Impressive how Elden ring has layers of Norse mythology, Sumerian aesthetics, alchemy, middle ages, dark fantasy, cosmic horror and even psychology... The best game ever
Those are images of one another and their universal archetypes that govern human thinking. Your seeing the root, the inescapable walls of the human mind, not a reproduction.
@@jackplisken4738yeah right. bloodborne is so one dimensional compared to elden ring it's not even fair cause ER basically trumps bloodborne in every way. just appreciate them for what they are, if you compare any game to elden ring it will fall short lmao
But we’re not… it’s quite literally a physical place that existed before Marika. It existed before she even ascended to godhood. It’s hidden by Marika to prevent others with the ability to ascend to godhood from finding it. Which is spelt out for us throughout the dlc when doing the npcs quest lines
@@ndoe5219 you're right, miquella's journey mirrors hers... I just wanted more from the ending. I was running around the arena after it was over bcs I thought we're gonna get to the haven gate xD and see some epic sh*t
@@ndoe5219it can be both a literal and present “space” for us to explore in the game AND metaphorically and symbolically be a dream realm inside the mind of Marika.
Interesting bit about Castle Morne at the end i didnt put that together. Though im pretty sure the item description says that the surviving champion was a male though that could be a refference to Radagon. Im excited for lore hunters to return to the base game with all this new knowledge and put more pieces together and come up with new theories. Great video as always thanks for your hard work.
The suppression pillar has plaque mentioning it is in the center of the Lands Between. It literally is that small cloud in the middle of the map, the veil hiding the whole place from being seen. The top of the divine tower pirces the veil, and you can see the Erdtree behind the Scadutree, placing the location in that cloud in the middle of the map. Also, note the clouds all around the border of the map in the land of shadow.
Also overlay the maps ontop of each other. It lays out perfectly and matched the gaping hole in the lands between. It litterally is the center of the lands between but using whatever godly powers the land of shadows, litterally shadow under the erdtree, as the scadutree and erdtree both are in the same location. So she hid everything under the erdtree and banished it away to another dimension.
Correct me if I’m wrong but go out to the isolated divine tower and look out towards the base of the Erdtree in the middle of the map, and you can see the top branches of the scadutree peaking through the veil, it’s exactly where it’s supposed to be on the map as well, the whole place is literally in the “shadow of the Erdtree”
I kind of see the story like a puzzle that we are thrust into the story and we put those puzzle pieces together ourselves through the world building and Get info from the npcs that they tell us. And all npc tell their side from their perceptions and motives (wif all dem different endings and all that) It’s kinda like how after a party where the next morning you try to figure out what adventures were had at that party lol :p
Its obvious to me that the Shaman village is her original home. It would explain how she met her two fingers and why she left her incantation there. It was the last thing she did before going to become a God. Themes of abandonment are clear, Marika left behind everything, instead of being sad forever. Miquella was about to do the same thing that why St. Trina asks us to kill him.
The whole become a god thing seems to me that marika did just that due to her rage at the hornsent and those who killed her people. It shines a light on why the omen/crucible are reviled to the golden order. As well as the hatred of the snakes. Marika litterally started her accension just to wipe them out and hide the fact away Where it was already hinted she was a conqueror but the land of shadow shows a literal genocide. She just blamed her son who was cursed and sealed him away along with all evidence of her major crimes.
@@tajdaffa1526 No her Talisman and her incantation imply she was the last one left. Leaving that golden tree as a momento to her people, hence why it said she knew there was on left to heal. Its actually implied that the tree on the Shaman village has gotten weaker over time since it said it bathed the land in gold but we only see it light up the immediately area with gold leaves flowing through the air. The incantation is actually the same one that makes the Erdtree glow since we know that the Erdtree is a illusory tree and as a God she would able pull off a giant version of her personal incantation.
Your videos are so impressive and interesting. Thank you for all your hard work helping us understand what happened in Elden Ring. It makes the game even more fascinating.
Really happy your video popped up on my feed, your thoughts are so well organized. Though I get that the most we can all do is speculate about this game, your connections between concepts and the way you weave them all together to form a coherent and pretty damn convincing idea is really fun to listen too. Found myself nodding and thinking “that totally makes sense” so many times. Gonna go binge your videos now, thank you for the awesome content!
I have had a lot of comments about the Suppressing Pillar that "definitively" tells us where the Shadow Lands is. _"The very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed."_ I think I should have made myself more clear. I 100% agree that its under the cloud and a physical place - I simply believe it's meant to be taken metaphorically. The word "suppressing" is a very unique word that is not found in the definition of a literal shadow that is cast by an object. BUT that word "suppressing" is found everywhere within the definition of a psychological shadow. If anything, the suppressing pillar is yet another clue as to the real meaning of the Realm of Shadow.
About the physical location of the Land of Shadow: The Lands Between has a massive empty space right in the middle of it and the Land of Shadow is like an island What’s interesting is that if you look at the maps of both, overlay them, they *fit together.* The Scadutree fits near perfectly with the location of the Erdtree, the massive pieces of fabric draped over the Scadutree flow outward in the directions of the various Divine Towers. The Towers are *holding up* the drapes and the Land of Shadow *is* the centre of the base map, it’s not a place beyond the horizon (as I initially thought) it’s been right under our noses the *whole time* Those drapes don’t just keep LoS veiled from Marika’s sight, they keep it veiled from *all* sight I would love to see what the Lands Between would have looked like *before* the Land of Shadow became veiled from the outside world
Man, you should really look into Inanna/Ishtar and her poems; I think she’s a heavy inspiration for Marika. In the poem “Inanna's Descent into the Underworld,” it is a representation of confronting one’s shadow. she travels to the underworld to confront her sister Ereshkigal, the goddess of death, where she is stripped of her power, judged, killed, and later resurrected with the help of her companions and the gods. In “Inanna and the Huluppu Tree,” she finds a tree planted by the father god. Inanna transplants the huluppu tree from the Euphrates River to her garden in Uruk, hoping to use it for a throne and a bed. After the tree becomes infested with a snake, a demoness, and a bird, she requires Gilgamesh to help her drive them away, which he succeeds in doing. And in the Epic of Gilgamesh, when Gilgamesh rejects her advances, she is furious and goes to her father, Anu, demanding the Bull of Heaven to punish him. Anu reluctantly agrees, and the Bull of Heaven is sent to Uruk, causing widespread destruction. However, Gilgamesh, with the help of his friend Enkidu, manages to kill the bull which has its own consequences
I don't think her shadow is an actual thing nor the shadowlands a nightmare, but I think it's a really good metaphor for Marika. She was young shaman who had a vision of an age of plenty, which would be rid of all the things that hurt her and whom she loved. Yet the actions she takes to create this age harm others, and try as she might she cannot escape the consequences of her actions (this would be her "shadow"). I think your character analysis of her is spot on, and that's more important than the metaphysics of the lands between, anyways. Marika's story is actually rather tragic. I think we are supposed to take Miquella's journey as a parallel - ie: Marika, too, tried to divest herself of the past.
Couldn't agree more about Miquella's journey being a parallel to Marika's. Since we never communicate with Marika, the only way to get her story is through other stories paralleling hers. I often wonder if Rennala's story is a reflection of Marika's. Once powerful queen's, something happened to their children, they retreat into their former place of power and become husks of their formers selves.
It is an actual thing, what do you mean? There's history linked to lands between and Miquella goes there. I think there's themes of Marika's mental state but in this 'world', it's also a physical thing. It is a fantasy world of god's and myth's. People are trying to force it to make sense in our reality, when it doesn't need to. It's a story. All of these things can be true and not true.
Nice point out for the dlc story. I generally watch youtube on my console. Yet for you, I had to log onto my phone and subscribe to this channel immediately. Nice video.
I believe The Land Of Shadow was hidden to supress Marika's mortality. She was never the almighty Goddess everyone thought she was. Marika was never eternal and to make others think she was, Messmer and everything about her origin had to go. She killed approximately 6 birds with one stone by suppressing the Land Of Shadow. Branching from what you mentioned about hiding ones own faults, Marika's limit came in the form of Messmer and it appears that same curse followed through for every single one of her children. All of them failed except for Godwyn and Miquella but Godwyn was brutally murdered by Ranni and Miquella wasn't fit to become a God. I believe Miquella also figured out the steps Marika took to become a Goddess and went to follow her, but we the Tarnished ordained by Marika HERSELF to become Elden Lord, follow Miquella to see what he's up to and wind up uncovering every nasty secret about Marika's family. I believe she knew she couldn't keep the Lands Of Shadow hidden and trusted us to learn the truth and come to the proper conclusion of what to do as Elden Lord. Marika couldn't relinquish any of the Outer God's, so she hid the lands they have the most influence and told her land any who dabble in these elements are sinners, starting with snakes and fire since they technically took her son from her and left her powerless to help him. I started typing this before the video ended and noticed we actually came to a similar conclusion. The Tarnished is Marika's last attempt to make everything right. This is also why Messmer doesnt understand why she sent us. He never knew about her disappearance, the death of his kin OR the return of the Tarnished because he was surprised to see us. What stood out is the fact he knew about the Tarnished at all. This means he knew of Godfrey but their relation is never specified.
The great thing about such a masterful story and storytellers is that if u want to look at this game as a psychological journey or a fantasy story you can because its vague and precise enough to be either, its both
OOOooooh that Castle Morne connection sent shivers down my spine. All the swords and knightly imagery of that castle reminds me more of Radagon than Marika, however… but that could actually make sense. If the two of them were always one, as I am inclined to believe, then perhaps they would once shift more fluidly between each other, as I believe Miquella and Saint Trina once did according to the description of Trina’s sword. If that’s the case, then perhaps after they had finished mourning, it was with the grim resolve of a lone vengeful champion that they set out into the new Lands Between. And although one could picture just Radagon walking away from Castle Morne, Revenger’s Sword over his shoulder, I choose to picture both of them, in an androgynous form like how they appear at the tail-end of their scene in the dlc trailer - slender and graceful, but bold and strong, with streaming golden hair slowly turning into red. Granted, we probably shouldn’t take the possible connection literally, just as we shouldn’t literally say the Lands of Shadow are in Marika’s nightmares. It’s a metaphoric parallel, but one that’s too blatant to ignore.
A lot of great insight in this video but two things really stood out to me. The first was when you brought up the feelings reflected in the NPCs, it helped me notice how dream like the area around St Trina really is and how the jagged peaks and lightning storm near Bayle reflect the anger and rage of that storyline More importantly, however, was when you spoke of how our Tarnished represents Marika’s will to confront her shadow. When Leda tells us that it was Grace or the Erdtree guiding us, it turned on a lightbulb for me. Marika did not want us confronting her Shadow, I’d have to confirm but I don’t think Grace points us to Miquella. Grace also doesn’t appear until we fell Mesmer. It feels like Marika is saying, “if you’ve come this far, finish what you started.” Excellent videos as always and can’t wait for more!
Begone, demon. Stop spamming every creator's comments trying to get some subs when you care more about pushing a sick ideology than appreciating a great game.
I think you can extended that to the demigods as well. Rykard and his area are probably the most pronounced but they all have their unique “affliction” or emotion which is reflected in their area
As someone who was sexually assaulted when I was young and who has nightmares every evening your speech about carrying the shadow with you and that it cannot be denied really struck a chord with me it's very true and until now the only other way I have ever been able to describe it is similar to how the Dexter character explains his"dark passenger". I really want to thank you for such a thoughtful and well made video
I like these tangential theories because i can't lie, every Fromsoft release over time leaves me a little disappointed, lore-wise, that we always get stories that end up 80% abstract and undetailed or unclarified, despite the fact the the foundation is all laid out. The lore often feels intentionally incomplete and while I get it's a design choice and it can be compelling, I was hoping Elden Ring would do more to detail the world and the lore and maybe leave less room for interpretation this time around. Or at least leave us with less questions about basically everything, especially since I doubt we will get more canonical Elden Ring in the future or at least any time soon. So all this to say, sometimes theories like your psychological/mental analysis of Elden Ring and other various interpretations of other channels do tie in different aspects of the stories and make the whole project look less vague or abstract and perhaps more detailed and fleshed out than it originally seemed to be.
While you're clearly aware of this, I'll say this: It's an age old saying that the best authors and/or story tellers are people who create worlds open to interpretation. Obviously FromSoft likes to do this so that we can get sucked in and create our own evolving story. However, I'd like to think that it's also partially due to them leaving games open to future installments. While HM has said this will essentially complete Elden Rings, you never know. Not only is there clearly more that can be told here, but share holders may eventually demand they return to this cash cow (or other Souls games that have similar endings that leave things up to interpretation) and make them more money. It's a win-win for them in every aspect, and it's give the community the ability to evolve and grow over time. With all that being said, I too was hoping for more resolution with the DLC. I feel like I have more questions than before it's release, lol.
Yeah, it wouldn't be very healthy or compelling for discussion for the community if it were open and shut. Miyazaki has gone on record saying that he wanted to share the experience of filling in the gaps with imagination that he had as a child attempting to read books in another language.
Great video. Love your content, you are one of the 2 lore channels I always look forward to hear more of (Ive seen all of them really). About morne hero - it says he fell to the hand of Godfrey, no?
My personal understanding is that the Realm of Shadow were the blueprint for the Lands Between. That it existed before, and were, as we see during the DLC, where the Fingers and other Outer Gods landed. Where the curse of "Omens" (Hornsent) took hold, where a Great Tree existed, before the Golden Order made their own. I think that when she ascended, Marika _created_ the Lands Between and tried to make them perfect in regard to the darkness and violence of the Realm of Shadows. And I don't think it exists or existed in the same physical place. (Yes, the Suppression pillar and "The center of the Lands Between"... it can mean multiple things. Can be the center in the meaning of "Where the idea of the Lands Between originated.") And I have to say, your interpretation is very interesting still, will keep that in mind :) (Also, I'm still chuffed by the way Miquella's hand apparently makes us appear in a spot with no narrative reasoning at all. As much as I understand that it's best for gameplay reasons, Miyazaki and his team don't do coincidences, at least not at that level. There could easily have been a Cross there, or we could have appeared at the South-East of the map closer to where Moghwyn was IF the maps were meant to be complementary, there could have been an arch suggesting that this is the entry point to the Realm of Shadow... But nothing. Will investigate further, on the church and the corpse just overhead, but it's WEIRDLY empty.)
Glad that you pointed out at the end there that the setting from which the Shadowlands is accessed is important. Marika's shadow is a nightmarish place. I think that the framing device is that everything found in the shadow is being rejected by the main Lands Between as undesired - including Miquella's ascent to godhood. Marika's circumstances were different from Miquella's - she didn't visit the Shadowlands but instead created them in her youth. Likely, Miquella as Marika/Radagon's "inner child" tried to recreate the past and failed because the conditions no longer exist to replicate Marika's path. Regarding the Supression Pillar description that all manner of death washes up here, death and dreams are sometimes conflated in classical literature. See Hamlet's soliloquy: "To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause" More generally, though the label of "Shadow" is used and the Jungian Shadow is probably the primary lens, I expect that there is an exploration here of all three branches of depth psychology. Freud is alluded to in Armored Core 6 (acompanied by an icon of a hand rising from shadow and holding a key) and there are a number of elements in the Elden Ring DLC that are telegraphing a psycho-sexual lens. And also psychologist Heinz Ludwig Ansbacher was a student of Alfred Adler whose major ideas were the inferiority complex and concept of "Will to Power". The irony being that Adler's ideas are the ones that are most thoroughly incorporated and accepted into modern psychology, and so Ansbach comes across as being the most rational of the NPC's despite also having the massive red flag of being a blood purist.
Also, the Suppressing Pillar: "The very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed." This makes little sense to me in any other context than what you're stating.
I am very big into Carl Jungs work and I thought the same thing as I played the game. Cerulean coast even says all manner of death washes up on these shores.
Also the Hornset race wanted to merge their victims bodies as sacrifices to make this Divine Gate to ascend to Godhood. Marika, the victim of this, managed to beat them to it. (Hence the trailer. She took the rune, went to the corpse riddled Divine Gate, and acended to Godhood.) Thus start Elden Ring
My guesses: The shadowrealm was once part of the lands between, it fits in the middle. It was then veiled or phaseshifted in an other dimension by Marika. What i find interesting is that the 6 divine towers, with parts of the runes and fingers still stand in the lands between, like they are part of "holding the veil" up. The tower of suppression states: "The very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed." My guess is that, Marika had to get rid of the tower, so the dead would be then absorbed and rebirthed by the erdtree, with parts of her, since all beeings in the lands between drop runes. For what the hornsent were using the tower, i don't know, maybe accumulating souls to power their living ascension gate with that promenant T shape in it? Which the living jar innerst have edged on their forehead and kinda reminds me of the rune of death.
As I recall it, Miyazaki said in an interview, that "the eldenring represents metaphysical concepts". We, the player, experienced, that the Eldenring is real inside the game and exercises great influence over the Lands Between. Does that mean, that the metaphysical concepts represented by the Eldenring have a real influence? Does the metaphysical become the physical in the Lands Between? And if yes, which ones? What I want to argue is: the metaphors aren´t just metaphors. They are indicators of where and how the metaphysical takes shape, or in other words: They are hints to which metaphysical concepts have a physical representation. This begs the question: Is the reality in the game based on or mixed with metaphysical concepts, which became physical? That would also leads to the question: What if it´s not just the Realm of Shadow, that is a "realized metaphor", but the Lands Between as a whole?
I have been thinking the same thing but I believe Radagon is the shadow in question. He was the founder of golden order fundamentalism and after seeing his statue in another video of yours I speculate that he is the tree wrapped around the shadowy representation of the erdtree. A tender embrace as the shadow sunflower blossom describes it. Also scadutree sorcery has impenetrable thorns which I believe references the thorns of the main game.
I feel like the veil is just a visual representation of the fact that the Shadow Lands are veiled, or hidden. Perhaps whatever power Marika used to hide them involved a spell/incantation that spread out an actual veil over the lands.
@@CenteredTarnished I typed out that thought before I had gotten very far into your video. Your theory is very intriguing too! The lore does make it clear that she hid the shadow lands somehow. Maybe as you said, in it's hidden state her nightmares have begun to effect the land and sky. The veils over her bed look very similar to the veils over the Scadutree, so maybe she is projecting her subconscious memories over the Shadow Lands.
It's not a veil, it's a shroud. The Lands of Shadow are the "afterlife" of the Lands Between but originally they were part of it as you can glean from the message atop the Suppressing Pillar. Marika obtained godhood out of a wish for vengeance against the Hornsent and once she was done with them, she hid that part away under the shroud and ordered her firstborn, Messmer, to keep continue the crusade against her old enemies forever as her removal of death from the new order meant they wouldn't stay down.
Unfortunately the "Nightmares" part of the Moghwyn Palace Map description in Japanese is 悪想 which doesn't mean nightmare as in bad-dream, but more nightmare as in "Evil," or I guess more literally "Evil Thoughts/Evil Ideas."
There is a bunch of voices screaming/moining in pain outside of the church of elleh at night. Dunno if it means anything but I noticed it the other day.
I saw a gravestone near dragon pit it read “the center of the lands between, where the dead come to something something something” I can’t remember lol. But it made me think maybe the shadow lands is the regenerative place of the Erdtree where the Demi gods and such are reborn before coming back up to the surface. I think the chaos god somehow landed there in the realm and corrupted it which is why it is the way it is.
We're all gazing at a diorama lothric plays with cracks in the ceiling, while unable to sleep. Were chasing over veneration of familial affair, where conquerers with golden hair leave a faded people. Every faith is shattered, and an empty village is bathed in gold for some fancy daydream.
About that last nugget, wasn't the Revenger of Castle Morne explicitly slain by Godfrey at the end of his southward march, which he made as Elden Lord on Marika's orders? I think you're right to see a connection, but a different kind. Marika ordering the Morne clan killed echoes the killing of her own people, a representation of the cycle of violence in the Lands Between.
For sure! I always assumed it was behind that cloud. But that still doesn't really help answer the question of where we are. It's much like FA where we need to be transported there and wake up in a totally different place. So, what does that mean/ represent? ER is not meant to be taken literal, but rather metaphorical. We have to ask ourselves what it means.
So the land of shadows is like the Hunters Nightmare from Bloodborne? We're in the Gods Nightmare looking at deeds done, deeds better locked away and in it's form it's also a prison world for Messmer and his men? Many ingame item descriptions hint at the fact that the soldiers in Messmer's army aren't there by free will. Anyways love the take, it puts a new perspective on things! Personally found the NPC quests kinda weak, therefore this video really helps me imagine what the shadow realm is.
Basically yes. It is a place where all the things that go against the golden order ends up, death included. I feel that initially the land wasn't hidden by Marika's will. The scadutree and its veil are basically the Erdtree "fallout", caused by bringing certain laws on reality through the Elden ring. The scadutree exists as ensemble of all the traits conflicting against Marika's order. That's why it has engulfed the capital of the hornsent. If the omen are a curse, there can't be a civilization where horns are seen as a blessing. So they end up engulfed by the shadows. If Marika is eternal, she can't be born from a village. If men can't become gods, there can't exist a gate turning normal people into divinities, etc.
wow it was in my head Elemer of the briar pulled a hundred man slayer, but the lone survivor might be Marika. I've been trying to figure out if the ancestor followers are related in some way, I think some are called shaman
After watching this video I subscribe to the idea that Lands of Shadow was something that Marika wanted to leave behind her entirely. But the thing is you can't do this, your past will hunt you. your sins will hunt you. Therefore things from Lands of Shadow were sinking into Lands and even Marika life - like her Omen kids or other aflictions.
I really appreciate your work, so please accept my comments with big respect. I haven’t seen everything you’ve done, so I might be saying things you’ve already addressed. Your interpretation of the base game informed my reading of the DLC greatly. But I think I came away with a different understanding from you. So I wanted to share. I think it does tell us where we are relative to the Lands Between. There’s a tower (of Suppression?) that says it’s the center point of the Lands Between. Plus, if you look in the direction from the Divine Gate from the cloud in the center of the base map, it points to the walls of a crater. We know from the trailer that’s where the Elden Beast may have landed. If the whole world represents one person’s psychological development, I think its reasonable that the realm of shadow simply represents the shadow? Nightmare aspects, sure, but maybe still no less real a place than the base game. I do buy the nightmare leaking into the non-Shadow realm, which is why omens are omens. They’re seeping out from suppression and point to a crack in the dam. As the shadow in psychology develops in childhood, it makes sense the realm is where Marika was formed and born. The Finger Ruins appeared to me to literally be wombs. One is right next to where Marika was born and that one is dead. They both are full of slithery snake creatures that spit. The one further north is more fertile. The third one is more mystic and contains the mother of fingers, who generates an egg - and boy do they want us to notice the fingerprints. An aspect of genetic identity with an inscrutable will. In a realm with spiral columns, like genetic info. In the place where human’s animalistic features are suppressed. Miquella, with the most altruistic ideals, is represented as an eternal child. But his tree, embodying his ideals, fails, and he is unable to make himself an adult man in it. So in an attempt to develop he goes to this realm of Marika’s childhood to abandon his love and his child body and his feminine aspect. And then instead of redeeming Godwin or Millenia, he ultimately allies with might. He’s suppressing his own childhood there, feeling he must. Marika’s gestation and birth are represented there, her home village is there, and the first boss is basically a parade float. Animal nature is tamed there. Childhood is sealed there. One thing I should look up is when Messmer was born. Because he’s got red hair, so he must be Radagon’s son. But the others of Radagon and Marika’s children were born after Marika’s and Godfrey’s. In the base game, “Radagon is Marika” is a secret to be revealed. Is it possible that Messmer, and perhaps that entire realm, were suppressed because people there knew Marika had a child with her own male aspect? Speculation, but… Given a clear theme of suppression, Messmer’s red hair, and the secretive aspect of Marika/Radagon in the base game, I think it’s a good question. For instance, why does Marika not have more children with Radagon right away? Why is it such a well kept secret that he is her male aspect? It seems more well known in contrast that St. Trina is Miquella’s female aspect. Apologies if any of this is stuff you’ve covered already. And for the unorganized delivery. I’m just spitballing, and I know most of this is stuff I got from you. :-) Appreciate your work. Cheers and all the best to you.
These are all great questions and analyses! I think the reason the tower is the center is because it's the very beginning of Marika's godhood. Everything moves outward from there. The fact that it's a tower of suppression, to me, only solidifies the meaning of the Shadow Lands and what they represent not only to Marika (personally) but the LB (collectively). You bring up a good point about Radagon and Marika vs Miquella and St Trina. It's strange that most people accept St. Trina as Miquella's other self but can't believe that Marika has the same thing. I love the thing you said about the animalistic nature being sealed there. It fits well with what we see happen in Farum Azula and the LB as a whole. A further separation of our origins and evolution.
@@CenteredTarnished I appreciate the reply! And look forward to more of your work. I want to add also maybe to Google “Fimbriae,” in regards to Metyr. I do think you’re right btw that stories repeat, regarding Morne/Shaman Village and Renalla/Marika (I think you mentioned that before). I think that’s why Miquella’s story is so relevant to Marika’s journey. Maybe that’s totally obvious, but I see comparisons of Miquella’s compassion to Marika’s totalitarianism (or whatever) and I think it’s just very clear that the road to hell is paved with etc etc. Also I think the Count’s dialogue in Manus Metyr is very relevant to the legacy of Marika’s children. Anyway, cheers and looking forward to more.
I disagree with some of this effort to infer certain meanings from the word "Shadow" here. I think if it were intended, for one thing, there would be more to do with Maliketh, who is literally called her shadow. I think some of this video is going down a rabbit hole not intended by the author/s.
funny you mention castle morne as going thru the same exact thing as shaman village in other circunsamces, because the guy there started going after revenge and it made him an unhinged maniac who attacked everyone. Kinda like marika wanted revenge for her people but she didnt stop there, she became a genocidal monster even worse than her oppresors, she could've gained independence to the shamans, freed them, forced the hornsents to comply, punished the torturers, made some examples and started to heal the land, but she didnt.
Great video! We are indeed diving deep into someone's mind :) I think Marika and her people, the Numen, traveled from far to the Lands of Shadow within those coffin/space ships. What I cannot understand yet is that the Shaman Village is apparently an place of just woman, so if that was their first settlement, where did all the Numen man go? I'm frankly quite afraid of that question because I don't want to think Numen woman were sold as slaves, or maybe it was just a woman migration, established their settlement and were hunted down by the Hornsent for whatever stupid religious believe. The music in game made me feel like there was always something around the corner, in terms of lore and enemies :D loved it.
I’m still watching the video just have to clarify at 1:13 when you asked "why is every outer god in this small region of land" or something like that. We actually have met 0 outer gods yet. Midra is just a vessel for the frenzied flame just like Romina. Romina didn’t transform into a scarlet bug creature until after Marika ordered messmer to cleanse the land of shadow in flame. She discovered the scarlet buds and allowed herself to be a vessel for the God of Rot unlike Melania who had tried to fight the influence of the scarlet rot. Midra all the same found himself in a situation where he was doing everything in his power to hold back the influence of the potential god of frenzied flame or god of madness or whatever they plan to call it. Whoever the outer god of frenzied flame is would be who the frenzied 3 fingers where receiving instruction from. 👍🏾
Thing we have to realize now is, the story IS over, and Miyazaki knows all the info we need to have the full story is here, in the game. Imo, we can't say "i think" we have enough info to form the full story picture. It's all here. We will all see soon enough.
This is the part of the DLC that is tripping me out the most. I thought it was a separate realm at first. But I think it’s actually a piece of real physical geology that’s just not visible to the Mainland due to the “glamour” Marika put over The Lands Between. I have a theory that the Scadu Tree is what the Erdtree actually has looked like the entire game and the Lands Between we see is the Glamorous world hidden from the “real” world of the Shadow.
Cool theory, but I think your thinking too deep into this. There is a tower in the DLC that states that it is the center of the lands between. The area we are in is veiled so that we cannot see into the land of shadow or out of it. I wonder if the devine towers are holding the veils?
The existence of the supressing pillar completely destroys this theory. The Shadow Lands is a physical, tangible place, just obscured by Marika's Veil. That's why it is inacessible by normal means. The death theme is recurrent because all maners of death end up there (as it is described in the gravestone on top of the supressing pillar).
First of all i believe that as deep as this lore gets, that we as players arent meant to know everything. It would take a lot of the fun out of the story speculation, wouldn't it? Second, this game has proven to me even more that video games (at least the good ones) should be looked at as pieces of art. Interactive, Audio Visual art pieces. Thank you fromsoft for this game. For this piece of ART.
Isn't Maliketh meant to be Marika's shadow rather than the GEQ? The parallels still works because he is the bearer of destined death and is enslaved to the ego of Marika, just feel he's more fitting.
I dont think your necesarily wrong about it being a dream or nightmare, but i dont think its the whole story. I think it is, a very real part of the world, similar to how the dreamlands are represented in works of Lovecraft. I think we can take the tombstone at the top of the tower literally. Where it says something along the lines of "This is the very center of the lands between. All manner of death wash up here." I think of it as almost an afterlife on top of everything else. Its an afterlife for those who experience true death. Thats another reason why many people believe that radahn was originally meant to be godwyn. I also lean toward it being intentionally created by marika, bith to hide her past abd to supress the memories. That could be just because, i personally like marika more as a less sympathetic character too though.
There’s too many Retcons in this DLC for me: Messmer being the Oldest of the Demi gods, a Frienzied flame lord that’s never spoken of, and how tf did Marika seal off the land of shadows if that’s the only place for a emperyean to ascend… why didn’t the greater will have Marika punished ??
I think you may be reading too far into things while ignoring the base interactions. Too many characters with agency and a few we can find both in and out of the dlc. I think it is quite literally a shadow realm, the place for things that are separate from the golden order and overshadowed by it coddled together by the powers of fickle gods. Even the lands betwixt supports this and hints there is another realm, a higher realm of things that are above the golden order that we have no idea about. I believe that is the literal point of the lands betwixt, the mid point between a higher and lower realm. With the lower realm being a world where omens had their own culture, history, religion and tree. I am willing to bet we will get a dlc where there is an order that the golden order couldn’t challenge, one so ingrained in their society that it could not be confronted or contested with.
it seems more like a collective nightmare, it's the subconcious of the lands between themselves, so to speak. consider that the tower of suppresion shares architectural motifs with belurat: it precedes the golden order. it MAY precede the hornsent too. so the lands of shadow were always meant to be suppressed. perhaps a consequence of trying to grasp god itself? also it's interesting that people are possibly seeing some branchs amidst the ocean at the base of the erdtree; the location is both physical and metaphysical. you tap into the nightmare through miquella's dream, but that place sits physically in the world too, it's just at some undeterminate "under" amidst the mist. it's a literal limbo between the physical and metaphysical.
For me, the real disappointment of this DLC is the lore. Cryptic is fine. This allows you to use your imagination and create connections, interpretations and new meanings, although... definitely subjective. The problem, when lore is deliberately made coded and flirts with the most obvious absurdity, is that the smallest detail (moreover, probably of an insignificant nature) becomes a viable source from which any form of speculation is found, then legitimized, in the same way as any other. And thus, absolutely everything takes on a significant nature. I have nothing against the principle of "leaving the viewer free to explain", but sometimes it borders on intellectual fraud and ease. What constituted the work's own identity becomes a caricature of how it wanted to be perceived. I think the basic story, as thought out by G.R.R. Martin, was all in all classic (and above all perfectly rational and so to speak "down to earth") but that the transmutation carried out by H. Miyazaki, from the basic material, was lost in the blind desire to make it cryptic . And ultimately, keep in balance both the fidelity of a simplified genesis (because it was undoubtedly requested that it be simplified in the first place in order to be able to stretch and distort it at will) and the inevitable need to add the stylistic touch that everyone expects to find in the end, does not always work perfectly. Because it becomes possible to free oneself from a certain satisfactory narrative coherence and leave the responsibility to the audience, under the guise of aesthetic choice and “freedom of interpretation”. Because, a bit like the modding community repairs and completes Bethesda games, we, the players and admirers of FromSoftware games, risk being condemned to give meaning to a work when we want nothing other than to discover the full truth, one and indivisible, like adventurers in an epic that expects only one thing from us: that we reveal its complete nature through our discoveries. It seems to me, personally, that the link between the creator of the work and his adept(s) is even stronger and more striking.
It's surrealist fantasy like Dark Souls. I don't know what you expected. In fact, I would argue that the DLC is largely explicit in its "meaning" -- to a degree that I myself found (very mildly) disappointing. Perhaps your approach is a bit myopic.
@@nickb7704 Grass is "almost" as boring as everything else, except when you accompany yourself with an entomology encyclopedia. But your remark is true, I know that I piss off most people, most of the time 🙂
@@m.h.lockesteppe9834 I really like this analogy with myopia, in your remark. I had never thought about it, but it characterizes my method of analysis rather well. Method which has no other value than that which I attach to it. But I had never thought of giving it a reliable definition. But no matter, my criticism concerns the organization of the narration, not the theme, nor the game, nor the technical aspect. Thank you for taking a minute to discuss the narrative and not, once again, to produce yet another “Argumentum ad personam” 🙂
So hear me out... The Scadutree is supposed to be literally the "shadow" of the Erdtree. Therefore, assume that the Scadutree is where the Erdtree is in the Lands Between. It would strongly support the theory that the Shadow Realm is somewhere in the "middle" of that middle water/ocean section of the Lands Between. Coupled with the lore and visual evidence supporting this, I'd say it's hard to refute. Plus, the "cloud" in the middle could represent "shadow".
Highly speculative, not entirely followable imo. But nonetheless, wildly interesting. We, of course, know that the shadow realm is a physically real space separated from the Lands Between- Miyazaki has said so. It's also the place Marika first set foot.
Well its pretty easy to see that the shadow lands is the land of death for the system of life the land between uses. Its reallt just the middle of the lands between we cant see. It fits perfectly in it. With the one tower even telling us its the middle of the lands between. Its where the ancient societies of the landsbetween were from before marikas accension. We see she was last of her village and that she went on a war path to become a god just to burn them all for her memories.
@@CenteredTarnished the erdtree is only seen by those of grace. Else it is a burnt stump of what used to be the physical tree. It once was real but only those with grace from the greater will can see the ethereal manifestation. Remember a God is who chose this to happen. Their world doesn't abide by our physics and they have different rules. The whole dlc takes place directly under where the tree would be. The map lines up. Just it was sealed off to another dimension. It's literally living in It's would be shadow. While simultaneously sealing the shadow away.
Nice theory, but Myiazaki has confirmed himself that Lands of Shadow were once part of Lands Between, but were at some point disconnected. Elden Ring is using some universal themes as motherhood, cosmic horror and original sin similarly than Bloodborne, but concept of Dreams is not present in lore of Elden Ring.
@@CenteredTarnishedSleeping isn't the same as dreaming, and vice versa. While cut content for St. Trina did deal with dreams at one point, that's not what we got. Her power over sleep in the Shadow Lands, where she's able to lay the suffering of characters such as the Putrescent Knight and Thiollier to rest, is more akin to death. There's no dreaming for them upon imbibing her nectar. No transporting them to a different realm. She only grants her followers eternal sleep to relieve them of their pain.
@@Gelly311 So just so I am hearing you correctly, you think that sleep and dreams are not connected. After we imbibe in the nectar, we here St. Trina talk to us....... how does this happen when we are "dead"?
I can see the idea that the mentality of Marika and her shaodw are shown in the DLC. Its her home, where she was born, where she bacame a god. She learned to fear the outer gods and desired order to limit such travesties (she failed) but I think this DLC is not mental. Its been told to us it is a psychically and disconnected world that explains why Marika is the way she is. This is not a dream. This is the cold reality that her shadow was born of.
I do not think that castle morn has anything to do with marika A lone survivor fought Godfrey for revenge I assume the horn sent or a similar group. Now that the DLC has come out.
Hear me out .. although the pillar states the center etc etc … when I finished killing the mother of fingers .. I went to go click over on my map to go warp .. when I flipped over to the lands between ,,, litteraly my icon where the mother of fingers was .. was like bottom left of the map of the base game alittle above the table of grace ( table of grace for me jus so happens to be on the left for mechanics I don’t think it’s actually on the bottom left of the map lol ) however with the other situation .. it had me thinkin for a second .. then I started clicking and flipping the map back and forth .. I even tried to see if the whole shadow lands could fit on that bottom part .. connected almost to the weeping peninsula .. and you know what ? I’ve convinced myself that if it was physically apart of the lands between .. then it had to be there .., way to big to be in the center … it would overlap a whole lot of shit .. and I don’t think it was to the right where farum azula is …. And the whole huge veil covering everything would make sense if it’s on the bottom left … maybe the Elden beast an merrika separated it there in the trailer afterwards .. since he’s kinda aquatic .. what if he just used his teleportation Ina huge way an transferred all that shit over
Ah, deep psychological tropes like this one are only cheap or “lesser” if they’re done without care, reverence or respect for the matter at hand. Miyazaki has never once given anything a cheap treatment like that. He wouldn’t have been able to pull off Bloodborne, a game about arguably even worse atrocities (especially against women), if he didn’t treat it with the respect its victims deserve.
The land it's literally in the shadow of the erdtree. There's several description about it. There is even scadu altus (shadow altus). There's no need to mess up this straightforward fact
@@CenteredTarnished Shadow: a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface. "trees cast long shadows" And, as i said, there is scadu altus which is quite explanatory on its own
@@pmas4536 lol I know what a shadow is. I’m asking if you subscribe to the idea that the Erdtree and/or Minor Erdtrees are illusionary - as many people do. I’m curious how that theory can make sense in a literal sense is all.
@@pmas4536 also, there are shadow bound beast within the game that aren’t literal shadows casts by their empyrean. Why do you think this is so different? They share the same title
In my opinion, everyone is an aspect of Marika. Much like the videos that keep coming out about this person is that person and so on. OR, this is the place where you leave your own shadow behind - creating a "perfect/ unflawed" individual. Perhaps Miquella found this out and this is why he divests himself of everything - leaving only a divine spirit.
As far as her village goes, we know she is the lone survivor thanks to the Minor Erdtree Incantation. "There is no one to heal". Who knows if there are other Numen out there - but that seems to add an unnecessary complexity
@@CenteredTarnished Of her village sure but there are other numen doing things in the lands between at least (as well as maybe the playable tarnished). Who knows about lands of shadow tho.
Brother Dearest Lucifers gnosis is 666% correct and true. "All those hidden in the umbra shall experience illumination." Some channeled message I got from him a while back.
Impressive how Elden ring has layers of Norse mythology, Sumerian aesthetics, alchemy, middle ages, dark fantasy, cosmic horror and even psychology... The best game ever
Without a doubt, my favorite game ever created.
Those are images of one another and their universal archetypes that govern human thinking.
Your seeing the root, the inescapable walls of the human mind, not a reproduction.
youre right , Bloodborne is still Froms GOAT
@@jackplisken4738yeah right. bloodborne is so one dimensional compared to elden ring it's not even fair cause ER basically trumps bloodborne in every way. just appreciate them for what they are, if you compare any game to elden ring it will fall short lmao
has one of the best fantasy writers (GRRM)
This is exactly what I thought when I started to explore shadow realm, it felt like we are inside Marika's mind.
But we’re not… it’s quite literally a physical place that existed before Marika. It existed before she even ascended to godhood. It’s hidden by Marika to prevent others with the ability to ascend to godhood from finding it. Which is spelt out for us throughout the dlc when doing the npcs quest lines
@@ndoe5219 you're right, miquella's journey mirrors hers... I just wanted more from the ending. I was running around the arena after it was over bcs I thought we're gonna get to the haven gate xD and see some epic sh*t
@@RaewCZ holy shit that would have been cool. Take the fight to divinity itself
In Marika's home town
@@ndoe5219it can be both a literal and present “space” for us to explore in the game AND metaphorically and symbolically be a dream realm inside the mind of Marika.
Interesting bit about Castle Morne at the end i didnt put that together. Though im pretty sure the item description says that the surviving champion was a male though that could be a refference to Radagon. Im excited for lore hunters to return to the base game with all this new knowledge and put more pieces together and come up with new theories. Great video as always thanks for your hard work.
The suppression pillar has plaque mentioning it is in the center of the Lands Between. It literally is that small cloud in the middle of the map, the veil hiding the whole place from being seen. The top of the divine tower pirces the veil, and you can see the Erdtree behind the Scadutree, placing the location in that cloud in the middle of the map. Also, note the clouds all around the border of the map in the land of shadow.
Also overlay the maps ontop of each other. It lays out perfectly and matched the gaping hole in the lands between. It litterally is the center of the lands between but using whatever godly powers the land of shadows, litterally shadow under the erdtree, as the scadutree and erdtree both are in the same location. So she hid everything under the erdtree and banished it away to another dimension.
I just checked it again behind the scadutree. Its just sunlight and clouds you are imagining things.
@herp_derpingson lay the map ontop of the other map. It is the same spot when overlayed.
It is the same spot where erdtree would be.
Ya this video is stupid
Correct me if I’m wrong but go out to the isolated divine tower and look out towards the base of the Erdtree in the middle of the map, and you can see the top branches of the scadutree peaking through the veil, it’s exactly where it’s supposed to be on the map as well, the whole place is literally in the “shadow of the Erdtree”
Isn't it interesting that we can see the actual Sun *in the land of shadow* but we *NEVER* see the Sun in The Lands Between?
praise the sun
you can see the sun
@@angelmiguel3874its just small
I kind of see the story like a puzzle that we are thrust into the story and we put those puzzle pieces together ourselves through the world building and Get info from the npcs that they tell us. And all npc tell their side from their perceptions and motives (wif all dem different endings and all that)
It’s kinda like how after a party where the next morning you try to figure out what adventures were had at that party lol :p
You can see the sun in The Lands Between though, but it is very small and seemingly insignificant
Its obvious to me that the Shaman village is her original home. It would explain how she met her two fingers and why she left her incantation there. It was the last thing she did before going to become a God. Themes of abandonment are clear, Marika left behind everything, instead of being sad forever. Miquella was about to do the same thing that why St. Trina asks us to kill him.
The childhood home of mortal Marika was cast into the Land of Shadow when she sought to become a god, for a god has no birthplace.
The whole become a god thing seems to me that marika did just that due to her rage at the hornsent and those who killed her people. It shines a light on why the omen/crucible are reviled to the golden order. As well as the hatred of the snakes. Marika litterally started her accension just to wipe them out and hide the fact away Where it was already hinted she was a conqueror but the land of shadow shows a literal genocide. She just blamed her son who was cursed and sealed him away along with all evidence of her major crimes.
No, Marika bathed her village in a gold rays after her become a God, she did that in case she found no one to cure
@@tajdaffa1526 No her Talisman and her incantation imply she was the last one left. Leaving that golden tree as a momento to her people, hence why it said she knew there was on left to heal. Its actually implied that the tree on the Shaman village has gotten weaker over time since it said it bathed the land in gold but we only see it light up the immediately area with gold leaves flowing through the air. The incantation is actually the same one that makes the Erdtree glow since we know that the Erdtree is a illusory tree and as a God she would able pull off a giant version of her personal incantation.
@@tajdaffa1526 I think your timeline is a bit messed up. The incantation lays out perfectly what was first.
Your videos are so impressive and interesting. Thank you for all your hard work helping us understand what happened in Elden Ring. It makes the game even more fascinating.
Really happy your video popped up on my feed, your thoughts are so well organized. Though I get that the most we can all do is speculate about this game, your connections between concepts and the way you weave them all together to form a coherent and pretty damn convincing idea is really fun to listen too. Found myself nodding and thinking “that totally makes sense” so many times. Gonna go binge your videos now, thank you for the awesome content!
I have had a lot of comments about the Suppressing Pillar that "definitively" tells us where the Shadow Lands is. _"The very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed."_ I think I should have made myself more clear. I 100% agree that its under the cloud and a physical place - I simply believe it's meant to be taken metaphorically. The word "suppressing" is a very unique word that is not found in the definition of a literal shadow that is cast by an object. BUT that word "suppressing" is found everywhere within the definition of a psychological shadow. If anything, the suppressing pillar is yet another clue as to the real meaning of the Realm of Shadow.
Love the videos man. Looking forward to more lore content!
Thanks! Can’t wait to dig in
ok, this was the best explanation that I've ever heard
"The very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed." - Suppressing Pillar
Suppressing is a very unique word - not found in the literal definition of a shadow cast by an object but rather a psychological shadow.
About the physical location of the Land of Shadow:
The Lands Between has a massive empty space right in the middle of it and the Land of Shadow is like an island
What’s interesting is that if you look at the maps of both, overlay them, they *fit together.* The Scadutree fits near perfectly with the location of the Erdtree, the massive pieces of fabric draped over the Scadutree flow outward in the directions of the various Divine Towers. The Towers are *holding up* the drapes and the Land of Shadow *is* the centre of the base map, it’s not a place beyond the horizon (as I initially thought) it’s been right under our noses the *whole time*
Those drapes don’t just keep LoS veiled from Marika’s sight, they keep it veiled from *all* sight
I would love to see what the Lands Between would have looked like *before* the Land of Shadow became veiled from the outside world
I am happy you mentioned the bedroom veil i was thinking about that throughout my whole playthrough
Man, you should really look into Inanna/Ishtar and her poems; I think she’s a heavy inspiration for Marika. In the poem “Inanna's Descent into the Underworld,” it is a representation of confronting one’s shadow. she travels to the underworld to confront her sister Ereshkigal, the goddess of death, where she is stripped of her power, judged, killed, and later resurrected with the help of her companions and the gods. In “Inanna and the Huluppu Tree,” she finds a tree planted by the father god. Inanna transplants the huluppu tree from the Euphrates River to her garden in Uruk, hoping to use it for a throne and a bed. After the tree becomes infested with a snake, a demoness, and a bird, she requires Gilgamesh to help her drive them away, which he succeeds in doing. And in the Epic of Gilgamesh, when Gilgamesh rejects her advances, she is furious and goes to her father, Anu, demanding the Bull of Heaven to punish him. Anu reluctantly agrees, and the Bull of Heaven is sent to Uruk, causing widespread destruction. However, Gilgamesh, with the help of his friend Enkidu, manages to kill the bull which has its own consequences
Well. I already knew Gilgamesh had to be on my reading list someday, but I think it’s just gotten a boost up to the top.
The man I have been waiting to hear
Hell yeah
Much love!
I don't think her shadow is an actual thing nor the shadowlands a nightmare, but I think it's a really good metaphor for Marika. She was young shaman who had a vision of an age of plenty, which would be rid of all the things that hurt her and whom she loved. Yet the actions she takes to create this age harm others, and try as she might she cannot escape the consequences of her actions (this would be her "shadow"). I think your character analysis of her is spot on, and that's more important than the metaphysics of the lands between, anyways.
Marika's story is actually rather tragic. I think we are supposed to take Miquella's journey as a parallel - ie: Marika, too, tried to divest herself of the past.
Couldn't agree more about Miquella's journey being a parallel to Marika's. Since we never communicate with Marika, the only way to get her story is through other stories paralleling hers. I often wonder if Rennala's story is a reflection of Marika's. Once powerful queen's, something happened to their children, they retreat into their former place of power and become husks of their formers selves.
It is an actual thing, what do you mean? There's history linked to lands between and Miquella goes there. I think there's themes of Marika's mental state but in this 'world', it's also a physical thing. It is a fantasy world of god's and myth's. People are trying to force it to make sense in our reality, when it doesn't need to. It's a story. All of these things can be true and not true.
to morne connection at the end kind of blew my mind. Your a genius at noticing
That's very kind
Nice point out for the dlc story. I generally watch youtube on my console. Yet for you, I had to log onto my phone and subscribe to this channel immediately. Nice video.
Much appreciated!
I believe The Land Of Shadow was hidden to supress Marika's mortality. She was never the almighty Goddess everyone thought she was. Marika was never eternal and to make others think she was, Messmer and everything about her origin had to go. She killed approximately 6 birds with one stone by suppressing the Land Of Shadow.
Branching from what you mentioned about hiding ones own faults, Marika's limit came in the form of Messmer and it appears that same curse followed through for every single one of her children. All of them failed except for Godwyn and Miquella but Godwyn was brutally murdered by Ranni and Miquella wasn't fit to become a God.
I believe Miquella also figured out the steps Marika took to become a Goddess and went to follow her, but we the Tarnished ordained by Marika HERSELF to become Elden Lord, follow Miquella to see what he's up to and wind up uncovering every nasty secret about Marika's family.
I believe she knew she couldn't keep the Lands Of Shadow hidden and trusted us to learn the truth and come to the proper conclusion of what to do as Elden Lord.
Marika couldn't relinquish any of the Outer God's, so she hid the lands they have the most influence and told her land any who dabble in these elements are sinners, starting with snakes and fire since they technically took her son from her and left her powerless to help him.
I started typing this before the video ended and noticed we actually came to a similar conclusion.
The Tarnished is Marika's last attempt to make everything right. This is also why Messmer doesnt understand why she sent us. He never knew about her disappearance, the death of his kin OR the return of the Tarnished because he was surprised to see us. What stood out is the fact he knew about the Tarnished at all. This means he knew of Godfrey but their relation is never specified.
The great thing about such a masterful story and storytellers is that if u want to look at this game as a psychological journey or a fantasy story you can because its vague and precise enough to be either, its both
OOOooooh that Castle Morne connection sent shivers down my spine. All the swords and knightly imagery of that castle reminds me more of Radagon than Marika, however… but that could actually make sense.
If the two of them were always one, as I am inclined to believe, then perhaps they would once shift more fluidly between each other, as I believe Miquella and Saint Trina once did according to the description of Trina’s sword. If that’s the case, then perhaps after they had finished mourning, it was with the grim resolve of a lone vengeful champion that they set out into the new Lands Between.
And although one could picture just Radagon walking away from Castle Morne, Revenger’s Sword over his shoulder, I choose to picture both of them, in an androgynous form like how they appear at the tail-end of their scene in the dlc trailer - slender and graceful, but bold and strong, with streaming golden hair slowly turning into red.
Granted, we probably shouldn’t take the possible connection literally, just as we shouldn’t literally say the Lands of Shadow are in Marika’s nightmares. It’s a metaphoric parallel, but one that’s too blatant to ignore.
Bravo! I loved everything about this except the bit about the Glom Eyed Queen.
A lot of great insight in this video but two things really stood out to me.
The first was when you brought up the feelings reflected in the NPCs, it helped me notice how dream like the area around St Trina really is and how the jagged peaks and lightning storm near Bayle reflect the anger and rage of that storyline
More importantly, however, was when you spoke of how our Tarnished represents Marika’s will to confront her shadow. When Leda tells us that it was Grace or the Erdtree guiding us, it turned on a lightbulb for me.
Marika did not want us confronting her Shadow, I’d have to confirm but I don’t think Grace points us to Miquella. Grace also doesn’t appear until we fell Mesmer. It feels like Marika is saying, “if you’ve come this far, finish what you started.”
Excellent videos as always and can’t wait for more!
Begone, demon. Stop spamming every creator's comments trying to get some subs when you care more about pushing a sick ideology than appreciating a great game.
I think you can extended that to the demigods as well. Rykard and his area are probably the most pronounced but they all have their unique “affliction” or emotion which is reflected in their area
Grace appears well before we kill Messmer and actually points to Messmer.
As someone who was sexually assaulted when I was young and who has nightmares every evening your speech about carrying the shadow with you and that it cannot be denied really struck a chord with me it's very true and until now the only other way I have ever been able to describe it is similar to how the Dexter character explains his"dark passenger".
I really want to thank you for such a thoughtful and well made video
You are very brave. I am sorry that happened to you and am glad you enjoyed the video. Much love
that’s a difficult thing to carry, and i’m glad you’re making meaning of it through others’ analysis of art
@@CenteredTarnished thank you so much
I like these tangential theories because i can't lie, every Fromsoft release over time leaves me a little disappointed, lore-wise, that we always get stories that end up 80% abstract and undetailed or unclarified, despite the fact the the foundation is all laid out. The lore often feels intentionally incomplete and while I get it's a design choice and it can be compelling, I was hoping Elden Ring would do more to detail the world and the lore and maybe leave less room for interpretation this time around. Or at least leave us with less questions about basically everything, especially since I doubt we will get more canonical Elden Ring in the future or at least any time soon.
So all this to say, sometimes theories like your psychological/mental analysis of Elden Ring and other various interpretations of other channels do tie in different aspects of the stories and make the whole project look less vague or abstract and perhaps more detailed and fleshed out than it originally seemed to be.
While you're clearly aware of this, I'll say this: It's an age old saying that the best authors and/or story tellers are people who create worlds open to interpretation. Obviously FromSoft likes to do this so that we can get sucked in and create our own evolving story. However, I'd like to think that it's also partially due to them leaving games open to future installments. While HM has said this will essentially complete Elden Rings, you never know. Not only is there clearly more that can be told here, but share holders may eventually demand they return to this cash cow (or other Souls games that have similar endings that leave things up to interpretation) and make them more money. It's a win-win for them in every aspect, and it's give the community the ability to evolve and grow over time.
With all that being said, I too was hoping for more resolution with the DLC. I feel like I have more questions than before it's release, lol.
Yeah, it wouldn't be very healthy or compelling for discussion for the community if it were open and shut. Miyazaki has gone on record saying that he wanted to share the experience of filling in the gaps with imagination that he had as a child attempting to read books in another language.
Great video. Love your content, you are one of the 2 lore channels I always look forward to hear more of (Ive seen all of them really). About morne hero - it says he fell to the hand of Godfrey, no?
I think that’s right. I just thought it was an interesting parallel!
Great content! Please keep up the good work:)
Thanks, will do!
My personal understanding is that the Realm of Shadow were the blueprint for the Lands Between. That it existed before, and were, as we see during the DLC, where the Fingers and other Outer Gods landed. Where the curse of "Omens" (Hornsent) took hold, where a Great Tree existed, before the Golden Order made their own.
I think that when she ascended, Marika _created_ the Lands Between and tried to make them perfect in regard to the darkness and violence of the Realm of Shadows. And I don't think it exists or existed in the same physical place.
(Yes, the Suppression pillar and "The center of the Lands Between"... it can mean multiple things. Can be the center in the meaning of "Where the idea of the Lands Between originated.")
And I have to say, your interpretation is very interesting still, will keep that in mind :)
(Also, I'm still chuffed by the way Miquella's hand apparently makes us appear in a spot with no narrative reasoning at all. As much as I understand that it's best for gameplay reasons, Miyazaki and his team don't do coincidences, at least not at that level. There could easily have been a Cross there, or we could have appeared at the South-East of the map closer to where Moghwyn was IF the maps were meant to be complementary, there could have been an arch suggesting that this is the entry point to the Realm of Shadow... But nothing. Will investigate further, on the church and the corpse just overhead, but it's WEIRDLY empty.)
Glad that you pointed out at the end there that the setting from which the Shadowlands is accessed is important. Marika's shadow is a nightmarish place. I think that the framing device is that everything found in the shadow is being rejected by the main Lands Between as undesired - including Miquella's ascent to godhood. Marika's circumstances were different from Miquella's - she didn't visit the Shadowlands but instead created them in her youth. Likely, Miquella as Marika/Radagon's "inner child" tried to recreate the past and failed because the conditions no longer exist to replicate Marika's path.
Regarding the Supression Pillar description that all manner of death washes up here, death and dreams are sometimes conflated in classical literature. See Hamlet's soliloquy:
"To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause"
More generally, though the label of "Shadow" is used and the Jungian Shadow is probably the primary lens, I expect that there is an exploration here of all three branches of depth psychology. Freud is alluded to in Armored Core 6 (acompanied by an icon of a hand rising from shadow and holding a key) and there are a number of elements in the Elden Ring DLC that are telegraphing a psycho-sexual lens. And also psychologist Heinz Ludwig Ansbacher was a student of Alfred Adler whose major ideas were the inferiority complex and concept of "Will to Power". The irony being that Adler's ideas are the ones that are most thoroughly incorporated and accepted into modern psychology, and so Ansbach comes across as being the most rational of the NPC's despite also having the massive red flag of being a blood purist.
Also, the Suppressing Pillar: "The very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed." This makes little sense to me in any other context than what you're stating.
Ah hell yeah! You make the best lore videos! Can't wait for more 🤩
Thank you!
@@CenteredTarnished I'm pretty sure the Shadow land's veil is the true form of the Mimic's veil power: "Marika's Mischief"
I am very big into Carl Jungs work and I thought the same thing as I played the game. Cerulean coast even says all manner of death washes up on these shores.
Also the Hornset race wanted to merge their victims bodies as sacrifices to make this Divine Gate to ascend to Godhood. Marika, the victim of this, managed to beat them to it.
(Hence the trailer. She took the rune, went to the corpse riddled Divine Gate, and acended to Godhood.)
Thus start Elden Ring
My guesses:
The shadowrealm was once part of the lands between, it fits in the middle.
It was then veiled or phaseshifted in an other dimension by Marika.
What i find interesting is that the 6 divine towers, with parts of the runes and fingers still stand in the lands between, like they are part of "holding the veil" up.
The tower of suppression states:
"The very center of the Lands Between.
All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed."
My guess is that, Marika had to get rid of the tower, so the dead would be then absorbed and rebirthed by the erdtree, with parts of her, since all beeings in the lands between drop runes.
For what the hornsent were using the tower, i don't know, maybe accumulating souls to power their living ascension gate with that promenant T shape in it?
Which the living jar innerst have edged on their forehead and kinda reminds me of the rune of death.
I love your takes, and I don't think it actually interferes with the actual historical facts of the lore
As I recall it, Miyazaki said in an interview, that "the eldenring represents metaphysical concepts".
We, the player, experienced, that the Eldenring is real inside the game and exercises great influence over the Lands Between.
Does that mean, that the metaphysical concepts represented by the Eldenring have a real influence?
Does the metaphysical become the physical in the Lands Between? And if yes, which ones?
What I want to argue is: the metaphors aren´t just metaphors. They are indicators of where and how the metaphysical takes shape, or in other words: They are hints to which metaphysical concepts have a physical representation.
This begs the question: Is the reality in the game based on or mixed with metaphysical concepts, which became physical?
That would also leads to the question: What if it´s not just the Realm of Shadow, that is a "realized metaphor", but the Lands Between as a whole?
I have been thinking the same thing but I believe Radagon is the shadow in question. He was the founder of golden order fundamentalism and after seeing his statue in another video of yours I speculate that he is the tree wrapped around the shadowy representation of the erdtree. A tender embrace as the shadow sunflower blossom describes it. Also scadutree sorcery has impenetrable thorns which I believe references the thorns of the main game.
I feel like the veil is just a visual representation of the fact that the Shadow Lands are veiled, or hidden. Perhaps whatever power Marika used to hide them involved a spell/incantation that spread out an actual veil over the lands.
It's definitely possible!
@@CenteredTarnished I typed out that thought before I had gotten very far into your video. Your theory is very intriguing too! The lore does make it clear that she hid the shadow lands somehow. Maybe as you said, in it's hidden state her nightmares have begun to effect the land and sky. The veils over her bed look very similar to the veils over the Scadutree, so maybe she is projecting her subconscious memories over the Shadow Lands.
It's not a veil, it's a shroud. The Lands of Shadow are the "afterlife" of the Lands Between but originally they were part of it as you can glean from the message atop the Suppressing Pillar. Marika obtained godhood out of a wish for vengeance against the Hornsent and once she was done with them, she hid that part away under the shroud and ordered her firstborn, Messmer, to keep continue the crusade against her old enemies forever as her removal of death from the new order meant they wouldn't stay down.
Unfortunately the "Nightmares" part of the Moghwyn Palace Map description in Japanese is 悪想 which doesn't mean nightmare as in bad-dream, but more nightmare as in "Evil," or I guess more literally "Evil Thoughts/Evil Ideas."
But was it written in English first?
There is a bunch of voices screaming/moining in pain outside of the church of elleh at night. Dunno if it means anything but I noticed it the other day.
Those screams are from the crucified people around Limbgrave! They start to scream at night. You might enjoy my Fear the Night video:)
I saw a gravestone near dragon pit it read “the center of the lands between, where the dead come to something something something” I can’t remember lol. But it made me think maybe the shadow lands is the regenerative place of the Erdtree where the Demi gods and such are reborn before coming back up to the surface. I think the chaos god somehow landed there in the realm and corrupted it which is why it is the way it is.
Hadn’t considered that the shadow lands are a nightmare of marikas like we saw in bloodbourne
We're all gazing at a diorama lothric plays with cracks in the ceiling, while unable to sleep.
Were chasing over veneration of familial affair, where conquerers with golden hair leave a faded people.
Every faith is shattered, and an empty village is bathed in gold for some fancy daydream.
About that last nugget, wasn't the Revenger of Castle Morne explicitly slain by Godfrey at the end of his southward march, which he made as Elden Lord on Marika's orders? I think you're right to see a connection, but a different kind. Marika ordering the Morne clan killed echoes the killing of her own people, a representation of the cycle of violence in the Lands Between.
Looks suspiciously like the chunk of land missing from the original map, with the scadu tree in the same spot as the Erdtree....more or less
For sure! I always assumed it was behind that cloud. But that still doesn't really help answer the question of where we are. It's much like FA where we need to be transported there and wake up in a totally different place. So, what does that mean/ represent? ER is not meant to be taken literal, but rather metaphorical. We have to ask ourselves what it means.
So the land of shadows is like the Hunters Nightmare from Bloodborne? We're in the Gods Nightmare looking at deeds done, deeds better locked away and in it's form it's also a prison world for Messmer and his men? Many ingame item descriptions hint at the fact that the soldiers in Messmer's army aren't there by free will.
Anyways love the take, it puts a new perspective on things! Personally found the NPC quests kinda weak, therefore this video really helps me imagine what the shadow realm is.
Basically yes. It is a place where all the things that go against the golden order ends up, death included. I feel that initially the land wasn't hidden by Marika's will. The scadutree and its veil are basically the Erdtree "fallout", caused by bringing certain laws on reality through the Elden ring. The scadutree exists as ensemble of all the traits conflicting against Marika's order. That's why it has engulfed the capital of the hornsent. If the omen are a curse, there can't be a civilization where horns are seen as a blessing. So they end up engulfed by the shadows. If Marika is eternal, she can't be born from a village. If men can't become gods, there can't exist a gate turning normal people into divinities, etc.
wow it was in my head Elemer of the briar pulled a hundred man slayer, but the lone survivor might be Marika. I've been trying to figure out if the ancestor followers are related in some way, I think some are called shaman
After watching this video I subscribe to the idea that Lands of Shadow was something that Marika wanted to leave behind her entirely. But the thing is you can't do this, your past will hunt you. your sins will hunt you. Therefore things from Lands of Shadow were sinking into Lands and even Marika life - like her Omen kids or other aflictions.
Great analysis. Thank you.
Glad you liked it!
I really appreciate your work, so please accept my comments with big respect. I haven’t seen everything you’ve done, so I might be saying things you’ve already addressed.
Your interpretation of the base game informed my reading of the DLC greatly. But I think I came away with a different understanding from you. So I wanted to share.
I think it does tell us where we are relative to the Lands Between. There’s a tower (of Suppression?) that says it’s the center point of the Lands Between. Plus, if you look in the direction from the Divine Gate from the cloud in the center of the base map, it points to the walls of a crater. We know from the trailer that’s where the Elden Beast may have landed.
If the whole world represents one person’s psychological development, I think its reasonable that the realm of shadow simply represents the shadow? Nightmare aspects, sure, but maybe still no less real a place than the base game. I do buy the nightmare leaking into the non-Shadow realm, which is why omens are omens. They’re seeping out from suppression and point to a crack in the dam.
As the shadow in psychology develops in childhood, it makes sense the realm is where Marika was formed and born. The Finger Ruins appeared to me to literally be wombs. One is right next to where Marika was born and that one is dead. They both are full of slithery snake creatures that spit. The one further north is more fertile. The third one is more mystic and contains the mother of fingers, who generates an egg - and boy do they want us to notice the fingerprints. An aspect of genetic identity with an inscrutable will. In a realm with spiral columns, like genetic info. In the place where human’s animalistic features are suppressed.
Miquella, with the most altruistic ideals, is represented as an eternal child. But his tree, embodying his ideals, fails, and he is unable to make himself an adult man in it. So in an attempt to develop he goes to this realm of Marika’s childhood to abandon his love and his child body and his feminine aspect. And then instead of redeeming Godwin or Millenia, he ultimately allies with might. He’s suppressing his own childhood there, feeling he must.
Marika’s gestation and birth are represented there, her home village is there, and the first boss is basically a parade float. Animal nature is tamed there. Childhood is sealed there.
One thing I should look up is when Messmer was born. Because he’s got red hair, so he must be Radagon’s son. But the others of Radagon and Marika’s children were born after Marika’s and Godfrey’s. In the base game, “Radagon is Marika” is a secret to be revealed. Is it possible that Messmer, and perhaps that entire realm, were suppressed because people there knew Marika had a child with her own male aspect? Speculation, but… Given a clear theme of suppression, Messmer’s red hair, and the secretive aspect of Marika/Radagon in the base game, I think it’s a good question. For instance, why does Marika not have more children with Radagon right away? Why is it such a well kept secret that he is her male aspect? It seems more well known in contrast that St. Trina is Miquella’s female aspect.
Apologies if any of this is stuff you’ve covered already. And for the unorganized delivery. I’m just spitballing, and I know most of this is stuff I got from you. :-) Appreciate your work. Cheers and all the best to you.
Oh, I wanted to add - Google “IFS exiles.” May be of interest to you, tarnished.
These are all great questions and analyses! I think the reason the tower is the center is because it's the very beginning of Marika's godhood. Everything moves outward from there. The fact that it's a tower of suppression, to me, only solidifies the meaning of the Shadow Lands and what they represent not only to Marika (personally) but the LB (collectively).
You bring up a good point about Radagon and Marika vs Miquella and St Trina. It's strange that most people accept St. Trina as Miquella's other self but can't believe that Marika has the same thing.
I love the thing you said about the animalistic nature being sealed there. It fits well with what we see happen in Farum Azula and the LB as a whole. A further separation of our origins and evolution.
@@CenteredTarnished I appreciate the reply! And look forward to more of your work. I want to add also maybe to Google “Fimbriae,” in regards to Metyr.
I do think you’re right btw that stories repeat, regarding Morne/Shaman Village and Renalla/Marika (I think you mentioned that before). I think that’s why Miquella’s story is so relevant to Marika’s journey. Maybe that’s totally obvious, but I see comparisons of Miquella’s compassion to Marika’s totalitarianism (or whatever) and I think it’s just very clear that the road to hell is paved with etc etc.
Also I think the Count’s dialogue in Manus Metyr is very relevant to the legacy of Marika’s children.
Anyway, cheers and looking forward to more.
Do you have any thoughts on the altered dancers dress looking very close to Marikas dress?
I disagree with some of this effort to infer certain meanings from the word "Shadow" here. I think if it were intended, for one thing, there would be more to do with Maliketh, who is literally called her shadow. I think some of this video is going down a rabbit hole not intended by the author/s.
This happened here already yes, but the interpretation remains strong. We just gotta nuance these ideas ✨
funny you mention castle morne as going thru the same exact thing as shaman village in other circunsamces, because the guy there started going after revenge and it made him an unhinged maniac who attacked everyone. Kinda like marika wanted revenge for her people but she didnt stop there, she became a genocidal monster even worse than her oppresors, she could've gained independence to the shamans, freed them, forced the hornsents to comply, punished the torturers, made some examples and started to heal the land, but she didnt.
Great video! We are indeed diving deep into someone's mind :) I think Marika and her people, the Numen, traveled from far to the Lands of Shadow within those coffin/space ships. What I cannot understand yet is that the Shaman Village is apparently an place of just woman, so if that was their first settlement, where did all the Numen man go? I'm frankly quite afraid of that question because I don't want to think Numen woman were sold as slaves, or maybe it was just a woman migration, established their settlement and were hunted down by the Hornsent for whatever stupid religious believe.
The music in game made me feel like there was always something around the corner, in terms of lore and enemies :D loved it.
I’m still watching the video just have to clarify at 1:13 when you asked "why is every outer god in this small region of land" or something like that. We actually have met 0 outer gods yet. Midra is just a vessel for the frenzied flame just like Romina. Romina didn’t transform into a scarlet bug creature until after Marika ordered messmer to cleanse the land of shadow in flame. She discovered the scarlet buds and allowed herself to be a vessel for the God of Rot unlike Melania who had tried to fight the influence of the scarlet rot. Midra all the same found himself in a situation where he was doing everything in his power to hold back the influence of the potential god of frenzied flame or god of madness or whatever they plan to call it. Whoever the outer god of frenzied flame is would be who the frenzied 3 fingers where receiving instruction from. 👍🏾
Yeah, I just meant it's interesting that in this very small section of land, we see the influences of all the outer gods.
Thing we have to realize now is, the story IS over, and Miyazaki knows all the info we need to have the full story is here, in the game. Imo, we can't say "i think" we have enough info to form the full story picture. It's all here. We will all see soon enough.
Every From game leaves some lore up to interpretation/speculation.
Kind of a shame that we never interact with Marika directly. The closets we get is Radagon or through Melina’s “in her own words”.
Agreed. I think to get Marika's story, we have to pay attention to parallel stories.
Unless ur like me and believe Melina is a fractured piece of marikas personna 😈 then we did sorta interact with her
Everyone is acting like Marika hid Messmer as if he wasnt known as her son and the crusades had public endorsement from Lyndell
I don't think that has anything to do with what I said. Actually, I don't think that matters much.
@CenteredTarnished yeah I meant to reply to someone but my brain ain't got enough wrinkles
This is the part of the DLC that is tripping me out the most. I thought it was a separate realm at first. But I think it’s actually a piece of real physical geology that’s just not visible to the Mainland due to the “glamour” Marika put over The Lands Between. I have a theory that the Scadu Tree is what the Erdtree actually has looked like the entire game and the Lands Between we see is the Glamorous world hidden from the “real” world of the Shadow.
Where’s the lore surrounding the erdtree and the scadutree? I was excited for that but I can’t see any lore ain’t the two
Lore crafting and making videos takes time:) those answers will come in due time
@@CenteredTarnished that’s true man. I need answers on how the trees are related
@@rudydaberry122The scadutree is the shadow of the erdtree. It's in the title lol
Cool theory, but I think your thinking too deep into this. There is a tower in the DLC that states that it is the center of the lands between. The area we are in is veiled so that we cannot see into the land of shadow or out of it. I wonder if the devine towers are holding the veils?
The existence of the supressing pillar completely destroys this theory. The Shadow Lands is a physical, tangible place, just obscured by Marika's Veil. That's why it is inacessible by normal means. The death theme is recurrent because all maners of death end up there (as it is described in the gravestone on top of the supressing pillar).
Everybody asks “where is the realm of shadow?”, but nobody ever asks “_how_ is the realm of shadow?”
Great video 👍 narative you builded is a strech in my opinion but art is open to interpretation 😊 good work
the omen in the base game has nightmares when sleeping i think
First of all i believe that as deep as this lore gets, that we as players arent meant to know everything. It would take a lot of the fun out of the story speculation, wouldn't it? Second, this game has proven to me even more that video games (at least the good ones) should be looked at as pieces of art. Interactive, Audio Visual art pieces. Thank you fromsoft for this game. For this piece of ART.
Isn't Maliketh meant to be Marika's shadow rather than the GEQ?
The parallels still works because he is the bearer of destined death and is enslaved to the ego of Marika, just feel he's more fitting.
It's only difficult if you don't explore much and go up against bosses with few scadutree fragments
I dont think your necesarily wrong about it being a dream or nightmare, but i dont think its the whole story. I think it is, a very real part of the world, similar to how the dreamlands are represented in works of Lovecraft. I think we can take the tombstone at the top of the tower literally. Where it says something along the lines of "This is the very center of the lands between. All manner of death wash up here." I think of it as almost an afterlife on top of everything else. Its an afterlife for those who experience true death. Thats another reason why many people believe that radahn was originally meant to be godwyn. I also lean toward it being intentionally created by marika, bith to hide her past abd to supress the memories. That could be just because, i personally like marika more as a less sympathetic character too though.
There’s too many Retcons in this DLC for me: Messmer being the Oldest of the Demi gods, a Frienzied flame lord that’s never spoken of, and how tf did Marika seal off the land of shadows if that’s the only place for a emperyean to ascend… why didn’t the greater will have Marika punished ??
More please 🙏
I think you may be reading too far into things while ignoring the base interactions. Too many characters with agency and a few we can find both in and out of the dlc. I think it is quite literally a shadow realm, the place for things that are separate from the golden order and overshadowed by it coddled together by the powers of fickle gods. Even the lands betwixt supports this and hints there is another realm, a higher realm of things that are above the golden order that we have no idea about. I believe that is the literal point of the lands betwixt, the mid point between a higher and lower realm. With the lower realm being a world where omens had their own culture, history, religion and tree. I am willing to bet we will get a dlc where there is an order that the golden order couldn’t challenge, one so ingrained in their society that it could not be confronted or contested with.
it seems more like a collective nightmare, it's the subconcious of the lands between themselves, so to speak. consider that the tower of suppresion shares architectural motifs with belurat: it precedes the golden order. it MAY precede the hornsent too. so the lands of shadow were always meant to be suppressed. perhaps a consequence of trying to grasp god itself? also it's interesting that people are possibly seeing some branchs amidst the ocean at the base of the erdtree; the location is both physical and metaphysical. you tap into the nightmare through miquella's dream, but that place sits physically in the world too, it's just at some undeterminate "under" amidst the mist. it's a literal limbo between the physical and metaphysical.
For me, the real disappointment of this DLC is the lore.
Cryptic is fine. This allows you to use your imagination and create connections, interpretations and new meanings, although... definitely subjective. The problem, when lore is deliberately made coded and flirts with the most obvious absurdity, is that the smallest detail (moreover, probably of an insignificant nature) becomes a viable source from which any form of speculation is found, then legitimized, in the same way as any other. And thus, absolutely everything takes on a significant nature.
I have nothing against the principle of "leaving the viewer free to explain", but sometimes it borders on intellectual fraud and ease. What constituted the work's own identity becomes a caricature of how it wanted to be perceived. I think the basic story, as thought out by G.R.R. Martin, was all in all classic (and above all perfectly rational and so to speak "down to earth") but that the transmutation carried out by H. Miyazaki, from the basic material, was lost in the blind desire to make it cryptic . And ultimately, keep in balance both the fidelity of a simplified genesis (because it was undoubtedly requested that it be simplified in the first place in order to be able to stretch and distort it at will) and the inevitable need to add the stylistic touch that everyone expects to find in the end, does not always work perfectly. Because it becomes possible to free oneself from a certain satisfactory narrative coherence and leave the responsibility to the audience, under the guise of aesthetic choice and “freedom of interpretation”. Because, a bit like the modding community repairs and completes Bethesda games, we, the players and admirers of FromSoftware games, risk being condemned to give meaning to a work when we want nothing other than to discover the full truth, one and indivisible, like adventurers in an epic that expects only one thing from us: that we reveal its complete nature through our discoveries. It seems to me, personally, that the link between the creator of the work and his adept(s) is even stronger and more striking.
Touch fucking grass guy😂
It's surrealist fantasy like Dark Souls. I don't know what you expected. In fact, I would argue that the DLC is largely explicit in its "meaning" -- to a degree that I myself found (very mildly) disappointing. Perhaps your approach is a bit myopic.
@@nickb7704 Grass is "almost" as boring as everything else, except when you accompany yourself with an entomology encyclopedia. But your remark is true, I know that I piss off most people, most of the time 🙂
@@m.h.lockesteppe9834 I really like this analogy with myopia, in your remark. I had never thought about it, but it characterizes my method of analysis rather well. Method which has no other value than that which I attach to it. But I had never thought of giving it a reliable definition. But no matter, my criticism concerns the organization of the narration, not the theme, nor the game, nor the technical aspect. Thank you for taking a minute to discuss the narrative and not, once again, to produce yet another “Argumentum ad personam” 🙂
So hear me out...
The Scadutree is supposed to be literally the "shadow" of the Erdtree. Therefore, assume that the Scadutree is where the Erdtree is in the Lands Between. It would strongly support the theory that the Shadow Realm is somewhere in the "middle" of that middle water/ocean section of the Lands Between. Coupled with the lore and visual evidence supporting this, I'd say it's hard to refute. Plus, the "cloud" in the middle could represent "shadow".
Highly speculative, not entirely followable imo.
But nonetheless, wildly interesting. We, of course, know that the shadow realm is a physically real space separated from the Lands Between- Miyazaki has said so.
It's also the place Marika first set foot.
Well its pretty easy to see that the shadow lands is the land of death for the system of life the land between uses. Its reallt just the middle of the lands between we cant see. It fits perfectly in it. With the one tower even telling us its the middle of the lands between.
Its where the ancient societies of the landsbetween were from before marikas accension. We see she was last of her village and that she went on a war path to become a god just to burn them all for her memories.
I can't tell if you agree or not but you just described a shadow
@@CenteredTarnished it's litterally the shadow of the erdtree lol
@@LoopyAnh is the Erdtree an illusion? Why can some people see it and not others? Does an illusory tree cast a shadow?
@@CenteredTarnished the erdtree is only seen by those of grace. Else it is a burnt stump of what used to be the physical tree. It once was real but only those with grace from the greater will can see the ethereal manifestation. Remember a God is who chose this to happen. Their world doesn't abide by our physics and they have different rules.
The whole dlc takes place directly under where the tree would be. The map lines up. Just it was sealed off to another dimension. It's literally living in It's would be shadow. While simultaneously sealing the shadow away.
The game literally tells you why that realm is harder than I will realm. The story tells you why that realm is stronger just pay attention.
Nice theory, but Myiazaki has confirmed himself that Lands of Shadow were once part of Lands Between, but were at some point disconnected. Elden Ring is using some universal themes as motherhood, cosmic horror and original sin similarly than Bloodborne, but concept of Dreams is not present in lore of Elden Ring.
@@capollyon st Trina?
@@CenteredTarnishedSleeping isn't the same as dreaming, and vice versa. While cut content for St. Trina did deal with dreams at one point, that's not what we got.
Her power over sleep in the Shadow Lands, where she's able to lay the suffering of characters such as the Putrescent Knight and Thiollier to rest, is more akin to death. There's no dreaming for them upon imbibing her nectar. No transporting them to a different realm. She only grants her followers eternal sleep to relieve them of their pain.
@@Gelly311 So just so I am hearing you correctly, you think that sleep and dreams are not connected.
After we imbibe in the nectar, we here St. Trina talk to us....... how does this happen when we are "dead"?
I can see the idea that the mentality of Marika and her shaodw are shown in the DLC. Its her home, where she was born, where she bacame a god. She learned to fear the outer gods and desired order to limit such travesties (she failed) but I think this DLC is not mental. Its been told to us it is a psychically and disconnected world that explains why Marika is the way she is. This is not a dream. This is the cold reality that her shadow was born of.
I do not think that castle morn has anything to do with marika
A lone survivor fought Godfrey for revenge
I assume the horn sent or a similar group. Now that the DLC has come out.
Hear me out .. although the pillar states the center etc etc … when I finished killing the mother of fingers .. I went to go click over on my map to go warp .. when I flipped over to the lands between ,,, litteraly my icon where the mother of fingers was .. was like bottom left of the map of the base game alittle above the table of grace ( table of grace for me jus so happens to be on the left for mechanics I don’t think it’s actually on the bottom left of the map lol ) however with the other situation .. it had me thinkin for a second .. then I started clicking and flipping the map back and forth .. I even tried to see if the whole shadow lands could fit on that bottom part .. connected almost to the weeping peninsula .. and you know what ? I’ve convinced myself that if it was physically apart of the lands between .. then it had to be there .., way to big to be in the center … it would overlap a whole lot of shit .. and I don’t think it was to the right where farum azula is …. And the whole huge veil covering everything would make sense if it’s on the bottom left … maybe the Elden beast an merrika separated it there in the trailer afterwards .. since he’s kinda aquatic .. what if he just used his teleportation Ina huge way an transferred all that shit over
Elden ring is therapy.
Midras painting of what the manse looked like has flowers that look an awful lot like the flowers at the shaman village. Do with that what you will.
Nice catch! I did not notice that.
I doubt it , godwyns death was one of the biggest tragedies that ever happened to marika yet godwyn was not part of that ''shadow''
Ah, deep psychological tropes like this one are only cheap or “lesser” if they’re done without care, reverence or respect for the matter at hand. Miyazaki has never once given anything a cheap treatment like that. He wouldn’t have been able to pull off Bloodborne, a game about arguably even worse atrocities (especially against women), if he didn’t treat it with the respect its victims deserve.
The land it's literally in the shadow of the erdtree. There's several description about it. There is even scadu altus (shadow altus). There's no need to mess up this straightforward fact
I'm simply providing the definition of the shadow. Also, is the erdtree real or an illusion? How would an illusory tree cast a shadow?
@@CenteredTarnished Shadow: a dark area or shape produced by a body coming between rays of light and a surface.
"trees cast long shadows"
And, as i said, there is scadu altus which is quite explanatory on its own
@@pmas4536 lol I know what a shadow is. I’m asking if you subscribe to the idea that the Erdtree and/or Minor Erdtrees are illusionary - as many people do. I’m curious how that theory can make sense in a literal sense is all.
@@pmas4536 also, there are shadow bound beast within the game that aren’t literal shadows casts by their empyrean. Why do you think this is so different? They share the same title
@@CenteredTarnished no i'm not, this is pure tinfoil speculation
Miyazaki likes to blur the line between literal and metaphor.
The Mending Rune of the Fell Curse is what Marika thinks she deserves. #FreetheDungEater
Why would miquella have to go to marika's nightmare to become a god?
In my opinion, everyone is an aspect of Marika. Much like the videos that keep coming out about this person is that person and so on.
OR, this is the place where you leave your own shadow behind - creating a "perfect/ unflawed" individual. Perhaps Miquella found this out and this is why he divests himself of everything - leaving only a divine spirit.
In this context I would rather think that Miquellas ascension to godhood is Marikas biggest fear and that is why it could be center of the DLC.
I think shadow realm is more specifically the hades of lands between.
Marika is a numen and the black knife assassins are also numen so she wouldnt be a "lone survivor"
And you can start as a numen too, signing they are not exctinct
As far as her village goes, we know she is the lone survivor thanks to the Minor Erdtree Incantation. "There is no one to heal". Who knows if there are other Numen out there - but that seems to add an unnecessary complexity
@@CenteredTarnished Of her village sure but there are other numen doing things in the lands between at least (as well as maybe the playable tarnished). Who knows about lands of shadow tho.
Brother Dearest Lucifers gnosis is 666% correct and true. "All those hidden in the umbra shall experience illumination." Some channeled message I got from him a while back.
Wait we are marika now?
SHE A HAS A VEIL RIGHT ABOVE WHERE SHE SLEEPS!
It sucks that none of the trailer cutscenes made it into the game. Its like its not standalone
so you have no idea but a made a 13 min video anyway. wonderful.
abandoned parts of the mind or an abandoned unbound ego very much still there
Well you see, you’re wrong because I want you to be.
@@GoldieRinglets hahaha, probably the most honest comment I have ever gotten