Stagnation is a common focus of Japanese folklore, and stagnant water in particular is often considered to be rife with curses. This makes sense of course, as it was probably partly caused by some observation of the natural health risks of drinking or even just swimming in stagnant water, which is a breeding ground for bacteria and other pathogens. Someone drinking befouled water and dying because of bacteria would have been pretty indistinguishable from a curse or evil spirit causing it. Add in a little folkloric exaggeration and you get the basis for myths.
Unfortunate that a game with so much inspiration from Japanese mythology only has two armor sets that look Japanese in origin. Have you done any digging to see if there were any scrapped NPCs or items with more of an Eastern look?
It is intresting. Because here in Brazil, stagnated water is the perfect place to a mosquito, aedes aegypti, procreate. It transmits diseases like Dengue, Zika and Yellow fever.
Old people back in the day know stuff and told to other people to be careful in such grandios way at it's finest. as long the result is people stay safe, the story telling done it's job indeed and keep pass on to their children and so on.
One of the most interesting theories I've seen about him posits that his appearance popping up everywhere from Deathroot to crabs to Basilisks to the second face is because the Erdtree is kind of glitching out- it's trying to restore him to life, as is its function, but since his soul is uniquely dead, all it's doing is constantly creating dead copies. So since it never successfully restores him, it just keeps on trying, which is why he's growing everywhere.
Great theory. Now I have images of the Greater Will getting frustrated that Marika’s pride and joy is refusing to be revived and just keeps stubbornly trying because it refuses to admit defeat.
That fits nicely with the flaw in the Golden Order that Rogier mentions. Since the Erdtree restores the dead to life because of the absence of destined death, which was removed to create the Golden Order, then what's happening to Godwyn would indeed be a flaw with the Golden Order.
Same! I understand why the Basilisks have those same freaky-deaky false eyes now. (Yeah earlier Souls games had false eyes on their basilisks, but it didn't look stylistically like Elden Ring's.)
It took me legit like half an hour to wrap my head around what I was seeing. There’s so many suggestions of coherent shapes; at first I thought it was a giant ant, since his arms point upwards like their feelers.
AGREED. I don’t know what it is about this that seriously resonated with me, but the guys at fromsoft KILLED IT with this design. Chilling and eerie with so many lore implications, it’s just tied together so well.
The artists, designers, programmers, and modelers or fromsoft are so incredibly talented. I can’t remember the last time that simply a stationary character design was able to send a shiver down my spine, even after seeing it multiple times. Approaching Godwyn’s body in my first playthrough felt absolutely dreadful. The entirety of deeproot depths felt like I was somewhere not meant for me, and viewing Godwyn was as if I had violated some taboo. Nowhere else in games or in other forms of media has given me that kind of feeling before. How all the people at fromsoft manage to provide these experiences game after game is downright legendary
YES!! So many moments come with the "Ope, this looks like a boss fight." or the "Oh crap! this was a boss fight??" But when I first found the deeproot depths I felt like I had found a secret area like in old Playstation games. and when I found Godwyn? For once I DID NOT want to explore. Just seeing it made me feel...unclean and like I needed to just back away slowly...
@@Teyters I think Miyazaki love to use the "Uncanny Valley" , and one of the principe is to give some human form to make it more uncomfortable for our sight. When i first see the face of Godwin in the darkness , i exactly feel what "Uncanny Valley" really seems , and some discomfort take me for no reason, like iwasn't supposed to be here, , i wasn't allow to see that , in a sense, like a frozen forbidding, put here like a witness of an old time .
Godwyn’s body being in the roots of the erdtree basically makes his body sprout up in other places the roots reach like a mushroom colony. This is what the deathroots are and why he’s in stormveil as well. You can even see his eyes on some of the larger deathroots near Tibia Mariners and in the Death Touched Catacombs
@@prawngravy18 give me proof it's not true. Because everything he said can be proven by just taking a look at the "deathroot" item description and the root growths in Summonwater village that, as the original commenter says, grow the very same eyes, tendrils and merman like scales found on Godwyns Corpe.
You know when you get a look at his body in the overworld, without all the murk of the deeproot depths in the way, his body is posed in the same way it was in the opening cutscene when the Black Knives were shanking him.
@@mb2001 I like to think that the way the deathblight affects the player, it affects godwyn to a greater and permanent scale. the roots/thorns poking out most definitely are in his body, causing his body to be locked together in that same position, with the roots/thorns preventing any sort of movement
@@PurpleAppleDrink Probably not, rigor mortis takes a few hours to set in. The knives probably didn't just drop their assassinated target, pick him up and pose with him for hours.
The creepy thing about Godwyn under Stormveil is the fact that it looks like he "smashed through" the wall. There is debris all over and the hole there isn't a natural cave. Meaning at some point it may have been actively besieging the castle from below. The chamber he is found in is right next to the ocean as well, meaning he may have come up from the depths and broken into the castle, spreading the curse of death which is why all of the soldiers in the castle, as well as the castle walls, are covered in thorns and pock marks.
I dont think it ever moved, just that it grew like moss in concrete. But since it's a huge corpse, that's a lot of mass to suddenly push into the bedrock, I think it's only natural that it would cause some erosion, not to mention the area was already located next a open area in stormveil which would naturally incur more erosion.
Godwyn's design is so cool. What's more impressive is that they took it a step beyond just being a grotesque face without substance. Given that we see his face on Deathblight crabs and in areas where massive amounts of Deathroot have accumulated, it seems to imply that Godwyn's visage has become that of death itself, wherein all death bears his face.
I think the creepiest thing about Godwyn is how his head, which many have noticed to be clam-shaped, appears to be split in half down from the top of his head to the bottom, meaning his face could just be a shell for something far more horrifying underneath.
I think that's his mouth, given that his whole face seems to have inverted somehow. However that doesn't exclude the possibility of something horrible crawling out of it.
The crabs in the moat aboveground nearby also have his face on their back, and the big one has several and the water spit even procs Death. It's quite possible that he's infecting them, too. The crabs in Raya Lucaria are covered in Glintstones and there's apparently a Sleep Crab near a St. Trina's Lily, so it seems that crabs take on what they eat. Which means that Godwyn's corpse has infected the ground around Leyndell, maybe even more. Altus could go rotten with thorns at any minute.
It's the same for Stormveil, its implied the castle is overrun with some affliction but not entirely sure what, and it may be something more sinister (on the shield infected with thorns). Its clear after discovering the body that Stormveil is overrun with Death and the landscape itself is crumbling. So we know Death just just infect people but the land itself, so you're most likely correct is seems leyndell is destined to fall to the Death curse.
I encountered the sleep crab in my first play through. I can’t remember where it was located, though. I had actually assumed all crabs inflicted sleep from that point on.
@@georgecostanza712 Frenzied flame is the best ending. Once I seen Godwyns body I realized everything needed to go to get rid of it. I don't even get why rannis ending is the "good" one. May chaos take the world 🙈🔥
Interesting to note that if you use Mimic's Veil near Godwyn's body, you would transform into a basilisk, which shares similar features with Godwyn's "mutations"
Which would ALSO explain why basilisks are able to use death blight; They must have some sort of innate connection to Those Who Live In Death, possibly even being direct offshoots of Godwyn's body. The fact that the basilisks appear to be reptilian/aquatic type creatures, combined with the existence of the Tibia Mariners, definitely suggests an intrinsic link between undeath in Elden Ring and the aquatic.
Godwyn’s face always struck me more as a fungal growth than clam like. It makes sense because of the relationship between fungus and decay and how it often grows on the sides of trees much like the Great Tree Godwyn is intertwined with.
shelf fungus can look pretty clam like. I also thought, in the stagnant water of the depths, maybe a clam consumed his head, and in eternal undeath, they fused together over time. However, the fungus angle makes more sense with appearance at Stormveil. Mycelial networks can stretch over vast distances and replicate similar structures.
yeah good point. when i look at it now i can see it how it has multiple clam-shaped layers too it, so more like a fungus rather than a single layered clamshell.
If that’s the design intention, how do you explain the fishtail? I concede that it could be a combination of sealife and fungus, but that also doesn’t connect satisfactorily with Zullie’s explanation of the folklore and common themes.
Pretty genius of from to go into meticulous detail with his design, only to shroud him with darkness. It's like they're playing in on the "horrifying because you can only imagine what you can't see" but they also just straight up designed this gtoesque horror
After watching a few videos about Godwyn's body and revisting this one, it occurs to me that his body may have inverted itself during the transformation. The half Cursemark of Death gouged into his body was on his back as seen in the in-game intro and from the story trailer. But as we can see, his transformed back has no mark on it, while his front is covered in this massive gash extending to his neck with Deathroot coming out. What used to be his back may now be his front. I had interpreted the clamshell-like opening to be his mouth from the Stormveil Castle corpse and given the nose points that way, but it's clear his nose is just pointing the wrong way and the clamshell opening is the top of the head from the hair being there. So it seems that his whole body inverted in a Dead Space-esque body horror manner, his back becoming his chest, the neck bending backwards and the nose being backwards now.
You can't see Godwyn's back in-game without cheats so part of me wonders if they just didn't put the mark there because they didn't want anyone seeing his back
The second body beneath the castle supports this! Not only is it in the position shown in the cutscene of his death (commented by another person; they mentioned the big one we see is in the position immediately BEFORE he was killed) but also it shows modelled pectorals and what looks to be the rest of a chest in a position which would imply his head was backward.
He still has a mouth under that weird button nose looking central eye looking thing if you look closely. He looks like a fuckin gingerbread man alien that you can turn upside down to see a squid kraken clam second face
It’s also pretty interesting that his body position is eerily similar to that during the opening cutscene when he’s being killed. Almost like he was unceremoniously dumped, hidden away.
It's explicitly stated that he was given a royal burial directly beneath the Erdtree in Leyndell, so the Black Knives didn't just chuck his body somewhere. But like Zullie points out, only his soul was killed, not his Body. So I wonder if maybe in his half-dead state, his body tried to shift and mirror its last moments of life?
I like to imagine that some of the characters (like Godwyn or Radagon) are Eldritch entities that take human forms to be among other people in the lands between. But when Godwyn got murdered, instead of keeping his human appearance, his corpse returned to its real, horrifying, nightmarish, mind shattering form. In the cinematic trailer, after Godwyn's assassination you can see black liquid pouring out of his revulsing eye, maybe that could be a hint towards that
@@FilmAcolyteReturns maybe godrick was part of the conspiracy of the night of black knives, maybe godwyn's kind spirit yearns for his last descendant and that thing manifested in response to that, my theory its that stormveil was his home, or his domain, he could had inhereted it from godfrey, certainly he could be the stormcaller that the church near leyndell its made in honor to, which also would made him even a more worthy heir to stormveil
@@Neroh01 actually that does make a bit of sense. the demigods having "true" forms that they keep hidden away, to avoid destroying the minds of those who see it. and since the demigods you kill weren't killed with the rune of death, and just killed normally, their bodies die and thus can't revert, but since godwyn's soul was killed, and his body lived, it reverted to its' true, mind breaking form.
Discovering deeproot while I was following Ranni's questline and coming across this corpse, then checking the map to see that he was indeed right beneath the erdtree was one of the greatest moments I've ever experienced in a game
I've first seen this "baby body" in Stormveil after falling from the rooftops right into the underground, and I thought there's going to be a bossfight with that creepy head. Luckily it was just a tree spirit
@@trubetskoy4395 dude I had the same experience I fell to my death and saw the face which creeped me tf out and then right as my death screen was about to fade I saw the tree spirit. I didn’t know what those were at that point though so I thought it was some crazy boss move or something and shit myself it was awesome
Something that makes this all the more tragic and visceral is the fact that he kind of looks like a waterlogged corpse (during early-ish stages of rot) as well. The sickly ruddy color on bare bits of flesh, the awkward bulged torso that looks kinda distended, the heavily wrinkled/pruney looking skin on various parts of his still-human body - even the eyes looking like their swelling out slightly. What really freaks me out is that, knowing this, these visual details also seamlessly fade into him turning into some kind of fish man, like he's transforming into a complete contradiction of his current state - something that didn't properly "die", and has been in such a state for so long that is now trying to adapt to it... Which just adds to how wrong and perverse it all feels and looks.
You might be on to something, as you see similar things occur with Undead in Dark Souls. Closest comparison would be in DS2 with the Shrine of Amana, the Lizardmen (or Amana Aberration) are Hollows that lived underwater for an extended period of time (due to them being pacified), and adapted, gaining aquatic features.
I'm guessing Fromsoft is going to make him a variant of a new god that rose from the depths of the abyss (DS 1-3 theme) corrupting the tree. Like with some of the other gods, Godwin would be found from the deeper parts of the earth.
"It is said that this pustule came from the visage of the Prince of Death, he who used to be called Godwyn. As First Dead of the demigods, it's said he's buried deep under the capital, at the Erdtree's roots." - Prince of Death's Pustule, where a pimple or blister that seemingly are appearing on the roots of the erdtree, and if we look closer at the item, has actually THREE different faces of godwyn on it, implying that these pustules take on the visage of godwyn - an dmight suggest the face of godwyn under stormvielle is merely a massively pustule resembling his face
@@zachoshark no, no godwyn doesnt have three faces, the item "prince of death's pustule" has three faces if you look carefully at it. The reason he grew so big is because he was killed by the black knives but only received half the rune of death (ranni has the other half) - godwyn was killed in soul but not in body, while ranni was killed in body but not in soul, hence why godwyn's corpse kept growing and growing while ranni's real dead body is on the divine tower of liurna and now inhabits a doll which mimics her mentor "the snow witch"
@@zachoshark No, Godwyn's body is still the twisted mermaid beneath the Capital. The "face" in Stormveil is rather a massive knot of Deathroot, twisted in his image due to the spread of undeath's corruption through the Greattree's roots. Everywhere that the Rune of Death touches, Godwyn's features appear - his eyes, nostrils and hair on crabs, more eyes on larger knots in the Mariner-infested villages and so forth.
@Steven Luoma same, i messed up a roof parkour jump at the very top of the castle. it's honestly the best way to have the location revealed to you in my opinion. being completely oblivious to the lower area, and you just fall and fall, suddenly you realize you are below ground-level and you slam dead on the ground ontop of this giant face of eldritch horror.
@Steven Luoma Exactly what happened to me lmao It felt so eerie and alien, I spent a lot of time mustering up courage (and levels) to go back down there
I remember when I saw Godwyn's body for the first time, it was so degenerated and mutated that at first I didn't find any humanoid shapes in it, for me it was just a background for the surroundings. And then I heard from Fia that she would "lie down" with the prince of death to conceive a child with him, that is, a mending rune. I was wondering what the hell she was talking about, the Prince of Death? Does she mean Godwyn? That guy from the trailer? Well, I don't see him anywhere. And suddenly I looked at the fish tail and I think it's quite a funny tree root. Then I started looking up slowly, and quickly realized that the Prince of Death was watching me all the time, with his cold, dead eyes...
Apparently his body is also contorted in a way that mimics the map of the lands between itself. As his influence spreads throughout the world, in a way so too does the world influence him in a way. Such is the case for parasites.
Can't help but feel sorry for him. I'm inclined to believe (and hope) that he's not "suffering" (at least as we understand it) due to his soul being dead.
After fias battle we enter his dream so he is at the very least still somewhat conscious the lichdrahon dedicated the rest of his life trying to fight off godwyns deathblight before he too suffered the same fate.
As I learned from JoJo's "Last Train Home" ending, in Shinto religion the living and the dead are separated by a river. Godywn is half-undying and is thus stuck in this river, resulting in his increasingly aquatic features. The Tibia Mariner may also be explained by this phenomenon.
The tibia is also one of a pair of bones, the larger one in the lower leg. Kind of implies tibia mariners are like charon and take people down the larger side of the river, if that makes any sense.
The Sanzu! That was my first thought after watching the video, too! He is endlessly caught in the river that should, but never will, lead him to true death - and he's been trapped in this river for so long that the part of him that is still alive, his physical body, has begun to take an aquatic shape.
another mythos that has ties between death and water is that of greek and roman mythology, with the many rivers of the underworld, such as the Styx and Lethe. It's actually got an interesting real world connection, not just within japanese mythology
When you think about it, you start to see the same source of inspiration in so many japanese video games. Think about the Final Fantasy series, how many of the titles feature a "river" or "stream" of souls or life energy as a central part of the plot? And how all the troubles come from some villain blocking or hijacking said stream?
One of the creepiest moments in my gaming history is definitely when I first entered Prince of death arena down in deeproot Depths, didn't know what to expect as I was walking towards it the first time
first time I buffed up on my first run bc I expected Godwyn to jump at me. then when Fia's champions showed up I let out the biggest "oh FUCK off" ever 😂 Fortissax kinda made up for it tho ig
Same, Deeproot Depths was awesome. Too bad the boss fights were so uninspired... I do really like Fortissax as a boss fight but at the end of the day he's just another Ancient Dragon with a few new moves.
A super creepy moment I had on my first playthrough was I fell off an upper tower in Stormveil into a pit and I ended up landing right in front of the Godwyn face down there. I just stared in silence as my game faded out having no idea what I just saw. I didn't even find the path down there normally on my first visit so for awhile I assumed I'd found something I wasn't supposed to see.
The first connection, when seeing his transformation to a mermaid, that came to my mind, was Hans Christian Andersons 'Little Mermaid', where the mermaids are also said to have no soul and can't enter heaven just like Godwyn, whose soul died and can't return to the Erdtree.
Entering in the arena where Godwyn is rotting is one the most nerve chilling moments in the entire game, as I was anticipating the his corpse will soon start moving towards me, almost disappointed it didn't in the end.
I love the little detail that the thorns of the vines throughout his body look like insect wings, like all the flies surrounding his carcass are being generated from it. It's like the Aristotelian theory of spontaneous generation, where rotting flesh will create flies and other pestilent creatures. It's also consistent with the idea of Godwyn signifying "life in death."
@@OldGunter both really but more character, was there a particular reason Ranni chose to slay Godwyn or was he just a means to an end for her. I'm also curious to see the end result of his transformation, or is his place underground the end for him. Plus fighting him as an eldrich boss creature would be pretty cool.
If I were to hazard a guess, we will likely have a DLC that in some form or another makes us experience the Night of Black Knives. This might be literal time travel, like Oolacile in DS1 or, what I consider more likely, a dream recreation created by Miquella. Aside from being one of the incidents that set everything else in motion, it would provide amble opportunity to give us a better look at Godwyn and Marika, as well as Ranni's potential motivations for targeting Godwyn and of course maybe more relevantly, let us fight Godwyn.
Judging by the two Talismans, his face popping up upon the roots of the eurd tree and elsewhere in the world upon roots, it's clear he's a sort of infection, much like a mushroom. The first Talisman, you see his eyes taking form. However, on the second, you see multiple faces, showing that it's fully matured. Prince of Death's Pustule Talisman: It is said that this pustule came from the visage of the Prince of Death, he who used to be called Godwyn. As First Dead of the demigods, it's said he's buried deep under the capital, at the Erdtree's roots. Prince of Death's Cyst Talisman: It is said that this cyst came from the corrupted visage of one unable to die a true Death. Indeed, it comes from the Prince of Death, scion of the golden bough and First of the Dead among the demigods.
I had always assumed the "real" corpse is the one we see in deeproot depths, and the one under stormveil is his infection corrupting the roots and soil of the lands between. Deeproot Depths in general looks a lot like a collection of churches and mausoleums that house the remains of the most important deceased; I guess Godwyn would be no exception.
@@EnvoyOfRot It's especially interesting if you consider Godwyn appearing there, infecting Stormveil, precisely because it's his youngest heir's castle, Godrick. Maybe he's even "withering" Godrick himself.
to be honest the one beneath storm veil castle is terrifying, theres an unnamed bloodstain down there that shows someone dying of Death Blight without the tendrils.
Also note the similarities between Godwyn's cursed body, the knotted roots sometimes found in catacombs, and the deathroot item you find on specific enemies like Tibia Mariners. The knotted mass of root like structers are especially interesting. They have feathery tendrils similar to Godwyn's hair, and clouded, slitted "eyes" that resemble Godwyn's own.
The Godwyn under stormveil isn’t the only one. it’s actually implied that they grow, with deathroot being it’s first stage, just as the erdtree influences plant life Godwyns cursed corpse at its roots also brings forth cursed plant life.
The Erdtree is effectively a parasitic organism that came from space, which is fed by corpses that its roots absorb. Before the Erdtree, the bodies of the dead where burned up with Ghostflame by the Deathbirds, but this stopped when the Golden Order took over and bound the rune of Death, so that the corpses of the dead could be used to feed the Erdtree. The roots are trying to absorb Godwyn’s body, but because Ranni split the power of Death to kill her body and his soul, his body is still alive. It looks like his body is acting like a cancer, spreading through the roots of the Erdtree and leading to unwanted growths. These growths form the Deathroot and lead to Those who Live in Death, as the blighted roots are unable to properly absorb their bodies and souls.
The basilisk also resemble Godwyn’s lower half and spew Deathblight. So I’m pretty sure he’s the one who spawns them, or at the very least is becoming one in some way.
It actually says somewhere that deathroot originated from Godwyns corpse and spread through the greatree roots i think. Or maybe erdtree roots. One of the trees. That's how it popped up around the lands between. Then those who came in contact with the deathroot would become those who live in death. I was thinking that those that come in contact with the death root may not only be beings walking the lands, but those already dead buried under the ground. You see a lot if corpses rise from the ground near gravestones so perhaps the deathroot came in contact with them.
You've mentioned this 'stagnant water' theme is present in Bloodborne, Sekiro, and now Elden Ring, but it's also in one more place: Dark Souls III. "The Deep" as a concept was always pretty ambiguous, but things associated with The Deep are all decaying, rotted, or in some ways decrepit. Deep-related flavour text in the game often refers to 'dregs' of things, for instance. And of course in real life the deep sea is a scary place full of weird monstrosities, so it fits!
And “dregs” are specifically the sediments at the bottom of a still water-for example the bits of grape or barley that settle out of poorly filtered wine/beer are dregs. Or the dead crap that sinks to the bottom of an ocean or swamp.
Well, the deep probably has less to do with 'stagnation' and more to do with 'abandonment' or 'lostness'. It's not the stagnant water itself , but rather, it refers to how refuse and the trash can eventually fall to the bottom of the ocean that were once just normal objects on ships that didn't even dip below the water. Falling such a long way puts you under massive pressure that twists and contorts most things, and living things take on the forms of monsters (by normal standards) just to survive the extreme depths. That's why you can see the familiar settings of the world in the dreg heap, but also wholly alien things as well. The deep and the dregs are all stated to be 'heavy' as well as the souls of humanity taking on 'hard physical form' (you can even refer to DS1 for this, as the dark flame was a physical attack, reminiscent of the soul). The common theme with anything referring to the deep is how things sink to the bottom and settle on a proverbial layer of dense human dregs. Spells connected to the dregs drudge them up to seek humanity. In the most simply way I can think of, the dregs are the 'fall of humanity' in a literal sense, and what we see in DSIII is after humanity has descended to the point of no return. Everything is stripped away except for the hard, dense soul of man. It's not because the soul can survive, but probably because everything else has been crushed, eaten, or torn away by the forces around it. And, of course, there is no fire in the deep. Perhaps, not just humanity, but the deep represents the whole world falling into an dark, black, sunless ocean. Without a proper age of dark to properly reset things, that is the new, unnatural, course the world is taking.
@@luka_unleashed307 I mean… I just really hate fighting Friede so I find it hard to like fighting here haha. I actually look forward to fighting Gael every time tho.
@@tuncqboi Friede is definitely more fun fight than Malenia, playing hide and seek in 1st phase that satisfaction when you find her and invisibility is gone and whack her 3-4 times before she can recover is simply unmatched
TBH, the most terrifying thing about his design is that he is not a boss. Not matter how fearsome he was, if we could kill him over and over again, watching videos of people soloing him lvl 1 without items, no hit, no summons, no magic, he would eventually just become another boss. But being a silent presence of something bigger devouring everything else, including himself, when there is nothing we can do to stop it, is much more threatening. There wasn't even any reason for him to be murdered in the first place over other demigods. Everything about his character is sad and bizarre end it will continue to be this way.
I think he was specifically targeted because he was the goldenboy of the golden order he was heavily favored by Marika and cherished by all so Ranni probably thought it would be an extra slight to murder him as opposed to say godrick who no one really cares about
Tarnished Archeologist theorized that Ranni was next in line to take Marika’s place and Godwin next Elden Lord. Super fascinating theory about how the next god must be a female who will be literally birthing new life, fathered by the elden lord (yeah, I know this doesn’t really work for non-male player characters), but does make sense if you notice Marika has a spear through her womb, and all 3 empyrions are women, or have a female other half. When Ranni says “I would not be controlled by that thing” she may have actually been talking about her physical body, since its only use would be for the womb after her arranged marriage to Godwin. Super interesting! Still…. It wasn’t Godwins fault. Still feel bad for him.
@@collincaperton6718 Well yeah, characters speak of them as a little boy, but he's also St.Trina, which is .... confusing. Also, Mohg kidnapping Miquella makes more sense when you consider that somehow... he/they/she have some ability to have children in some form. I think Mohg knows this, but it's not working because... he's attempting to make himself the lord and consort to Miquella, when he really needs to figure out how to accesss St.Trina... Hopefully the DLC will give us some more info on this whole weird thing! If it ever comes out. :/
There's a theme of of sea or aquatic life in general throughout the entire game. Many larger enemies are animals that are usually aquatic (the giant crabs and lobsters, the land octopuses, and the squirts which seem to be some type of mollusk). There is of course Godwyn's corpse and the Tibia Mariners mentioned in the video. And it's something that struck me about Caelid when I first found it. Caelid is basically a giant coral reef. There are many giant, squishy, (presumably) organic structures that litter Caelid that are basically land coral. Not to mention how the kindred of rot look like giant shrimp. Since the Rot isn't the only thing associated with this "Land Sea Life", and how things like flowers and butterflies are also associated with Rot, it might be a trend with the outer gods in general, similar to how Bloodborne associates its gods with sea life as a reference to Lovecraft. Another example is how the Elden Beast is similar to a whale, or other aquatic mammals, for instance. It might also just be a reference to how the ocean is basically the birthplace for all other forms of life.
Fun fact for ya the land squirts are based off tunicates or sea squirts, which actually aren't mollusks but very primitive chordates making them more closely related to us than mollusks.
the big organic structures of caelid are fungi, scarlet rot its basically a fungal infection, so caelid its literally on shrooms, the kindred are more like hermit crabs mixed with centipedes, looks almost like they wear a shell on their heads i think thats because best conditions for fungi are humid ones, and the rot also liquifies and makes swamps, so the kindred of rot its adapted to live in the conditios that suit rot and that the rot brings, and for the elden beast i think they wanted to go for a primeval/alien kinda vibe, and that for us land mammals its always gonna resemble acuatic lifeforms, visually its more like a cluster of stars, there is a galaxy that its very reminiscent of the form of the elden beast
Just as Malenia becomes a true, mortal manifestation of an outer god that is a rival of the Greater Will and its mortal god (Marika), perhaps Godwyn is a manifestation of an outer god of uneath that is similarly trying to gain influence, as the former does with the scarlet rot. What, I wonder, exactly is Fia trying to get us to do by introducing her rune of undeath (not the same as the rune of death that Maliketh guards; I suspect this may be a weakness of the localization) to the golden order? Form a collaboration between the two? No undead creatures ever speak to us or so much as stand idly by; they all attack on sight. Yet, she acts like they're being oppressed. I don't understand.
Godwyn takea the cake on these "post-shattering fates" the gods had, like, radahn became a husk of himself, godrick started the grafting hunts, radagon fused with marika, but godwyn became something else entirely, a totally unrecognizable corpse that sprung miles taller than he was when he died, and even then, his existance was so putrid, so vile, it cursed the lands between with a new godlike presence that only spreads death and putrification
@@xeibei4804 Its been a minute since I last saw it but I remember there being something either an item or a dialog somewhere that confirms that they always were the same entity
@@stuffbuyer The take I had was that, before her ascension to godhood, marika/radagon was a singular entity that could take the form of male or female (attributed to the alchemical REBUS, half man, half woman) and that her new power was so great, she was able to give life to some of the desires and wants in the body of a man outside of the direct control of the greater will, something she quickly recognized as being more malevolent than good. They became two bodies that shared a soul and a goal. Everything that happens in the lore is directly attributable to Marika's desire to end her connection to the greater will. Every step allowed Radagon, who had flourished and become even more powerful on his own, to draw closer to lend her the power to shatter the elden ring, but the plan didn't work the way they expected, and they were then forced back into a complete and whole body and this time under the complete control of the greater will.
@@derricktitley3784 Radagon and Marika, although of the same being, were not of the same mind. In the opening cinematic, we see an image of Marika shattering the Elden Ring, followed by a very similar image of Radagon (distinguishable by his red hair), trying to mend it. It also seems that Radagon did not leave Rennala entirely of his own volition, as he left his Beast Companion (The Red Wolf of Radagon) behind to protect her, as well as his Greater Rune (which Rennala uses to rebirth her students, and the player).
If they off screened Godwyn, and not any other child of Marika, he had to have been absolutely broken in terms of abilities. I imagine that If Godwyn was a boss that you could fight. He'd be on a higher difficulty than Melania or Radhan.
@@portagasdace21117 Lorewise he's a pretty big deal. He was a major reason the golden order defeated the ancient dragons. Its a shame we didn't get him as a boss in shadow of the erdtree. He would have been so much better in place of what we got for the final boss.
@@splinter360 They could have done something like what they did for the Detlaff fight in The Witcher 3. In Detlaffs final phase when he pulls you into his weird blood cocoon, you have to destroy these beating hearts. Something similar like that would have been sick for a Godwyn fight, where there's no actual ''traditional'' boss for you to fight, instead you're just trying to destroy Godwyn's soulless husk as ''it'' defends itself with lots of deathblight and smaller enemies. Sounds gimmicky, but a competent dev team should be able to make that work.
This is trippyyyy, I would NEVER have been able to understand this design if you hadn't moved it into the light and done this free-cam work all around it, so BIG thanks for that!!
One of the more bizarre designs in a game full of bizarre designs. Thanks for all the information Zullie! Glad there's a new game for you to snoop around in.
His arms and tail are pretty close to the ones on Basilisks, and the way his body in Stormveil is positioned also kind of reflects them. I'm not sure if he's turning into a Basilisk, or if Basilisks are images of him, but there seems to be some sort of connection. Edit: and that's not even mentioning that Basilisks literally have his eyes.
Maybe the Basilisks are a direct result of his corruption of the Erdtree’s roots. They spew mist that kills you in the same fashion as Godwyn appears, which means they’re tied to Deathroot. Given that fact, they couldn’t have existed before Godwyn was killed and buried, meaning they’re probably some kind of offspring of his corpse/the roots themselves
It’s really scary when you think about the power of Godywn’s influence. The deathroots in Faram Azula, proves that his influence transcends time and space. That’s nuts.
I’m fascinated by the implications of water in Elden ring. Flowing, clean water has the power (if only metaphorically) to quell the Scarlet Rot, which itself is represented by stagnant water. I’m curious to see how the “death-water” fits into that equation
These connections are because pf Japanese belief in a concept called Kegare which appears in Shinto. Kegare means ritual impurity and stagnation. Stagnant water is pretty much the main source of it and running water has the opposite connotation of purifying things. This is also similar to the concept of "the deep" in Dark Souls 3. Which was also based on kegare.
Now that I think about it the “lakes” and ponds in elden ring are extremely low besides it being essential to the gameplay could it be because of the erdtree taking up vast amounts of water from the land?
I really hope Godwyn gets more time in the spotlight in DLC. For someone so core to the backstory of the entire game, very little is known about him, or what he has become
One thing I'm curious about regarding godwyn is whether or not he's conscious. Is he aware of what's happening or, without a soul. Is he more like a tree that just sort of grows and spreads without thinking?
Maybe halfway? In the Dark Souls trilogy and Demon's Souls losing your souls didn't mean dying but it meant going mad, mindless, those who live in death are also mad and attack the player, however, Godwyin's body shows's no signs of life at all, he grows and spreads through the roots of the Erdtree to the entirity of the lands between.
I think he's like a tree- we have lots of thematic connections between the demigods and plants. And he's literally tree-like in several ways, like how he's the source of the Deathroot
If you attack Fia, you are attacked by vengeful spirits (the same from Rancor spells) and she says "Godwyn, is that you?", implying she isn't the one casting the spell. I think it's fair to believe his body is alive in some sense.
I like how Godwyn's mermaid features, combined with the death of his soul, are a reference to some of our mermaid folklore (that is, that they are soulless).
@@KosOrSomeSayKosmo Yeah, they didn't have souls and so when they died their body would turn into sea foam. In the original "The Little Mermaid" story recorded by Hans Christian Anderson, the little mermaid failed to get the prince to marry her and so she ended up dying alone on the beach and her body turned into sea foam. There ARE some versions of the story where even though the little mermaid failed to get the prince to fall in love with her and she dies as a result, God takes pity on her and grants her a soul so that she can go to heaven.
@@Exel3nce That’s what makes him so interesting! Some of the very few things we know about him is his unique design and the fact his death has a very important impact on the overall story. There really isn’t too much else outside of speculation but that means his story can still be expanded upon in DLC!
I saw the face of Godwyn underneath Stormveil as a sort of “infection” of Deathroot in the Erdtree that was spreading along its roots, taking the form of growths in the shape of his face. I don’t believe it’s a second Godwyn, as 1.) the eyes are hollow and almost look like seed pods, and 2.) it’s just missing a lot of the details like clothing and hair that the one underneath the Erdtree has. If it’s a previous iteration of his design, it doesn’t make sense that it is also present in the world.
Instead of an infection, would it not be possible for it to be a result of Godrick’s grafting experiments. Maybe when he fled from the capital he brought with him a piece of Godwin, a demigod that is very close to the idea of Godfrey. Maybe after settling in limgrave, Godrick found out the small part started growing and decided to leave it in the depths of the castle, where it would not be able to be a danger while still allowing easy access to it for experiments
This infection take is pretty much exactly how I interpreted it as well. As an aside, stumbling upon the face underneath Stormveil is generally my favourite moment of the entire game, as it's the best example in Elden Ring of the horror slant aesthetic that defines so many of the Souls games.
Maybe it was like a test subject. Like, look man we do not know if this s**t is going to work so let's test it with some random guy to see if it works. I mean it would be embarrasing doing everything to the end stab him and not killing him.
There are Giant Crabs that inflict the Death status effect, and just like Godwyn, they too have patches of golden hair. I recall there being one to the south of the Tibia Mariner near Liurnia's Divine Tower, and another being in the lake where you find Boggard in Altus Plateau.
I think the explanation for his corpse being both below Stormveil Castle and Leyndell is fairly simple: his corpse is growing through the Erdtree/Greattree's roots. If you look close to anything blighted by Death (Deathroot, pustules, creatures infected by Death, ect) you can see not only roots, but fins, even eyes, so it's clear that Godwyn's corpse is growing in parts across all of the Lands Between. Which is metal as fuck.
Yup this was my interpretation as well after seeing the corpse in deeproot depths and the barky face under stormveil. Then i saw the crabs with his face on his back and it basically confirmed it for me that Godwyn's corpse is acting like a fungal parasite to the Erdtree. He's literally sprouting at the surface from the same roots of the Erdtree and bringing the curse of those who live in death with him whenever he surfaces.
"Godwyn's unusual form may start to make some sense when viewed as part of a recurring theme." Yeah, the theme that water is fucking freaky and everything that comes out of it is the devil. No wonder you almost always die by stepping into it.
Even the Bible has a hate on for large bodies of water. It's where evil dwells symbolically. The Book of Revelation says after the end times, when all is restored, the "sea will be no more".
The half-dead Godwyn's design is something that just makes me endlessly curious. It's such an insane look to me that I just want to know everything I can about it. I just can't stop staring at it.
You have to remember that this is no longer Godwyn. This is the Prince of Death, a physical manifestation of a fragment of Destined Death that was used to kill Godwyn's soul. He stopped being Godwyn when he was assassinated and his soul was destroyed. This is Destined Death incarnate. If you want to know why his body now looks like this, it's because this is what Destined Death (perhaps even death as a concept) apparently looks like. For all intents and purposes, Godwyn is long-dead. Even Fia can only restore him as the Prince of Death, and she 'gives birth' to the Mending Rune of the Prince of Death, not Godwyn the Golden.
I will never forget the feeling I had when coming across his corpse underground. I had such an unsettling feeling of dread and terror thinking I was about to fight some horrific beast that would kill me in one strike. Then I breathed a sigh of relief that it was just the newest version of the Gank Squad. And then was absolutely thrilled to fight an awesome dragon boss later.
I’m fairly sure they’d make us fight that thing in this arena later on. After all, it is a stationary model, implying it needs to be removed at some point
The thing I find interesting and something very few,if any,point out is that his body didn't move from the picture of his assassination. Perpetually stuck in the same pose as his dying breath as if the roots themselves lifted him into that position since we see him on the ground after the stabbing.
Another thing to mention: In Welsh mythology, bodies of water were considered to be portals to the otherworld. Welsh myth definitely had influence on the game, else you won't have a character with a "dd" in his name pronounced "th".
I think one of the most interesting and somewhat horrifying aspects to Godwyn's corpse is that nobody can really explain it. Sure everyone has their theories but nobody can really look at the in-game evidence and give an argument for why he appears as such because the game doesn't act like it knows either. It just seems to be some horror of nature, like there wasn't any purpose or reason, this is just the form he took
Actually, a while ago, a redditor pointed out the obvious similarity between Godwyn's corpse shape, and the shape of the lands between map. Sadly, I can't manage to find the reddit post. Anyway, in order for you to see it, you've got to horizontaly reverse godwyn's body, and compare its shape to the shape of the lands between. You will see that his head = the mountaintops of the giants, his torso = Liurna basically, and his fish tail = caelid and the other lower region of the map (forgot the name). Even his eye = the city of leyndell. Once you see it, it becomes obvious. (The only parts of his body which don't match anything are his two arms). It could be due to the fact that Godwyn's corpse is growing under the ground, and therefore taking the shape of the landscape. It seems like the most plausible theory to me.
@@astrumos88 Also the map of the lands between is supposed to resemble Pangaea, could be that his body is taking on a more primordial looking form of that world.
I was gonna say. In the trailer he look about average size for a human. (compared to the assassins who killed him anyway) but how does he turn into a giant fish man is the real question..
I like the idea that Godwyn's soulless husk has gotten caught up in or otherwise jammed up the soul recycling systems of the Erdtree Roots. I do like the idea that Stormveil Godwyn might be the original though since it would contextualize the presence of Dragon Communionists at Stormveil.
What dragon communionists at stormveil and how would his corpse contextualize them? Do you mean the banished knights? Because I think what we're seeing is the opposite of what you think. I'm like 90% banished knights are the original army of limgrave, hence them all having storm based attacks, but only the ones outside of stormveil being into blood or dragon communion
Something I noticed is that Erdtree roots have entwined mummified remains, while Deathroots have entwined skeletons. I like to imagine that the Erdtree feeds on souls leaving bodies, while the Deathroots feed on bodies leaving souls. They are two sides of a coin.
@@Ezekiel_Allium There are banished knights in stormveil dressed in dragon communion robes around their helmets and who use dragon communion seals to cast dragon communion incantations. They are not easy to find without extensive exploration, though. They are mainly on the ramparts, specifically the ones which require some parkour and effort to actually reach.
@@binbows2258 huh, I think I've been where you are talking about but I never noticed them using dragon communion spells. Still doesn't explain why OP thinks they would be contextualized by Godwyn as well
@@Ezekiel_Allium if I'm not mistaken Godwyn basically started all the dragon communion and dragon cult stuff after he befriended Fortissax, so it would make sense that dragon cultists would gather around Godwyn's corspe, as he was pretty important to them
I remember falling off something in Stormveil castle and as my body hits the bottom and I die I see THIS at the bottom. That event left quite an impression.
Never in my souls career have I serious stopped and didn’t want to keep moving forward. That’s how jarring the body of godwyn was for me. They have some pretty horrifying shit in these games but this one seriously made me question whether or not I really wanted to see what would happen when I got close to it
The body under Stormveil or the one in Deeproot Depths? Because when I saw the Stormveil face I was sprinting away from the Tree Spirit and didn't really care where I ended up, the face was a footnote.
Deeproot depths was trepidatious approach but the fight after was definitely not what I expected and Fia being there kind of made it.... Uh... Make homely. Nothing like hugging under the grotesque manifestation of death
I honestly had no idea wtf I was looking at when I first saw Godwyn. Even now I have difficulty seeing anything resembling humanity in its design. Like it just seemed like a mess of weird shit piled on top of each other initially. Had no idea the guy even had hands until I saw this video.
I love how this game mixes the story progression of Dark Souls and Bloodborne in a single game. In all Dark Souls, you start in a quite neutral enviroment, facing weak-looking enemies in extremely mundane enviroments, but as the game progresses, it doesn't take long for you to be exploring insane and magical enviroments, with gorgeous aesthetics and facing gods, kings and epic monsters. You start from the mundane, and climb up to the top to face the rulers of this world and claim your place into the land. In Bloodborne though, you're not exactly in a neutral enviroment from start. Everything has gone to hell and you have to face massive and powerful opponents, giant monsters and very skilled hunters. You're at a high point, really. But as you go further into the hunt, you slowly start to unravel things that are beyond comprehension, and slowly get face weirder and weirder creatures, in terrifying enviroments, with an opressing atmosphere. It's not about proving your worth, is more about learning the truths of the world and coming to the conclusion that you're a nobody and that some stuff are just too big for your mind to process. You start from neutral, but instead of conquering your place higher and higher, you uncover the mysteries going deeper and deeper. Elden Ring somehow manages to mix both of these. You prove yourself time and time again, overcoming the demigods, one by one, the king, the giants, the dragons, you earn your place among the best of the best and the stronger your opponents get, they start to recognise you for getting this far, applauding you for being able to defeat them. But at the same time, something always feels... weird. The cosmic horror of Elden Ring occurs mostly on the background. It's in the enviromental stuff, it starts when you first encounters the underground lake. You slowly start to see how some shit are... just weird. How the stars fall off the sky when you kill Radahn, how Ranni's quest leads you to an underground city with an alien star creature, how Mogh reaches into nothing and pierces an omnipresent being of pure blood, and then you get to the bottom with this shit. What the hell even is Godwyn now? Something happened here, something that shouldn't... be. Elden Beast and the endings (specially Flame of Frenzy) just contribute to that. You basically have all the glory of the epic fantasy and all the weirdness of the cosmic horror. You earn your place among the rulers of the world, but you also get a notion of how little you know about this world and how big the scale of this universe really is. I personally love it.
@@ogiebear8484 look at the description of his spear. It's bizarre to know that, but whenever he reaches his hands and they disappear (look at the animation) he's penetrating the formless mother's flesh, and when he throws blood at you, it's her blood. It's the same thing you do when you use the weapon art, it's one of the creepiest things in the game when you think about it.
Man, I beg for him to become a Final or Secret DLC Boss… His design, lore, and just the thought of what he could do during battle… He would be the most Bloodborne-ish boss in Elden Ring.
I just want the poor guy to be at total rest. He was a cool dude who ended a war by becoming friends with the other side. Then his half sister had him assassinated as part of some insane plan.
With bosses like this, I wish he would have jumpscares and overall ''horror'' to his arena. Imagine when progressing to his boss arena, you get jumpscared, or weird shit starts to happen like reversed controls. Things that actually break the game. On lovecraftian horror level.
This is so incredibly interesting and I've BEEN obsessing over whatever Godwyn's forms looked like and why- the motif of rebirth is always so interesting in From games, but why he alone has this was so interesting for me! Super well done as always.
After his Erdtree burial, because Godwyn's corpse is a physical body that won't die. As the roots absorbed it, it merged with the tree roots, and is growing all over as Deathroot. Anywhere that Deathroot is growing in Elden Ring, you can see the eyes and other features of Godwyn upon it. Wyndham has a number of places where the Deathroot features are fairly visible and well-lit if you want to check it out. Stormvale Castle is covered in those Deathroot thorns, and another more complete growth of Godwyn's body forming in the crypt (giving you the weaker version of the Prince of Death's talisman to show that it's a growth rather than the original in Deeproot Depths). That one is related to the themes of Grafting, as Godrick is making himself like a tree built of other parts of sacrificed people. This means that pieces of the sacrificed bodies are still alive even after their souls have passed on. It's likely why that thorny corruption started at Stormvale, and why that's where Rogier started investigating, leading to the schism in viewpoint about Those Who Live In Death between himself, Fia, & D.
Something I found interesting was the prominence of ants in Deeproot Depths (kind of a redundant name, now that I think about it, lol). Many species of ants will defend their native stalk by trimming back competitor plants, and it seems these here have been busy doing just that to protect the Erdtree.
Fromsoft always seems to use aquatic themes to convey a profound feeling of sadness and suffering, in addition to stagnation, like Zullie said. When I saw this video, I immediately drew parallels to the Orphan of Kos. Both part land dwelling, part aquatic, and both locked in a torturous state of stagnation. Kos with the Hunters Nightmare, and Godwyn with his undeath. I might be grasping at straws here, but I feel as if the awkward split between the aquatic and land dwelling that both characters seem to have is symbolic of the fact that they’re caught between the two worlds of life and death. They belong neither to the sea nor the land completely, and so too do they exist neither in life nor in death. Stagnant as the waters they exhibit traits of.
The fog that emerges when you conclude this storyline is beginning to make sense - realizing that the curse of undeath and water are somehow intertwined in the Lands Between.
This game takes so much from Celtic mythology (as well as japanese myth of course) but for sure water is really important to Celtic lore. I think they believed water led to the underworld, and there are hundreds of Celtic ritual burials in rivers and bogs.
@@-feonix48-47 isn't there some crazy maelstrom-like swirling storm/whirlpool on the map in the inaccessible portion, where the sea would be near mt gelmir?
@@LolLordy I don’t know for certain but I’ll take your word for it, could also be the cloud in the middle but that’s obviously not a revelation at this point. Exciting regardless
Things like this really start to make me wonder what kinds of things got planned but never made it to the finish. Between this, and the cosmic nature of the elden beast and astel, it feels like there's still some untapped weirdness to elden ring
DLC2: A American Tarnished in Yharnam The Tarnished, at Ranni's side, portaling in during The Night of the Hunt. Ranni: "Hey bitches heard there was some elder god shit going down here. Who needs a good killing?"
I never noticed the half-shut eyeballs to the side of Godwyn in your opening shot, wow what a disturbing detail. Also glad I wasn't alone in my initial reading of Godwyn's bizarre head shape to be clam or scallop-like, him being a kitbash of sea creatures is an interesting choice and I wonder what it means for the Crucible, the Greattree, and the nature of Death in Elden Ring.
I always saw Godwyn's body changing into 'mermaid' as a reflection of where his body currently is: near the underground rivers at the roots of Erdtree. Without a soul to anchor it, in some way, I think the body just mindlessly adapts to water, the way some plants grow differently when on land or in the water. Also thank you for the new nightmares brought by seeing Godwyn in bright light.
I don't know why this came back to me, but I remember hearing a long time ago that clams can usually tell when water becomes polluted. I wonder if in some strange way Godwyn's supposed to be like some representation of the end of the Golden Age. Might also explain the deathblight. Nothing but death and disease can run through stagnant water. Do admit this could just be me reaching though. Lol. Awesome video as always!
I will never know true terror in a game like when I first walked into that massive field of blight and saw his corpse. I thought it would move and I had to fight it. The real boss battle was so disappointing, but I've never felt actual fear in a game until I saw that thing and thought it would come alive. Amazing work from FromSoft in that aspect
For a while, I literally could not comprehend what the form even WAS, it’s the closest thing to an Eldritch horror I saw in a game, pretty sure we’ll all go mad if we look too long or closely at it.
I think it also speaks to the theme of "soul-less-ness" in Souls games too: bodies without their soul "go bad" somehow (depending on the game and its lore). So there's that. Also, the design reminds me of that mermaid hoax where some guy stiched together a monkey and fish.
I love how the design choices of Elden Ring double as lore, same with all other of FromSoft's soulsborne games. These weird design choices imply a mechanism behind them within the context of the world that results in this kind of weird shit, and is so much more interesting for it.
@@Rummystiltskin Kings Field its the first From Software series, considered the ancestor of the souls series. the gameplay did not age very well (first person action RPG from the psx era, just saying) but its better that it seems and have a great atmosphere, especially the fourth chapter from which is taken the music in this video
@@kachiban980 Fourth Chapter. Got it. I knew about King's Field and its history, but not familiar with the music. I see now its time to do a dive into the soundtracks. Thank you for the help and reply.
The closest resemblance to Godwyn's warped body to me is actually the Basilisks, longtime resident of the Souls series. I think his design was inspired by them greatly (they share the same weird bent finned arms with stubby clawed hands, and Basilisks now even have pale gold/green hair on their backs) , and in turn they probably originate from him in this game, being capable of spewing death and having the same odd reptilian/aquatic features. And, most obviously, they share the same general shape to their eyes. Beyond that though, Basilisks are almost bizarrely out of place in this game with, as far as I know, absolutely nothing to hint to why they're all over the Lands Between surviving in the most annoying of places. As for the connection between Godwyn, death, and water, the other thing to note is that while the roots of the Erdtree where he lies spreads throughout the Lands Between, so does the water running underground around the Erdtree. It might explain the recurring Tibia Mariners and the prevelance of deathblighted ruins around bodies of water. Even the Tibia Mariner in the Mountain of Giants is technically near a body of water - the frozen river that travels between the Mountaintop and the Consecrated Snowfield.
I find it VERY interesting that we can also find a Godwyn in the Death Knight's boss room/inside his dungeon. I wish we got a DLC about Godwyn. Feels like there's so much more to uncover
I feel like they kinda cut some major content , at least connecting to the base game, the fact that there's absolutely no one in the base game acknowledging what you did is really disappointing .It's still very fun , but people are dying to see more Godwyn and Melina for such a long time then all we got is more Marika backstory at the end . And I wish there are more actual dialogue interactions with Miquella too😢
Love his design. When I discovered the head in Stormveil I was instantly reminded of the classic 'pagan greenman' face. Which, being a forest deity explained the rampant overgrow of thorns. Them growing from a 'dead' god also helped explain the rotten visage of the thing. Anyway as soon as I found it I was enthralled. The moment was made even more memorable as I was frantically running from and avoiding the rotten tree beast. 10/10 experience.
This is awesome, informative, and entertaining content. I very much enjoy learning more and more about these games, especially the theme of stagnation. Thank you, Zullie!
I think it’s related to the crucible A source of life that was subdued by the erdtree Hence why the aspect of the crucible incantations draw upon multiple life forms.
I believe his father Godfrey is actually a crucible and not human. Firstly it doesn’t make sense how the omen twins get the curse out of no where as from birth they never actually interfered with the crucible tree like the misbegotten. Secondly the fish like tail may actually be his legs which implies he has crucible genes. Lastly when fighting hoaruh loux he uses earthquake/stone magic similar to gurranq and has a lion like roar. That’s what I think.
@@thelionofjudah5318 1. its impossible to be the crucible, the crucible is the primordial form of the Erdtree 2. gurranq and beastial incantations are not related to the crucible 3. his lion-like roar could come from the Lion serosh, who he has somehow fused into himself 4. godwyn does not have fish tail for legs. godfrey and marika do not have fish tails. also he would have been banished into the shunning grounds beneath leyndell for possessing traits of the crucible, much like the Omens 5. the Omens do not come from Godfrey. that doesnt make any sense. how would they all come from godfrey
I always thought that because his body was still alive, just soulless. His body is acting on pure muscle memory, instinct, and randomness. Which not only explains his new features. But his body ended up breaking his neck so badly, it healed with his head upside down and his hair just waiting from his head to lower jaw.
You can find mounds of what looks like the deathroot thorns with half-closed eyelids containing similar cloudy grey eyes in the same room as the chest with the Old Lord talisman in Farum Azula, right behind where Bernahl invades. I have to wonder why those assets were included in Farum Azula though
One factor I haven't seen mentioned is the fact that due to the common metaphor of death as crossing a river - whether that be Styx in Greek mythology or Sanzu in Japanese - it would make sense that a state of undeath, to be between life and death, would locate you in the water between the two shores. So the Tibia Mariners as ferrymen, the basilisks as amphibians and Godwyn's transformation reflect their position in the river between our world and the afterlife. This allusion is strengthened by the Erdtree which takes souls up and essentially functions as their final resting place feeding the two underground rivers Siofra and Ainsel.
Man, It's so creepy, I would love to see a timelapse of his transformation, it's so scary to try to think about his "decomposition" from a biological standpoint
I think my favorite part about FromSoft games is that, from one perspective, they keep telling the same story over and over, just through dramatically different lenses and from hugely different perspectives. It doesn’t feel like repetition or laziness on their part… it feels more like Miyazaki has this massive story in his head and he’s desperately trying to get it out, but each attempt has been incomplete in and of itself, so he has to try again.
What if all this is a buildup for an immense clash of dynasties in one monstrous game? ER was a new size plus Miyazaki is such a lunatic and I want to believe.
We had to do this basically in my speech class (?) Can't remember exactly what it was in college but basically the teacher asked us to pick out favorite song, then write certain points about it and what is it that they are trying to say. Well I didn't know we were gonna be writing about the same song, for the entire semester -.-. so basically each time you wrote it, it was a little different or more in depth each time you worked on it. I had only wished I chose a song with more lyrics man 🤦♀️🤦♀️
You mean the same story written from the "dramatically different lenses and from hugely different perspectives" of nameless nobodies coming to kill great beings and collect plot items from them while learning more about the dying world around them, with a cyclical nature implied? Tell me more how it isn't laziness.
@@Garrus876 What you’ve just described is the world’s oldest story. People have been telling versions of that story for millennia. My point was about the way symbols and metaphors continue to reoccur through the franchise, being explored in so many different ways.
@@joebykaeby Strange of you to say that, since I went into very specific detail about the lack of perspective change, a point which you have not challenged. In every single game you play from the perspective of the nobody, there is no change, it's the same story with a different coat of paint. And what's this about the oldest story? Can you elaborate? Only one I know of is the Epic of Gilgamesh (admittedly I could be wrong, but it's on you to enlighten me and provide a source), and that story is completely different from the usual Miyazaki fair, down to the very perspective (in souls you're a nobody with no personal stakes, in the epic of Gilgamesh and many old stories the main characters, who have personalities also have personal stakes). You moved the goalpost now, disregarding my points and continuing to speak of those "many different ways". I'd like for you to elaborate on this claim, as well as everything I stated above.
I am strongly reminded of the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the great king descends into the depths of the (underworld-associated) ocean to retrieve the herb that grants youth - his route to immortality. Godwyn is an inversion of that story, immortal and spreading his deathroot to all his kingdom.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Stagnation is a common focus of Japanese folklore, and stagnant water in particular is often considered to be rife with curses. This makes sense of course, as it was probably partly caused by some observation of the natural health risks of drinking or even just swimming in stagnant water, which is a breeding ground for bacteria and other pathogens. Someone drinking befouled water and dying because of bacteria would have been pretty indistinguishable from a curse or evil spirit causing it. Add in a little folkloric exaggeration and you get the basis for myths.
Unfortunate that a game with so much inspiration from Japanese mythology only has two armor sets that look Japanese in origin. Have you done any digging to see if there were any scrapped NPCs or items with more of an Eastern look?
It is intresting. Because here in Brazil, stagnated water is the perfect place to a mosquito, aedes aegypti, procreate. It transmits diseases like Dengue, Zika and Yellow fever.
I wonder if this goes towards explaining "The Deep" from DkS3 at all, or if I'm totally off-track here.
I love your usage of this music...
Well, so Godwyn's corpse is half-wood/root and half... mermaid ?
Old people back in the day know stuff and told to other people to be careful in such grandios way at it's finest.
as long the result is people stay safe, the story telling done it's job indeed and keep pass on to their children and so on.
One of the most interesting theories I've seen about him posits that his appearance popping up everywhere from Deathroot to crabs to Basilisks to the second face is because the Erdtree is kind of glitching out- it's trying to restore him to life, as is its function, but since his soul is uniquely dead, all it's doing is constantly creating dead copies.
So since it never successfully restores him, it just keeps on trying, which is why he's growing everywhere.
Great theory. Now I have images of the Greater Will getting frustrated that Marika’s pride and joy is refusing to be revived and just keeps stubbornly trying because it refuses to admit defeat.
Ooooh .... like a corrupt hard disk ... can't System Restore
That would justify the frenzied flame lord ending them
Burn the corruption with fire 🦉
So hes tree cancer
That fits nicely with the flaw in the Golden Order that Rogier mentions. Since the Erdtree restores the dead to life because of the absence of destined death, which was removed to create the Golden Order, then what's happening to Godwyn would indeed be a flaw with the Golden Order.
Never noticed those giant eyes on the roots next to Godwyn. His whole design is just one massive acid trip and I'm all here for it.
Ypu can see those eyes on all the death root around, i noticed it in my new game plus
have you ever taken acid?
Same! I understand why the Basilisks have those same freaky-deaky false eyes now. (Yeah earlier Souls games had false eyes on their basilisks, but it didn't look stylistically like Elden Ring's.)
God right when elden ring came out me and my friend took some acid and I was watching him run through caelid for hours it was so weird.
It took me legit like half an hour to wrap my head around what I was seeing. There’s so many suggestions of coherent shapes; at first I thought it was a giant ant, since his arms point upwards like their feelers.
This is one of the most haunting and horrifying character designs I've ever seen in a game and I absolutely love it.
It's an absolute blessing that he's... not moving.
Straight up FIRE design
AGREED. I don’t know what it is about this that seriously resonated with me, but the guys at fromsoft KILLED IT with this design. Chilling and eerie with so many lore implications, it’s just tied together so well.
i've always heard that any of the souls games is Hauntingly Beautiful. I think they are stepping it up a notch in Elden Ring.
Agreed. I've seen alot of stuff in games and this shocked me.
Imagine what it felt like discovering him like this while fighting an eldritch, squirming, writhing, electric horror. It was great.
The artists, designers, programmers, and modelers or fromsoft are so incredibly talented. I can’t remember the last time that simply a stationary character design was able to send a shiver down my spine, even after seeing it multiple times.
Approaching Godwyn’s body in my first playthrough felt absolutely dreadful. The entirety of deeproot depths felt like I was somewhere not meant for me, and viewing Godwyn was as if I had violated some taboo. Nowhere else in games or in other forms of media has given me that kind of feeling before. How all the people at fromsoft manage to provide these experiences game after game is downright legendary
YES!! So many moments come with the "Ope, this looks like a boss fight." or the "Oh crap! this was a boss fight??"
But when I first found the deeproot depths I felt like I had found a secret area like in old Playstation games. and when I found Godwyn? For once I DID NOT want to explore. Just seeing it made me feel...unclean and like I needed to just back away slowly...
@@Teyters I think Miyazaki love to use the "Uncanny Valley" , and one of the principe is to give some human form to make it more uncomfortable for our sight. When i first see the face of Godwin in the darkness , i exactly feel what "Uncanny Valley" really seems , and some discomfort take me for no reason, like iwasn't supposed to be here, , i wasn't allow to see that , in a sense, like a frozen forbidding, put here like a witness of an old time .
Everything around deathroot feels taboo....
From the tibia mariners
To godwyn
To the death birds
I wonder if a dlc will explore deathroot some more
Maybe because we know little about him, why it look like that.. They made it unclear so it give us that terrible yet amazed feeling..
Felt the same just in this case, the zone of Godwyn's body is just terrifying, it really took me some effort to get near xD
Godwyn’s body being in the roots of the erdtree basically makes his body sprout up in other places the roots reach like a mushroom colony. This is what the deathroots are and why he’s in stormveil as well. You can even see his eyes on some of the larger deathroots near Tibia Mariners and in the Death Touched Catacombs
interesting
Just straight up not true at all.
True or not that's an interesting theory
@@prawngravy18 why?
@@prawngravy18 give me proof it's not true. Because everything he said can be proven by just taking a look at the "deathroot" item description and the root growths in Summonwater village that, as the original commenter says, grow the very same eyes, tendrils and merman like scales found on Godwyns Corpe.
You know when you get a look at his body in the overworld, without all the murk of the deeproot depths in the way, his body is posed in the same way it was in the opening cutscene when the Black Knives were shanking him.
OOOH your right😨
I noticed that too and thought it must have been the implication, but in a cutscene Godwyn is seen lying face down on the ground after being shanked.
@@imjustsodamntired Did his body revert to the moment of his death, then just…stay in that position?
@@mb2001 I like to think that the way the deathblight affects the player, it affects godwyn to a greater and permanent scale. the roots/thorns poking out most definitely are in his body, causing his body to be locked together in that same position, with the roots/thorns preventing any sort of movement
@@imjustsodamntired Maybe you're seeing a golden mask?
Notice how godwyn’s body is in the same position as when he was stabbed by the black knives in the opening
Nice catch!
Its probably related to rigor mortis, like his body is stuck in that position after his corpse stiffens
ohh true, that just leaves us with the question why he was shown falling to the ground before coming to "live" again with his eyes opening up again.
@@PurpleAppleDrink Probably not, rigor mortis takes a few hours to set in. The knives probably didn't just drop their assassinated target, pick him up and pose with him for hours.
@@grodon909 they might’ve you don’t know that
The creepy thing about Godwyn under Stormveil is the fact that it looks like he "smashed through" the wall. There is debris all over and the hole there isn't a natural cave. Meaning at some point it may have been actively besieging the castle from below. The chamber he is found in is right next to the ocean as well, meaning he may have come up from the depths and broken into the castle, spreading the curse of death which is why all of the soldiers in the castle, as well as the castle walls, are covered in thorns and pock marks.
He appears to be spreading
@@codafettlike a vine and/or root.
It's like roots growing through concrete
😢
I dont think it ever moved, just that it grew like moss in concrete. But since it's a huge corpse, that's a lot of mass to suddenly push into the bedrock, I think it's only natural that it would cause some erosion, not to mention the area was already located next a open area in stormveil which would naturally incur more erosion.
Godwyn's design is so cool. What's more impressive is that they took it a step beyond just being a grotesque face without substance. Given that we see his face on Deathblight crabs and in areas where massive amounts of Deathroot have accumulated, it seems to imply that Godwyn's visage has become that of death itself, wherein all death bears his face.
wait WHAT? Which crabs? The ones in some of the Catacombs?
@@k0rriban If you go the moat outside of Leyndell where Blackhand Boggart is selling crab, you can find some there.
WHAAAT that’s HIS FACE????!!
I hope Zullie Does a video on these crabs. I can't really see the godwyn face, it would be nice to get a more clear look at the model
it’s incredibly interesting. His face grows almost like a cancer on all afflicted with death.
I think the creepiest thing about Godwyn is how his head, which many have noticed to be clam-shaped, appears to be split in half down from the top of his head to the bottom, meaning his face could just be a shell for something far more horrifying underneath.
i fully expect a demon of song situation going on in there lol
Just imagine him brutally opening his head once you reach second phase, revealing whatever the hell his real face looks like now… “Bloodborne who?”
Well it is more mushroom like bit yeah it would be cool if it splits open and reveals his second form
I think that's his mouth, given that his whole face seems to have inverted somehow. However that doesn't exclude the possibility of something horrible crawling out of it.
@@magnatcleo2043 Maybe he pulls a sword from it, so you can devour the very gods together
The crabs in the moat aboveground nearby also have his face on their back, and the big one has several and the water spit even procs Death. It's quite possible that he's infecting them, too. The crabs in Raya Lucaria are covered in Glintstones and there's apparently a Sleep Crab near a St. Trina's Lily, so it seems that crabs take on what they eat. Which means that Godwyn's corpse has infected the ground around Leyndell, maybe even more. Altus could go rotten with thorns at any minute.
Wait for real? I had no idea they had that on the back
It's the same for Stormveil, its implied the castle is overrun with some affliction but not entirely sure what, and it may be something more sinister (on the shield infected with thorns). Its clear after discovering the body that Stormveil is overrun with Death and the landscape itself is crumbling. So we know Death just just infect people but the land itself, so you're most likely correct is seems leyndell is destined to fall to the Death curse.
@@ajbolt7 it's the ones beside Boggart in Altus Plateau
The fact theres alot of wormfaces on the lower parts of altus also implies some influence, but im not sure whats the deal with them
I encountered the sleep crab in my first play through. I can’t remember where it was located, though. I had actually assumed all crabs inflicted sleep from that point on.
Man I feel bad for Godwyn, he seems to have gotten it worse than anybody.
It's sadder once you dig into the lore and realize he was actually a good guy and was genuinely altruistic, terrible shame...
I too feel sorrow
Yeah. Alot of people say Ranni's ending is the best, and I also lean in that direction. But I have trouble reconciling what she did to Godwyn.
@@cptndunsel3364 May Chaos take the world. :)
@@georgecostanza712 Frenzied flame is the best ending. Once I seen Godwyns body I realized everything needed to go to get rid of it. I don't even get why rannis ending is the "good" one. May chaos take the world 🙈🔥
Interesting to note that if you use Mimic's Veil near Godwyn's body, you would transform into a basilisk, which shares similar features with Godwyn's "mutations"
I was already thinking of those little a-holes watching this vid, interesting discovery!
totally does! But I literally just re-worked my whole theory! Now I have to do it again! God I love this tish!
Which would ALSO explain why basilisks are able to use death blight; They must have some sort of innate connection to Those Who Live In Death, possibly even being direct offshoots of Godwyn's body. The fact that the basilisks appear to be reptilian/aquatic type creatures, combined with the existence of the Tibia Mariners, definitely suggests an intrinsic link between undeath in Elden Ring and the aquatic.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I only recently made the connection, glad I’m not the only one!
Godwyn’s face always struck me more as a fungal growth than clam like. It makes sense because of the relationship between fungus and decay and how it often grows on the sides of trees much like the Great Tree Godwyn is intertwined with.
The first thing I interpreted it as was an octopus head like Cthulhu or Davey Jones.
shelf fungus can look pretty clam like. I also thought, in the stagnant water of the depths, maybe a clam consumed his head, and in eternal undeath, they fused together over time. However, the fungus angle makes more sense with appearance at Stormveil. Mycelial networks can stretch over vast distances and replicate similar structures.
yeah good point. when i look at it now i can see it how it has multiple clam-shaped layers too it, so more like a fungus rather than a single layered clamshell.
@@Endonae me too
If that’s the design intention, how do you explain the fishtail? I concede that it could be a combination of sealife and fungus, but that also doesn’t connect satisfactorily with Zullie’s explanation of the folklore and common themes.
It’s hard to tell in game what exactly you’re looking at. This is easily one of the most grotesque and sinister transformations in a FromSoft game
now imagine Shabriri possessing this body in the DLC and you have to fight this malformed Godwyn with Shabriri's soul inside it xD
@@eetfuk3571 That would actually be so sick
May CHAOS take the world!
@@eetfuk3571 but why should I fight Shabriri? I side with Chaos lmao
Pretty genius of from to go into meticulous detail with his design, only to shroud him with darkness. It's like they're playing in on the "horrifying because you can only imagine what you can't see" but they also just straight up designed this gtoesque horror
After watching a few videos about Godwyn's body and revisting this one, it occurs to me that his body may have inverted itself during the transformation. The half Cursemark of Death gouged into his body was on his back as seen in the in-game intro and from the story trailer. But as we can see, his transformed back has no mark on it, while his front is covered in this massive gash extending to his neck with Deathroot coming out. What used to be his back may now be his front. I had interpreted the clamshell-like opening to be his mouth from the Stormveil Castle corpse and given the nose points that way, but it's clear his nose is just pointing the wrong way and the clamshell opening is the top of the head from the hair being there. So it seems that his whole body inverted in a Dead Space-esque body horror manner, his back becoming his chest, the neck bending backwards and the nose being backwards now.
Like his body is trying to get away/shed the mark?
You can't see Godwyn's back in-game without cheats so part of me wonders if they just didn't put the mark there because they didn't want anyone seeing his back
The second body beneath the castle supports this! Not only is it in the position shown in the cutscene of his death (commented by another person; they mentioned the big one we see is in the position immediately BEFORE he was killed) but also it shows modelled pectorals and what looks to be the rest of a chest in a position which would imply his head was backward.
He still has a mouth under that weird button nose looking central eye looking thing if you look closely. He looks like a fuckin gingerbread man alien that you can turn upside down to see a squid kraken clam second face
I don't think his nose is backwards, I think he's thrown his head back and his mouth has become a clam, where the "hair" is inside of it now
It’s also pretty interesting that his body position is eerily similar to that during the opening cutscene when he’s being killed. Almost like he was unceremoniously dumped, hidden away.
What would Godwyn have been doing in Stormveil castle? Tiche’s ashes say that she was killed while fleeing the capital after the assassination.
It's explicitly stated that he was given a royal burial directly beneath the Erdtree in Leyndell, so the Black Knives didn't just chuck his body somewhere. But like Zullie points out, only his soul was killed, not his Body. So I wonder if maybe in his half-dead state, his body tried to shift and mirror its last moments of life?
I like to imagine that some of the characters (like Godwyn or Radagon) are Eldritch entities that take human forms to be among other people in the lands between. But when Godwyn got murdered, instead of keeping his human appearance, his corpse returned to its real, horrifying, nightmarish, mind shattering form.
In the cinematic trailer, after Godwyn's assassination you can see black liquid pouring out of his revulsing eye, maybe that could be a hint towards that
@@FilmAcolyteReturns maybe godrick was part of the conspiracy of the night of black knives, maybe godwyn's kind spirit yearns for his last descendant and that thing manifested in response to that,
my theory its that stormveil was his home, or his domain, he could had inhereted it from godfrey, certainly he could be the stormcaller that the church near leyndell its made in honor to, which also would made him even a more worthy heir to stormveil
@@Neroh01 actually that does make a bit of sense. the demigods having "true" forms that they keep hidden away, to avoid destroying the minds of those who see it. and since the demigods you kill weren't killed with the rune of death, and just killed normally, their bodies die and thus can't revert, but since godwyn's soul was killed, and his body lived, it reverted to its' true, mind breaking form.
Discovering deeproot while I was following Ranni's questline and coming across this corpse, then checking the map to see that he was indeed right beneath the erdtree was one of the greatest moments I've ever experienced in a game
I've first seen this "baby body" in Stormveil after falling from the rooftops right into the underground, and I thought there's going to be a bossfight with that creepy head. Luckily it was just a tree spirit
@@trubetskoy4395 dude I had the same experience I fell to my death and saw the face which creeped me tf out and then right as my death screen was about to fade I saw the tree spirit. I didn’t know what those were at that point though so I thought it was some crazy boss move or something and shit myself it was awesome
@@grubbu7073 > I shit myself it was awesome
Perfectly explained half of my walkthrough xDD
such a moment as one of the greatest? ....ok
I literally turned around and left cause I thought it was a boss fight xD
Something that makes this all the more tragic and visceral is the fact that he kind of looks like a waterlogged corpse (during early-ish stages of rot) as well. The sickly ruddy color on bare bits of flesh, the awkward bulged torso that looks kinda distended, the heavily wrinkled/pruney looking skin on various parts of his still-human body - even the eyes looking like their swelling out slightly. What really freaks me out is that, knowing this, these visual details also seamlessly fade into him turning into some kind of fish man, like he's transforming into a complete contradiction of his current state - something that didn't properly "die", and has been in such a state for so long that is now trying to adapt to it... Which just adds to how wrong and perverse it all feels and looks.
You might be on to something, as you see similar things occur with Undead in Dark Souls. Closest comparison would be in DS2 with the Shrine of Amana, the Lizardmen (or Amana Aberration) are Hollows that lived underwater for an extended period of time (due to them being pacified), and adapted, gaining aquatic features.
I'm guessing Fromsoft is going to make him a variant of a new god that rose from the depths of the abyss (DS 1-3 theme) corrupting the tree.
Like with some of the other gods, Godwin would be found from the deeper parts of the earth.
The two major rivers in the Lands Between are underground, after all.
"It is said that this pustule came from the visage of the Prince of Death, he who used to be called Godwyn. As First Dead of the demigods, it's said he's buried deep under the capital, at the Erdtree's roots." - Prince of Death's Pustule, where a pimple or blister that seemingly are appearing on the roots of the erdtree, and if we look closer at the item, has actually THREE different faces of godwyn on it, implying that these pustules take on the visage of godwyn - an dmight suggest the face of godwyn under stormvielle is merely a massively pustule resembling his face
so godwyn has 3 faces? wow i never thought about it like that. But what bothers me is why is he so big in game but so small in the trailer?
@@zachoshark no, no godwyn doesnt have three faces, the item "prince of death's pustule" has three faces if you look carefully at it. The reason he grew so big is because he was killed by the black knives but only received half the rune of death (ranni has the other half) - godwyn was killed in soul but not in body, while ranni was killed in body but not in soul, hence why godwyn's corpse kept growing and growing while ranni's real dead body is on the divine tower of liurna and now inhabits a doll which mimics her mentor "the snow witch"
@@zachoshark No, Godwyn's body is still the twisted mermaid beneath the Capital.
The "face" in Stormveil is rather a massive knot of Deathroot, twisted in his image due to the spread of undeath's corruption through the Greattree's roots. Everywhere that the Rune of Death touches, Godwyn's features appear - his eyes, nostrils and hair on crabs, more eyes on larger knots in the Mariner-infested villages and so forth.
@@pestmant best explanation. thank you.
@@sirthanksalot97 More immediately, the additional eyes found across the tree portions that are in his real body's room.
I saw him at the bottom of stormveil and had a small heart attack.
When I saw him in the Darkroot Area I nearly shit my pants
@@chocobro___ It's hard to fight a multiple enemy boss with that watching you.
Rogier also had a heart attack.
@Steven Luoma same, i messed up a roof parkour jump at the very top of the castle. it's honestly the best way to have the location revealed to you in my opinion. being completely oblivious to the lower area, and you just fall and fall, suddenly you realize you are below ground-level and you slam dead on the ground ontop of this giant face of eldritch horror.
@Steven Luoma Exactly what happened to me lmao
It felt so eerie and alien, I spent a lot of time mustering up courage (and levels) to go back down there
I remember when I saw Godwyn's body for the first time, it was so degenerated and mutated that at first I didn't find any humanoid shapes in it, for me it was just a background for the surroundings.
And then I heard from Fia that she would "lie down" with the prince of death to conceive a child with him, that is, a mending rune. I was wondering what the hell she was talking about, the Prince of Death? Does she mean Godwyn? That guy from the trailer? Well, I don't see him anywhere. And suddenly I looked at the fish tail and I think it's quite a funny tree root. Then I started looking up slowly, and quickly realized that the Prince of Death was watching me all the time, with his cold, dead eyes...
Indeed.
Yes, that moment was indeed disturbing and when I decided to ask some time to fia...
Yeah ,noticing him for the first is very alarming. I'm just glad he can't move .
Apparently his body is also contorted in a way that mimics the map of the lands between itself.
As his influence spreads throughout the world, in a way so too does the world influence him in a way. Such is the case for parasites.
Can't help but feel sorry for him. I'm inclined to believe (and hope) that he's not "suffering" (at least as we understand it) due to his soul being dead.
After fias battle we enter his dream so he is at the very least still somewhat conscious the lichdrahon dedicated the rest of his life trying to fight off godwyns deathblight before he too suffered the same fate.
As I learned from JoJo's "Last Train Home" ending, in Shinto religion the living and the dead are separated by a river. Godywn is half-undying and is thus stuck in this river, resulting in his increasingly aquatic features. The Tibia Mariner may also be explained by this phenomenon.
The tibia is also one of a pair of bones, the larger one in the lower leg. Kind of implies tibia mariners are like charon and take people down the larger side of the river, if that makes any sense.
The Sanzu! That was my first thought after watching the video, too! He is endlessly caught in the river that should, but never will, lead him to true death - and he's been trapped in this river for so long that the part of him that is still alive, his physical body, has begun to take an aquatic shape.
another mythos that has ties between death and water is that of greek and roman mythology, with the many rivers of the underworld, such as the Styx and Lethe. It's actually got an interesting real world connection, not just within japanese mythology
When you think about it, you start to see the same source of inspiration in so many japanese video games. Think about the Final Fantasy series, how many of the titles feature a "river" or "stream" of souls or life energy as a central part of the plot? And how all the troubles come from some villain blocking or hijacking said stream?
@@DezDies I got huge river styx ferryman vibes from the tibia mariners when I came across them as well
One of the creepiest moments in my gaming history is definitely when I first entered Prince of death arena down in deeproot Depths, didn't know what to expect as I was walking towards it the first time
that whole area was so utterly stunning
first time I buffed up on my first run bc I expected Godwyn to jump at me. then when Fia's champions showed up I let out the biggest "oh FUCK off" ever 😂 Fortissax kinda made up for it tho ig
Same, Deeproot Depths was awesome. Too bad the boss fights were so uninspired... I do really like Fortissax as a boss fight but at the end of the day he's just another Ancient Dragon with a few new moves.
A super creepy moment I had on my first playthrough was I fell off an upper tower in Stormveil into a pit and I ended up landing right in front of the Godwyn face down there. I just stared in silence as my game faded out having no idea what I just saw. I didn't even find the path down there normally on my first visit so for awhile I assumed I'd found something I wasn't supposed to see.
no need to exaggerate that much
The first connection, when seeing his transformation to a mermaid, that came to my mind, was Hans Christian Andersons 'Little Mermaid', where the mermaids are also said to have no soul and can't enter heaven just like Godwyn, whose soul died and can't return to the Erdtree.
Now that is interesting.
Eh. Seems pretty far fetched
@@Moody.Smiruai how? It makes sense, no soul turn into mermaid.
Damn, didnt know I was taking the Sessyoin route helping Fia.
@@Moody.Smiruai If anything that's the less far fetched comment i've seen on this video. The video itself doesn't even explain anything.
Entering in the arena where Godwyn is rotting is one the most nerve chilling moments in the entire game, as I was anticipating the his corpse will soon start moving towards me, almost disappointed it didn't in the end.
I love the little detail that the thorns of the vines throughout his body look like insect wings, like all the flies surrounding his carcass are being generated from it. It's like the Aristotelian theory of spontaneous generation, where rotting flesh will create flies and other pestilent creatures. It's also consistent with the idea of Godwyn signifying "life in death."
If and when Elden Ring gets DLC I would love to see Godwyn's story expanded upon, his character is probably the one that I find the most interesting.
His character or the circumstances about his death and the consequences? Honestly we know nothing about him.
@@OldGunter both really but more character, was there a particular reason Ranni chose to slay Godwyn or was he just a means to an end for her. I'm also curious to see the end result of his transformation, or is his place underground the end for him. Plus fighting him as an eldrich boss creature would be pretty cool.
If I were to hazard a guess, we will likely have a DLC that in some form or another makes us experience the Night of Black Knives. This might be literal time travel, like Oolacile in DS1 or, what I consider more likely, a dream recreation created by Miquella. Aside from being one of the incidents that set everything else in motion, it would provide amble opportunity to give us a better look at Godwyn and Marika, as well as Ranni's potential motivations for targeting Godwyn and of course maybe more relevantly, let us fight Godwyn.
@@TheTriforceDragon watch us be the "black knife" that kills Godwyn
New dlc coming this year is pretty much confirmed to be about Miquella and godwyn
Judging by the two Talismans, his face popping up upon the roots of the eurd tree and elsewhere in the world upon roots, it's clear he's a sort of infection, much like a mushroom. The first Talisman, you see his eyes taking form. However, on the second, you see multiple faces, showing that it's fully matured.
Prince of Death's Pustule Talisman: It is said that this pustule came from the visage of the Prince of Death, he who used to be called Godwyn. As First Dead of the demigods, it's said he's buried deep under the capital, at the Erdtree's roots.
Prince of Death's Cyst Talisman: It is said that this cyst came from the corrupted visage of one unable to die a true Death. Indeed, it comes from the Prince of Death, scion of the golden bough and First of the Dead among the demigods.
I had always assumed the "real" corpse is the one we see in deeproot depths, and the one under stormveil is his infection corrupting the roots and soil of the lands between. Deeproot Depths in general looks a lot like a collection of churches and mausoleums that house the remains of the most important deceased; I guess Godwyn would be no exception.
Not only that but Rogiere also says the Face we see below Stormveil is also Godwyn so it makes sense he pops up at several locations
@@EnvoyOfRot It's especially interesting if you consider Godwyn appearing there, infecting Stormveil, precisely because it's his youngest heir's castle, Godrick. Maybe he's even "withering" Godrick himself.
to be honest the one beneath storm veil castle is terrifying, theres an unnamed bloodstain down there that shows someone dying of Death Blight without the tendrils.
That's Rogier
I believe it appears if you play on offline mode.
@@saedt it’s rogier
Rogier
I didn’t think it was deathblight, i thought he was going though a worm face grab animation which would explain his loss of grace
Also note the similarities between Godwyn's cursed body, the knotted roots sometimes found in catacombs, and the deathroot item you find on specific enemies like Tibia Mariners. The knotted mass of root like structers are especially interesting. They have feathery tendrils similar to Godwyn's hair, and clouded, slitted "eyes" that resemble Godwyn's own.
The Godwyn under stormveil isn’t the only one. it’s actually implied that they grow, with deathroot being it’s first stage, just as the erdtree influences plant life Godwyns cursed corpse at its roots also brings forth cursed plant life.
The Erdtree is effectively a parasitic organism that came from space, which is fed by corpses that its roots absorb. Before the Erdtree, the bodies of the dead where burned up with Ghostflame by the Deathbirds, but this stopped when the Golden Order took over and bound the rune of Death, so that the corpses of the dead could be used to feed the Erdtree. The roots are trying to absorb Godwyn’s body, but because Ranni split the power of Death to kill her body and his soul, his body is still alive. It looks like his body is acting like a cancer, spreading through the roots of the Erdtree and leading to unwanted growths. These growths form the Deathroot and lead to Those who Live in Death, as the blighted roots are unable to properly absorb their bodies and souls.
The basilisk also resemble Godwyn’s lower half and spew Deathblight. So I’m pretty sure he’s the one who spawns them, or at the very least is becoming one in some way.
It actually says somewhere that deathroot originated from Godwyns corpse and spread through the greatree roots i think. Or maybe erdtree roots. One of the trees. That's how it popped up around the lands between. Then those who came in contact with the deathroot would become those who live in death. I was thinking that those that come in contact with the death root may not only be beings walking the lands, but those already dead buried under the ground. You see a lot if corpses rise from the ground near gravestones so perhaps the deathroot came in contact with them.
Godwin soul is at the helphen tree, but can his body still move? I remember some descripltions describing his power
You've mentioned this 'stagnant water' theme is present in Bloodborne, Sekiro, and now Elden Ring, but it's also in one more place: Dark Souls III. "The Deep" as a concept was always pretty ambiguous, but things associated with The Deep are all decaying, rotted, or in some ways decrepit. Deep-related flavour text in the game often refers to 'dregs' of things, for instance. And of course in real life the deep sea is a scary place full of weird monstrosities, so it fits!
Crucifixion woods is also pretty stagnant
And “dregs” are specifically the sediments at the bottom of a still water-for example the bits of grape or barley that settle out of poorly filtered wine/beer are dregs. Or the dead crap that sinks to the bottom of an ocean or swamp.
Well, the deep probably has less to do with 'stagnation' and more to do with 'abandonment' or 'lostness'. It's not the stagnant water itself , but rather, it refers to how refuse and the trash can eventually fall to the bottom of the ocean that were once just normal objects on ships that didn't even dip below the water.
Falling such a long way puts you under massive pressure that twists and contorts most things, and living things take on the forms of monsters (by normal standards) just to survive the extreme depths. That's why you can see the familiar settings of the world in the dreg heap, but also wholly alien things as well.
The deep and the dregs are all stated to be 'heavy' as well as the souls of humanity taking on 'hard physical form' (you can even refer to DS1 for this, as the dark flame was a physical attack, reminiscent of the soul). The common theme with anything referring to the deep is how things sink to the bottom and settle on a proverbial layer of dense human dregs. Spells connected to the dregs drudge them up to seek humanity.
In the most simply way I can think of, the dregs are the 'fall of humanity' in a literal sense, and what we see in DSIII is after humanity has descended to the point of no return. Everything is stripped away except for the hard, dense soul of man. It's not because the soul can survive, but probably because everything else has been crushed, eaten, or torn away by the forces around it.
And, of course, there is no fire in the deep. Perhaps, not just humanity, but the deep represents the whole world falling into an dark, black, sunless ocean. Without a proper age of dark to properly reset things, that is the new, unnatural, course the world is taking.
I think its lovecraftian notions intermingled with Japanese cultural references which makes perfect sense.
Is the Deep actually connected to the Abyss in the world of Dark Souls or is it its own concept?
I remember thinking in the trailer the 2nd octopus like structure was some sort of statue that lead to an important boss.
I also remember when i saw malenia in the trailer i was so hyped for her boss fight thinking it would be the same level of fun as friede.
@@zarfo2667 You think Friede is fun?
@@tuncqboi we`re souls players, some level of masochism is necessary to enjoy these games.
@@luka_unleashed307 I mean… I just really hate fighting Friede so I find it hard to like fighting here haha. I actually look forward to fighting Gael every time tho.
@@tuncqboi Friede is definitely more fun fight than Malenia, playing hide and seek in 1st phase that satisfaction when you find her and invisibility is gone and whack her 3-4 times before she can recover is simply unmatched
TBH, the most terrifying thing about his design is that he is not a boss. Not matter how fearsome he was, if we could kill him over and over again, watching videos of people soloing him lvl 1 without items, no hit, no summons, no magic, he would eventually just become another boss. But being a silent presence of something bigger devouring everything else, including himself, when there is nothing we can do to stop it, is much more threatening. There wasn't even any reason for him to be murdered in the first place over other demigods. Everything about his character is sad and bizarre end it will continue to be this way.
Truee
I think he was specifically targeted because he was the goldenboy of the golden order he was heavily favored by Marika and cherished by all so Ranni probably thought it would be an extra slight to murder him as opposed to say godrick who no one really cares about
Tarnished Archeologist theorized that Ranni was next in line to take Marika’s place and Godwin next Elden Lord.
Super fascinating theory about how the next god must be a female who will be literally birthing new life, fathered by the elden lord (yeah, I know this doesn’t really work for non-male player characters), but does make sense if you notice Marika has a spear through her womb, and all 3 empyrions are women, or have a female other half.
When Ranni says “I would not be controlled by that thing” she may have actually been talking about her physical body, since its only use would be for the womb after her arranged marriage to Godwin. Super interesting!
Still…. It wasn’t Godwins fault. Still feel bad for him.
@BRUXXUS hate to break it to you but miquella "most fearsome empryean" is a dude
@@collincaperton6718 Well yeah, characters speak of them as a little boy, but he's also St.Trina, which is .... confusing. Also, Mohg kidnapping Miquella makes more sense when you consider that somehow... he/they/she have some ability to have children in some form. I think Mohg knows this, but it's not working because... he's attempting to make himself the lord and consort to Miquella, when he really needs to figure out how to accesss St.Trina... Hopefully the DLC will give us some more info on this whole weird thing! If it ever comes out. :/
Man I like that theme
If the Undead Mariners harbor lost souls across the waters of Death, Godwyn's the monster that lives in those waters
Ooo that description gave me chills. Probably because I hate the ocean
There's a theme of of sea or aquatic life in general throughout the entire game. Many larger enemies are animals that are usually aquatic (the giant crabs and lobsters, the land octopuses, and the squirts which seem to be some type of mollusk). There is of course Godwyn's corpse and the Tibia Mariners mentioned in the video. And it's something that struck me about Caelid when I first found it.
Caelid is basically a giant coral reef. There are many giant, squishy, (presumably) organic structures that litter Caelid that are basically land coral. Not to mention how the kindred of rot look like giant shrimp. Since the Rot isn't the only thing associated with this "Land Sea Life", and how things like flowers and butterflies are also associated with Rot, it might be a trend with the outer gods in general, similar to how Bloodborne associates its gods with sea life as a reference to Lovecraft.
Another example is how the Elden Beast is similar to a whale, or other aquatic mammals, for instance. It might also just be a reference to how the ocean is basically the birthplace for all other forms of life.
And the birthplace of all life is subsequently the birthplace of death
Fun fact for ya the land squirts are based off tunicates or sea squirts, which actually aren't mollusks but very primitive chordates making them more closely related to us than mollusks.
the big organic structures of caelid are fungi, scarlet rot its basically a fungal infection, so caelid its literally on shrooms, the kindred are more like hermit crabs mixed with centipedes, looks almost like they wear a shell on their heads i think thats because best conditions for fungi are humid ones, and the rot also liquifies and makes swamps, so the kindred of rot its adapted to live in the conditios that suit rot and that the rot brings,
and for the elden beast i think they wanted to go for a primeval/alien kinda vibe, and that for us land mammals its always gonna resemble acuatic lifeforms, visually its more like a cluster of stars, there is a galaxy that its very reminiscent of the form of the elden beast
Just as Malenia becomes a true, mortal manifestation of an outer god that is a rival of the Greater Will and its mortal god (Marika), perhaps Godwyn is a manifestation of an outer god of uneath that is similarly trying to gain influence, as the former does with the scarlet rot. What, I wonder, exactly is Fia trying to get us to do by introducing her rune of undeath (not the same as the rune of death that Maliketh guards; I suspect this may be a weakness of the localization) to the golden order? Form a collaboration between the two? No undead creatures ever speak to us or so much as stand idly by; they all attack on sight. Yet, she acts like they're being oppressed. I don't understand.
@@Corrodias yeah Elden ring has a lot of confusing concepts imo
Godwyn takea the cake on these "post-shattering fates" the gods had, like, radahn became a husk of himself, godrick started the grafting hunts, radagon fused with marika, but godwyn became something else entirely, a totally unrecognizable corpse that sprung miles taller than he was when he died, and even then, his existance was so putrid, so vile, it cursed the lands between with a new godlike presence that only spreads death and putrification
We dont know if radagon fused with marika or always was
@@xeibei4804 Its been a minute since I last saw it but I remember there being something either an item or a dialog somewhere that confirms that they always were the same entity
@@stuffbuyer The take I had was that, before her ascension to godhood, marika/radagon was a singular entity that could take the form of male or female (attributed to the alchemical REBUS, half man, half woman) and that her new power was so great, she was able to give life to some of the desires and wants in the body of a man outside of the direct control of the greater will, something she quickly recognized as being more malevolent than good. They became two bodies that shared a soul and a goal. Everything that happens in the lore is directly attributable to Marika's desire to end her connection to the greater will. Every step allowed Radagon, who had flourished and become even more powerful on his own, to draw closer to lend her the power to shatter the elden ring, but the plan didn't work the way they expected, and they were then forced back into a complete and whole body and this time under the complete control of the greater will.
@@stuffbuyer isnt the in-game quest for the golden order a confirmation of that at its end?
@@derricktitley3784 Radagon and Marika, although of the same being, were not of the same mind. In the opening cinematic, we see an image of Marika shattering the Elden Ring, followed by a very similar image of Radagon (distinguishable by his red hair), trying to mend it.
It also seems that Radagon did not leave Rennala entirely of his own volition, as he left his Beast Companion (The Red Wolf of Radagon) behind to protect her, as well as his Greater Rune (which Rennala uses to rebirth her students, and the player).
They really f*cked his sh*t up. No wonder Marika had a meltdown.
He ain't deserve that shit ngl
@@flamaros1987😢
If they off screened Godwyn, and not any other child of Marika, he had to have been absolutely broken in terms of abilities. I imagine that If Godwyn was a boss that you could fight. He'd be on a higher difficulty than Melania or Radhan.
@@portagasdace21117 Lorewise he's a pretty big deal. He was a major reason the golden order defeated the ancient dragons. Its a shame we didn't get him as a boss in shadow of the erdtree. He would have been so much better in place of what we got for the final boss.
@@splinter360 They could have done something like what they did for the Detlaff fight in The Witcher 3. In Detlaffs final phase when he pulls you into his weird blood cocoon, you have to destroy these beating hearts. Something similar like that would have been sick for a Godwyn fight, where there's no actual ''traditional'' boss for you to fight, instead you're just trying to destroy Godwyn's soulless husk as ''it'' defends itself with lots of deathblight and smaller enemies. Sounds gimmicky, but a competent dev team should be able to make that work.
This is trippyyyy, I would NEVER have been able to understand this design if you hadn't moved it into the light and done this free-cam work all around it, so BIG thanks for that!!
One of the more bizarre designs in a game full of bizarre designs.
Thanks for all the information Zullie! Glad there's a new game for you to snoop around in.
His arms and tail are pretty close to the ones on Basilisks, and the way his body in Stormveil is positioned also kind of reflects them. I'm not sure if he's turning into a Basilisk, or if Basilisks are images of him, but there seems to be some sort of connection.
Edit: and that's not even mentioning that Basilisks literally have his eyes.
Yeah, I was thinking that same thing, that there's some commonality between their appearances
And you erupt into the same mass of thorny vines that Godwyn produces when you're afflicted with Death by the basilisks.
Are the basilisks from godwyn or is he turning into a basilisk?
Maybe the Basilisks are a direct result of his corruption of the Erdtree’s roots. They spew mist that kills you in the same fashion as Godwyn appears, which means they’re tied to Deathroot. Given that fact, they couldn’t have existed before Godwyn was killed and buried, meaning they’re probably some kind of offspring of his corpse/the roots themselves
That would explain the addition of eyelids to their look in this game, compared to the Dark Souls trilogy.
It’s really scary when you think about the power of Godywn’s influence. The deathroots in Faram Azula, proves that his influence transcends time and space. That’s nuts.
The beast clergyman can be given death root, and is probably Maliketh. So he could have potentially planted it?
@@Clockwithhands829 Why in anyone's right mind would Maliketh/Gurranq, KNOWN EATER OF DEATHROOT, ever plant Deathroot in Farum Azula?
I’m fascinated by the implications of water in Elden ring. Flowing, clean water has the power (if only metaphorically) to quell the Scarlet Rot, which itself is represented by stagnant water. I’m curious to see how the “death-water” fits into that equation
These connections are because pf Japanese belief in a concept called Kegare which appears in Shinto. Kegare means ritual impurity and stagnation. Stagnant water is pretty much the main source of it and running water has the opposite connotation of purifying things.
This is also similar to the concept of "the deep" in Dark Souls 3. Which was also based on kegare.
Malenia bout to bottle that rot water and sell it on ebay to fund a Miquella rescue mission.
Now that I think about it the “lakes” and ponds in elden ring are extremely low besides it being essential to the gameplay could it be because of the erdtree taking up vast amounts of water from the land?
@@scleless1342 This is basically the whole plot of Sekiro
@@Sujamma_Enjoyer I doubt it, the land doesn't seem to have the capacity to serve a deep lake
I really hope Godwyn gets more time in the spotlight in DLC. For someone so core to the backstory of the entire game, very little is known about him, or what he has become
Fia does say he will soon be reborn. Into what, is the question...
I think that rebirth is just her way of saying the Mending Rune she produces will create a new world, through and for those that live in death.
I would be very suprised if we don't get a Godwyn fight at some point in the DLC
He and Miquella needs more spotlight both histories are really cool to be honest
@@ianwilliams2632 Mohg says the same thing about Miquella. From are always very intentional with their wording.
One thing I'm curious about regarding godwyn is whether or not he's conscious. Is he aware of what's happening or, without a soul. Is he more like a tree that just sort of grows and spreads without thinking?
As I understand it, his soul is dead, so Godwyn is no more. His body remains alive, but is, uh, going through a phase.
Maybe halfway? In the Dark Souls trilogy and Demon's Souls losing your souls didn't mean dying but it meant going mad, mindless, those who live in death are also mad and attack the player, however, Godwyin's body shows's no signs of life at all, he grows and spreads through the roots of the Erdtree to the entirity of the lands between.
I think he's like a tree- we have lots of thematic connections between the demigods and plants. And he's literally tree-like in several ways, like how he's the source of the Deathroot
It is said that he is perished in soul while Ranni died phisically, so most likely his concoiusnes is gone, but the body remais alive.
If you attack Fia, you are attacked by vengeful spirits (the same from Rancor spells) and she says "Godwyn, is that you?", implying she isn't the one casting the spell. I think it's fair to believe his body is alive in some sense.
I like how Godwyn's mermaid features, combined with the death of his soul, are a reference to some of our mermaid folklore (that is, that they are soulless).
Didnt know mermaids were supposed to be soulless. Interesting
@@CrimsonTear1996 In the original Hans Christian Anderson The Little Mermaid one of the key plot points is that mermaids don't have a soul.
@@KosOrSomeSayKosmo ooo fascinating I’ll have to check that out
@@KosOrSomeSayKosmo Yeah, they didn't have souls and so when they died their body would turn into sea foam.
In the original "The Little Mermaid" story recorded by Hans Christian Anderson, the little mermaid failed to get the prince to marry her and so she ended up dying alone on the beach and her body turned into sea foam.
There ARE some versions of the story where even though the little mermaid failed to get the prince to fall in love with her and she dies as a result, God takes pity on her and grants her a soul so that she can go to heaven.
I’ve been waiting for this one! Godwyn is one of the most interesting characters IMO.
Yeah I agree but im a lot more interested in Miquella tbh. Im curious if we can fight godwyn in DLC or smth
I feel terrible for him. Might be unlikely, but I hope his story is somehow expanded upon in DLC.
@@leopepsi2625 To be honest, both look like corpses. Yet both are separately alluded to be becoming _more_ than they were.
i wonder why, cause i had to think about the name to even remember that he was part of...anything
@@Exel3nce That’s what makes him so interesting! Some of the very few things we know about him is his unique design and the fact his death has a very important impact on the overall story. There really isn’t too much else outside of speculation but that means his story can still be expanded upon in DLC!
I saw the face of Godwyn underneath Stormveil as a sort of “infection” of Deathroot in the Erdtree that was spreading along its roots, taking the form of growths in the shape of his face.
I don’t believe it’s a second Godwyn, as 1.) the eyes are hollow and almost look like seed pods, and 2.) it’s just missing a lot of the details like clothing and hair that the one underneath the Erdtree has. If it’s a previous iteration of his design, it doesn’t make sense that it is also present in the world.
Instead of an infection, would it not be possible for it to be a result of Godrick’s grafting experiments. Maybe when he fled from the capital he brought with him a piece of Godwin, a demigod that is very close to the idea of Godfrey. Maybe after settling in limgrave, Godrick found out the small part started growing and decided to leave it in the depths of the castle, where it would not be able to be a danger while still allowing easy access to it for experiments
This infection take is pretty much exactly how I interpreted it as well. As an aside, stumbling upon the face underneath Stormveil is generally my favourite moment of the entire game, as it's the best example in Elden Ring of the horror slant aesthetic that defines so many of the Souls games.
It could also be that the body beneath stormveil is shed skin Godwyn discarded before heading beneath the Erdtree.
Also, there are some areas where you can find the same face on the backs of crab enemies.
Maybe it was like a test subject. Like, look man we do not know if this s**t is going to work so let's test it with some random guy to see if it works. I mean it would be embarrasing doing everything to the end stab him and not killing him.
There are Giant Crabs that inflict the Death status effect, and just like Godwyn, they too have patches of golden hair.
I recall there being one to the south of the Tibia Mariner near Liurnia's Divine Tower, and another being in the lake where you find Boggard in Altus Plateau.
They also have warped faces on them. Godwyn is basicly a cancer.
One of those killed dung eater while I was fighting him
@@elitedonut1089 That is how most people usually find out the Crab exists in the first place xD
200+ hours and I somehow never seen these Death crabs
"In order to get a better look at him, let's take him above ground.. somewhere brighter..."
NO. LET'S NOT. PUT HIM BACK.
I think the explanation for his corpse being both below Stormveil Castle and Leyndell is fairly simple: his corpse is growing through the Erdtree/Greattree's roots.
If you look close to anything blighted by Death (Deathroot, pustules, creatures infected by Death, ect) you can see not only roots, but fins, even eyes, so it's clear that Godwyn's corpse is growing in parts across all of the Lands Between. Which is metal as fuck.
Yup this was my interpretation as well after seeing the corpse in deeproot depths and the barky face under stormveil. Then i saw the crabs with his face on his back and it basically confirmed it for me that Godwyn's corpse is acting like a fungal parasite to the Erdtree.
He's literally sprouting at the surface from the same roots of the Erdtree and bringing the curse of those who live in death with him whenever he surfaces.
"Godwyn's unusual form may start to make some sense when viewed as part of a recurring theme."
Yeah, the theme that water is fucking freaky and everything that comes out of it is the devil.
No wonder you almost always die by stepping into it.
Also true for real life!
Even the Bible has a hate on for large bodies of water. It's where evil dwells symbolically. The Book of Revelation says after the end times, when all is restored, the "sea will be no more".
The half-dead Godwyn's design is something that just makes me endlessly curious. It's such an insane look to me that I just want to know everything I can about it. I just can't stop staring at it.
You have to remember that this is no longer Godwyn. This is the Prince of Death, a physical manifestation of a fragment of Destined Death that was used to kill Godwyn's soul. He stopped being Godwyn when he was assassinated and his soul was destroyed. This is Destined Death incarnate. If you want to know why his body now looks like this, it's because this is what Destined Death (perhaps even death as a concept) apparently looks like. For all intents and purposes, Godwyn is long-dead. Even Fia can only restore him as the Prince of Death, and she 'gives birth' to the Mending Rune of the Prince of Death, not Godwyn the Golden.
I will never forget the feeling I had when coming across his corpse underground. I had such an unsettling feeling of dread and terror thinking I was about to fight some horrific beast that would kill me in one strike. Then I breathed a sigh of relief that it was just the newest version of the Gank Squad. And then was absolutely thrilled to fight an awesome dragon boss later.
I’m fairly sure they’d make us fight that thing in this arena later on. After all, it is a stationary model, implying it needs to be removed at some point
Maybe it’s like a cocoon for the real Godwyn
I adore your musical choices. They always seem to set the right tone to your discoveries.
The thing I find interesting and something very few,if any,point out is that his body didn't move from the picture of his assassination. Perpetually stuck in the same pose as his dying breath as if the roots themselves lifted him into that position since we see him on the ground after the stabbing.
How long has it been since his death? Maybe the tree just... Grow and he got stuck on it, it's probably not but that's just my first thought
I had never heard of King's Field before this, this is some of the best VGM to ever hit my ears, what a gem. Thanks for sharing
I loved it! It made the whole scene more atmospheric and kinda made me more curious about the elden ring world
Play KF4 (which this song comes from) and feel how much atmosphere that game has! Its so amazing!
Another thing to mention: In Welsh mythology, bodies of water were considered to be portals to the otherworld. Welsh myth definitely had influence on the game, else you won't have a character with a "dd" in his name pronounced "th".
I mean the game is fucking packed with Welsh accented characters, so that's pretty obvious.
?? Which character was that?
@@TheGirlInFandomWorld Blaidd. His name is pronounced "blaith"
@@smergthedargon8974 ... I've been pronouncing it wrong this whole time.
@@TheGirlInFandomWorld Not surprised - Welsh spelling is a bit strange!
I think one of the most interesting and somewhat horrifying aspects to Godwyn's corpse is that nobody can really explain it.
Sure everyone has their theories but nobody can really look at the in-game evidence and give an argument for why he appears as such because the game doesn't act like it knows either. It just seems to be some horror of nature, like there wasn't any purpose or reason, this is just the form he took
Actually, a while ago, a redditor pointed out the obvious similarity between Godwyn's corpse shape, and the shape of the lands between map. Sadly, I can't manage to find the reddit post. Anyway, in order for you to see it, you've got to horizontaly reverse godwyn's body, and compare its shape to the shape of the lands between. You will see that his head = the mountaintops of the giants, his torso = Liurna basically, and his fish tail = caelid and the other lower region of the map (forgot the name). Even his eye = the city of leyndell. Once you see it, it becomes obvious. (The only parts of his body which don't match anything are his two arms).
It could be due to the fact that Godwyn's corpse is growing under the ground, and therefore taking the shape of the landscape. It seems like the most plausible theory to me.
@@astrumos88 Also the map of the lands between is supposed to resemble Pangaea, could be that his body is taking on a more primordial looking form of that world.
I was gonna say. In the trailer he look about average size for a human. (compared to the assassins who killed him anyway) but how does he turn into a giant fish man is the real question..
@@astrumos88 also the shape of the Multiplayer Fingers (i.e. Festering Finger), which are subsequently in the shape of the map too
@@kevinfortsch maybe without the soul of a demigod the body couldn't contain its powers anymore and this happened
I like the idea that Godwyn's soulless husk has gotten caught up in or otherwise jammed up the soul recycling systems of the Erdtree Roots. I do like the idea that Stormveil Godwyn might be the original though since it would contextualize the presence of Dragon Communionists at Stormveil.
What dragon communionists at stormveil and how would his corpse contextualize them? Do you mean the banished knights? Because I think what we're seeing is the opposite of what you think. I'm like 90% banished knights are the original army of limgrave, hence them all having storm based attacks, but only the ones outside of stormveil being into blood or dragon communion
Something I noticed is that Erdtree roots have entwined mummified remains, while Deathroots have entwined skeletons. I like to imagine that the Erdtree feeds on souls leaving bodies, while the Deathroots feed on bodies leaving souls. They are two sides of a coin.
@@Ezekiel_Allium There are banished knights in stormveil dressed in dragon communion robes around their helmets and who use dragon communion seals to cast dragon communion incantations. They are not easy to find without extensive exploration, though. They are mainly on the ramparts, specifically the ones which require some parkour and effort to actually reach.
@@binbows2258 huh, I think I've been where you are talking about but I never noticed them using dragon communion spells.
Still doesn't explain why OP thinks they would be contextualized by Godwyn as well
@@Ezekiel_Allium if I'm not mistaken Godwyn basically started all the dragon communion and dragon cult stuff after he befriended Fortissax, so it would make sense that dragon cultists would gather around Godwyn's corspe, as he was pretty important to them
I remember falling off something in Stormveil castle and as my body hits the bottom and I die I see THIS at the bottom. That event left quite an impression.
I did the same thing and just sat there staring as the screen faded to black lol
Never in my souls career have I serious stopped and didn’t want to keep moving forward. That’s how jarring the body of godwyn was for me. They have some pretty horrifying shit in these games but this one seriously made me question whether or not I really wanted to see what would happen when I got close to it
The body under Stormveil or the one in Deeproot Depths? Because when I saw the Stormveil face I was sprinting away from the Tree Spirit and didn't really care where I ended up, the face was a footnote.
Deeproot depths was trepidatious approach but the fight after was definitely not what I expected and Fia being there kind of made it.... Uh... Make homely. Nothing like hugging under the grotesque manifestation of death
I honestly had no idea wtf I was looking at when I first saw Godwyn. Even now I have difficulty seeing anything resembling humanity in its design. Like it just seemed like a mess of weird shit piled on top of each other initially. Had no idea the guy even had hands until I saw this video.
I love how this game mixes the story progression of Dark Souls and Bloodborne in a single game.
In all Dark Souls, you start in a quite neutral enviroment, facing weak-looking enemies in extremely mundane enviroments, but as the game progresses, it doesn't take long for you to be exploring insane and magical enviroments, with gorgeous aesthetics and facing gods, kings and epic monsters. You start from the mundane, and climb up to the top to face the rulers of this world and claim your place into the land.
In Bloodborne though, you're not exactly in a neutral enviroment from start. Everything has gone to hell and you have to face massive and powerful opponents, giant monsters and very skilled hunters. You're at a high point, really. But as you go further into the hunt, you slowly start to unravel things that are beyond comprehension, and slowly get face weirder and weirder creatures, in terrifying enviroments, with an opressing atmosphere. It's not about proving your worth, is more about learning the truths of the world and coming to the conclusion that you're a nobody and that some stuff are just too big for your mind to process. You start from neutral, but instead of conquering your place higher and higher, you uncover the mysteries going deeper and deeper.
Elden Ring somehow manages to mix both of these. You prove yourself time and time again, overcoming the demigods, one by one, the king, the giants, the dragons, you earn your place among the best of the best and the stronger your opponents get, they start to recognise you for getting this far, applauding you for being able to defeat them. But at the same time, something always feels... weird. The cosmic horror of Elden Ring occurs mostly on the background. It's in the enviromental stuff, it starts when you first encounters the underground lake. You slowly start to see how some shit are... just weird. How the stars fall off the sky when you kill Radahn, how Ranni's quest leads you to an underground city with an alien star creature, how Mogh reaches into nothing and pierces an omnipresent being of pure blood, and then you get to the bottom with this shit. What the hell even is Godwyn now? Something happened here, something that shouldn't... be. Elden Beast and the endings (specially Flame of Frenzy) just contribute to that. You basically have all the glory of the epic fantasy and all the weirdness of the cosmic horror. You earn your place among the rulers of the world, but you also get a notion of how little you know about this world and how big the scale of this universe really is. I personally love it.
Mohg doesn’t pierce an omnipresent being? He just is the lord of blood I think
@@ogiebear8484 No he does, he stabbing into "The Formless Mother" whenever he uses bloodflame spells.
@@ogiebear8484 look at the description of his spear. It's bizarre to know that, but whenever he reaches his hands and they disappear (look at the animation) he's penetrating the formless mother's flesh, and when he throws blood at you, it's her blood. It's the same thing you do when you use the weapon art, it's one of the creepiest things in the game when you think about it.
I really like where your head is at here. I'd love to hear some more flushed out thinking on this idea.
@@heyfell4301 yeah especially when she is “formless”, really strange
Man, I beg for him to become a Final or Secret DLC Boss… His design, lore, and just the thought of what he could do during battle… He would be the most Bloodborne-ish boss in Elden Ring.
I just want the poor guy to be at total rest. He was a cool dude who ended a war by becoming friends with the other side. Then his half sister had him assassinated as part of some insane plan.
@@Nothingseen and thats Why rannis simps are the worst
With bosses like this, I wish he would have jumpscares and overall ''horror'' to his arena. Imagine when progressing to his boss arena, you get jumpscared, or weird shit starts to happen like reversed controls. Things that actually break the game. On lovecraftian horror level.
The “eyes” of the death-spewing Basilisks and their scaled/webbed bodies lead me to think that Godwyn is turning into a giant Basilisk demigod.
This is so incredibly interesting and I've BEEN obsessing over whatever Godwyn's forms looked like and why- the motif of rebirth is always so interesting in From games, but why he alone has this was so interesting for me! Super well done as always.
After his Erdtree burial, because Godwyn's corpse is a physical body that won't die. As the roots absorbed it, it merged with the tree roots, and is growing all over as Deathroot.
Anywhere that Deathroot is growing in Elden Ring, you can see the eyes and other features of Godwyn upon it. Wyndham has a number of places where the Deathroot features are fairly visible and well-lit if you want to check it out.
Stormvale Castle is covered in those Deathroot thorns, and another more complete growth of Godwyn's body forming in the crypt (giving you the weaker version of the Prince of Death's talisman to show that it's a growth rather than the original in Deeproot Depths).
That one is related to the themes of Grafting, as Godrick is making himself like a tree built of other parts of sacrificed people. This means that pieces of the sacrificed bodies are still alive even after their souls have passed on.
It's likely why that thorny corruption started at Stormvale, and why that's where Rogier started investigating, leading to the schism in viewpoint about Those Who Live In Death between himself, Fia, & D.
I really like the comparison between godrick and a tree, that's very interesting
Not only that, but Roderica mentions the anguish of souls involved in the grafting.
Godwyn has basically become a giant tumor, deathroot and undeath is contagious magical cancer.
@@CM-hx5dp I like the cancer comparison, he seems to behave very much like a malignant cancer cell that grows and spreads without any greater design
Something I found interesting was the prominence of ants in Deeproot Depths (kind of a redundant name, now that I think about it, lol). Many species of ants will defend their native stalk by trimming back competitor plants, and it seems these here have been busy doing just that to protect the Erdtree.
Fromsoft always seems to use aquatic themes to convey a profound feeling of sadness and suffering, in addition to stagnation, like Zullie said. When I saw this video, I immediately drew parallels to the Orphan of Kos. Both part land dwelling, part aquatic, and both locked in a torturous state of stagnation. Kos with the Hunters Nightmare, and Godwyn with his undeath.
I might be grasping at straws here, but I feel as if the awkward split between the aquatic and land dwelling that both characters seem to have is symbolic of the fact that they’re caught between the two worlds of life and death. They belong neither to the sea nor the land completely, and so too do they exist neither in life nor in death. Stagnant as the waters they exhibit traits of.
This also, to a degree, matches up with themes from Dark Souls 3's Church of the Deep.
Poor godwyn, he is the very reason I hunt down every single black knife in this game
The fog that emerges when you conclude this storyline is beginning to make sense - realizing that the curse of undeath and water are somehow intertwined in the Lands Between.
This game takes so much from Celtic mythology (as well as japanese myth of course) but for sure water is really important to Celtic lore. I think they believed water led to the underworld, and there are hundreds of Celtic ritual burials in rivers and bogs.
Water Level DLC?
@@-feonix48-47 isn't there some crazy maelstrom-like swirling storm/whirlpool on the map in the inaccessible portion, where the sea would be near mt gelmir?
@@LolLordy I don’t know for certain but I’ll take your word for it, could also be the cloud in the middle but that’s obviously not a revelation at this point. Exciting regardless
It would’ve been worth it to examine the deathroot that seems to be growing more Godwyn corpses. And the death crabs with his face on them.
the WHAT CRABS?
@@tyrant351 there aren't any, he is talking shit.
Don't forget the Prince of Death's Pustule and Cyst
@@tyrant351 There are a bunch of them; it's creepy. I know there are a few near body of water where Blackguard Boggart sells you boiled crabs.
There are crabs in Japan that have shells that resemble faces and traditionally they’re said to be the faces of dead samurai
Yes. I've been looking forward to you dissecting Godwyn
I tripped into these little lore/reveal videos and I'm loving them. Thank you for all the effort Zullie!
Things like this really start to make me wonder what kinds of things got planned but never made it to the finish. Between this, and the cosmic nature of the elden beast and astel, it feels like there's still some untapped weirdness to elden ring
Astel was an absolute haymaker in terms of "weird shit i did. Not expect to find"
DLC2: A American Tarnished in Yharnam
The Tarnished, at Ranni's side, portaling in during The Night of the Hunt.
Ranni: "Hey bitches heard there was some elder god shit going down here. Who needs a good killing?"
I never noticed the half-shut eyeballs to the side of Godwyn in your opening shot, wow what a disturbing detail.
Also glad I wasn't alone in my initial reading of Godwyn's bizarre head shape to be clam or scallop-like, him being a kitbash of sea creatures is an interesting choice and I wonder what it means for the Crucible, the Greattree, and the nature of Death in Elden Ring.
I always saw Godwyn's body changing into 'mermaid' as a reflection of where his body currently is: near the underground rivers at the roots of Erdtree. Without a soul to anchor it, in some way, I think the body just mindlessly adapts to water, the way some plants grow differently when on land or in the water.
Also thank you for the new nightmares brought by seeing Godwyn in bright light.
I don't know why this came back to me, but I remember hearing a long time ago that clams can usually tell when water becomes polluted. I wonder if in some strange way Godwyn's supposed to be like some representation of the end of the Golden Age. Might also explain the deathblight. Nothing but death and disease can run through stagnant water. Do admit this could just be me reaching though. Lol. Awesome video as always!
I will never know true terror in a game like when I first walked into that massive field of blight and saw his corpse. I thought it would move and I had to fight it. The real boss battle was so disappointing, but I've never felt actual fear in a game until I saw that thing and thought it would come alive. Amazing work from FromSoft in that aspect
For a while, I literally could not comprehend what the form even WAS, it’s the closest thing to an Eldritch horror I saw in a game, pretty sure we’ll all go mad if we look too long or closely at it.
If you do Fia's questline you'll fight a much cooler boss in that location then those 3 npc's you're referring to.
@@7413321 Lichdragon Fortissax. Was a very cool fight. But I'm referring to the first time coming upon him, and getting that as a result
Wdym? Lichdragon was dope as hell
@@MalachiLper You will enjoy Bloodborne then if you want to see more Eldritch Horror.
I think it also speaks to the theme of "soul-less-ness" in Souls games too: bodies without their soul "go bad" somehow (depending on the game and its lore). So there's that.
Also, the design reminds me of that mermaid hoax where some guy stiched together a monkey and fish.
Seems very likely that Godwyn and Miquella are going to serve as the focus of their own respective DLCs
This song is absolutely terrifying in conjunction with this imagery. It makes me feel things like memories of nightmares from childhood.
I love how the design choices of Elden Ring double as lore, same with all other of FromSoft's soulsborne games. These weird design choices imply a mechanism behind them within the context of the world that results in this kind of weird shit, and is so much more interesting for it.
Loving the fact that you are using King's Field OST, I found it incredibly atmospheric
I was curious as to the music used in this video. Might you give me more details? Thank you.
@@Rummystiltskin Kings Field its the first From Software series, considered the ancestor of the souls series. the gameplay did not age very well (first person action RPG from the psx era, just saying) but its better that it seems and have a great atmosphere, especially the fourth chapter from which is taken the music in this video
@@kachiban980 Fourth Chapter. Got it. I knew about King's Field and its history, but not familiar with the music. I see now its time to do a dive into the soundtracks. Thank you for the help and reply.
Edit: it's time*
The closest resemblance to Godwyn's warped body to me is actually the Basilisks, longtime resident of the Souls series. I think his design was inspired by them greatly (they share the same weird bent finned arms with stubby clawed hands, and Basilisks now even have pale gold/green hair on their backs) , and in turn they probably originate from him in this game, being capable of spewing death and having the same odd reptilian/aquatic features. And, most obviously, they share the same general shape to their eyes. Beyond that though, Basilisks are almost bizarrely out of place in this game with, as far as I know, absolutely nothing to hint to why they're all over the Lands Between surviving in the most annoying of places.
As for the connection between Godwyn, death, and water, the other thing to note is that while the roots of the Erdtree where he lies spreads throughout the Lands Between, so does the water running underground around the Erdtree. It might explain the recurring Tibia Mariners and the prevelance of deathblighted ruins around bodies of water. Even the Tibia Mariner in the Mountain of Giants is technically near a body of water - the frozen river that travels between the Mountaintop and the Consecrated Snowfield.
water is good but too much of it or its stillness causes rot and decay.
Both the Erdtree and the Haligtree are planted in/real close to huge bodies of water as well. The Haligtree is nearly in the ocean.
I find it VERY interesting that we can also find a Godwyn in the Death Knight's boss room/inside his dungeon. I wish we got a DLC about Godwyn. Feels like there's so much more to uncover
I feel like they kinda cut some major content , at least connecting to the base game, the fact that there's absolutely no one in the base game acknowledging what you did is really disappointing .It's still very fun , but people are dying to see more Godwyn and Melina for such a long time then all we got is more Marika backstory at the end . And I wish there are more actual dialogue interactions with Miquella too😢
Love his design.
When I discovered the head in Stormveil I was instantly reminded of the classic 'pagan greenman' face. Which, being a forest deity explained the rampant overgrow of thorns. Them growing from a 'dead' god also helped explain the rotten visage of the thing.
Anyway as soon as I found it I was enthralled. The moment was made even more memorable as I was frantically running from and avoiding the rotten tree beast. 10/10 experience.
This is awesome, informative, and entertaining content. I very much enjoy learning more and more about these games, especially the theme of stagnation. Thank you, Zullie!
I believe the “fishlike” scales are a result of both his and Fortisaxx’s corpses mending or grafting together in a way after death.
But why would it be a fish tail instead of dragon tail
I think it’s related to the crucible
A source of life that was subdued by the erdtree
Hence why the aspect of the crucible incantations draw upon multiple life forms.
I believe his father Godfrey is actually a crucible and not human. Firstly it doesn’t make sense how the omen twins get the curse out of no where as from birth they never actually interfered with the crucible tree like the misbegotten. Secondly the fish like tail may actually be his legs which implies he has crucible genes. Lastly when fighting hoaruh loux he uses earthquake/stone magic similar to gurranq and has a lion like roar. That’s what I think.
Elden Beast has a similar fish like tail and also swims and dive in "water"
@@thelionofjudah5318 1. its impossible to be the crucible, the crucible is the primordial form of the Erdtree
2. gurranq and beastial incantations are not related to the crucible
3. his lion-like roar could come from the Lion serosh, who he has somehow fused into himself
4. godwyn does not have fish tail for legs. godfrey and marika do not have fish tails. also he would have been banished into the shunning grounds beneath leyndell for possessing traits of the crucible, much like the Omens
5. the Omens do not come from Godfrey. that doesnt make any sense. how would they all come from godfrey
I always thought that because his body was still alive, just soulless.
His body is acting on pure muscle memory, instinct, and randomness.
Which not only explains his new features. But his body ended up breaking his neck so badly, it healed with his head upside down and his hair just waiting from his head to lower jaw.
Miyazaki and his love for creepy fish lore XD
You can find mounds of what looks like the deathroot thorns with half-closed eyelids containing similar cloudy grey eyes in the same room as the chest with the Old Lord talisman in Farum Azula, right behind where Bernahl invades. I have to wonder why those assets were included in Farum Azula though
One factor I haven't seen mentioned is the fact that due to the common metaphor of death as crossing a river - whether that be Styx in Greek mythology or Sanzu in Japanese - it would make sense that a state of undeath, to be between life and death, would locate you in the water between the two shores. So the Tibia Mariners as ferrymen, the basilisks as amphibians and Godwyn's transformation reflect their position in the river between our world and the afterlife. This allusion is strengthened by the Erdtree which takes souls up and essentially functions as their final resting place feeding the two underground rivers Siofra and Ainsel.
"Ahh sweet, man-made horrors beyond my comprehension"
me everytime I find something new about Soulsborne series both ingame or on youtube
Love the music choice. King's Field 4 has such a great soundtrack!
Man, It's so creepy, I would love to see a timelapse of his transformation, it's so scary to try to think about his "decomposition" from a biological standpoint
I think my favorite part about FromSoft games is that, from one perspective, they keep telling the same story over and over, just through dramatically different lenses and from hugely different perspectives. It doesn’t feel like repetition or laziness on their part… it feels more like Miyazaki has this massive story in his head and he’s desperately trying to get it out, but each attempt has been incomplete in and of itself, so he has to try again.
What if all this is a buildup for an immense clash of dynasties in one monstrous game? ER was a new size plus Miyazaki is such a lunatic and I want to believe.
We had to do this basically in my speech class (?) Can't remember exactly what it was in college but basically the teacher asked us to pick out favorite song, then write certain points about it and what is it that they are trying to say.
Well I didn't know we were gonna be writing about the same song, for the entire semester -.-. so basically each time you wrote it, it was a little different or more in depth each time you worked on it.
I had only wished I chose a song with more lyrics man 🤦♀️🤦♀️
You mean the same story written from the "dramatically different lenses and from hugely different perspectives" of nameless nobodies coming to kill great beings and collect plot items from them while learning more about the dying world around them, with a cyclical nature implied? Tell me more how it isn't laziness.
@@Garrus876 What you’ve just described is the world’s oldest story. People have been telling versions of that story for millennia. My point was about the way symbols and metaphors continue to reoccur through the franchise, being explored in so many different ways.
@@joebykaeby Strange of you to say that, since I went into very specific detail about the lack of perspective change, a point which you have not challenged. In every single game you play from the perspective of the nobody, there is no change, it's the same story with a different coat of paint.
And what's this about the oldest story? Can you elaborate? Only one I know of is the Epic of Gilgamesh (admittedly I could be wrong, but it's on you to enlighten me and provide a source), and that story is completely different from the usual Miyazaki fair, down to the very perspective (in souls you're a nobody with no personal stakes, in the epic of Gilgamesh and many old stories the main characters, who have personalities also have personal stakes).
You moved the goalpost now, disregarding my points and continuing to speak of those "many different ways". I'd like for you to elaborate on this claim, as well as everything I stated above.
I am strongly reminded of the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the great king descends into the depths of the (underworld-associated) ocean to retrieve the herb that grants youth - his route to immortality.
Godwyn is an inversion of that story, immortal and spreading his deathroot to all his kingdom.