than any statue of her that we find in the Lands Between. There's also the fact that he refers to her as mother rather than by her royal title like Morgott. He was so devoted to her that he waged an eternal war against all threats that were directly related to her, willingly erasing himself from history in the process. There being a region called "Abyssal Woods" in the Land of Shadow right next to the Shaman village (which makes a clear implication as to where Messmer grew up and would help explain the serpent curse and his deep knowledge of Marika's early life.) And he's willing to go so far to uphold the principles that she once held that he'd lose the blessing she gave him and give himself to the vile influence of the abyssal serpent (that he specifically refers to as shorn of light) rather than allow someone with as little Grace as a tarnished to become Elden Lord (and even after he loses himself to what the japanese description calls "the evil snake" he still refers to Marika as his mother in a respectful way.)
Merika makes me imagine someone that did everything they could to afford a fancy car. They sold their family's artifacts. They took out loans. They even robbed a few people. And when they finally got the fancy car they realized it wasn't worth all that they paid and drove the car into a lake like it was going to make the debt go away.
Mesmer's last line after his death cursing his mother is, probably, the most important lore revelation in the entire game. As Marika sinned, everyone who she killed and cursed her, manifested into her children, borned with curses, forever reminding Marika of her actions
Not exactly willing when it comes to Messmer. His remembrance tells the tragedy of his story, of how Marika had to hide him in the shadow land, how she tried to help him with the eye of grace. And if you read the Blessing of Marika item, those are supposed to be medicine she made for him She actually tried to help him in whatever way she could
For the night of black knives, she had to have a hand in that plot, because there isn't any one with the power to face down Maliketh to steal the power of death from his blade. Only Marika had the power to command him so only she had the power to set him up to fail his only duty
I think the jar ritual with the shamen is intended to grow the horns the hornsent worship. We learn from the ancestral spirit, that death creates the conditions for horns to sprout from long lived beats. The numen are said to be long lived.
Messer and Morgott are such well written tragic characters. Both shunned by the Golden Order and yet both loyal to the end. Crazy to think about the Golden Order at its peak: Godfrey, Maliketh, Radagon and Marika, followed by Godwyn, Messmer, Melina, Radahn, Rykard, Ranni, Malenia, Miquella and Morgott/Mogh in secret. What a fucked up but crazy powerful set of lineups.
Hi Brett, love the video. I've recently completed my run of the DLC myself, you've gone through practically everything on Messmer, but there is something I think you missed. Near the beginning of the game you can find an item called 'Blessing of Marika'. It's description is "A special physick blessed by Marika, the queen of the Erdtree. Completely restores HP and heals all ailments. Marika once created several of these physicks for Messmer's sake. But never again". This one item has heavy implications for the relationship of Marika and Messmer, for it confirms that there were indeed 'good times' for Messmer to look back on as proof of motherly love, as the potion cures all ailments- possibly a means of suppressing Messmer's curse WITHOUT needing to remove an eye. Note that Marika is referred to here just as 'Marika' not 'Marika the Eternal'. This then places its creation as before the establishment of the Golden Order proper (or at least the removal of Destined Death). Combine with the 'mother Marika' statue and Minor Erdtree incantation (as well as Godfrey's 'hands rated E for everyone' Crucible Knights/wars), we can see that Marika, even after becoming a god, did not immediately become the ruthless pragmatist supreme we know and fear from later. Note also that there is a reference to Messmer's 'flight from the Erdtree'. multiple mentions of serpents being traitors to the Erdtree and that pesky 'But never again', and we can clearly see that some sort of break point precipitated Marika's shifting views toward her children. If you want my bet, this event was the Godskin Hunt/Gloam Eyed Queen. I think Melina was this queen, who bore a vision of (Black) fire and betrayed her mother for an as-yet unknown reason. I believe that Marika called on Messmer to crush this new threat to her rule. And I believe Messmer refused to hunt down his sister, fleeing back to the land of shadow to 'do his job' after which Marika abandoned him. Regardless, you've set out a great video and I look forward to the one on Morgott (Marika should I think be tackled only after all her kids and Godfrey).
That would explain why Melina is burnt when we first met her; killed(edit: Defeated) by her brother's flame. That could imply that the Hunt itslef probably led to the Wandering Mausoleums holding "Unwanted Childs" of Marika...That makes so much sense!!! She can guide the flames cause she was burnt by a kind of "acursed" flame before and had the same vision of flames that Messmer had !!! This also makes me think that it could be an even grander Marika plot to create a semblance of "organic" rebellion that could lead to the breaking of the order without her beign implicated. I say that cause Melina "was given her purpose by her mother inside the tree" and she does not show any ill intent towards Marika at any given time and even uses one of her more secretive spells, that presumably was used the last when Marika left her home town.
From Software has such an unique approach and skill at storytelling. Their horror is indeed cosmic in scale but yet driven by such human motivations and failings.
I draw problem with the preconceptions that Messmer was manipulated. We simply just don't know if that's true. We know based on Messmer's parentage and nature that he was born very early on in the timeline. Messmer, very well, could have witnessed this massacre of his own people first hand. He could've hated the hornsent just as much as his Mother. In fact, you site various descriptions which may argue this point themselves, the description citing that he was to become an icon of peoples ire and fear, may be of his own accord. The fact that she created various items to quell his affliction implies a degree of care at one point from Marika. I do believe she abandoned him out of fear at one point, but the preconceptions here presume a lot that is unconfirmed.
I love the subtle/not subtle allusion of his name. In an expansion all about charms, inspired loyalty, control and influence over others, Messmer just being the root of "Mesmerize", enthralling someone or something into a trance of devotion, holding a level of control over their actions. FromSoft's quiet, loud storytelling through names, real world references, and other such things always amazes me
that parallel you mentioned between miquella and messmer was really eye opening and really recontextualized messmer as a fallen hero for me. really good shit dude
Messmer was an inspiring leader of men and a loyal son who waged a war against those that enslaved, tortured, and mutilated his mothers people. He took no pleasure in any of this. He was simply doing his duty and serving as a son must serve. In this grim war he fostered true loyalty and friendship with those around him and as shown in the clinic within his keep genuinely tried to help others. Until his last moments he never lost faith with his mother, doing what was requested of him regardless of the personal toll it was taking. I fail to see how he is a villian from any perspective aside from the Hornsents. They helped create the devil through their cruelty and reaped what they sowed.
yeah... the Hornsent kinda suffer from the same issue that orcs and goblins do in some settings in that they're just so unambiguously evil as a whole that it honestly starts to look harder to justify keeping them alive. the Hornsent are so bad, that the fact that they fear and outlawed the Frenzied Flame honestly got me questioning whether the Frenzied Flame, or at the very least the people at Midra's Manse, might be good (or at least a lesser evil). the spirits in that area certainly seem to be under the impression that they did nothing wrong and that the Hornsent just randomly turned up to brutally torture them to death with barbed spears and swords. to be honest that whole area managed to simultaneously paint the Frenzied Flame in a more terrifying light whilst also making those that would follow and use it seem much more normal and sympathetic (which mixed with some other things Ymir said to lead me into some wild insane theory that the Crucible, the Greater Will, and the Frenzied Flame might all be different aspects of the same being. creator, preserver, and destroyer). even the few Hornsent we can actually speak to are so consumed by ideas of revenge against Messmer that they're left without any notable redeeming features. get rid of Messmer and they either die from their life's purpose being fulfilled or they seek a new target to vent their aggression towards.
@@Eclipsed_Embers The Hornsent are no different than those who follow the Golden Order. They’re morally grey, with their own beliefs and practices, some of which are more questionable than others. I don’t think they deserved the geocide enacted upon them. If anything, Marika continued and escalated the cycle of violence THROUGH the crusade. Even with their terrible shaman pot rituals, the total purge of hornsent life from the lands between is unreasonable. The Hornsent prosecuting those who follow the Flame of Frenzy is justified tho. Same with the Golden Order doing the same. The Flame of Frenzy is a nihilistic sadistic way out of suffering, and it is not something that should be seen in a good light. It’s a force that manipulates those who are at the ends of their rope, almost appearing to them like a devil with a deal. It is the antithesis of all life in the lands between. It is in no way, shape, or form, a good force. It doesn’t discriminate, yes, but to purge the world of all life is not a good cause to fight for. It’s global, uniform suicide.
*looks at the fire golems* idk man I still say he's a villain. Explanation doesn't equal justification. He could have... you know... not indulged his mother's petty revenge quest? Maybe not tortured an entire group of people for all eternity? You could flip these same arguments for the Hornset. "All their evil actions are justified because they inspired loyalty". An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, as they say.
@pancakes8670 The fire golems was their way of saying "two can play the eternally torturing people" game. And petty revenge quest? His mothers entire people were wiped out. They were tortured and mutilated, forced to live forever within the jars because that was all they were deemed good for. As for that eye for an eye argument, it is only made by cowards who don't want to face the consequences of their actions. You don't want to lose your eye? Well tough shit, you shouldn't have taken mine.
@@pancakes8670 I feel like things are meant to be more morally grey than that. Hard to say Messmer's a villain if we're talking about the hornsent out of all people. They could very well be called villains too if we're talking about killing and torturing. It's essentially two monsters exchanging bites, though I do think part of the point throughout the story is that Marika shouldn't have let herself be guided by revenge for so long and for so many of her decisions.
Something about Mesmer that I find very interesting is that he seems loved. Abandoned, yes, but still one of the few children of Marika who seems to be LOVED. The description of the Blessing of Marika is just a untypical act of Marika (seeing how she has the omen twins and the other two twins, Malenia and Miquella, all aflicted) Mesmer seems all the more tragic by that: he seems to be very much loved by Marika
The DLC did show us why she hated Mohg and Morgott as they remind her of the people who killed her people, who destroyed her home. Of all the children she had, Messmer was one she loved along with Godwyn (the only demigod son of hers who's normal)
He wasn't intentionally abandoned, as far as I can tell. Marika was sealed away in the Erdtree by The Greater Will, there was no way for her to return.
@@lumeronswift She was never going to return. She’s a psycho who sent her own children in the sewers, her other child to act out her vengeance, and I feel she even had a hand in the black knives killing godwyn to kick off the shattering. She caused mass genocide multiple times. I don’t think every loved anyone and just used be people to fulfill her own ambitions.
@@tristanward9937 I truly do not believe she played a role in Godwyn's death. While I think she did conspire with Ranni against the Golden Order, aiding her with the Rune of Death, I doubt she knew Ranni intended to kill both herself and her own son. Among all her children, Godwyn was the only one untainted by any curse. To Marika, Godwyn was the ultimate proof that she could create something "perfect," affirming her worthiness of Godhood, divinity, and Grace. This is why I believe that when she lost Godwyn-the embodiment of her hope-she was left with only her "failures" (the rest of her children). This despair drove her to shatter the Elden Ring. In my view, Godwyn's death was the catalyst; it was the final blow that broke her resolve. With nothing left to lose, she shattered the ring, setting in motion the events that followed as we now know them. Edit: That doesn’t mean the rest of her children were unloved-far from it. However, seeing them constantly mirrored her deepest insecurities, reminding her that, because of her past "sins," she was herself a failure. This by no means makes her a good mother, she failed all of her children. Ath least, this is my interpretation.
So my take with the Hornsent, Omen, and Misbegotten is this: The Hornsent are the last remnants of the old religion of the Crucible. From what we learned, they would torture the people of the Shaman Village and throw them into jars with dead flesh to become 'saints'. I'm not sure what that actually means. But eventually Marika was born to the Shaman Village, and eventually was able to claim Godhood from the Greater Will - be that from Metyr, directly from the Greater Will, or through some other means. When she rose to divinity, she ripped her homeland and that of the Hornsent from reality, physically separating that territory from the rest of the Lands Between. She sent her son Messmer to both protect the secret of her homeland and essentially create a hell for the Hornsent who had tortured her people for who knows how long. The Hornsent, not understanding irony and taking the L, cursed "Marika's Progeny" who I take to mean those born into her Golden Order. The curse was to take the form of their divinity, so the Omen were born in the shape of grotesque hornsent. I don't think Omen and Hornsent are the same, I think the Hornsent created the curse of the Omen in their image to torment Marika in perpetuity, I think the Misbegotten are just another form of life close to the Crucible, something between hornsent and demihuman.
I love the parallels between Messmer and norse mythology. While the Erdtree represents Yggdrasil, Messmer represents Nidhogg, a winged serpent who gnaws at the roots of the tree and tortures the dead.
Mesmir is actually blind the whole time, his one eye is permanently closed, his other is the gold grace, he sees with the snake eyes. thats why in the second phase the snake also is missing an eye and has one closed eye, so like Melania he's blind. love your stuff bro. you have an amazing grasp of the philosophical themes of ER and all these games (shoutout to Custom Robo), i always learn stuff from your vids.
one would like to imagine a world where Messmer and Gaius are just having tea parties with their friends & siblings. Messmer could have been Rya’s friendly snake uncle :,(
Something I wish you had mentioned regarding Messmer's Flame is that, even if it has a different symolism compared to the other flames, it's still a flame, and AFAIK we've yet to meet a style of flame that the Golden Order is willing to accept. We also see that Messmer's Flame/Kindling has the ability to burn the thorns of the Sacred Tree, much like how Melina can kindle the Giantsflame to burn the Erdtree. The kindling even mentions how she and Messmer share a vision of fire. Thus, it isnt hard to understand why Marika would first try to seal Messmer's flame away, then later abandon him when it's clear he can still control some of that flame.
So far I've assumed that Messmer is perfectly aware of the whole jar/shamans/revenge situation, instead of being lied to, and there is no contradiction between that and the holy crusade, maybe they're even directly related. It seems there is no real evidence for one or the other option
I believe that Messmer views himself not as any kind of holy crusader or a beloved son but a sin-eater, so consumed by his self-loathing as a serpentine cursed creature that he leapt at the opportunity to take the fall for Marika, carry out a shameful crusade and be forgotten by the lands between once the lands of the scadutree were concealed and banished. It wouldn't surprise me if he tried to turn away the aid of the likes of Gaius & Relanna and only their love (familial, platonic, otherwise, who knows) and loyalty for him was what bound them into joining him, along with the flame knights who saw something noble in Messmer, likely in the same way that Melania's rot knights were inspired by her perseverance against the scarlet rot that cursed her. He probably broods and hides in this dark chamber seperated from the shadow tower feeling unending guilt and self-hatred for allowing Gaius, Relanna and his loyal knights to be trapped here in this never ending hell of loneliness with him. Its only in his final moments he finally directs the blame for all he's suffered towards someone other than himself. His existence is painfully sad.
Based video. Your character breakdowns have always been fascinating to me so I cannot wait to see your take on Queen Marika the Eternal. After this DLC, she is an oddly human character despite being called a god time and again.
This is kind the point. She has the power over the damn Rules of The World, she can decide to just push away Death. Yet, in the end, she is just a human with a lot of suffer in her heart.
The eye Messmer's plucks out closely resembles Marika's Soreseal and would imply that he, like Hewg, is mainly acting under some sort of geas. The genocide and terror campaign would as such have been done under mind control, while his nobler actions would represent his true self bleeding through. This would also explain why he only curses Marika with his dying breath. As his only option for fulfilling Marika's orders involved channeling his curse, he accidentally broke the mind control (Soreseal) and only started to realized it with his dying breath. Had he survived our encounter, I wonder if Messmer would've spun his life around and become a heroic figure.
Messmer's words after killing the player in Phase 2 means that he would still continue albeit in darkness. There are some Iris of Grace left in the Land of Shadows so he could just replace what he lost. The item actually boosts the user when used so it is rather lore accurate that in his desperation would use it against us. However when Marika didn't intervene or showed up in his dying moments did he realize that he was truly abandoned.
If you look closely on the black knights torches it seems that they have the same flame as Messmer's kindling as such even abandoned by grace he still care for his men
It's impressive to see how your writing evolves with each new video. Your descriptions, diction, and syntax continue to impress me. Thanks for your work.
The way he says his classic "All those stripped of the grace of gold shall meet death in the embrace of Messmer's flame." in his 1st phase sounds like a chant. Like he's had to say it over and over and over again just to remember what the point of his life is, what his existence means. Hell, its probably something Marika said to him. So its been replaying constantly in his head. Beautiful work from the va.
Messmer helps you realise that one of the worst endings is indeed reestablishing the golden order with the Rune of order. Instead of forging something new,something better you choose to stick with the persecution of all that's different and all that's hurt you. Above all else the golden order is a order of veiled revenge
Being tarnished sucks The golden order hates you The hornsent hates you The misbegotten and albinaurics hates you Even other tarnished join factions like the recusants or bloody fingers to specifically hunt other tarnished
I keep thinking about Merica and her supposed abandonment of Messmer. Could it be that she absolutely meant to go back for him but when she did the shattering and the Erdtree locked her up, she was unable to get him? Merica gets so much blame for things that might not be her fault. She was the last of her kind in The Land, I believe the Hornsent had spent perhaps 1000 years perfecting the jars to saint pipeline and they saw Merica as the pinnacle and through her something something some god stuff who knows the point is, she was the last one, the Hornsent obviously expected something huge from her since they took her to the Gates f Creation or whatever it's called, the Hornsent were probably thinking Merica would be their Jar Jesus. However, maybe the night before Merica was praying to any god who would hear her plea and she was heard by the Greater Will who offered her a way out of Jar Jesusdom and she took it. Maybe then when the Hornsent took her to that Gateway, the Greater Will did a WHAMMO, killing all those Hornsent present, I dont know Im just guessing but anyway, Merica escaped because her acceptance of the Greater Will (seen as a Betrayal by the Hornsent see) caused The Land to be split in 2, eventually becoming The Lands Between and The Shadowland. Merica hit the ground running, she had a promise to keep to the Greater Will. I think Merica, a Neuman herself, believed her body (her DNA) to be pure and in that first flush of freedom, she joyously split herself in 2 and became Merica and Radagon and then promptly got herself pregnant with Messmer. Imagine her heartbreak when she discovered her first born child was born cursed. Then her next and next and no matter who she fucked, cursed, the lot of them. She must have felt betrayed by the Greater Will, no? Would she not have assumed The Greater Will would be in opposition to the Hornsent and their awful Crucible? I think Merica misunderstood many things, not least of which is the power of the Crucible as it is so obvious that the Crucible is the full cycle of birth>life>death with all it's messy confusion of horns and feathers and scales and whatthefuckever of The Land and that's just how it is there, it does not matter if the Greater Will is "in charge" or any outer god or whatever, the Crucible just IS and always will be. Merica could not understand her children being born "cursed", could not stand to see Misbegotten, could not stand to see horns or feathers or scales, she saw all of that as a betrayal by the greater Will but cognitive dissonance is terrible, she eventually waged war against the Crucible and what better place to do so than the origin of her trauma, the Shadowland. War war war what ever for... So messmer was given a mandate to stamp out all those in the Shadow who would not or could not accept the Greater Will, all those lacking a pinch of Grace. He might not have expected those people to fight back as strongly as they did but they did. No matter as Messmer was great at genocide. I wonder if it wasn't due to his own abyssal devouring snake. His genocide took so long though. So long that Messmer began to believe the hushed whispers and furtive prayers of his own men, whispers that his mother had abandoned him, perhaps due to her repulsion of his "curse", who's to say. Once Messmer let those thoughts fester, it was only a matter of time before he just let himself go full snake. But I don't think Merica abandoned him, the Greater Will sealed her up in the Erdtree before she could go get him. Who knows? I don't think we understand what she was trying to accomplish when she shattered the Elden Ring, it looks to me like she was a person suffering extreme PTSD who had unimaginable powers and yet was still controlled and manipulated by forces far outside her control. Her behaviors were extreme to us humans but I think she just wanted to be free in the end and wanted all of The Land, all of the world to be free but she was so damaged she used the only thing she knew, violence and weird godshit. I love your video essays Brett, I came her for the God of War content and Im sticking around for everything you post that is about a game I at least know a little bit about.
When your murderer dedicates a museum to you in order to preserve history it is not out of a sense of respect or love or admiration but a compulsion to remember their victories over you. It was not enough to win, they must own you. A victory over you as eternal as the belief that if we take from someone we kill, we earned it and it is our right to keep it. It was so important to them, you see, we must value it for them. People who own museums dedicated to cultures they destroyed are not also somehow their saviors by keeping and maintaining their culture. They’re just grave robbers who learned that paying for admission made them more money, that artifacts last longer than meat and that you can sterilize anything, even crimes, if you put it behind enough protective glass and assure them it’s history. Don’t get it confused. Messmer didn’t do his part in protecting a legacy, he just made sure there was enough of them left for a footnote. That’s not a dog, it’s a turtle.
Exactly! It’s like saying every warlike civilization throughout history that plundered and ransacked the cultural heritage and sacred treasures of their enemies is at least decent enough to preserve them out of respect when it’s not. They’re more or less stuffed in a glorified trophy room. Even the name of the area, “Specimen Storehouse”, is one more little spat of the dignity of the Hornsent; They’re not seen as a culture worth remembering as sapient beings on the same level as them but mere animals to be put down or placed in an exhibit to point and laugh at.
The idea that the curses that Marika's children inherit are because of Marika's own sins makes a lot of sense, especially when you look at the curses her children have. Morgott and Mohg are both born with aspects of the crucible which Marika and the golden order declared impure, leading them to be reviled, tortured and enslaved. Malenia is born with scarlet rot from the outer god of rot itself which makes sense because in Marika's conquest, she aspired to be the ruler and god of the entire lands between, an example being the war she waged on the giants, one, because they had a flame that could burn the erdtree and because they also worshipped another god. Something that Corhyn mentions during goldmask's quest is that the golden order is founded on the principle that Marika is the one true god and so for that very reason Malenia is born with a curse from another outer god, making her a goddess of rot, rather than of gold. Miquella's curse is that he can never age, meaning he would remain a child for eternity, the sin that causes this curse is from Marika removing death from both the Elden ring and the lands between entirely, the correlation being that you could never naturally die of old age if you never aged at all. Melina is cursed with seeing visions of flame, something that is regarded as sinful, an example of this is Corhyn, who at one point saw a vision of flame and was punished for it by being blindfolded and wearing a giant wooden wheel around his neck. P.S. Melina is the daughter of Marika as she says that she was born at the foot of the erdtree and also the kindling we receive after killing messmer describes that like his younger sister, he envisioned flame and because Messmer is the child of Marika this sister who envisioned flame is most definitely Melina. However, Godwyn on the other hand is born without a curse, there's no actual reason behind this but my theory is that he has no curse because he takes his namesake after his father Godfrey rather than his mother Marika whereas every other child of Marika inherits her namesake and is cursed.
Honestly, there's a lot of lore. People just run past it because they want to rush through the bosses. Then, they're going to complain about the lack of lore.
Messmer: "You still love me more than Mohg, right?"
Marika: "Gonna be honest, I basically categorize you guys as Godwyn and not-Godwyn."
This sounds so accurate.
To be fair with what we know about Godwyn you can't really blame her. The guy was the only normal child she had.
@@blizzardgaming7070I don’t think that justifies her horrible parenting skills XD
Messmer: You love me, right mom?
Marika: Yeeeeeah... About that..
Mommy issues everywhere. And genocide. Like all good tales.
One thing that I find very intriguing is that when he kills you in the first phase he repeats his "embrace of messmers flame" speech but he sounds incredibly board, even tired, like a minimum wage worker who would rather do anything else. I think this shows that he is only still going through with the crusade because of his obligation, and he feels no pleasure in his actions anymore, if he ever did to begin with.
Maybe that's why I got so tilted by that. His tone and delivery got under my skin because he sounded bored. Meanwhile almost every other boss didn't feel like that
He did what he did to those people for his mother. Granted those ppl literally kidnapped and turned his mothers ppl into jars which caused said crusade in the first place. Messmer id not evil and was not killed by us because he was evil or a traitor he simply held the tool we needed.
I noticed that he's always so no challant about it
@@Obsidian-ut4luWe didn’t even kill him because he had something we needed. He was killed because of a misunderstanding on his part. He says it’s his duty to kill any who are “-stripped of the grace of gold”. The problem is, our Tarnished is BEING DIRECTED by the grave of gold. He thinks we’re just some random Tarnished with zero merit, but by this point players must have killed at least two demigods and have the backing of the Golden Order.
@@TheBaselessMountain, nonchalant
Jars. In the base game, funny creatures and a great hero. In the dlc: THE DAMN START OF ALL THIS MESS.
The slaughters and wars began with the jars. Who could’ve suspected this because, it was not me that is for sure.😂
@@elviraweekes3906 Maybe the fact that they are little walking graveyards was an clue🤔
The fact that jars of all things are the foundation to Elden Ring's entire lore sounds so funny until one sees the exact content for how and why.
@@themaniae4803 I thought they were supposed to be garbage disposal but for dead people.😭
Jars before you know the jar lore: 😄
Jars after you know the jar lore: 😨
The fact that Messmer ends up dying alone and abandoned with no legacy to leave behind because he was erased from history is extremely tragic.
Unlike Miquella who only inspired love and loyalty from others because of his enchantment, Messmer seemed like a genuinely good leader who was well liked and respected by those around him. Messmer also seems to be genuinely compassionate considering he has a whole clinic in his castle for treating and trying to cure the shaman jars. That same castle is also built in a way that protects his mother’s village. When one of his black knights betrayed him, he doesn’t torture or kill him, he just imprisons him and mourns the loss of a brother at arms. Radahn himself even looked up to him as a big brother so that tells you a lot about who Messmer is at heart.
Between his strength, intelligence, and affectionate nature, I truly believe Messmer could have been one of the most revered demi gods right up there with Radahn and Godwyn. If only he had the chance to pursue his own goals and ambitions. But instead he lives his life as a tool for Marika’s vengeance and is unloved despite his loyalty, he’s abandoned by her simply for being born with an affliction he had no control over.
Shit sucks, the man deserved better.
I never thought about that it’s truly sad that he was forced to me his moms monster
Messmer is one of the few demi gods that I don't want to kill
@@alastortheworshipperofkhorneif he didn’t beat my ass for 6 hours straight I’d probably feel the same way lol
Marika really has a habit of turning her kids into monsters by just abandoning them for no real reason.
At this point it's what, 3 actually raised and 3 dumped? And for the 3 raised we only really get mentions of Radagon raising Miquella etc, not actually Marika herself.
The man is tied to every single heretical aspect of the Golden Order while championing it. He was never going to have a place. His Red hair, his affinity for fire calling upon the power of the Abyssal Serpent. As far as the dominant religion was concerned Messmer is the devil.
The fact Messmer could’ve been on Godwyn levels of heroic but was tarnished (pun intended) by Marika using him as a symbol of fear
Nah Mesmer would still be feared regardless due to his curse. Even if he was seen as a legend he wouldn’t have the pure/godlike status that godwyn had.
@@ratioratio7354and that’s part of the reason why she left him there
@@ratioratio7354That's the thing though, these symbols like snakes or features from the crucible are seen as vile because marika made it so. they aren't inherently evil
Well messmer would’ve been a symbol of fear even if he wasn’t hidden away, messmer was crazy strong, easily stronger than more than half of the demigods and all the while without possessing a great rune.
The problem seems to be that for all his positive traits, Messmer has no AMBITION. Ranni wishes to be free of her fate, Morgott wants to preserve the Golden Order, everyone has a goal… except Messmer. He is LITERALLY ‘just following orders’. And given the words Melina told us from Marika, about seeking and striving, the fact that Messmer doesn’t is probably why he’s the unloved child. He’s content to be his mother’s tool, even as he curses the fact he is and laments what he’s doing, so Marika treats him like one.
Because for all his positive traits, Messmer if Messmer had been among the demigods scrambling around after the shattering… all signs point to him doing nothing but merely following Marika’s orders, with no aims of his own.
One thing I love about Messmer is his self awareness. He fully acknowledges how the hornsent perceive him. He doesn’t try to cover up, deny, or atone for his crimes and slaughter. Because he knows there’s no point. He’s aware enough to know he’s a villain, but he’s also aware enough to know there’s no point in trying to make up for it. What’s done is done, and it’s partially his fault.
Hornsent had it coming.
He never got high on his own supply
@abdieljove2011 kinda like saying humans had it coming because of the actions of the nazis..
@@nathanwaibel454 I mean…we have it coming for way more than just the Nazis lol
@@abdieljove2011 it's not like you killed someone..
It's pretty interesting to compare and contrast Messmer and Miquella when it comes to the loyalty and trust of their followers because while Miquella can earn genuine loyalty from people like Leda and Malenia, he's prone to using his powers of compulsion to maintain his followers' loyalty. On the other hand, Messmer seems to inspire 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. While indeed, they're trapped with having no way of knowing how to get out and despite being war weary in what amounts to uncounted ages of genocidal slaughter, Messmer's army remains rather organized in the Land of Shadow despite major events happening outside their reach. 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, they 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 such as father and son duo Andreas and Huw, respectively, who rebelled 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.
Not saying that their deeds should necessarily be seen as justified and honorable but it's certainly an interesting look into Messmer's character.
Woah, didnt expect the first comment to be a conclusive lore dump in a lore dump video. Its structured very nicely, well put!
I 100% agree with you both are dangerous in their own ways
Godwyn is another foil to miquella in a way, were he actually turns enemies into friends by compation and actual care and frienship as he did with the ancient dragons, while Miquella wants to do the same in a global scale but without the effort of actually trying to understand and forgive one another just brute forcing it with love magic.
Totally agree, Messmer is almost a perfect foil to Miquella. I love when writers can create fleshed out character dynamics with characters who never even interact.
@@MarcellusMaize Speaking of Miquella, it’s interesting that you can find one of his crosses inside the Shadow Keep, implying that for whatever reason, Miquella entered/snuck into the keep and may or may not have interacted with Messmer. Kinda weird how Messmer was just chilling next door as one of his demigod siblings is busy ascending to godhood while using someone he was buddies with in the past as his consort. Imagine how shocked and horrified Messmer would be if he were to find out what happened to Radahn.
Marika was already one of the most fascinating characters in the lore to me, and learning how her tendencies for self-serving treachery stretch so far back and so throughly ruined the lives of so many, including a son who could have rivalled Godwyn in nobility, makes her all the more compelling. Its like Goldmask said: the gods are too fickle and human to be afforded such power
Based Goldmask was right all along 😢
I think Goldmask’s statement is even more interesting when it’s revealed that Marika grew up not as a royal scion of divine blood, but as a humble townsperson in Shaman Village. Marika was never born a god, she became one through the want to exact vengeance on the Hornsent who delivered her people a fate worse than death. As such, Marika was the most human of all.
TBF, the hornsent were kinda just as horrible as Marika would become, and even worse in some places. I really don't think much of value was lost there.
SPOILER if that still matters to some:
Bonny village and gaol, shaman village, Midra's estate... basically their entire culture revolves around slaughter and torture being justified through the most mundane reasons. No wonder their gods be ghosting them for ages.
The dlc really made Marika feel human. Being able to visit her empty and somewhat eerie but beautiful village was one of the highlights of the dlc for me. The 2 items there completely recontexualize her entire character. Not to mention that music 🤌🏾
@@armandaneshjooI don't think her being numen and her being shaman necessarily conflics, and half of your points sound like pure headcannon
Messmer is a good parallel to Morgott. They are both screwed over by the world but choose to be loyal anyway. The difference is Morgott seems to be loyal to the Erdtree and the idea of order itself, and keeps his loyalty to the end. Messmer meanwhile is loyal to his mother specifically, and turns against her in the very end.
The contrast between their ultimate fates as well. Morgott seems to have his Omenhood removed upon his death and even turns into grace when held by his father, as if to show the Erdtree blessed him in his final moments for his devotion. Meanwhile, Messmer just dies after being abandoned in the realm of Shadows despite staying loyal to Marika his entire crusade, only spurring her with his last words.
Not gonna lie always thought it is a bit of that his dying words are a curse on his mother.
@@dominiklange8382 yeah I just said that dude he’s turning against her
@@idontcare9661 my bad, must have phrased it wrongly. It's weird for me that he turns against her.
He is loyal until his dying breath, which he uses to curse and spite Marika
@@dominiklange8382 he turns because he sees the player, who is a lord without grace. He sees that Marika is a hypocrite and screwed him over unfairly. The characters in shadow of the Erdtree seem to operate under the knowledge that the player will be Elden lord
Something that you really should’ve mentioned: At the bottom of the Shadow Keep is what appears to be a sick bay for the Living Jars. Given what we learn from the DLC about what the Hornsent did to the people of the Shaman Village, it's heavily implied that for all the atrocities Messmer commits in Marika's name, even he cannot stomach what the Hornsent have done and does his best to care for them. It also seems to be another reason that fueled his brutality towards them.
Damn I felt like this video was almost perfect, shame he didn't bring this up
He did mention it, though.
He did mention it though
Because Marika is a Shaman which is the people that are being stuffed into jars. I think he sees in them a mirror of his mother given that they are his people too and wants to help their affliction.
@@SecretMarsupial To add onto this, the naked shaman jars are all shaped like Marika, even having her rune on their forehead, and the item description for the jar flesh describes that the raw meat is held together by "golden strings" which could be her hair. That in itself is further reinforced by the SOTE trailer where we see her dive her hand into a pile of what very much looks like jar flesh before pulling out several golden strings that are shining like her hair does (and Miquella's.)
Additionally, in that same trailer right as she plucks out the golden string before ascending to godhood, we can see that Marika has some old circular scars and bruises on her wrist (which she covers up with her golden bracelets) that are clearly older than the fresh blood on her hands. If you remember the item description of the tooth-whip (the only whip that inflicts poison) it describes that the back-handed blows of the whip which only bruise and lacerate rather than poison are intended to cause subjugation and obedience.
So it seems that not only Marika was originally a Shaman, but she vividly experienced the mass sacrifices, abuse, and disfigurement of her people at the hands of the Hornsent, as well as receiving their cruelty herself.
My theory is that the "seduction" that is spoken of in the SOTE trailer is the Two Fingers convincing Marika to become a goddess with the power of the Greater Will so she has the strength to not only break free of the vicious cycle of violence that her people had been subjected, but also to have the capacity to make sure that such cruelty is never repeated under her control.
“Yet…my purpose standeth unchanged”. This could be Mesmer reaffirming that he will purge us despite Marika’s supposed blessing. Or an accusation that his mother could not find a different purpose for him while a Tarnished could become Elden Lord.
Yeah I think Messmer was like “mother really you chose a goddamn tarnished, a random with no light in them as a damn lord wtf.”
It’s him realizing that even though her mother can choose someone with no golden grace she hasn’t done anything to change her order to him, to turn him into something else.
That’s the difference between us and Messmer, we chose to be something, the grave did guide us but we kept our choices even if it means to burn everything (Frenzy) or to either continue or even solidify the golden order (Gold mask) or to abandon the Lands Between (Ranni), to curse it (Dung Eater), or to start the opposite cycle order of Death (Godwyn ends).
Messmer however accept his roles without trying to do anything to change it because it was the will of God. It’s the theme Miura had on Berserk, although Griffith order was good, it was part of the same spiral made by the same evil god. Gutz on the other hand fought to what night cause worse world than what Griffith has build but he does not resign to what the fate has wrote just because it’s came from a god.
"I am Messmer, Spear of Mommy Issues, and I have never known any reason to stop."
DOCTOR FREUD, paging Dr. Freud, also the fire department and probably Steve Irwin.
Or that the eye prevents him to see the grace.
@@saeyabor
😆I have not laughed this hard in months.
M O N G R E L I N T R U D E R
New door bell sound unlocked
bro ur comment about messmer and marika really hit me because of how i percieve my own relationship with my mom. its crazy. a comment section about elden ring makes me understand more about myself than my family or society ever could, i need a therapis
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; Aside from preventing more of those she cares about from dying and removing a threat to her power, it could also be to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends. Marika hated 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.
What will happen to those shadow people when you defeat the maliketh and restore dea*h
My question is why did the "stuffing people into jars" thing continue in the Lands Between? Surely Marika would have wanted to end that practice after it was done to her own people by her sworn enemies, and yet thr Golden Order seemingly continues the Hornsent tradition, but stuffing warriors in jars rather than shamans. I'm pretty sure the wax seals on the Lands Between versions of Living Jars depict the Erdtree, showing how these jars were created by Marika's Golden Order, or at the very least someone else created them to serve the Golden Order. Since tons of jars are found at the bases of Minor Erdtrees, maybe they serve as a form of Erdtree Burial, but instead of having dedicated catacombs like the Erdtree does, Minor Erdtree Burial use living jars? That doesn't explain Alexandet, the independent village of Jarburg or the giant living Jar outside the coliseum in Caelid. Maybe the warrior jars and Jarburg's citizens are jars who rebelled against their purpose of being food for Minor Erdtrees? Idk... If I remember correctly, Minor Erdtrees and the Erdtree Avatars didn't appear until after the Shattering, so maybe none of the living jar stuff was Marika's doing. To me it seems like the existence of Living Jars in the Lands Between precedes the Shattering.
Sorry for writing so much, but my whole point here is that it confuses me why Marika would continue a practice that was likely a huge trauma for her and was literally the genocide of her people. Maybe the warriors inside the jars are Hornsent that were put inside as revenge? But then the Omens would have been put in jars too, since they are basically the same as Hornsent, or at least somewhat related given the horns? I don't know lol
@@LtCdrXander
if we talk from the theory of OP:
i believe marika may have continued the living jar tradition as an unfathomably big insult to hornsent who are stuck in an eternal losing war where they are genocided by messemer; "look at all the people in my golden order being stuffed into jars only to be reborn into another happy life through my erdtree, unlike what you did to my fellow shaman".
@@LtCdrXander It could be the creation of jars is something that's so deeply culturally ingrained that even Marika couldn't erase it, or it could be that the Lands Between jars can make themselves, but the important distinction is the Lands Between jars only use dead warriors to fill themselves, instead of tortured and maimed criminals or other captives. At least they're supposed to, I assume any aggressive jars in the game are trying to stuff us into them. My theory is that they're used to feed the minor erdtrees. We know from golden order burial practice and Miquella's efforts with the haligtree that the erdtree feeds off of flesh, blood, and serves as some kind of conduit for souls to reincarnate (in actuality its probably feeding the souls to the greater will or the elden beast). The minor erdtrees might not have roots that go deep enough to form catacombs around so the jars provide a solution; gorge themselves with strong warriors, aka people of high physical quality, and when they're full enough head to a minor erdtree and deposit. I thought of this not only because of the non shattered jars around the erdtrees, but because Alexander kept getting stuck in holes. He could be subconsciously trying to deposit his contents near an unsprouted erdtree seed.
@@LtCdrXanderthe jars may also feed the minor erdtrees
I think Mesmer must have been present when Marika addressed her children, imploring them to make something of themselves. When she tells them if they don’t amount to anything they’ll become sacrifices, I think she’s saying a tarnished will absorb their strength.
Mesmer may be the only one who knew what that means. When he sees the tarnished, he immediately knows he’s looking at the Elden Lord and not some random tarnished.
Mesmer did everything his mother asked, in his mind he became something greater, and now he’s a sacrifice to the tarnished. No wonder he curses Marika when he is defeated.
That sucks. Bro was set up to fail.
I thought he was abandoned to an endless war by Marika, making Messmer hates Marika.
@@V0RTA He still loved ger but definitely cursed her as he died. He became a stepping stone for the tarnished like the other demigods.
@@Xer405Maliketh, Messmer and Radagon all deserve to be pissed at Marika. Honestly I was when she throws Godfrey at us, as if she can make us do all the bullshit and have him step in at the end and claim the throne for himself. I get it, he is the main character Tarnished and a Megachad, and he's also a formidable test of our resolve, but still damn Marika that's cold as hell to try and throw us to the side.
In the first cutscene, I think we already hear the cracks that have been forming in Messmer's resolve over all this time. When he asks "Mother, wouldst thou truly Lordship sanction, in one so bereft of Light?" he sounds absolutely devastated. Not only was his mission to purge people like you, he himself, Marika's own flesh and blood was sent away, discarded and ordered to perform an endless genocide - but you, some (presumably) random schmuck, some _nobody_ have been chosen to become Elden Lord? Now, more than ever, he must feel truly abandoned. But he still clings to his duty - it's probably the last thing keeping him sane. Only, once we prove a bit too much a challenge... Well, even on phase transition, he _wants_ to keep believing. He _wants_ Marika to be right, because if she isn't, he has to admit he was thrown away like trash. So even then he makes it about "Grace" and "light" - but when we kill him, when it's all about to end, he finally admits to himself - he _hates_ Marika. How could he not? She ruined his life, and for what? For what, truly?
She ruined just about everyone ones lives. I'm 100% she helped have had Godwyn killed. Sure the hornsent had it coming but she only saw her family as tools for her rule and vengrnace. Even her other half radagon did the same. It reminds me of Odin in god of war.
Also, at the lower part of his keep, messmer has been experimenting on the jars. Which knowing how important these people are to marika, it can be assumed messmer was trying to use the knowledge he collected from the hornsent to undo the jar sainthood. With the iris of grace being important in these trails.
Yep I can definitely see Messmer finding ways to undo what happened to his mother’s people. Probably why messmer has so many documents on the Hornsent at the shadow keep.
It's not clear if he's experimenting on them or if they're treating them
@@noamias4897 commenter probably was referring to experimenting in a means to undo what was done to them and probably the reason why he has their info the shadow keep.
@@noamias4897Experimenting on them to find a cure to treat them, both are not mutually exclusive, beside the iris of grace placed there implies he has good intentions as it can be used to soothe ppl of pain with grace light
@@noamias4897 That room setup looks more like field hospital than torture chamber/laboratory imo. It's was a mess but you still see them lying on bed not bound by chains or torture rack and the living Jars still wandering around. You wouldn't let your experimental subjects roaming around freely, would you?
God Messmer is by far my favorite character and boss fight in the dlc, and he’s quickly overcoming Gael as my favorite from soft boss/character. His story is so sad yet I love the way the handle the slow reveal he isn’t the stereotypical tyrant ruling the lands with an iron fist.
he is a goat but i still love patches more messmer is probably my 6th fav though
Gael will always be my favorite, the end of the ringed city is so thematically perfect for the end of the last souls game
Yeah messmer is a close second @@johndoe7017
He's fantastic once you read all the lore.
honestly Gael perfectly captures all the themes of DS3, and the fact that the last battle after all these gods and monsters is another human is so cool
I always interpreted Messmer's delivery as just straight up depressed, and filled with self-loathing. He hates his flame, because it made him the perfect weapon in Marika's crusade.
I'd like to point out that, in my opinion, Messmer's snake was not at all meant to be a negative aspect of him, but I think it rather was made into one by the Golden Order.
Note that, in his transformation, the snake coiled around him is a WHITE snake. This is extremely important if we take the connotations of this animal in asian cultures. In China, white snakes are associated with immortality and transformation. In Japan, some myths see them as messengers of the gods, bringers of good fortune, and protectors against plagues like mice. Moreover, the winged serpent that is with him when he is "sealed" is also a positive, revered symbol in Aztec culture (Quetzalcoatl, literally "The Feathered Serpent" is a god of the Sun, art and knowledge).
It's likely that Messmer's snake was not a curse, but a blessing of the Crucible. As we know, the crucible grants people animal characteristics. In their efforts to approach sanctity in their worship of the Crucible, the Hornsent had turned to torturing innocents, creating monstrous abominations. Marika, a priestess who could commune with gods, wanted to rebel against them. It's possible that the Crucible initially blessed her lineage in order to incite this change in the world, to punish those who had turned the worship of life into a cult of torturers. However, the Golden Order did not see this as a blessing, but a reviled curse.
It even plays into the fact that the Golden Order is very much associated with European Aesthetic and Christian religious symbolism (focus on purity, light and even the crucifixion of Marika). To a Western audience that is culturally influenced by milennia of Christian tradition, snakes are a symbol of the Devil, of sin. But to someone without that cultural background, they may be something positive. Messmer's whole character plays with the fact that different cultures see very different meanings in snakes, and shows how following only one interpretation can make people see what is meant to be something positive as an abominable defect.
King, thee has dropped thy 👑, this was a good read and i thanks thee for the effort you put into thy words
one thing to note is that Messmer has several different snakes with different in-universe connotations
the winged serpents that are sticking out of his body (red in his first phase, white in his second) are supposedly there to help suppress the Base Serpent that's inside of him. his constant friends and companions, described as being wise. he presents them with pride as one of his main symbols and they seem to function as his eyes.
but the Base Serpent inside him seems to be a closely held secret, one that he hates and one that others hate him for. it's very much treated as a curse, seemingly reviled as much as (if not more than) Malenia's rot (at least we don't know of any notable examples of Malenia's soldiers rebelling against her because of the rot. if anything it seemed that the rot actually drew some additional people to her side)
there's also another type of snake that he briefly summons through portals during his second phase (distinguished from the Base Serpent by being a bit smaller and having both eyes intact (at least both normal eyes. notably both the Base Serpent and these summoned ones have numerous eyes along their bodies, including some inside their mouths), as far as I can tell these summoned serpents are unexplained.
so even in-universe, there's seemingly a range of meanings that different snakes could be given. the base game even had some lore about snakes being associated with treachery, likely due to Rykard. this'd be an entire third branch of meaning for snakes since regardless of what you might think about Messmer he certainly isn't a traitor to anyone.
as an extra little point, there's Messmer's Flame. I feel like this should be linked to the snakes on account of the main incantation of Messmer's Flame being Flame Serpent, which clearly moved in a snake-like fashion in the story trailer. unlike the Base Serpent Messmer's Flame seems to be no secret (Flame Serpent seems to be pretty widely used among his followers) nor does anyone besides Messmer himself seem to hate it.
@@Eclipsed_Embers Funny you mentioned that the serpent is considered to be a sign of treachery with Rykard's case, while in Messmer's case, he's not a traitor to anyone but there are people who betray him for knowing his serpentine nature (the black knight Huge and Andreas) maybe the base serpent is not turning him into a traitor but turning people into the traitor of him? Treachery is used to refer the betrayal of low cast to their higher up after all.
@@crow3958 just a little aside, the proper conjugation would be "thou hast dropped thy crown" :)
@@bockchoy123e thank you, my weird ass brain couldn't think straight after dying that much to the final boss 😂
What i love about Messmer´s design, is how well it embodies those images of Ancient Evil from medieval writings.
Like, Elden Ring has a lot of amazing designs, but they all have a sense of modern coolness baked into them that, while amazing in its own right, just doesn´t quite get that.
Messmer looks like something ripped straight out of the Codex Gigas, with the wings, the serpent coiling around his frame...
He looks like a Renaissance painting of a Garden of Eden esc character.
@@slipstream5762 Very Lucifer-esque, in a way.
The whole dragon wing motif, the palette, the pressence of the serpent corrupting what would in other circumstances be a beautiful visage.
He’s also built like Wilt Chamberlain
The serpent is actually going through his body, not just wrapped around it
@@Murakami2077 Even better!
I mostly meant how the shilouette of the character ended up looking, but now that i think about it, it reminds me of a character from a myth, Zahk, Zahhak or something like that, about a good king who, after being cursed to have two snakes sprout from his shoulders, ended up becoming a vicious and terrifying ruler.
Similar to Morgott, a lot of his deeds aren't really from his own motivations. Atleast Morgott got to be King.
"Last of all Kings."
Also, King, during a time of crisis and a civil war, after a life in the damn sewers, protecting Leyndell himself as Margit. And all of this half naked with a stick.
@@themaniae4803 Morgott genuinly the goat. I love the dude
I love Morgott but I wouldn't call his kingship very admirable either, which adds to his character. Nobody even knew that he, as a person, was the king. If someone saw HIM they wouldn't think "it's the great king Morgott who protected the capital from Rykard and Radahn", they'd think "that's Margit the devil, a twisted, cursed and monstrous omen".
@noamias4897 isn't it funny that a damned Omen/Hornsent, literally and figuratively, became the only one with the ability and will to keep her crumbling empire alive? And he's the only child to have been given grace and acknowledged but his father on screen? I'm truly losing it Scoob, these are Greek Gods.
@@noamias4897 And that's what happened in a cutted quest about a noble that, after be received by Morgott, ask us to kill him because he's a Omen. But at the same time he ruled and empire maybe for centuries without being founded and at least keeping it a little alive. If you think about what's the situation of other kings, sharbearers, he and Mohg are quite damn good at rule. Not talking about morality of course.
Shows that abandonment is far more painful then banishment. Marika didnt tell Messmer that she had to seal him away. She just never came back
Yeah because it keeps the only thing that keeps giving… hope
The way Messmer sighs in relief after plucking out his eye as if it is the thing that is truly hurting him, not his curse.
It wasnt much a sigh of relief but a sigh of adrenaline and clarity kicking in. He is feeling his blood rush and the abyssal serpents power flow in, which probably restored his stamina
I find it interesting that he finally *see* and accepts the reality that he was indeed abandoned when he removed the thing that Marika gave him and defeated by a tarnished.
More than anything he seems tired. Tired of his mother's shenanigans, tired of being the Impaler. More than anything, in his tone, you hear a tinge of regret unique to crest fallen soldiers. Seriously, any movie, show or game with a soldier forced to do things they likely didn't enjoy or even believe in always have that mixed tone of regretful and jaded indifference. The Hound from GoT is a good example. Messmer probably was once a great and honorable warrior, clearly honorable and great enough to seemingly influence Radahn as much as he did, but was , for reasons he didn't truly know about, made to do and sanction horrible and , as the lore states, blatantly honorless acts. You hafta wander if he, at some point, didn't realize the true nature of his mother's "holy" war. He, like many characters in fromsoft games, is a tragedy. A scorned son and a once proud and honorable warrior now tarnished and bloodstained. His mother made him her monster in pursuit of justifiable but ultimately petty revenge and, likely, to cover up her own sins.
Extremely well put! You do gotta wonder on his awareness throughout the "holy war", did it take until the tarnish fight for it to really kick in for Messmer that he had been abandoned? To your point, I wonder if the seal on his eye served more than one purpose.
Like did that seal put a literal filter over Messmer's perspective distorting it somehow, considering it replaces his only human eye? There's so many questions Messmer raises but beyond that he's a great addition to the rouge's gallery that is Marika's family.
I love how they made Marika little less evil showing her history and give a motivation about the Crucible and at the same time showing her absolute worst. And people say this dlc is bad, ahah!
I like how you laugh so unaware of your own non sequitur. Yes, the lore and story in the DLC is bad. And it will never get better because you happily lap up every bit of slop they give you, no matter how minor.
@@Arcessitor boo hoo, let people enjoy things
@Arcessitor how is it bad?
@@Arcessitor De gustibus non est disputandum. I can find joy in the little things, if you can't is not my problem~
@Arcessitor Okay, I'll take the bait. What is bad about the Lore in the DLC?
it always struck me in a special way, when you die to phase 1, he repeats his "catchphrase" about meeting death in Messmer's flame, but he sounds so resigned and defeated because so many others have met the exact same fate, and he's pretty over the whole ordeal
The fact that the fire knight dude also says it makes it clear he has been saying it for so long it’s practically his fucking jingle at this point
Fun fact, Messmer actually hates his own fire. The description of his incantation from his remembrance says so
Messmer's tone is of someone bound by his loyalty and obligation to his mother, someone who he loved and worshipped completely.
But the story is peppered with indications that he took no pleasure in anything he did, it was an act, he was the vengeful monster Marika could NOT be.
You can see this in how the Shadow Keep surrounds a church district, holy sites, and places of worship.
The Specimen Archives meant to preserve the story and culture of the Hornsent, to be remembered and studied.
The hospital inside the castle to treat and aid those that had been jarred.
This was Marika's revenge, she wanted punishment brought upon the Hornsent, a people that wiped out her entire culture, presumably being its last survivor. A people that, while practically wiped out themselves, were just as conquering and brutal as her own Golden Order. "They were never saints, they just happened to be on the losing side of a war."
And because Messmer and her other children were all born with HER curses and sins, she could never accept them into her new world and Order, they could never be with her, for they represented her failures, her weaknesses, her HUMANITY. She abandoned Messmer to play the role of a God, absorbing and twisting the outdated and decrepit belief system of the Two Fingers, to create a world in HER image.
And she did... you look upon the Lands Between and tell me that it isn't a rotten core wrapped in a golden costume of pretentious Order, like she was...
For all his faults, Messmer deserved better.
Love the fact the people in the land of shadow speak more Shakespearean dialogue than in the lands between as it shows how they were sent a long time ago and their language hasn’t been in synchronicity with its counterpart from the lands between and shows they were sent away a long time ago
I guess you could say it shows they were sent a long time ago.
@@meisterwu8922shows they were sent along time ago
I’d like to note that Messmer doesn’t just *think* that the tarnished is sanctioned as a lord, the winged serpent stares into the tarnisheds eyes and can see the guidance of grace in them. He’s surprised that one who has been stripped of grace has had it returned, he doesn’t know why it’s been restored, but he’s still oathbound to kill the tarnished for losing the guidance of grace in the first place even if they are sanctioned and guided by the greater will
While I definitely think you have a point, as "those stripped of the Grace of Gold" could be referring to the Tarnished in past tense, it could also be argued that he knows not of the return of the Grace of Gold in the Tarnished, as he refers to us as being shorn of light in present tense with the following lines:
"Mother, wouldst thou truly Lordship sanction, in one so bereft of light?"
"I will not suffer... A lord devoid of light."
"O lightless creature... Embrace thine oblivion, as shall I."
All presently referring to us as lightless. If he could really see the Grace of Gold in the Tarnished, I'm not sure he would refer to them that way. Perhaps the winged serpent staring into the Tarnished's eyes is him simply recognizing the Tarnished as such: a Tarnished. Then, with his preconceived notions before entering the Realm of Shadow, he believes he must enact his duty to kill all Tarnished presently stripped of grace.
His reference to sanctioning lordship could be him seeing the power of the Great Runes the Tarnished carries, as to reach the Realm of Shadow, each player has to kill shardbearers Godrick and Radahn, and inferring only a lord guided by grace would be able to defeat them as opposed to any old Tarnished wandering about.
Even Messmer's theme sounds like a young childs plea for help, very desperate and shows how alone and terrified he likely is due to the serpent inside him and his abandonment
Real 😔
Mommy issues, never a nice sight. Marika's children could have been decent people if she didn't allow her hatred to colour her perception of them. That a few of them still grew up honourable is something.
Kek you could even call it a ”miracle”
Only Rennala's kids turned out mostly alright. Except for Rykard.
It is truly heartbreaking to see just how loyal Messmer and Radahn were. The way Messmer apologizes to Marika, turning to face the one statue that was not beheaded and looks at her for one last time before removing the golden seal eye, that is brutal.
Lets not forget that they made the jars knowing how funny it would be.
NOOO DONT PUT ME IN THE JAR PLEASE ILL DO ANYTHING
is now lore accurate in the lands between
Cum jar
Imagine being one of these crusader and realizing that not only you but your own lord, the queen son has been Forsaken
That's the thing, none of them knows. They still believe Marika would not forsake them, not knowing they're all condemned to remain in the land without the grace of gold
@thecommentguy9380
There's a spirit of one of Messmer's knights in Shadow Keep castle who talks about Marika abandoning them and her own son. That's probably the mood amongst Messmers army: Many are beginning have doubts or question their fate. Some probably already know they've been abandoned.
I think maybe something to consider is that Messmer's crusade happened at the time when Erdtree empire was already well established, with other demigods in the picture. Marika abandoning Messmer feels more like a consequence of her being trapped because of the Shattering then genuinely leaving him to rot, especially since he's likely her true firstborn
Something I also saw from a direct japanese translation is that it was Messmer's decision to make himself a symbol of fear for her mother's sake
One big clue: Rellana and her forces joining up with Messmer’s crusade. There’s no way pre-Liurnian war Raya Lucaria would allow Carian royalty to join the Golden Order in a massive military campaign outside the Lands Between unless Radagon and Rennala were already married and firmly established both sides’ loyalty to the Erdtree.
@@VictorIV0310Well, as a slight counter to that, there’s nothing to imply anyone LET Rellana go with Messmer, since she kinda explicitly abandoned the royal family to do so. A much simpler clue is that Radahn looked up to Messmer, meaning he was born before Messmer’s banishment.
True but he didnt know she was trapped so in the end he died thinking she truly abandon him
@@jeremytewari3346looked up and considered him a big bro (assuming that he didn't know, Messmer was Radahon's child), meaning they grew up together/trained together
I think what defines Messmer the most is his willingness to sacrifice, but not in a noble or selfless way. He was so dedicated to Marika, his family, that he was willing to slaughter and torture an entire realm of mostly innocent people. His own demi-god royalty status and grace was thrown away by him, so that he could express his loyalty to his mother and her wishes. He threw away anything redeemable about himself, knowing he was a monster in more ways than one.
He’s much more of a reflection of his brother Miquella like that. Both are characters who are willing to sacrifice so much of themselves and everyone around them to do what they think is right, becoming or embracing something horrifying in the process. But Messmer is much more tragic that, at some point, there *was* something admirable about him.
How do you know they were mostly innocent?
>mostly innocent
About that....
Innocent? Lets not forget that the hornsent torrrturred and killlled shamans. And the queen was a shaman who escaped their persecution before becaming a goddess. And the once persecuted girl went back with a crusede out of revenge.
Nah man they walked into their deaths out of stupidity
To be fair, just because members of the culture did that doesn’t mean everyone did it. You can’t call every part of a race evil because their leadership was cruel
Babe wake up, new FatBrett Elden Ring character analysis just dropped
Hey I was gonna say that! D-:
Im up!
So this is how I find out I've been misreading it as FarBrett...
I highly believe that Messmer was Marika's firstborn and is Melina's half-brother. I also believe that he was condemned to eternally crusade in the Shadow Lands not only to carry out Marika's wishes, but also to get him out of the way.
Marika has been shown time and time again to be utterly ruthless. She likely saw an opportunity to kill several birds with one stone. Assigning Messmer to the Shadow Lands satisfies her desire to eradicate the Hornsent, takes various members of Leyendell and Carian royalty out of the picture who may have otherwise posed a problem, denies any claim to succesion Melina could have feasibly made, imprisons the Abyssal Base Serpent far away, and removes the true firstborn from the picture entirely.
That last point is especially important. With Messmer practically erased from history, Marika's carefully cultivated image of perfection could not be damaged by the existence of a child born outside of the Radagon/Renalla, Radagon/Marika, Marika/Godfrey marriages. Additionally, it removes him entirely from the line of succession, which prevents a potential conflict and allows Marika to set her "actual" firstborn up to take charge if necessary.
Messmer was yet another tool for Marika to use. He has every right to curse her with final breaths.
And with the removal of the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring, Marika has not only replaced death with rebirth via Erdtree burial AND got rid of a potential threat to her reign, she also turned the entire Land of Shadow into hell where the Hornsent are condemned to be forever persecuted by the crusaders, unable to die even as spirits and shades. And since every hell needs a devil, Marika chose Messmer for the task.
@@VictorIV0310 And in true poetry, the actual status of the Devil in hell is not of a king, but as yet another prisoner also condemned to suffer for eternity… That’s absolutely fitting for Messmer.
I do think Messmer and Melina were Marika and Radagon's children but they were children before official/coronation/out of wedlock, the hint is from the red hair, most of Radagon's children were of that red hair, even Melina's hair was combination of red and blond, hence why Messmer is kind of a "secret" child not so official childeren
Messmer is the first character I can honestly say I want to adopt, which hasn't happened since Francis from Secret Saturdays. I love him so much. I want to turn him into a child and feed him soup.
Snek boi with the little red noodles
i mean fair enough but your probably like 5'6 and he is like 11 feet tall so i dunno how you could even feed him
@@LexisVoyageladders. So many ladders
@@LexisVoyage the question is how tall would he be at like 7 years old.
It's weird but I get you
I dont know how they do it everytime, All the characters in this dlc are so intriguing and how some older characters are shown in a new light
The strugglers in the comments keep saying "Marika isn't the bad guy, she loved her son, she'd have come back with the milk to release Messmer if the Shattering didn't happen".
But if she loved Messmer and wanted him back, then why did she command him to carry out a crusade without an end and why did she erase him from the historical record? She still calls people back into the Lands Between even if she's imprisoned inside the Erdtree, that's the reason why tarnished without grace were granted their grace back, but she didn't choose Messmer.
Marika commits 2 genocides
The fandom: but but shes a good person because a few bad things happened to her
@@user-op6kt8pg9y It's a problem you see a lot in both literary works and unfortunately reflected in real life. The cycle of violence has to end somewhere. Marika's people's horrific treatment at the hands of the Hornsent does not justify their genocide, nor the genocides of the Fire Giants and Nomads that Marika perceived as a threat to her new order.
There's a line in the DLC when you speak with Leda after going through Ensis Castle, and she tells you about what happened with the Hornsent:
"They were never saints. They just happened to be on the losing side of a war."
Marika had every right to see the Hornsent dead, but the Golden Order went on to persecute the Omen and anything else that lay outside of the Golden Order's world view. It's just a spiral of death and warfare and persecution: if not the Golden Order, some other power would go to war with anything that threatened them. You see it all across Fromsoft's back catalogue.
And Marika had so many cursed children, it makes you wonder if she was being punished for the betrayal she committed so she could ascend to godhood.
One thing I find interesting about Messmer's story is that when he leaves for the Crusade it's described as a "flight" as if he is escaping, or is being chased away. This leads me to believe that while Marika told Messmer he was going on a holy war, she told the people of the erdtree something different, maybe that Messmer was planning to burn the erdtree, to commit the first cardinal sin, or that she didn't sanction the eradication of the hornsent and Messmer doing so was an act of treason. Either way I believe Messmer also knew that Marika did this, since his armor description says "direct thine ire, thine maledictions, all of it unto me", I don't believe he's entirely talking about the hornsent, since the hornsent still curse Marika they are still directing their ire and maledictions too her, I believe he meant the erdtreee faithful to do this, since none seem to hate Marika for Messmer's actions. Marika told him to become this symbol of hatred to the people of the erdtree, and to runaway on a holy war, maybe even promising that once he was finished his actions would be praised by erdtree society and he would be redeemed. All this would also explain a big part of erdtree culture, that being the hatred of snakes, being described as "traitors to the erdtree". Messmer was painted as a traitor and as a result his visage of snakes was turned into a symbol of scorn. Which makes those who he inspired loyalty in, Rellana and Gaius, all the more compelling.
As for Andreas, I don't think he turned against Messmer because he had serpentine qualities, because the winged serpent was always part of Messmer's motifs it wouldn't make sense for him to follow Messmer all the way to the shadow realm and commit atrocities if the fact he had serpents around him was the reason for his eventual revolt. I think it was more that he discovered it was a "malevolent serpent" that inhabited Messmer's body. The base serpent is odd, and I don't really know where it comes from or what it's nature is, but I think the fact it is described as malevolent is the reason Andreas rebelled against Messmer.
messmer and his soldier knew: it was no holy war guided by grace. So he was not manipulated, neither his soldiers, only instructed to get rid of the old religion, thats why it is a crusade.
To me it seems messmer was just desperate to get his mothers love and acceptance, he got over his need for his mothers approval…after he was at deaths door lol
@@dmarjs1574 and than we know what happened to marika, he is still in the dark i think, so has she abandoned the shadow lands, i don't think so. I think marika gave her best for the children, but had to many enemies and to many deals with the devil.
With the additional lore provided by the dlc, Marika's motivation seems to almost mirror the Dung Eater's. Dung Eater wanted to spread his "curse", making everyone an omen so that the omens could no longer be persecuted. In much the same way, I think everything Marika did, from becoming the vessel of the elden ring, shattering it to remove the rune of death and institute her own cycle of rebirth, and her crusade against the hornsent was all to eliminate all signs of the crucible from the lands between. Partially as an act of revenge against the hornsent, and partially because the numen couldn't persecuted if EVERYONE was a numen.
Funny thing. All the stuff everyone does in Elden Ring is caused by the Mother of All Fingers, an Insane Broken Extension of the Greater Will.
So, Messmer, Marika and all her/his Children were doomed from the Start. For They all feel GW's Energy, but know Not the Greater Will's Will.
Like interpretation of very Ancient Text hidden by the Priest Cast. The Fingers Speak indeed.
Yeah. The DLC outright says Godhood is a prison. The fingers elevated a broken, traumatized survivor of a prosecuted slave population into godhood to use as their puppet.
And even before the DLC, the base game itself called into question how much agency Marika actually had at times. There's definitely a reason why she lost faith in the Golden Order and caused the shattering. Even Radagon at the final battle didn't seem anything more than a hollowed out puppet. So I don't know if I agree with Fatbretts conclusion of assigning Marika as the ultimate main villain of the entire story.
@@RaytheonThunder It is kind of implied that to be a God of the Fingers is to be Insane. And since every god is a god of the Fingers, well...
@@RaytheonThunder Stripped of Love, Stripped of Mercy, Stripped of Loyalty, Stripped of Humanity........
@@RaytheonThunder Thine Broken Hand.
@@RaytheonThunder Fingers are vassals of GW and probably have their own mind for few things, as we see with their assassins and are they, thinking this is what the GW wants, who send us to slay demigods and repair the Elden Ring. At the same time, nothing suggest that Marika was controlled or influenced by them or their Mother that... literally just try to call the GW like her Daughters. Abouth faith in Golden Order, she lost her mind probably after a life of suffering, her best son died and turned into a monster fish, other children cursed, her other self turning into a God like her, part of her World corrupted more and more by the Death Roots... in the more Human and Divine way to do, in her madness she decided to End everything and f*ck everyone else. Both asshole and sad.
Also yes, Radagon in his bossfight is a puppet. The dark energy inside him is the same that then becomes the Elden Beast and a little strange the big scholar of any kind of spell and magic, Int and Faith, uses only faith. But that is just a hurted Elden Beast and both Radagon and Marika are alive but... well, literally broken shattered bodies.
"They were never saints, they just happened to be on the loseing side of a war"
Gwyn seems like a saint compared to Marika's entire journey.
Gwyn: "Sheesh, lady. I didn't understand my snake-child either, but at least I let them live in my house!"
Yeah. Marika seems to have been fueled by sheer hatred towards the Hornsent, building her entire kingdom around erasing them from the face if the world.
Gwyn on the other hand was just a stubborn old man, too unwilling to let go of the power and control he got his hands on. He acted out of fear of losing that power, and while it doesn't absolve him of what he made happen to the Hollowed, it does make him come off as pitiable, unlike Marika
@@Late0NightPC Despite this, Gwyn had as big an impact on the world of DS as Marika did on the world of ER. The curse of the undead is something that permeates all humans and cannot be undone in any way. The souls are the same, the desires are the same, and this creates a cycle. I think it's much worse than taking the death rune from the elden ring.
Hey man. Gwyn is pettier than Marika that he would erase every bit of your history if you just befriend a dragon. At least Marika, especially Godwyn, was pretty chill with their enemies as long as you're chill yourself.
@@silenthero2795 Marika has some reason to hate the people who worshipped the crucible, since her people were tortured by them. But Gwyn expelled his son because he allied himself with an enemy. The two were already settled, the Nameless King had already chosen his own side. Messmer waited for years for his mother to return, but she only left him in that devastated land at her will. Marika was much more cunning, while Gwyn seemed to have a harsher ideology.
Marika: "Who Are You?!"
Messmer: "U Never Loved Me"
Marika: "...
Do u have any idea how little that narrows it down?"
I think of the Thanos meme
Messer: You took everything from me
Marika: I don't even know who you are
The moment he clocks you as Tarnished, everything he was secretly suspicious of but refused to accept was confirmed.
The war wouldn't end, Marika would never return. Messmer had been abandoned.
The player character is a walking contradiction to Messmer's entire existence, and he simply could not bring himself to accept this. The iris of Grace had blinded him. Only when he removed it did he fully fathom the truth.
This many different types of fire in Elden Ring, and they still manage to make Messmer's flavor stand out as its own thing. Vibrant red like the Fire Giant's flame of ruin, but instead of burning white-hot in its core from sheer power, it swirls with black like the Godskins' flame. Destruction and death, represented together in one terrible package.
Morgott and Messer both deserved better fates than what was imposed on them. Both of them are prisoners of their curses, unloved and forgotten by their mother, yet both of them fought for the Golden Order in spite of it. I wanna give both of them a hug.
Marika and her ascension, is so vastly similar to The Emperor of Mankind from 40k, it’s incredible.
A shaman born individual, born millennia old, who bide their time until they were powerful enough to enact their own plan of dominance over the world.
This dominance being bolstered by their powerful godlike children, who in reality, were nothing more than tools of war.
This power of this Being was bolstered through communion with outer gods of vast power, through a ritual that has been all but scrapped from history.
Now obviously the story lose their similarities as time goes on, but the origins are remarkably similar
And a devastating, realm-shattering, civil war.
And the line of screw ups from their children's ambitions.
All things considered, cursing Marika upon his death is honestly hard as hell. Actually made me sad when I heard that voiceline
Not sure if it was pointed out but Messmer's dialog also changes when he kills you during his second phase. I'm paraphrasing but "Embrace your oblivion lightless creature, as shall I."
Messmer is a great example of what I love about fromsoft: subtlety.
There is so much we can learn and assume based off information given in the game. Some people call it lazy but I absolutely love it because by letting one interpret such things themselves you can get attached to the character way easier. That’s to say I love messmer and thank you for this video!
He also had a special medical bay in his attempt to 'undo' the jarring process.
I think of the impalement of the Hornsent as an ironic joke.
The Hornsent inquisitors used barbs to impale their victims from within. In fact, they themselves seemed to have a fascination of torture, as seen from the residents of Midra’s Manse and the Shamans. Honestly, I find their consequences befitting. They hurt people, desecrated the shamans, and tried to play God by making a Saint. It’s like Leda said. The Hornsent were never saints. They were just on the losing side of the war, and I bet if they weren’t, they’d be doing the same torture on Messmer’s soldiers.
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 the Hornsent themselves are rounded up in droves, dead or alive (but most likely still alive for extra cruelty), to be stuffed in the golems and lit aflame to bring it to life.
Imagine the screams and howls of terror and agony and the smell of burning flesh as the golem surges to life; An instrument of death’s first gasps of “life” brought forth by the deaths of so many within its frame to serve as fuel for the golem as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery as it wears the horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
Which is well proved by Midra fate
Marika found the monster in the flesh of man named Horaux Loux and brought him with her to the gate of divinity and together the slaughtered the keepers of the tower and he called Marika back from the gate of Divinity allowing her to ascend and return to the world a god in flesh
Also just like Vlad the truth of both impalers stories are more complicated than the surface leads you to believe
Honestly while I think the idea of Horaux Loux being the Lord that ushered her in. I think it was her other half, Radagon. That brought her in.
We know the Empyreans tend to have a "other half". Messmer and the serpent, Miquella and St Trina, Melania and the Rot goddess. Hell even Ranni killed her body but not her soul.
I think Marika's original sin was betraying and slaughtering the hornsent, and using whatever divine powers they had from their corpses to Ascend herself to Godhood
@@JH-gu4hj look at what Miquella abandoned his other half he is a parallel to Marika and she abandoned Radagon just like Miquella did for Trina this is why Radagon isn't a god until the shattering
And as a reward, Marika banished Chadfrey. He was better of without her anyway.
Your comment has been copied by a certain @Mia-96-n8d .
@@vaclavsoukup7302 thanks for telling me
I love how Messmer and Miquella are very much foils of each other.
Messmer is outwardly evil. He does terrible things to innocent people and causes death and destruction on a massive scale, inspiring fear and terror wherever he goes, in a great, zealous crusade.
Yet in reality, he cares very deeply for his men and subjects, and only seeks love and acceptance from someone who gives him nothing in return. He fights hard to protect those he loves and does everything he can to prevent their deaths.
Miquella is supposedly a compassionate, kind, and loving individual, who does not care what you are or who you are, and only wants to bring everyone together and stop the constant conflict between the different peoples of the Land Between.
Yet in reality, Miquella wants to become an all powerful despot, who sacrificed his own followers and family for his own ambitions. He wants to carve the world in his image, regardless of how many lives it would cost.
Like all FromSoft games, appearances are often deceiving.
Absolutely love the point about all of the various characters hiding or suppressing parts of themselves to fit within the Golden Order, an incredibly common phenomenon under anything resembling fundamentalism of any kind.
The one child who didn’t fit but refused to be ashamed, Mohg, is the most used and abused in the entire game-and not only everyone in the world but we as players viewed him as an irredeemable villain until the DLC’s release.
I'm going to go on a tangent and say that Messmer isn't a scorned child, but rather was one of the most beloved children that Marika had, and that love between the two of them is what sealed his tragic fate.
There are many reasons why I believe this but the main ones are that it's highly likely that Marika declared snakes as heretical to the Golden Order after the abyssal serpent cursed Messmer at birth (since we know that Rykard was born long after Messmer.)
Marika also declared an entire outer god as "fell" and banned all their reverence from the Lands Between because it had afflicted Messmer with visions of fire (a treatment that she did not give Malenia despite her also being cursed at birth by an outer god).
She went through the trouble of actually creating a special seal with her rune and gifting it to Messmer to help him contain the curse of the abyssal serpent rather than keeping him underground like she did with the Omen twins despite them being born with afflictions of their own.
Finally Messmer seems to be keenly aware of Marika's past and her life as a Shaman which no other demigod shows to be. In the original japanese description of his armor it is said that he marched to the Land of Shadow for Marika's sake. He also built a massive, extremely well defended, and nearly impenetrable fortress around the Shaman village where Marika grew up. Within said fortress he has an infirmary where his followers try to cure or at least comfort the living remains of the Shaman jars created by the Hornsent. We also know that he directly carried out the crusade against them which starts to make a lot of sense as an act punishment out of his love for Marika because of what they did to her and her people.
Then there's all the little things like that he has a giant statue of her holding a baby rather than doing her costume pose which is also bigger than any statue of her that we find in the Lands Between. There's also the fact that he refers to her as mother rather than by her royal title like Morgott. He was so devoted to her that he waged an eternal war against all threats that were directly related to her, willingly erasing himself from history in the process. There being a region called "Abyssal Woods" in the Land of Shadow right next to the Shaman village (which makes a clear implication as to where Messmer grew up and would help explain the serpent curse and his deep knowledge of Marika's early life.) And he's willing to go so far to uphold the principles that she once held that he'd lose the blessing she gave him and give himself to the vile influence of the abyssal serpent (that he specifically refers to as shorn of light) rather than allow someone with as little Grace as a tarnished to become Elden Lord (and even after he loses himself to what the japanese description calls "the evil snake" he still refers to Marika as his mother in a respectful way.)
Merika makes me imagine someone that did everything they could to afford a fancy car. They sold their family's artifacts. They took out loans. They even robbed a few people. And when they finally got the fancy car they realized it wasn't worth all that they paid and drove the car into a lake like it was going to make the debt go away.
That two finger GPS system 😂
Mesmer's last line after his death cursing his mother is, probably, the most important lore revelation in the entire game.
As Marika sinned, everyone who she killed and cursed her, manifested into her children, borned with curses, forever reminding Marika of her actions
Her willing just disown her children at the drop of the hat makes me all the more confident that she had a major part in the night of tears
Not exactly willing when it comes to Messmer. His remembrance tells the tragedy of his story, of how Marika had to hide him in the shadow land, how she tried to help him with the eye of grace. And if you read the Blessing of Marika item, those are supposed to be medicine she made for him
She actually tried to help him in whatever way she could
For the night of black knives, she had to have a hand in that plot, because there isn't any one with the power to face down Maliketh to steal the power of death from his blade. Only Marika had the power to command him so only she had the power to set him up to fail his only duty
True I think Ysgramor once fought her iirc
@@sk8legendzlmao, random ass Elder Scrolls ref
@@aroguebardIt isn’t random, op wrote „Night of Tears“ which is a book in Skyrim about the sack of Saarthal; Ysgrammor‘s settlement.
It's very possible that even Godwyn was cursed, that the potential to become the Prince of Death was always within him.
I think the jar ritual with the shamen is intended to grow the horns the hornsent worship.
We learn from the ancestral spirit, that death creates the conditions for horns to sprout from long lived beats.
The numen are said to be long lived.
Messer and Morgott are such well written tragic characters. Both shunned by the Golden Order and yet both loyal to the end. Crazy to think about the Golden Order at its peak: Godfrey, Maliketh, Radagon and Marika, followed by Godwyn, Messmer, Melina, Radahn, Rykard, Ranni, Malenia, Miquella and Morgott/Mogh in secret. What a fucked up but crazy powerful set of lineups.
Hi Brett, love the video. I've recently completed my run of the DLC myself, you've gone through practically everything on Messmer, but there is something I think you missed.
Near the beginning of the game you can find an item called 'Blessing of Marika'. It's description is
"A special physick blessed by Marika, the queen of the Erdtree. Completely restores HP and heals all ailments. Marika once created several of these physicks for Messmer's sake. But never again".
This one item has heavy implications for the relationship of Marika and Messmer, for it confirms that there were indeed 'good times' for Messmer to look back on as proof of motherly love, as the potion cures all ailments- possibly a means of suppressing Messmer's curse WITHOUT needing to remove an eye. Note that Marika is referred to here just as 'Marika' not 'Marika the Eternal'. This then places its creation as before the establishment of the Golden Order proper (or at least the removal of Destined Death). Combine with the 'mother Marika' statue and Minor Erdtree incantation (as well as Godfrey's 'hands rated E for everyone' Crucible Knights/wars), we can see that Marika, even after becoming a god, did not immediately become the ruthless pragmatist supreme we know and fear from later.
Note also that there is a reference to Messmer's 'flight from the Erdtree'. multiple mentions of serpents being traitors to the Erdtree and that pesky 'But never again', and we can clearly see that some sort of break point precipitated Marika's shifting views toward her children. If you want my bet, this event was the Godskin Hunt/Gloam Eyed Queen. I think Melina was this queen, who bore a vision of (Black) fire and betrayed her mother for an as-yet unknown reason. I believe that Marika called on Messmer to crush this new threat to her rule. And I believe Messmer refused to hunt down his sister, fleeing back to the land of shadow to 'do his job' after which Marika abandoned him.
Regardless, you've set out a great video and I look forward to the one on Morgott (Marika should I think be tackled only after all her kids and Godfrey).
That would explain why Melina is burnt when we first met her; killed(edit: Defeated) by her brother's flame. That could imply that the Hunt itslef probably led to the Wandering Mausoleums holding "Unwanted Childs" of Marika...That makes so much sense!!! She can guide the flames cause she was burnt by a kind of "acursed" flame before and had the same vision of flames that Messmer had !!!
This also makes me think that it could be an even grander Marika plot to create a semblance of "organic" rebellion that could lead to the breaking of the order without her beign implicated. I say that cause Melina "was given her purpose by her mother inside the tree" and she does not show any ill intent towards Marika at any given time and even uses one of her more secretive spells, that presumably was used the last when Marika left her home town.
From Software has such an unique approach and skill at storytelling. Their horror is indeed cosmic in scale but yet driven by such human motivations and failings.
I draw problem with the preconceptions that Messmer was manipulated. We simply just don't know if that's true. We know based on Messmer's parentage and nature that he was born very early on in the timeline. Messmer, very well, could have witnessed this massacre of his own people first hand. He could've hated the hornsent just as much as his Mother. In fact, you site various descriptions which may argue this point themselves, the description citing that he was to become an icon of peoples ire and fear, may be of his own accord. The fact that she created various items to quell his affliction implies a degree of care at one point from Marika. I do believe she abandoned him out of fear at one point, but the preconceptions here presume a lot that is unconfirmed.
I love the subtle/not subtle allusion of his name. In an expansion all about charms, inspired loyalty, control and influence over others, Messmer just being the root of "Mesmerize", enthralling someone or something into a trance of devotion, holding a level of control over their actions. FromSoft's quiet, loud storytelling through names, real world references, and other such things always amazes me
Truly the best boss of the DLC, for a guy who is notorious, he is a respectable dude with his men and allies
that parallel you mentioned between miquella and messmer was really eye opening and really recontextualized messmer as a fallen hero for me. really good shit dude
Next up Marika the eternal a deconstruction of villainy
Messmer was an inspiring leader of men and a loyal son who waged a war against those that enslaved, tortured, and mutilated his mothers people. He took no pleasure in any of this. He was simply doing his duty and serving as a son must serve. In this grim war he fostered true loyalty and friendship with those around him and as shown in the clinic within his keep genuinely tried to help others. Until his last moments he never lost faith with his mother, doing what was requested of him regardless of the personal toll it was taking. I fail to see how he is a villian from any perspective aside from the Hornsents. They helped create the devil through their cruelty and reaped what they sowed.
yeah... the Hornsent kinda suffer from the same issue that orcs and goblins do in some settings in that they're just so unambiguously evil as a whole that it honestly starts to look harder to justify keeping them alive.
the Hornsent are so bad, that the fact that they fear and outlawed the Frenzied Flame honestly got me questioning whether the Frenzied Flame, or at the very least the people at Midra's Manse, might be good (or at least a lesser evil). the spirits in that area certainly seem to be under the impression that they did nothing wrong and that the Hornsent just randomly turned up to brutally torture them to death with barbed spears and swords. to be honest that whole area managed to simultaneously paint the Frenzied Flame in a more terrifying light whilst also making those that would follow and use it seem much more normal and sympathetic (which mixed with some other things Ymir said to lead me into some wild insane theory that the Crucible, the Greater Will, and the Frenzied Flame might all be different aspects of the same being. creator, preserver, and destroyer).
even the few Hornsent we can actually speak to are so consumed by ideas of revenge against Messmer that they're left without any notable redeeming features. get rid of Messmer and they either die from their life's purpose being fulfilled or they seek a new target to vent their aggression towards.
@@Eclipsed_Embers
The Hornsent are no different than those who follow the Golden Order. They’re morally grey, with their own beliefs and practices, some of which are more questionable than others. I don’t think they deserved the geocide enacted upon them. If anything, Marika continued and escalated the cycle of violence THROUGH the crusade. Even with their terrible shaman pot rituals, the total purge of hornsent life from the lands between is unreasonable.
The Hornsent prosecuting those who follow the Flame of Frenzy is justified tho. Same with the Golden Order doing the same. The Flame of Frenzy is a nihilistic sadistic way out of suffering, and it is not something that should be seen in a good light. It’s a force that manipulates those who are at the ends of their rope, almost appearing to them like a devil with a deal. It is the antithesis of all life in the lands between. It is in no way, shape, or form, a good force. It doesn’t discriminate, yes, but to purge the world of all life is not a good cause to fight for. It’s global, uniform suicide.
*looks at the fire golems* idk man I still say he's a villain. Explanation doesn't equal justification. He could have... you know... not indulged his mother's petty revenge quest? Maybe not tortured an entire group of people for all eternity? You could flip these same arguments for the Hornset. "All their evil actions are justified because they inspired loyalty".
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, as they say.
@pancakes8670 The fire golems was their way of saying "two can play the eternally torturing people" game. And petty revenge quest? His mothers entire people were wiped out. They were tortured and mutilated, forced to live forever within the jars because that was all they were deemed good for. As for that eye for an eye argument, it is only made by cowards who don't want to face the consequences of their actions. You don't want to lose your eye? Well tough shit, you shouldn't have taken mine.
@@pancakes8670 I feel like things are meant to be more morally grey than that. Hard to say Messmer's a villain if we're talking about the hornsent out of all people. They could very well be called villains too if we're talking about killing and torturing. It's essentially two monsters exchanging bites, though I do think part of the point throughout the story is that Marika shouldn't have let herself be guided by revenge for so long and for so many of her decisions.
Something about Mesmer that I find very interesting is that he seems loved. Abandoned, yes, but still one of the few children of Marika who seems to be LOVED. The description of the Blessing of Marika is just a untypical act of Marika (seeing how she has the omen twins and the other two twins, Malenia and Miquella, all aflicted)
Mesmer seems all the more tragic by that: he seems to be very much loved by Marika
The DLC did show us why she hated Mohg and Morgott as they remind her of the people who killed her people, who destroyed her home. Of all the children she had, Messmer was one she loved along with Godwyn (the only demigod son of hers who's normal)
Loved enough to be abandoned
He wasn't intentionally abandoned, as far as I can tell. Marika was sealed away in the Erdtree by The Greater Will, there was no way for her to return.
@@lumeronswift She was never going to return. She’s a psycho who sent her own children in the sewers, her other child to act out her vengeance, and I feel she even had a hand in the black knives killing godwyn to kick off the shattering. She caused mass genocide multiple times. I don’t think every loved anyone and just used be people to fulfill her own ambitions.
@@tristanward9937 I truly do not believe she played a role in Godwyn's death. While I think she did conspire with Ranni against the Golden Order, aiding her with the Rune of Death, I doubt she knew Ranni intended to kill both herself and her own son. Among all her children, Godwyn was the only one untainted by any curse. To Marika, Godwyn was the ultimate proof that she could create something "perfect," affirming her worthiness of Godhood, divinity, and Grace.
This is why I believe that when she lost Godwyn-the embodiment of her hope-she was left with only her "failures" (the rest of her children). This despair drove her to shatter the Elden Ring. In my view, Godwyn's death was the catalyst; it was the final blow that broke her resolve. With nothing left to lose, she shattered the ring, setting in motion the events that followed as we now know them.
Edit: That doesn’t mean the rest of her children were unloved-far from it. However, seeing them constantly mirrored her deepest insecurities, reminding her that, because of her past "sins," she was herself a failure. This by no means makes her a good mother, she failed all of her children. Ath least, this is my interpretation.
So my take with the Hornsent, Omen, and Misbegotten is this: The Hornsent are the last remnants of the old religion of the Crucible. From what we learned, they would torture the people of the Shaman Village and throw them into jars with dead flesh to become 'saints'. I'm not sure what that actually means. But eventually Marika was born to the Shaman Village, and eventually was able to claim Godhood from the Greater Will - be that from Metyr, directly from the Greater Will, or through some other means. When she rose to divinity, she ripped her homeland and that of the Hornsent from reality, physically separating that territory from the rest of the Lands Between. She sent her son Messmer to both protect the secret of her homeland and essentially create a hell for the Hornsent who had tortured her people for who knows how long. The Hornsent, not understanding irony and taking the L, cursed "Marika's Progeny" who I take to mean those born into her Golden Order. The curse was to take the form of their divinity, so the Omen were born in the shape of grotesque hornsent. I don't think Omen and Hornsent are the same, I think the Hornsent created the curse of the Omen in their image to torment Marika in perpetuity, I think the Misbegotten are just another form of life close to the Crucible, something between hornsent and demihuman.
I love the parallels between Messmer and norse mythology. While the Erdtree represents Yggdrasil, Messmer represents Nidhogg, a winged serpent who gnaws at the roots of the tree and tortures the dead.
Mesmir is actually blind the whole time, his one eye is permanently closed, his other is the gold grace, he sees with the snake eyes. thats why in the second phase the snake also is missing an eye and has one closed eye, so like Melania he's blind.
love your stuff bro. you have an amazing grasp of the philosophical themes of ER and all these games (shoutout to Custom Robo), i always learn stuff from your vids.
“In the embrace of Mesm…”
“STFU spear boi”
HEY, don't diss the spears, they're cool as fuck.
@@BriarDougherty-jz4ryI did not diss the spear only the spear boi
one would like to imagine a world where Messmer and Gaius are just having tea parties with their friends & siblings. Messmer could have been Rya’s friendly snake uncle :,(
Something I wish you had mentioned regarding Messmer's Flame is that, even if it has a different symolism compared to the other flames, it's still a flame, and AFAIK we've yet to meet a style of flame that the Golden Order is willing to accept.
We also see that Messmer's Flame/Kindling has the ability to burn the thorns of the Sacred Tree, much like how Melina can kindle the Giantsflame to burn the Erdtree. The kindling even mentions how she and Messmer share a vision of fire.
Thus, it isnt hard to understand why Marika would first try to seal Messmer's flame away, then later abandon him when it's clear he can still control some of that flame.
So far I've assumed that Messmer is perfectly aware of the whole jar/shamans/revenge situation, instead of being lied to, and there is no contradiction between that and the holy crusade, maybe they're even directly related. It seems there is no real evidence for one or the other option
I prefer this!
I believe that Messmer views himself not as any kind of holy crusader or a beloved son but a sin-eater, so consumed by his self-loathing as a serpentine cursed creature that he leapt at the opportunity to take the fall for Marika, carry out a shameful crusade and be forgotten by the lands between once the lands of the scadutree were concealed and banished.
It wouldn't surprise me if he tried to turn away the aid of the likes of Gaius & Relanna and only their love (familial, platonic, otherwise, who knows) and loyalty for him was what bound them into joining him, along with the flame knights who saw something noble in Messmer, likely in the same way that Melania's rot knights were inspired by her perseverance against the scarlet rot that cursed her.
He probably broods and hides in this dark chamber seperated from the shadow tower feeling unending guilt and self-hatred for allowing Gaius, Relanna and his loyal knights to be trapped here in this never ending hell of loneliness with him. Its only in his final moments he finally directs the blame for all he's suffered towards someone other than himself. His existence is painfully sad.
Based video. Your character breakdowns have always been fascinating to me so I cannot wait to see your take on Queen Marika the Eternal. After this DLC, she is an oddly human character despite being called a god time and again.
This is kind the point. She has the power over the damn Rules of The World, she can decide to just push away Death. Yet, in the end, she is just a human with a lot of suffer in her heart.
The eye Messmer's plucks out closely resembles Marika's Soreseal and would imply that he, like Hewg, is mainly acting under some sort of geas. The genocide and terror campaign would as such have been done under mind control, while his nobler actions would represent his true self bleeding through.
This would also explain why he only curses Marika with his dying breath. As his only option for fulfilling Marika's orders involved channeling his curse, he accidentally broke the mind control (Soreseal) and only started to realized it with his dying breath.
Had he survived our encounter, I wonder if Messmer would've spun his life around and become a heroic figure.
Messmer's words after killing the player in Phase 2 means that he would still continue albeit in darkness. There are some Iris of Grace left in the Land of Shadows so he could just replace what he lost. The item actually boosts the user when used so it is rather lore accurate that in his desperation would use it against us. However when Marika didn't intervene or showed up in his dying moments did he realize that he was truly abandoned.
In Elden ring everyone is a victim everyone has been wronged in some way this is a game of suffering for everyone.
If you look closely on the black knights torches it seems that they have the same flame as Messmer's kindling as such even abandoned by grace he still care for his men
It's impressive to see how your writing evolves with each new video. Your descriptions, diction, and syntax continue to impress me. Thanks for your work.
The way he says his classic "All those stripped of the grace of gold shall meet death in the embrace of Messmer's flame." in his 1st phase sounds like a chant. Like he's had to say it over and over and over again just to remember what the point of his life is, what his existence means. Hell, its probably something Marika said to him. So its been replaying constantly in his head. Beautiful work from the va.
Messmer helps you realise that one of the worst endings is indeed reestablishing the golden order with the Rune of order. Instead of forging something new,something better you choose to stick with the persecution of all that's different and all that's hurt you. Above all else the golden order is a order of veiled revenge
Okay but counterpoint: T pose
Messmer: You still love me, right?
Marika: I sent a tarnished to KILL you you tell me
Being tarnished sucks
The golden order hates you
The hornsent hates you
The misbegotten and albinaurics hates you
Even other tarnished join factions like the recusants or bloody fingers to specifically hunt other tarnished
But you know who doesn't hate you? Godfrey. And that's enough for me
@@free_instructions2259 But he wants to fight you to the death purely because he likes you.
Is that better?
I would say yes.
I keep thinking about Merica and her supposed abandonment of Messmer. Could it be that she absolutely meant to go back for him but when she did the shattering and the Erdtree locked her up, she was unable to get him?
Merica gets so much blame for things that might not be her fault. She was the last of her kind in The Land, I believe the Hornsent had spent perhaps 1000 years perfecting the jars to saint pipeline and they saw Merica as the pinnacle and through her something something some god stuff who knows the point is, she was the last one, the Hornsent obviously expected something huge from her since they took her to the Gates f Creation or whatever it's called, the Hornsent were probably thinking Merica would be their Jar Jesus. However, maybe the night before Merica was praying to any god who would hear her plea and she was heard by the Greater Will who offered her a way out of Jar Jesusdom and she took it. Maybe then when the Hornsent took her to that Gateway, the Greater Will did a WHAMMO, killing all those Hornsent present, I dont know Im just guessing but anyway, Merica escaped because her acceptance of the Greater Will (seen as a Betrayal by the Hornsent see) caused The Land to be split in 2, eventually becoming The Lands Between and The Shadowland.
Merica hit the ground running, she had a promise to keep to the Greater Will. I think Merica, a Neuman herself, believed her body (her DNA) to be pure and in that first flush of freedom, she joyously split herself in 2 and became Merica and Radagon and then promptly got herself pregnant with Messmer. Imagine her heartbreak when she discovered her first born child was born cursed. Then her next and next and no matter who she fucked, cursed, the lot of them. She must have felt betrayed by the Greater Will, no? Would she not have assumed The Greater Will would be in opposition to the Hornsent and their awful Crucible? I think Merica misunderstood many things, not least of which is the power of the Crucible as it is so obvious that the Crucible is the full cycle of birth>life>death with all it's messy confusion of horns and feathers and scales and whatthefuckever of The Land and that's just how it is there, it does not matter if the Greater Will is "in charge" or any outer god or whatever, the Crucible just IS and always will be.
Merica could not understand her children being born "cursed", could not stand to see Misbegotten, could not stand to see horns or feathers or scales, she saw all of that as a betrayal by the greater Will but cognitive dissonance is terrible, she eventually waged war against the Crucible and what better place to do so than the origin of her trauma, the Shadowland.
War war war what ever for...
So messmer was given a mandate to stamp out all those in the Shadow who would not or could not accept the Greater Will, all those lacking a pinch of Grace. He might not have expected those people to fight back as strongly as they did but they did. No matter as Messmer was great at genocide. I wonder if it wasn't due to his own abyssal devouring snake. His genocide took so long though. So long that Messmer began to believe the hushed whispers and furtive prayers of his own men, whispers that his mother had abandoned him, perhaps due to her repulsion of his "curse", who's to say. Once Messmer let those thoughts fester, it was only a matter of time before he just let himself go full snake.
But I don't think Merica abandoned him, the Greater Will sealed her up in the Erdtree before she could go get him. Who knows? I don't think we understand what she was trying to accomplish when she shattered the Elden Ring, it looks to me like she was a person suffering extreme PTSD who had unimaginable powers and yet was still controlled and manipulated by forces far outside her control. Her behaviors were extreme to us humans but I think she just wanted to be free in the end and wanted all of The Land, all of the world to be free but she was so damaged she used the only thing she knew, violence and weird godshit.
I love your video essays Brett, I came her for the God of War content and Im sticking around for everything you post that is about a game I at least know a little bit about.
It’s Marika
@@VictorIV0310 thanks for reading
Perhaps Marika wanted to move on from her past somehow? Hence why she sealed and hid away the realm of shadow, including Messmer?
"Mom, I killed all the Hornsent, can you come pick me up?"
"...Mom?"
**Message Read 1000 years ago**
When your murderer dedicates a museum to you in order to preserve history it is not out of a sense of respect or love or admiration but a compulsion to remember their victories over you. It was not enough to win, they must own you. A victory over you as eternal as the belief that if we take from someone we kill, we earned it and it is our right to keep it. It was so important to them, you see, we must value it for them.
People who own museums dedicated to cultures they destroyed are not also somehow their saviors by keeping and maintaining their culture. They’re just grave robbers who learned that paying for admission made them more money, that artifacts last longer than meat and that you can sterilize anything, even crimes, if you put it behind enough protective glass and assure them it’s history.
Don’t get it confused. Messmer didn’t do his part in protecting a legacy, he just made sure there was enough of them left for a footnote. That’s not a dog, it’s a turtle.
Exactly! It’s like saying every warlike civilization throughout history that plundered and ransacked the cultural heritage and sacred treasures of their enemies is at least decent enough to preserve them out of respect when it’s not. They’re more or less stuffed in a glorified trophy room. Even the name of the area, “Specimen Storehouse”, is one more little spat of the dignity of the Hornsent; They’re not seen as a culture worth remembering as sapient beings on the same level as them but mere animals to be put down or placed in an exhibit to point and laugh at.
The idea that the curses that Marika's children inherit are because of Marika's own sins makes a lot of sense, especially when you look at the curses her children have.
Morgott and Mohg are both born with aspects of the crucible which Marika and the golden order declared impure, leading them to be reviled, tortured and enslaved.
Malenia is born with scarlet rot from the outer god of rot itself which makes sense because in Marika's conquest, she aspired to be the ruler and god of the entire lands between, an example being the war she waged on the giants, one, because they had a flame that could burn the erdtree and because they also worshipped another god. Something that Corhyn mentions during goldmask's quest is that the golden order is founded on the principle that Marika is the one true god and so for that very reason Malenia is born with a curse from another outer god, making her a goddess of rot, rather than of gold.
Miquella's curse is that he can never age, meaning he would remain a child for eternity, the sin that causes this curse is from Marika removing death from both the Elden ring and the lands between entirely, the correlation being that you could never naturally die of old age if you never aged at all.
Melina is cursed with seeing visions of flame, something that is regarded as sinful, an example of this is Corhyn, who at one point saw a vision of flame and was punished for it by being blindfolded and wearing a giant wooden wheel around his neck. P.S.
Melina is the daughter of Marika as she says that she was born at the foot of the erdtree and also the kindling we receive after killing messmer describes that like his younger sister, he envisioned flame and because Messmer is the child of Marika this sister who envisioned flame is most definitely Melina.
However, Godwyn on the other hand is born without a curse, there's no actual reason behind this but my theory is that he has no curse because he takes his namesake after his father Godfrey rather than his mother Marika whereas every other child of Marika inherits her namesake and is cursed.
Honestly, there's a lot of lore. People just run past it because they want to rush through the bosses.
Then, they're going to complain about the lack of lore.
There's no reason to assume Messmer or his soldiers were lied to. It's by definition a Holy War since Marika is head of the Faith they hold.