Edit: People got a little weird about the title. The aura that makes the Shadows look, well, "shadowy" is added to their model with a simple SpEffect, so I removed it 00:54 to show the chains and ropes a little better. Still, their rendering is set up in such a way where it fades out some of the edges of the model, and their textures aren't much more colorful or detailed with the aura gone, so there's only so much it actually reveals. Also, I only just now noticed I wrote "Grace of Gold" instead of "Gold of Grace" at 03:00. It's always especially annoying to catch something the moment right after it becomes too late to do anything about it.
Also if people are getting weird and can't distinguish god in the previous title with the god(s) in their religion... how did they manage to play a game where you actually slay a god lol
Reading this reminded me of the "horny demon" from Dungeon Keeper. Despite how his name sounds he was mainly just a stereotypical red demon with huge horns and owned underground real estate for monsters (Kinda).
It’s even worse than “Marika punished them for being born with horns” - the Omen are cursed by the Hornsent, their horns growing teratomically out of arms and legs, haunted by shadows in their dreams. The Hornsent are known to be masters of cursecraft, and a horned ghost near t he burnt ruins speaks of wielding the resentment of the dead against Marika. That’s why Omens are ogres - because the inheritance of horns has been spitefully rendered as a curse on them. They are the victims, more than anyone else, of all that history - including of the Hornsent vengeance. Marika’s abhorrence of them is thus doubly ironic. A second interesting detail: this explains why the bloodfiends lack horns! They were slaves, and thus hornless, before the Formless Mother “blessed” them.
I was under the impression that the formless mother was born after the clan that became the bloodfiends were ravaged in a war long past as per the arcane boosting talisman. And there is the manfly curse and that NPC tendering them which has blood fly swarm spells. I was under the impression that the bloodfiends cursed the hornsent which then started turning them into manflies after they destroyed the clan and gave birth to their fiend selves. Kinda like mirroning the Golden Order and the Omens. Speculation ofc.
Dude i don't know u and u don't know me and hell i don't know what ur going through in life but i pray as well as BELIEVE that u WILL find a beautiful and loving partner who will make every second of ur time being spent together worth a lifetime....just remember that marriage is not just about loving each other , its about tolerating each others mistakes and flaws..... giving u lots of blessings.....peace out bro✌️
Ironically, Marika's hypocrisy is, from a textual perspective, wonderfully humanizing imo. The entire persecution of the Omen (and Misbegotten, arguably) is like the cycle of abuse writ large over an entire society-Marika and her people were abused and suffered horrid cruelty, and so when Marika gained power, she continued that cycle herself, something sadly common in real life. Before SotE, Marika was a very distant, vague figure we knew little about. After it, I feel like I understand her motivations and mindset (at least Pre-Shattering) a lot better.
It's hauntingly relatable too. For a lot of us, with the benefits of hindsight and separation, we can see how wrong she was to double down on her pain and the long-reaching consequences of her doing that. But we've all been in pain too, and as much as it is the best choice to finally let it go... it's not so easy.
Remember, the entire missing piece of the puzzle that Goldmask was searching for to figure out what was keeping the Golden Order from being perfect was the realization that the "gods" (Marika and her family, not the greater will or outer gods) were only human and prone to the same faults.
EXACTLY. Marika being a hypocrite is the POINT of the entire story. She didn't end the cycle of abuse, she could have but she didn't. That makes her very human, as we humans often seek "justice" in the name of revenge, when in the end, it just leads to more destruction. Elden Ring's main story point is the saying; hurt people hurt people
Why she a hypocrite though? That is only if we _"expect"_ some ideology of her that we would expect from a mundane, mortal ruler. After ascending to godhood, her word might as well be law, whatever that word may be. Do gods trouble themself with the popularity of their opinions in mortal minds? But the whole Omen-thing is truly stupid and I think deep down everyone in the "Lands Between" would know it. *°* Morgott himself is casting unique incantations, made out of holy, golden energy. He clearly has the graces approval. We can find a barrier in his place that bars us from leaving the city towards the Mountaintop of the Giants if we haven't slain him yet, wherein it says *_" Sealed by Morgott the GRACE GIVEN "._* The visible golden eyes, the blatant presence of the Erdtree's approval of them. Marika was not a hypocrite but it was clearly a beta move from her to loath her own children. Oh well at least Mogh has a formless mother who loves him... and makes his blood boil in a different manner.
This one awakened a memory in me. When I was a child I've read a story about siblings who have befriended kids from another nation, but were afraid to bring their friends home because they were afraid that their grandfather (a war veteran) would greet them with prejudice. But it turned out that grandpa was actually happy to see his grandkids making friends with the foreigners, even saying that "the children are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors". The same lesson but with storyline reversed.
In Guild wars 2, there is a neat conversation you can have with a human and a charr, who still kinda hate the other race. The human comments they believe peace will come when the new generation takes over, and it's their job to make sure the children get that chance. The Charr comments how there are much bigger problems then their history and racial hatreds. Similar story.
My Grandpa served in WW2 as an Allied Tankman. He used to tell me the stories of his time in the war, fighting the Germans. As a very young child I once expressed hatred for his former enemies, and he asked me "Why?" When I explained that it was because they were his enemy, he told me if I hated them for that then I would be no different than the men he fought. When we blame a people for who they are born as, and feel hatred for that birth it is always wrong.
@@selkiara1272That just shows, no one in war are bad people except the old leaders, people in power that send millions of young men to witness unspeakable trauma and kill each other while they themselves hide away cowardly giving orders, just to gain some land or earn profit for themselves. And then propaganda against the "enemies“ will result in prejudice and racism, and the thought that all of "them" are monsters just because they follow a tyrant, often because they have no choice. And the same applies to Elden Ring where the golden order and Marika do the same 2 things.
looks like all of her children were cursed by previous dudes who were swept under the rug. Ranny - not really cursed, but too much enamored with forbidden lore of night cities, so she triggered her plan of bringing forth Age of the Stars. Messmer - clearly cursed by snake dudes who's religion was later adopted by Rykard. Malenia - again, looks like rot was a curse from previous rot owners like Romina. Two omen children are a curse from Hornsent, and so on.
They weren't cursed, Godfrey was a follower of the crucible, this could easily be a "gift" by the crucible. The Lamentor proves that the hornsent knew of this omen type blessing they just hated it because it was something they could not control. The hornsent ultimately wanted control of the crucible and its blessing, they pursued invoking Divinity(spirit energy manipulation/incantations) and we see that in their warriors, the lamentor was not a blessing they could obtain through devotion and thus shunned it. Morgott and mogh both prove it's a matter of perspective in whether this "curse" is truly a curse or a gift.
Miriel may have been one of the wisest person in the land between. He understood that all those divisions and prejudiced between people were all just arbitrary nonsense. Sadly his beliefs appeared to have been a minority in these shattered lands.
I personally like to belived that the rule to only hide royal omen was created in responce to Marika having the omen twins, and that it at least was a sliver of kindness towards her children, even if just looking at them probplay gave her nightmares.
I wouldn't really consider hiding and trapping people in a dungeon below the city for their entire lives a sliver of kindness Edit: apparently this is a very hot take 🤣
@@tiacool7978 That's like a kidnapper saying it was either keep them trapped in a dungeon or kill them....or you know letting them live normal lives with their family and doing neither
@@Cbrunning849No it isn't because the kidnapper in your analogy has no specific responsibilities outside of the situation you presented while Marika has a trauma level akin to a holocaust survivor, a nihilistic entrapment of immortality, and the requirement to stitch and hold reality together. Yeah she's awful and what she did to the Omens is unforgivable, but you're comparing a random act of cruelty to one deeply rooted in a sympathetic, cosmic plotline. Marika is evil but you refuse to learn from her story so you can instead act morally superior to people who sympathize with her.
the one thing i find interesting about the whole thing of the horns meaning cursed blood is that Morgot seems to have expelled it when defeated. he is reduced in size, but absolutely all of his horns are *naturally gone. no cut horns, no shriveled horns, just outright gone. this specific thing is what made me think the whole thing of having horns was indeed a curse.
Not just his horns, but also his tail and all the hair that covered his body. It would seem as though all signs of the crucible were removed from him upon his defeat. What's left to ask now though is, was it removed because of his devotion to the erdtree or was some other outer force responsible?
marika and her children were supposed to die and pass on the godhood lineage to their offsprings but she removed rune of death to be immortal and shattered the elden ring when it was time for her children to take her role, it's the greater will's fault for giving Godhood to meek humans where it could just send Shadow beast like creature as a god to reign over the land
I think the issue lies in their methods to cope. You don't need a therapist to heal from trauma. They're just usually a good resource for healthy coping mechanisms
Shadow of the erdtree showed us that the darkness of light is equally as holy as the light itself. Fitting that the golden order is full gold with no shadow, because she shunned them
Gold has a dark side to it. What Marika wanted was gold with no shine, as the shine would show the darkness of gold. She wanted a light, but that light ended up burning more than she had wanted.
I think it's interesting that the Formless Mother also seems to be related to shadow, appearing to Mogh underground, and to the blood fiends in the shadow of their tutelary deity. The Omen themselves look like a combination of hornsent and the blood fiends. Sort of seems like the Mother of Truth is interested in bringing things that were hidden up out of the shadows.
Something to note about the Omen: the Hornsent Grandam has dialog which implies the origin of the Omen births in Marika's kingdom to be a curse. She explicitly calls it "the Curse of the Omen."
This could be both interpreted as an actual curse/hex which hornsent cast. But I think it can also be interpreted as just an unfortunate burden they will have to deal with.
Having hornless slaves also manifest as Shadows is a great way to show the issue with Messmer's wholesale genocide of their people: Not every person in Hornsent society is personally responsible for its worst parts. He and his murdered not only the cruel and vicious, but their *victims.* And the normal civilians with no say over who got jarred. "You can't solve oppression with genocide" is a pretty normie and straightforward take for the DLC to have, and it's amazing how many people missed it in favor of deciding that an entire civilization deserved grotesque butchery because some of them were bad.
Exactly. I guarantee you that the Hornsent civilization is not a monolith and had many who were unaware or did not approve of some of their more grotesque practices such as a Greater Potentate from Bonny Village who was disgusted by the jarring practices that he made cookbooks for jarring items that specifically excluded using living beings in the process. There were also those who were subjected to their own brethren’s brand of cruelty if found guilty such as the Hornsent spirits in Midra's manse who begged their fellow Hornsent Inquisitors to spare them and ask what their master Midra was guilty of.
It's an unfortunately common stance for a lot of people to take these days when presented with literally any media that deals with the theme of cycles of abuse and vengeance on a societal level. People take the justified rage of the victims and use it to argue that indescriminate genocide is somehow okay. It's like, I wonder how these people would feel if they lived in a society that oppressed a specific group, and then somebody from that group came into their house and brutally maimed and murdered their entire family just on the basis that "Your people oppress mine" even if their famiily had nothing to do with the practice.
Fun fact: The japanese description of the Arcane Talisman talks about a clan of slaves who, after the fire, became the Bloodfiends. Fire of course is about Messmer, so very probably they were slaves of Hornsents and the Mother saved them in the end. P.s: Also, if i remember well, the shadow people inside the Shadow Keep are hornless, so maybe slaves Messmer saved?
What's more, she probably sees the curse that the Hornsent placed upon her children as a curse on herself, not on them. As such, she doesn't see the Omen Twins, or any of the other Omen, as the victims that they are. Instead, she sees them as a disgusting stain that she needs to get rid of.
@@the_furry_inside_your_walls639 She knows it is a curse on them, but they have been cursed as a way to get back at her after she destroyed most of the Hornsent... so in a way, it is a curse on her
Not "in a way" but literally. When you strike at a god, you do so through their "children" - their followers. There was no other way for the Horniset to get to her otherwise. Only the Greater Will can punish her directly. @@marcussawyer4751
It is also the consequence of watching her entire people be destroyed in an unimaginably horrible way, and being consumed by rage and hatred of the evil hornsent scum who did it.
So why did she let dozens if not hundreds of them live literally under her own feet? Do you people even think? “She hated omen, that’s why she let so many of them live, including her own children!” Describe a single reason why Morgott or Mohg wouldn’t be executed or excised of horns at birth if what you just said is true. I’ll wait.
Marika trying to attain godhood to avenge her loved ones and protect her future lineage, before turning into a menace, sounds kinda like Anakin Skywalker's character arc.
Star Wars is very loosely based on older media, including Samurai movies, where this was a common theme. Alot of old up to the 60s Samurai movies are cautionary tales about Revenge.
The devs are screwing with us, the timeline of messmer crusade and Marika's own ascension happen at different times. Marika gained godhood long before messmer crusade, his crusade happen right near the end of Godfrey age and some time before Radagon became Elden lord, but this means that the hornsent lived through the age of plenty and the liurnian wars only as the fire giants were defeated did messmer begin his crusade. It almost like someone else was actually in control and Marika was a puppet.
Perhaps Marika removed the Rune of Death not just to replace death with reincarnation via Erdtree burial and to remove a threat to her reign but also to subject the Hornsent to an unending agony of hellish torment where they are hunted, butchered scorched and impaled by Messmer’s crusaders, horrifically transformed into sickly man-flies, stuffed into furnace golems like the shamans and criminals were in their jars, turn into Bloodfiends after sheer desperation and despair or be reduced to a sad existence as a shadowy shade, trapped in a strange in-between of life and death.
Honestly the hornset has done unspeakable things to Marika and her people the hornest turned the shamans(aka empyreans) into jar people butchering them all except for Marika herself and she got revenge by sending her son out to commit genocide against them Both sides have done horrible things
@MrJomalley123 Yeah, but it was the entire hornsent civilization that got butchered. You really can't blame some hornsent farmers in some random village for the actions of Bonny village and the inquisition. As we see here even the hornless slaves got burned. If Marika had just targeted the Hornsent elite and those responsible she would of been completely justified I think
I think she removed it because she was genuinely trying to make a better world, according to what her life had taught her. Same as Ranni, same as Miquella, same as the player character. Ambition is limited by what one can conceive; she wanted to elevate life and protect her children from death, and it become an unending prison, in time.
Marika is such a fascinating character, probably my favorite or at least high ranking in the cast. All the subtle context clues about her past in the DLC...god it was just such a great experience. I brushed off Leda's comments when she said "The hornsent were never saints" thinking it was just the Golden Order excusing Marika's crusade, but then that moment walking into the Shaman village, finally understanding what all the pot gaols were for, it hit me hard. I always struggled to understand why Marika was so hateful towards the Omen, especially her two sons, especially when Godwyn led the Crucible Knights (the Crucible being the source of the Omen's curse.) I couldn't understand why the Golden Order seemingly couldn't (or in reality's case WOULDN'T) conjoin the Omen. It may just be me, but I really feel for Marika; feel sorry for her. Not specifically because of what happened to her and her people, but rather sorry that she has become so wholly consumed with revenge, it ruined any chance of having the utopian society she wanted to make. Flawed from the very beginning, because a wounded, flawed individual couldn't give up that spark of hatred that brought her to where she was. The worldbuilding of Fromsoft games is just...so far above most of what you see in gaming these days. I'm sad there won't be another DLC for Elden Ring, but I really hope there will be an Elden Ring 2 someday down the road. I'm not ready to give up this world quite yet.
A recurring theme in Elden Ring is that the next generation imagines their better world from the context of the current world. Ranni, Miquella, Goldmask, Fia, even a monster like the Dung Eater - every Order we can choose is a reaction to the Golden Order, an attempt to fix the flaws in it. Marika’s world she imagined as better was built from the pieces she grew up to have; it’s not a lack of ambition, but a much deeper problem, one that makes Ymir look frankly foolish for saying it’s ‘the mother’s fault’ when the world as a whole is a harsh teacher.
i mean, it still is objectively an excuse of the crusade. history is written by the victors. on a related note, were marika's people ever saints? were they hornsent themselves? we will never know- they are gone, she left her village & culture behind, dominula is "endured" under the erdtree, and the jar innards are left in the gaols or taken in messmer as an attempt of healing or relief in marika's absence.
@@goldie1573 they are not gone, sort of, they are the "numen", a race which you can pick at char selection, and also the denizens of the eternal cities, both explicity said to be of the same race as marika herself. But we will never know any more lore about it since ER development is now over, a shame.
Morgott has by far the most tragic backstory. Born an Omen to the Golden Lineage of Marika and Godfrey, he was shunned and cast out, denied his birthright, and yet despite all of these abuses he *still* wanted to serve the Golden Order. Marika never loved him, but he protected Leyendell during the Shattering War nevertheless. Even getting denied entry to the Erdtree by the impenetrable thorns didn't dissuade him. If he was born without horns, like his brother Godwyn, he would have been a favored child no doubt.
I've always found this quote to be overly pedantic and intentionally obtuse. When one says "history is doomed to repeat itself", they don't mean that the exact same events will occur again. That's pretty self-evident. What they mean is similar events will always recur again and again inevitably. Saying history "rhymes" is just a quirky way to convey that exact same concept.
@@thunderryu0494 What is wrong with just letting it ride? I want to make it clear that yes, I DO know this. But there's also a such thing as just letting loose. Let it ride.
It is interesting how SOTET showed us exactly who created the omen curse and why. That it isn’t just a phenomenon but a part of Marika’s past come back to haunt everyone
I remember the Official Gameplay Trailer had a line early on where Melia literally says the Golden Order is broken to its core. Who'd have thought that line extended so deep into the game?
Honestly, I don't blame Marika for this. Obviously any outsider to the situation like us can point out the hypocrisy, but when I put myself in her shoes, I can see why. Marika probably thinks she's doing good, that by oppressing the Omens, she's keeping evil acts like those of the Hornsent from happening. In her eyes, there's probably no difference between the Hornsent and the Omens. It's honestly sad to see, Marika unknowingly upholding a cycle of oppression that the Hornsent started, all to keep her people safe from an evil that she's already thoroughly crushed, brought about by a people she doesn't t understand are different from the Hornsent.
It heartbreaking how marikas own trauma caused such harm to the omen, and it's also even more heartbreaking how miquella took the blame for, being so scarred form learning about his mother's own past to the point he would forsake himself to try and do good as he felt it was the only way he could repair things. In short generational trauma sucks. And can ruin even the best of people.
That’s also not “right.” Murdering people in cold blood just to “curse” their soul is no different than what Marika is doing to the omen. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Bro the dung eater just wants to turne the world into hell through unspeakable acts, there's nothing he can do on his own either. It's you who becomes the monster.
The oppressed who achieve victory and go on to be oppressors is a common theme in history. A relatively recent and extreme example would be the Rwandan Genocide.
@@BygoneT Rwandan history manages to include both an expression of and an exception to this trope. The Tutsi minority ruled before colonialism, then were colonised, the british now using them as intermediaries to rule Rwanda, later, as colonialism ended, and with the help of the catholic and protestant churches, who saw the Hutu as suffering an injustice by being denied power in the land where they were the majority, the majority Hutu took power from the Tutsi, and a Tutsi rebellion started, hoping to regain power. The Hutu began to discriminate against the Tutsi, which culminated in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, where 500,000 to 100,000,0 Tutsi, moderate Hutu and Twa (Pygmies who make up about 1% of the population) were killed in 100 days. This ended when the Tutsi rebellion, their ranks swelled due to the genocide, overthrew the Hutu. The Tutsi then established a highly authoritarian government, however they did not begin reprisals against the Hutu, punishing those who participated in the genocide, but leaving the rest alone. The remaining Hutu extremists fled to the Congo, where they still fight with Rwandan backed forces. Rwanda has economically prospered since. If you want the account of someone who survived the genocide, I reccomend Tharcisse Semingawa, and his book "No greater love" or the article "Remebering the Rwandan genocide 25 years on."
The garnished of no renown: my order actually allows everyone in it BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS TRIED KILLING ME SO I GET TO RULE OVER THEN AND BRING JOY TO SPITE YOU WITCH
This is easily one of the most elucidating explanations connecting the themes of the base game and the dlc. Your work is always interesting but this is sublime.
Unraveling the mystery of what shackled the Golden Order was such an interesting experience. If my heart wasn't rooted in the Age of Stars that's the ending I'd have gone with. I had like 3 or 4 mending Runes I could use at the end of my playthrough
Ehh, not entirely. The best way to describe the GM end is this. The foundation of your house is terrible. However, you still like some of the quirks of it. Instead of removing the foundation, you reinforce and repair what you can. This is great! But alas, there as still creaks, cracks and other damaged points that are too big to mend. In this case, those cracks being the many prejudices of the GO and its many faults. It's just now its a lot more stable. Like a lengthened leash or a sharpened rusted blade. They are better, yes, but not what *could* be.
@@giantslayer9335 Ironically ranni isn't even in that "regime", She basically pulls a Melina and space-KYS's herself, taking out ever outer-god's influence along with it. She basically strips all forms of "divinity" so the *people* can make their own choices. Tbh the only one that even counts as that kinda ending is the poopoo muncher.
@@nautilus2342 To be a little fair with him, we don't know much about his life so it could have been he was too busy warring Marika's wars and when he became the first tarnished, she exiled him, effectively losing connection with his omen children.
Tbh i don't blame Marika for setting herself up on the wrong path. The lesson of "the children are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors" is correct, but there was no one there to teach her because the hornsent fucking killed all of her people. Someone who grows surrounded by injustice and despair will likely learn how to act in the same way. It's tragic, but i don't blame her for choosing this path. Stuff like this only be changed over a long period of time, and in fact in the end she seemed to recognise the errors in her ways and tried to break the cycle by shattering the Elden Ring and setting us up to a path for a better future.
After the death of Godwyn, she realised the true consequences of her actions. Yet it’s ironic that of all the people to force Marika to change, it’s the half-Carian princess who doesn’t want to be told what to do that brings the end of her age, and not the persecution of a cursed group of people, the refusal to let anyone die or let her own children suffer because of her personal issues.
@@joshuaconnall4237 Since it's so heavily implied she was in some way responsible for the night of black knives, or at least aided Ranni in it, she likely intended for Godwyn to die. Marika is perfectly willing to sacrifice her own children, that much is clear. So what was her goal in the end? I'm personally a fan of the theory that she wanted to die, to escape the prison of godhood.
@@josephbulkin9222and they also killed all her family and loved ones, i dont think that Marika would want to become a godess if they werent all killed
The Omens were the hornsent’s final attack against the Golden Order. They were defeated so they cursed the order to have to bear children that they would hate.
And the omen themselves are punished for it too. Their horns are not the styled and nice horns of the hornsent, they painfully grow all over them and can be seen piercing back into them or blinding them while their bodies grow deformed and oger-like while their dreams are haunted by horned figures (These figures are not the omen-killers, they just styled their masks after the figures in the nightmares to better traumatize the omen). Their entire existance looks painfull.
@@anonisnoone6125Marika is only a vassal/mortal god. A kind of tier-1 god if you will. She still carries all her mortal flaws and can be injured, killed, and cursed. Its the outer gods and greater will and the like that are higher tiers above the cursing of mere mortals.
@@rwberger6she is not a mortal God Game stated multiple times she’s Eternal she’s not even dead post game she’s a spirit like Miquella she just lost her physical body that’s it and is the grace that guides us through the game
@@anonisnoone6125 and yet she couldn't cure the curses of the Empyrean's. (hey are the empyreans cursed by the Hornsent too or was that just some prophecy shenanigans)
As Friere is often attributed as the source for most of the terrible ideas currently ruining public education in the West, that quote has fascinating implications.
@@buzzsawkhan wait what? Bro, he's only hated by extremists groups because of his method involved critical thinking and aproaching the student as a person and using their world as a basis for learning. He was so good he could teach adults to read and write in less than a year and his students were always very fond of him, just watch their interviews. He's the most influencial educator in the world but most schools don't use his ideas aside from the very expensive elite schools and colleges. It's an anectote, but when he was arrested by the millitary dictadorship they asked him to teach their ranks, to which he replied "you ask me to do the same thing that got me in jail in the first place?" People only hate him because he was a huge for good but the powers that be would rather have alieneted masses.
@arthurdossantos6826 Just to be clear, you are referring to the author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, who is often held forth as either the founder or extremely influencial to the founding of Critical Pedagogy? Critical, as used here, having the Post-Marxist meaning of adhering to doctrinal thoughts, not questioning all underlying assumptions, of course.
@arthurdossantos6826 Well, I suppose then the easiest way to illustrate the point is to ask if your use of "critical tihnking" above meant having an open mind and questioning all underlying assumptions (the "traditional" usage), or the political use described by Horkheimer as: "a “critical” theory may be distinguished from a “traditional” theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human “emancipation from slavery,” acts as a “liberating … influence,” and works “to create a world which satisfies the needs and powers” of human beings." Just to clarify one other thing: I wasn't saying Freire personally was a terrible person, I know nothing about him as a person except he worked in Brazil among people that were actually in dire straights. My point is that his ideas, most specifically his book (The Pedagogy of the Oppressed) has inspired many terrible trends and movements in US education that are objectively terrible for educating students in things like Math, Science and English literacy.
Elden Ring is basically a grimdark retelling of Dr. Sues's _Sneetches on Beaches,_ with the Greater Will being the jackass with the star-belly machine.
"They were never saints; they just hapened to be on the losing side of a war." Edit: Let me be clear before more people get the wrong idea, I despise Marika.
@@filipporapetti9354 Maaan, Screw you. I was just about to post that. Lmao. That’s right, I hate how people just remove that part to justify Marika’s actions. It’s still messed up.
@@simonealcazar816it’s only all too easy to believe that when there are people who unironically believe in that the Imperium of Man are good guys who deserve to have their ideals dominate everything.
@@simonealcazar816 Exactly, the lore reveals in the DLC only made me hate the golden strumpet even more, as now she's also a massive hypocrite in addition to a genocidal maniac
The Omen are a curse placed on Marika and her followers by the hornsent after the massacre. At least one can infer from the dialog from a hornsent ghost placed just outside of the first town in the Shadow Realm, before the first fire golem.
the fact nothing happens to jarred shamans after death but if you defile someones corpse the way Dung Eater did he will reborn as omen gives an interesting implication of how people can actually ascend into godhood.
It's interesting that the hornless have chains and are treated as servant, yet apparently Midra had a pretty important role in hornsent society despite his lack of horns. Perhaps this is because he was particularly wise and intelligent, until his research drove him to the Frenzied Flame
Well, he also lived far away in a forest - he quite probably was seen as lesser by the horned, but they didn’t bother to go down and do something about it until they decided he was a heretic. Then they slaughtered his disciples and punished him worse than anyone else had ever been punished, with a ghost in the manor asking ‘aren’t we kinfolk?’
I don't think Midra was important in hornsent society at all, quite the contrary... those shades at his place are his servitors, like the ghost that hails you when you enter, as for the inquisitors and horned warriors, they are there because they purged his place and killed Nanaya before sticking him with that giant tooth pick.
@@Sewersyrup Since he lives in a manse he was most likely a priest or somenthing like that, so I believe that he had a somewhat important role. Also if I remember correctly his servants have horns, so at least some of the people of the Tower did not have a problem with serving a hornless scholar like him, even if he was technically inferior to them. But still as another comment pointed out Midra lived isolated so he was surely an exception
He was an intellectual. A “sage”. You see some ruined experiments around the place-but I really don’t think intelligence is useful when it comes to figuring out the Frenzied Flame… it appears to embrace raw madness. Midra probably tried to understand the Frenzied Flame, to total disaster. He does not want its embrace.
Variant of Marika... Island of horns Find the tree of a land forlorn Stunt of Omen, metabolise Hornsent Morgott and Mohg revile vice regent The data supports servants of gold Endlessly telling this story of old Throw me to the sewers, let me there ponder Just keep me away from the false Golden Order
>did they deserve this? >memories of hornsworn dudes with infinite stamina, crit immunity, no stagger and no chill Yes they did, and they still got off easy.
This is my favorite one you've done, so far. Plus, that's my favorite of the Kings Field tracks that you use. Thanks for the awesome stuff you create 😎💜
She still bears her fate - a fate woven in the stars. She thinks she can manipulate it or distort it into the ‘dark Empyrean’ - an Order hidden and obscure, to prevent what she sees as the fundamental failure of the Golden Order, its visibility and direct theocratic institution. But it is an Order and there are flaws that frankly seem obvious: leaving the Lands Between in anarchy, hiding the truth (perhaps astrologers will learn something of it), condemning the people to doubt and uncertainty. A cold, distant order instead of the bounty and iron grip of Gold. Is this better? Certainly better than what’s left after thousands of years of the current Age stagnating.
But every Age ends and every Age will have suffering, because the only absolute solution to suffering in the game is to kill everything. I’d rather have a world with life, even if it means some suffering, than the peace of a universal grave. Ranni, Miquella, Goldmask, Fia, they’re all better than the status quo.
She does become a God in her ending since she takes on the elden ring and you could argue the puppet body she has is already a "curse" since it makes her sleep a lot.
I think that’s why her character is beautiful, it shows her flaws and how deeply her trauma affects her character, hell it’s very common for victims of trauma to see anything that is similar to that event as bad
My biggest takeaway from the DLC was that Marika was ABSOLUTELY a monster. BUT I can see how she got there and understand it, making me feel more sorry for her than anything.
Interesting thing I noticed about the Omen twins recently is how they dealt with their mommy issues. Morgott leaned into upholding the status quo, maybe in an attempt to earn his mother's love. Mohg went the other way and tried to establish a brand new order and even began worshipping a new "mother": the Formless Mother.
I always leaned towards the side of Mohg rather than Morgott for that particular reason. No way I'm serving an order that hates and mistreat my kin for simple being born different. But also felt that Morgott is protecting the order more so for Godfrey rather than Marika, Godfrey being the only one to give the twins a fighting chance and loved them despite their afflictions. So Morgott protects the other his father fought so hard to create. I bet Godfrey regrets helping in the creation of the Golden Order but you can't really do much if your wife is a god and has control over the laws of the world.
Thankfully people seem to have their wits about them; elden ring is (when it comes to interpersonal relationships) about parental abuse and abandonment, and subsequent effects, all the way from the greater will and metyr (somehow, which is insane) to marika and her three cursed sons (one became a mass murderer, one turned to the formless mother who seems to prey upon pretty much everyone who gets spurned by society, and morgott died in service of an order that despised him). Marika's actions were so despised by everyone that they had an effect on pretty much everyone in her family, from Ranni rejecting the golden order outright and being driven to extremes, ro Rykard being used as the GO's torturer-in-charge leading him to abandoning it and basically going insane, and even Radahn opposed the destruction of Selia and Miquella did all he did partly so he wouldn't repeat Marika's mistakes. Not to mention the Omen aren't all who were targeted by her, because the nox, ancestral followers (who don't seem to be related culturally to the hornsent even if they both worship the crucible as they despise metalwork while hornsent use metal implements a lot), tarnished, great caravan, albinaurics, those who live in death (who only exist because of her btw), demihumans, misbegotten, fire giants (?) etc. who had nothing to do with her past were still oppressed by the GO for pretty much the same reason shamans were (no grace/horns). The reason I laid down all this groundwork, just as an addendum to the lore in the video, is simply because a bunch of people somehow defend marika/get very weird about it, just because of her backstory? I find that a fairly insane position to hold, because within the context of all that has happened in elden ring's world, the golden order and marika herself is indefensible, from a moral standpoint. A very layered character who's the victim of the grander theme of elden ring along with omen/hornsent, that is interference from outer gods completely ruining the lands between, sure, but indefensible all the same.
A detail that frequently seems to be overlooked about the Omen is how those with their horns intact can summon/channel the very same black/gold wraiths as the Wraith Callers and Royal Revenants, and the same applies to the Omen Bairn and Regal Omen Bairn. Meanwhile, the Horned Bairn not only uses overtly parallel wording in its description, but summons "vengeful spirits," which wraiths are also stated to be, save for the distinction that wraiths are born of those who died while *cursed.* As mentioned in the video, the Omen are also haunted by horned faces in their nightmares, and although Omen obviously bear similar horns to the hornsent, they consistently have a very different appearance otherwise (Morgott notwithstanding), with bulky figures, ink-black complexions, and twisted facial features. Truth be told, they conspicuously resemble Bayle, himself an Ancient Dragon most likely born with a blessing/curse/mutation of the Crucible. To me, all these points together imply that the nature of the Omen is that of a curse, born of the collective resentment of the Shadow Realm's condemned and abandoned inhabitants. Vengeful spirits indwelling the bodies of infants of the Erdtree's people prior to their births, plaguing their dreams and warping their forms. The curse targeting those born of the Golden Order stems from the hornsent, while the physical appearance of the Omen derives from Bayle's resentment for all in the Lands Between (as perhaps the most uniquely powerful and significant being in the Realm of Shadow, it tracks that his influence upon the curse would be outsized). Personally, I also speculate that the consistent birth of Omen among Leyndell's nobility was due to the resentment of Messmer's army, not only for being abandoned in the Shadow Realm, but for having been spurned by their own aristocratic families for having joined Messmer in the first place. As a curse, these wraiths manifests with the same appearance as those afflicting the Revenants and Wraith Callers, as well as Godwyn's death-flames, but unlike those instances, this persists through accursed blood, giving rise to bloodflame should its true potential be unlocked. I think it's all but certain that this curse is enabled by the Formless Mother, who seems to consistently pity and embrace the maligned and downtrodden, and who came to be worshiped by a number of destitute hornsent in the wake of Messmer's crusade. This would further explain why Miquella needed a blood ritual to cross over into the Realm of Shadow; the Formless Mother maintains a connection between the two planes in order to perpetuate the Omen curse.
I think Marika only sided with the Greater Will, which would have been an outside god at the time, to overcome the Hornsent. This success was marred by Marika having to become a vessel of the GW, pretty much putting her in servitude again. Marika arising our Tarnished to free her and clean up the mess of a world, starting a new cycle.
Another banger. Love these short form bits of analysis. I think Marika's attempt to snuff out every trace of the crucible also result in the Omen being ogre-like and full of painful horns. It's like a rebellion of the old powers against her cleansing obsession.
It is honestly tragic that Marika could have created an age where she ended the suffering and prejudice, but instead chose vengeance and had the roles reversed.
But could she really? Who knows what she had to cast aside to become god. Miquella had good intentions as well, but sliced off too much and became a mockery of himself. A hollow image and ambitions unending. I think Margit was right to believe that the flames of ambitions must be put off so the suffering won't propagate again. If only he didn't shine with them as well.
Suffering, of some kind, is an inevitable result of distinction - at least, that’s the doctrine of the Frenzied Flame. We can see many ways her Order attempted to reconcile and repair the prior Order’s faults. But causality is not so easily escaped, to reference Berserk’s terminology. That’s why Miquella wanted to wipe away history, to make everyone forget all the old enmities - both revenge and justice set aside. Would that be a better way? A kind of Eden, perhaps.
Morgott has horns all over his tail, and the way his cape falls on his back, it's implied he has some horns there too. Mohg has a horn growing between his fingers on his left hand, and when his body is altered by Miquella, we can see horns on the arms and poking through the back of the boots above the heel.
@@nightscout9979 Hmmph, yes and no. Morgott inherited the tail of the hornsent beasts that can be found in Messmer's fortress and Mogh inherited wings. There was no link between omens and winged beings, but with DLC lore, we can assume that Mogh inherited the wings of hornsent birds
@@Charleseed IIRC, Morgott's tail has more horns growing along the length of his tail when compared to those specimens' tails. As for the wings, the Divine Bird Warriors are probably the best indication of what the divine birds' wings look like, and they lack the leathery aspects and curling spikes of Mohg's wings. Also, Mohg's wings seem to be created on the spot by Nihil, so the Formless Mother is probably responsible for them.
I don't really know if we can call her a hypocrite as I never saw her trying to push for peace and solidarity in the lore. She ran a police state after having conquered the world for what she thought was the greater will, with discriminated groups and inquisitors for the goal of protecting her own and rooting out heresy. And it makes sense, because her lessons are from the Hornsent. Hurt people hurt people, and the DLC shows us she's one of the most damaged people around.
in short, there are no good factions in The Lands Between (with the exception of Gold Mask but his group barely counts since he only has one sycophant)
IF GOLDMASK HAS 100,000 FANS I'M ONE OF THEM IF GOLDMASK HAS 1,000 FANS I'M ONE OF THEM IF GOLDMASK HAS 100 FANS I'M ONE OF THEM IF GOLDMASK HAS 1 FAN IT'S ME IF GOLDMASK HAS 0 FANS I NO LONGER EXIST
Marika's order is definitely more progressive than the Hornsent's (under the Crucible Order, your status in life is purely determined by your birth, how many horns you have, but under the Golden Order your status is determined by how much grace you have, which is something that can be gained or lost depending on your actions). But it's clearly a deeply flawed system that could never last. The only hope is that it will be succeeded by something better still (even if the new order is still itself imperfect) - Ranni, Fia and maybe even Goldmask seem to all have good suggestions at least.
"The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment." The Mending Rune of Perfect Order, summing up the entire story in two sentences.
I like to think that even though she despised the horned beings and even those like the misbegotten who bore other aspects of the hornsent crucible, marika still had a messed up soft spot for the omen children. Omen Bairns exist to commemorate the “cursed” children and we see this practice comes from the land of shadow. As much as she was able to under her loathing, marika still held her children in her heart
Violence begets violence. The broken seek to break others. The moral of Elden Ring is that cycles are insidious and ever-present. Only the truly great and virtuous can break these cycles, and even then it may come at great cost.
Honestly I’m not sure Elden Ring believes you can break those cycles - all falls within causality. But I don’t think it’s a message of despair. Births continue. Better things can be done, even if eventually more suffering must always arise. There is beauty in that, is there not?
@@WanderedIn I guess "break" isn't the correct term. "Reshape" maybe? All the endings available ask the same question: What can YOU do? Lord over a fractured world? Purge the world of mortal gods? Redefine death? Curse those beneath you? Remove the meddling of gods outright? Burn it all down? There is no perfect solution, but there are treatments and ultimatums.
It was miquellas mistake to believe he could escape causality. It's a shortcut we can't take, we have to accept the horrors of the world as they are, and all that caused them to be. Healing takes generations, it's a painful and seemingly endless task. This is why I see Goldmasks ending as the truest best ending: stop anyone from meddling in the grand designs of power, and let the world heal on its own.
There is no hypocrisy, that would imply Marika wanted or claimed to want a fair world free of oppression. The hornsent made her people suffer, and so she made them suffer. There is no hypocrisy in revenge. Like many oppressed people, she didn't dislike oppression itself, just that it was done to her.
There's an interesting line from Nelson Mandela "and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire."" I don't think Marika was doomed to repeat the oppression she experienced. I think that was why she shattered the Elden Ring. She realized she was perpetuating the same problem and tried to destroy it. The lands between certainly would have been better if she had used her powers to help, rather than try to burn it all down.
Thank you so much. I've seen your videos for years and you helped me Connecting so many dots. In the dlc aw i spent hours with no answer trying to understand the symbols of the bodies below the spiral tower. And again without having names of mobs and with how easily you could me the chains on the hornless ones, I find that way too often the enviromental details re way too hidden. Despite loving an enviromental narrative, important details must be noticible
I will mention that the horn sent grandma has dialogue if you hit her talking about the “omen curse” being out on Marika and her progeny. I do wonder if the omen are different from the horn sent because of that.
"A curse upon the strumpet's progeny, upon Marika's children each and all. The curse of the omen shall strike thee down... In the form of the sacred beast's ire."
While it’s unfair to the Omens who haven’t done anything, I understand where Marika is coming from considering what the Hornsent did. Though I don’t think Mogh and Morgott deserved to be exiled. Especially poor Morgott who helped the GO and it’s people despite being an Omen. The crucible itself doesn’t seem evil. So while she’s justified in getting retribution against the Hornsent, her measures beyond that go a bit too far.
the omen should definitely not have to suffer for this, but also, it's not as if each individual hornsent was responsible for the crimes you mention in this video. i find it disturbing how willing people are to paint their entire race in that way, and seem to revel in the purge marika ordered on them.
@@alfalldoot6715 i think the issue is rather that these people think the hornsent, as a race, deserve to be punished for the actions of those in power. there's nothing to "forgive" marika for if you don't believe she was wrong in the first place.
Yes, the first Hornsent spirit you encounter in the Gravesite Plains for example does not understand why they were burned to the ground by Messmer. There is a theory that only the upper classes/priest class of the Hornsents were aware of the practice. In a similar way that the priest class of the Aztecs were the ones practicing human sacrifices.
"disturbing"? Really? It's not real dude. Fromsoft is presenting us two clearly bad genocides. The hornsent killed all the Shine Maidens, and Marika genocides the hornsent in return. Picking a side doesn't matter, since both sides have purposely murdered innocent's. But realistically, a society that skins a race of people alive and stuffs them in jars with dismembered body parts so they can merge together cannot be allowed to exist. Especially when they have to wear masks so they don't get too excited while skinning them. Marika isn't doing any better, she banished a whole part of the country to a different dimension for gods sake. But to pretend like feeling more sympathy twords any side makes you "disturbing" doesn't make sense. Especially when this was a part of the hornsent culture. Sure, the average hornsent didn't participate, but they definitely didn't disagree with what was happening. Noting in the game even speaks about a hornsent feeling bad for the Shrine Maidens, so why would I feel for them? Makes no sense to have this pearl clutchy take when both sides are undeniably beyond evil.
She also continues to allow jars in her society. I really got the feeling it's part of a cycle of violence that shows that those who get in power start to inevitably abuse that power
I like to imagine that Marika was "the prankster Miko" who did not take her job seriously while messing with everybody in her village until they were all massacred by the hornsent while young Queen Marika was watching, and the trauma made a hatred so visceral that looking Omen even her own children would rekindle her hatred and trauma and she would have probably killed them on the spot if Godfrey didn't interviene
after markia became a god and left, markia was about to let hornsent alone (after they successfully genocided her people), trapped in the lands of shadow. after making marika a god and being abandoned, the hornsent grew resentful enough to curse the 'harlot' with horns to sprout from her children (which at this point is basically the lands between), at this point [unless i have the timeline wrong] marika's mercy broke, and she orderd mesmer to purge those who first purged her people, and still would not forgive her. as poor as her reaction was against the omen, considering what she went through i cant say im surprised she couldnt stand the sight of the hatred of her owners have for her given physical form. being the equivalent of 'honored slave' to both the hornsent and then after escaping them almost immediately the 'honored slave' of the greater will.... not being able to take this actual symbol of hatred on that which she made to get away from her horrible situation is very.... human. hypocrite? yeah, thats pretty fair.... kinda takes the nuance out of the situation though, doesnt it? when one is borne at the middle of an ocean of sin, even with the best of intentions, how do you find your way to the surface?
Wrong, the Hornsent only started calling her that after she sicced Messmer on them. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Hornsent contributed to Marika's ascension.
@@alfalldoot6715 first 'harlot' was not specifically a referance to the timeline, besides that: yes, that is exactly what i said "trapped in the lands of shadow. after making marika a god," please actually read a comment before you respond to it: its in the first two paragraphs for crying out loud.
I always got the impression that the oppression of the Omen came later on, that it was more of a Radagon thing, when he was Lord, than explicitly Marika. There’s also the signs that the Hornsent existed somewhat peacefully within Erdtree society for a while.
I think a lot of things are attributed to Marika that are probably better attributed to the religion that grew around her. Jesus didn't tell anyone to do the crusades or the inquisition(s), other men did.
I wish there was some greater interactions with Marika besides lore hints. It would've been interesting to have met with some npcs that had genuine first-hand accounts with Marika to share in the dlc. I do like her being more obscured in the base game, but I wish the curtain was pulled back just a bit more in the dlc.
Well there is one. The old hornsent granny who revives the dancing lion and gives you the soup is implied to have directly known Marika in some way and speaks ill of her.
Edit: People got a little weird about the title.
The aura that makes the Shadows look, well, "shadowy" is added to their model with a simple SpEffect, so I removed it 00:54 to show the chains and ropes a little better. Still, their rendering is set up in such a way where it fades out some of the edges of the model, and their textures aren't much more colorful or detailed with the aura gone, so there's only so much it actually reveals.
Also, I only just now noticed I wrote "Grace of Gold" instead of "Gold of Grace" at 03:00. It's always especially annoying to catch something the moment right after it becomes too late to do anything about it.
OH OK
There's also the typo "Edtree" at 1:48.
@@thomaswinwood Thats where Ed the Impaler was born
@@blade-icewoodBoy I sure love the lore of Eden Ring
Also if people are getting weird and can't distinguish god in the previous title with the god(s) in their religion... how did they manage to play a game where you actually slay a god lol
The horny and the non-horny will always be at odds, it seems.
Interesting overlap with being banished "to the shadow realm" and/or "horny jail", as it were.
oh the irony
Unironically.
Reading this reminded me of the "horny demon" from Dungeon Keeper. Despite how his name sounds he was mainly just a stereotypical red demon with huge horns and owned underground real estate for monsters (Kinda).
It’s even worse than “Marika punished them for being born with horns” - the Omen are cursed by the Hornsent, their horns growing teratomically out of arms and legs, haunted by shadows in their dreams. The Hornsent are known to be masters of cursecraft, and a horned ghost near t he burnt ruins speaks of wielding the resentment of the dead against Marika. That’s why Omens are ogres - because the inheritance of horns has been spitefully rendered as a curse on them. They are the victims, more than anyone else, of all that history - including of the Hornsent vengeance. Marika’s abhorrence of them is thus doubly ironic.
A second interesting detail: this explains why the bloodfiends lack horns! They were slaves, and thus hornless, before the Formless Mother “blessed” them.
I was under the impression that the formless mother was born after the clan that became the bloodfiends were ravaged in a war long past as per the arcane boosting talisman.
And there is the manfly curse and that NPC tendering them which has blood fly swarm spells.
I was under the impression that the bloodfiends cursed the hornsent which then started turning them into manflies after they destroyed the clan and gave birth to their fiend selves.
Kinda like mirroning the Golden Order and the Omens.
Speculation ofc.
IIRC some people theorize the bloodfiends are a heavily mutated tribe of demi-humans.
That means her throwing away Morgott and Mohg in the sewers is even worse than it already was. Did she know Omens were cursed by the Hornsent?
HORNLESS HORNLESS!
I thought this was good analysis thank you for writing
"Built upon a broken foundation" never thought that the Golden Order and my parent's marriage would have so much in common! Elden Ring's so realistic
Dude i don't know u and u don't know me and hell i don't know what ur going through in life but i pray as well as BELIEVE that u WILL find a beautiful and loving partner who will make every second of ur time being spent together worth a lifetime....just remember that marriage is not just about loving each other , its about tolerating each others mistakes and flaws..... giving u lots of blessings.....peace out bro✌️
I know right, so relatable!
@@ahmedalishan2498gay
Life truly does imitate art..
Just be careful if your mom gets a divorce and marries a copy of herself with a different hair color :P
Ironically, Marika's hypocrisy is, from a textual perspective, wonderfully humanizing imo. The entire persecution of the Omen (and Misbegotten, arguably) is like the cycle of abuse writ large over an entire society-Marika and her people were abused and suffered horrid cruelty, and so when Marika gained power, she continued that cycle herself, something sadly common in real life.
Before SotE, Marika was a very distant, vague figure we knew little about. After it, I feel like I understand her motivations and mindset (at least Pre-Shattering) a lot better.
It's hauntingly relatable too. For a lot of us, with the benefits of hindsight and separation, we can see how wrong she was to double down on her pain and the long-reaching consequences of her doing that. But we've all been in pain too, and as much as it is the best choice to finally let it go... it's not so easy.
Remember, the entire missing piece of the puzzle that Goldmask was searching for to figure out what was keeping the Golden Order from being perfect was the realization that the "gods" (Marika and her family, not the greater will or outer gods) were only human and prone to the same faults.
EXACTLY. Marika being a hypocrite is the POINT of the entire story. She didn't end the cycle of abuse, she could have but she didn't. That makes her very human, as we humans often seek "justice" in the name of revenge, when in the end, it just leads to more destruction. Elden Ring's main story point is the saying; hurt people hurt people
@@dustrose8101makes more sense why she even guides us through the game Destroy everything she’s built nd done for the new Age and ofc the world
Why she a hypocrite though? That is only if we _"expect"_ some ideology of her that we would expect from a mundane, mortal ruler. After ascending to godhood, her word might as well be law, whatever that word may be. Do gods trouble themself with the popularity of their opinions in mortal minds? But the whole Omen-thing is truly stupid and I think deep down everyone in the "Lands Between" would know it.
*°* Morgott himself is casting unique incantations, made out of holy, golden energy. He clearly has the graces approval. We can find a barrier in his place that bars us from leaving the city towards the Mountaintop of the Giants if we haven't slain him yet, wherein it says *_" Sealed by Morgott the GRACE GIVEN "._*
The visible golden eyes, the blatant presence of the Erdtree's approval of them.
Marika was not a hypocrite but it was clearly a beta move from her to loath her own children.
Oh well at least Mogh has a formless mother who loves him... and makes his blood boil in a different manner.
This one awakened a memory in me.
When I was a child I've read a story about siblings who have befriended kids from another nation, but were afraid to bring their friends home because they were afraid that their grandfather (a war veteran) would greet them with prejudice. But it turned out that grandpa was actually happy to see his grandkids making friends with the foreigners, even saying that "the children are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors".
The same lesson but with storyline reversed.
grandpa knows the horrors of prejudice
In Guild wars 2, there is a neat conversation you can have with a human and a charr, who still kinda hate the other race. The human comments they believe peace will come when the new generation takes over, and it's their job to make sure the children get that chance. The Charr comments how there are much bigger problems then their history and racial hatreds.
Similar story.
My Grandpa served in WW2 as an Allied Tankman. He used to tell me the stories of his time in the war, fighting the Germans.
As a very young child I once expressed hatred for his former enemies, and he asked me "Why?"
When I explained that it was because they were his enemy, he told me if I hated them for that then I would be no different than the men he fought. When we blame a people for who they are born as, and feel hatred for that birth it is always wrong.
@@selkiara1272That just shows, no one in war are bad people except the old leaders, people in power that send millions of young men to witness unspeakable trauma and kill each other while they themselves hide away cowardly giving orders, just to gain some land or earn profit for themselves. And then propaganda against the "enemies“ will result in prejudice and racism, and the thought that all of "them" are monsters just because they follow a tyrant, often because they have no choice. And the same applies to Elden Ring where the golden order and Marika do the same 2 things.
@@selkiara1272your gramps was very wise
I realized way too late marikas children have been cursed to be omen by the hornsent, it makes so much more sense now
Especially with how skilled they are at spirit and crucible/life magics. I could absolutely see the omen being the result of a vengeful curse/hex.
looks like all of her children were cursed by previous dudes who were swept under the rug.
Ranny - not really cursed, but too much enamored with forbidden lore of night cities, so she triggered her plan of bringing forth Age of the Stars.
Messmer - clearly cursed by snake dudes who's religion was later adopted by Rykard.
Malenia - again, looks like rot was a curse from previous rot owners like Romina.
Two omen children are a curse from Hornsent, and so on.
@@quint3ssent1a Ranny is Rennala's daughter.
@@marceloaleixo853 well Radagon is Marika, unless he merged with Marika later Ranni is as much her daughter as Rennala’s
They weren't cursed, Godfrey was a follower of the crucible, this could easily be a "gift" by the crucible. The Lamentor proves that the hornsent knew of this omen type blessing they just hated it because it was something they could not control. The hornsent ultimately wanted control of the crucible and its blessing, they pursued invoking Divinity(spirit energy manipulation/incantations) and we see that in their warriors, the lamentor was not a blessing they could obtain through devotion and thus shunned it. Morgott and mogh both prove it's a matter of perspective in whether this "curse" is truly a curse or a gift.
"Under Marika's reign, those favored by the Edtree-"
"...by the Edtree-"
LIFE HAS MANY TREES, EDBOY
Doors, not trees, is the quote from 3 headed Ralph.
@@rwberger6He should've made a joke about that or something......
@@rwberger6 Rolf, not Ralph
@@havenoshame Rolf probably had a thousand brothers so who knows
@@rwberger6Joke flew so far above your head, it's probably in orbit.
Heresy is not native to this world, it is but a contrivance. All things can be conjoined.
This is my favourite line
Miriel may have been one of the wisest person in the land between. He understood that all those divisions and prejudiced between people were all just arbitrary nonsense. Sadly his beliefs appeared to have been a minority in these shattered lands.
I personally like to belived that the rule to only hide royal omen was created in responce to Marika having the omen twins, and that it at least was a sliver of kindness towards her children, even if just looking at them probplay gave her nightmares.
I wouldn't really consider hiding and trapping people in a dungeon below the city for their entire lives a sliver of kindness
Edit: apparently this is a very hot take 🤣
@@Cbrunning849 The alternative was her killing them, so...
@@Cbrunning849she didn’t remove their horns so she could’ve done worse, that’s why it’s only a sliver.
@@tiacool7978 That's like a kidnapper saying it was either keep them trapped in a dungeon or kill them....or you know letting them live normal lives with their family and doing neither
@@Cbrunning849No it isn't because the kidnapper in your analogy has no specific responsibilities outside of the situation you presented while Marika has a trauma level akin to a holocaust survivor, a nihilistic entrapment of immortality, and the requirement to stitch and hold reality together.
Yeah she's awful and what she did to the Omens is unforgivable, but you're comparing a random act of cruelty to one deeply rooted in a sympathetic, cosmic plotline.
Marika is evil but you refuse to learn from her story so you can instead act morally superior to people who sympathize with her.
the one thing i find interesting about the whole thing of the horns meaning cursed blood
is that Morgot seems to have expelled it when defeated.
he is reduced in size, but absolutely all of his horns are *naturally gone.
no cut horns, no shriveled horns, just outright gone. this specific thing
is what made me think the whole thing of having horns was
indeed a curse.
Not just his horns, but also his tail and all the hair that covered his body. It would seem as though all signs of the crucible were removed from him upon his defeat. What's left to ask now though is, was it removed because of his devotion to the erdtree or was some other outer force responsible?
@@iamfine2624or did it simply die along with him?
"hurt people, hurt people" being the motto of Elden Ring
Marika as Lucille Bluth moment
Most of them just hear the command twice
@@Centinym I was just about to say that.
"Hurt people! Hurt people!" Also a bit of a motto of any souls game
more like the outer god is speaking to me. i can prove it. transforms.
The issue with a mortal who ascends to godhood is they dont have a therapist and they will hold onto trauma... Forever
And the same goes to Miquella, if one ripped off love and sympathy, what madness could he be caught with
No one is powerful enough to give them advice, and they exercise their power freely and let their trauma manifests through their actions.
marika and her children were supposed to die and pass on the godhood lineage to their offsprings but she removed rune of death to be immortal and shattered the elden ring when it was time for her children to take her role, it's the greater will's fault for giving Godhood to meek humans where it could just send Shadow beast like creature as a god to reign over the land
I think the issue lies in their methods to cope. You don't need a therapist to heal from trauma. They're just usually a good resource for healthy coping mechanisms
this should be in one of the Best Quotes
Shadow of the erdtree showed us that the darkness of light is equally as holy as the light itself. Fitting that the golden order is full gold with no shadow, because she shunned them
Reverse darksign, kinda.
Truly a gilted order rather than a golden one.
Gold has a dark side to it. What Marika wanted was gold with no shine, as the shine would show the darkness of gold. She wanted a light, but that light ended up burning more than she had wanted.
The classic yin and yang themes in Japanese stories.
I think it's interesting that the Formless Mother also seems to be related to shadow, appearing to Mogh underground, and to the blood fiends in the shadow of their tutelary deity. The Omen themselves look like a combination of hornsent and the blood fiends. Sort of seems like the Mother of Truth is interested in bringing things that were hidden up out of the shadows.
Something to note about the Omen: the Hornsent Grandam has dialog which implies the origin of the Omen births in Marika's kingdom to be a curse. She explicitly calls it "the Curse of the Omen."
Very bizarre this was not mentioned as she was very likely the origin of the omen curse in the lands between.
This could be both interpreted as an actual curse/hex which hornsent cast.
But I think it can also be interpreted as just an unfortunate burden they will have to deal with.
There's a shadow near the first burnt ruins that curses Marika and her descendants too.
How do you get this dialogue? Is it after beating Messmer? I haven’t heard this before.
Having hornless slaves also manifest as Shadows is a great way to show the issue with Messmer's wholesale genocide of their people: Not every person in Hornsent society is personally responsible for its worst parts. He and his murdered not only the cruel and vicious, but their *victims.* And the normal civilians with no say over who got jarred.
"You can't solve oppression with genocide" is a pretty normie and straightforward take for the DLC to have, and it's amazing how many people missed it in favor of deciding that an entire civilization deserved grotesque butchery because some of them were bad.
Exactly. I guarantee you that the Hornsent civilization is not a monolith and had many who were unaware or did not approve of some of their more grotesque practices such as a Greater Potentate from Bonny Village who was disgusted by the jarring practices that he made cookbooks for jarring items that specifically excluded using living beings in the process.
There were also those who were subjected to their own brethren’s brand of cruelty if found guilty such as the Hornsent spirits in Midra's manse who begged their fellow Hornsent Inquisitors to spare them and ask what their master Midra was guilty of.
It's an unfortunately common stance for a lot of people to take these days when presented with literally any media that deals with the theme of cycles of abuse and vengeance on a societal level. People take the justified rage of the victims and use it to argue that indescriminate genocide is somehow okay.
It's like, I wonder how these people would feel if they lived in a society that oppressed a specific group, and then somebody from that group came into their house and brutally maimed and murdered their entire family just on the basis that "Your people oppress mine" even if their famiily had nothing to do with the practice.
Fun fact: The japanese description of the Arcane Talisman talks about a clan of slaves who, after the fire, became the Bloodfiends. Fire of course is about Messmer, so very probably they were slaves of Hornsents and the Mother saved them in the end.
P.s: Also, if i remember well, the shadow people inside the Shadow Keep are hornless, so maybe slaves Messmer saved?
They're probably still servants but seeing as how some use Messmer fire makes me think they have a modicum of self agency
The cycle of hatred and abuse is hard to break…. :(
She saw what the hornsent did as what the Omen did, despite the Omen having done nothing. These are consequences of attributing collective guilt.
What's more, she probably sees the curse that the Hornsent placed upon her children as a curse on herself, not on them. As such, she doesn't see the Omen Twins, or any of the other Omen, as the victims that they are. Instead, she sees them as a disgusting stain that she needs to get rid of.
@@the_furry_inside_your_walls639 She knows it is a curse on them, but they have been cursed as a way to get back at her after she destroyed most of the Hornsent... so in a way, it is a curse on her
Not "in a way" but literally. When you strike at a god, you do so through their "children" - their followers. There was no other way for the Horniset to get to her otherwise. Only the Greater Will can punish her directly. @@marcussawyer4751
It is also the consequence of watching her entire people be destroyed in an unimaginably horrible way, and being consumed by rage and hatred of the evil hornsent scum who did it.
So why did she let dozens if not hundreds of them live literally under her own feet?
Do you people even think? “She hated omen, that’s why she let so many of them live, including her own children!”
Describe a single reason why Morgott or Mohg wouldn’t be executed or excised of horns at birth if what you just said is true.
I’ll wait.
Marika trying to attain godhood to avenge her loved ones and protect her future lineage, before turning into a menace, sounds kinda like Anakin Skywalker's character arc.
oh shit... and it wasn't just the men. it was the women and children too D:
Star Wars is very loosely based on older media, including Samurai movies, where this was a common theme. Alot of old up to the 60s Samurai movies are cautionary tales about Revenge.
💯 Marika feels like one of GRR Martin's takes on Joseph Campbell's monomyth theory
The devs are screwing with us, the timeline of messmer crusade and Marika's own ascension happen at different times. Marika gained godhood long before messmer crusade, his crusade happen right near the end of Godfrey age and some time before Radagon became Elden lord, but this means that the hornsent lived through the age of plenty and the liurnian wars only as the fire giants were defeated did messmer begin his crusade. It almost like someone else was actually in control and Marika was a puppet.
Perhaps Marika removed the Rune of Death not just to replace death with reincarnation via Erdtree burial and to remove a threat to her reign but also to subject the Hornsent to an unending agony of hellish torment where they are hunted, butchered scorched and impaled by Messmer’s crusaders, horrifically transformed into sickly man-flies, stuffed into furnace golems like the shamans and criminals were in their jars, turn into Bloodfiends after sheer desperation and despair or be reduced to a sad existence as a shadowy shade, trapped in a strange in-between of life and death.
Honestly the hornset has done unspeakable things to Marika and her people the hornest turned the shamans(aka empyreans) into jar people butchering them all except for Marika herself and she got revenge by sending her son out to commit genocide against them
Both sides have done horrible things
The formless mother’s presence can be found in the land of shadow much more than you’d expect
@MrJomalley123 Yeah, but it was the entire hornsent civilization that got butchered. You really can't blame some hornsent farmers in some random village for the actions of Bonny village and the inquisition. As we see here even the hornless slaves got burned. If Marika had just targeted the Hornsent elite and those responsible she would of been completely justified I think
I think she removed it because she was genuinely trying to make a better world, according to what her life had taught her. Same as Ranni, same as Miquella, same as the player character. Ambition is limited by what one can conceive; she wanted to elevate life and protect her children from death, and it become an unending prison, in time.
One of the things I’ve always loved most about From’s games are the theories people come up with, because that could fit in the lore quite well tbh
Marika is such a fascinating character, probably my favorite or at least high ranking in the cast. All the subtle context clues about her past in the DLC...god it was just such a great experience. I brushed off Leda's comments when she said "The hornsent were never saints" thinking it was just the Golden Order excusing Marika's crusade, but then that moment walking into the Shaman village, finally understanding what all the pot gaols were for, it hit me hard. I always struggled to understand why Marika was so hateful towards the Omen, especially her two sons, especially when Godwyn led the Crucible Knights (the Crucible being the source of the Omen's curse.) I couldn't understand why the Golden Order seemingly couldn't (or in reality's case WOULDN'T) conjoin the Omen.
It may just be me, but I really feel for Marika; feel sorry for her. Not specifically because of what happened to her and her people, but rather sorry that she has become so wholly consumed with revenge, it ruined any chance of having the utopian society she wanted to make. Flawed from the very beginning, because a wounded, flawed individual couldn't give up that spark of hatred that brought her to where she was. The worldbuilding of Fromsoft games is just...so far above most of what you see in gaming these days. I'm sad there won't be another DLC for Elden Ring, but I really hope there will be an Elden Ring 2 someday down the road. I'm not ready to give up this world quite yet.
A recurring theme in Elden Ring is that the next generation imagines their better world from the context of the current world. Ranni, Miquella, Goldmask, Fia, even a monster like the Dung Eater - every Order we can choose is a reaction to the Golden Order, an attempt to fix the flaws in it. Marika’s world she imagined as better was built from the pieces she grew up to have; it’s not a lack of ambition, but a much deeper problem, one that makes Ymir look frankly foolish for saying it’s ‘the mother’s fault’ when the world as a whole is a harsh teacher.
i mean, it still is objectively an excuse of the crusade. history is written by the victors. on a related note, were marika's people ever saints? were they hornsent themselves? we will never know- they are gone, she left her village & culture behind, dominula is "endured" under the erdtree, and the jar innards are left in the gaols or taken in messmer as an attempt of healing or relief in marika's absence.
@@goldie1573 they are not gone, sort of, they are the "numen", a race which you can pick at char selection, and also the denizens of the eternal cities, both explicity said to be of the same race as marika herself.
But we will never know any more lore about it since ER development is now over, a shame.
@@Sewersyrup i meant in the context of the emptiness of her village.
Don't care, still love the hornsent, they understand how the world works.
Morgott has by far the most tragic backstory. Born an Omen to the Golden Lineage of Marika and Godfrey, he was shunned and cast out, denied his birthright, and yet despite all of these abuses he *still* wanted to serve the Golden Order. Marika never loved him, but he protected Leyendell during the Shattering War nevertheless. Even getting denied entry to the Erdtree by the impenetrable thorns didn't dissuade him.
If he was born without horns, like his brother Godwyn, he would have been a favored child no doubt.
Remember everyone: History doesn't typically repeat itself, but it sure as hell does rhyme.
I've always found this quote to be overly pedantic and intentionally obtuse. When one says "history is doomed to repeat itself", they don't mean that the exact same events will occur again. That's pretty self-evident. What they mean is similar events will always recur again and again inevitably. Saying history "rhymes" is just a quirky way to convey that exact same concept.
@@thunderryu0494 What is wrong with just letting it ride? I want to make it clear that yes, I DO know this. But there's also a such thing as just letting loose. Let it ride.
I prefer the saying "history is like a spiral; it loops around and builds higher on itself until it becomes God's problem".
@@ScarletStarManor"I just said something stupid, but who cares?!, Let it ride!" Said the stupid.
History repeats itself time and time again, source: all recorded history.
2:35 this honestly makes so much sense, and if its true then it would be such an awesome retrospective detail from the base game
It is interesting how SOTET showed us exactly who created the omen curse and why. That it isn’t just a phenomenon but a part of Marika’s past come back to haunt everyone
The lamentor proves this isn't true, the omen form is not a curse cast by the hornsent granddam or the hornsent people.
The figures in the Omen's nightmares might be the Lamenters
“An eye for an eye makes the world go blind.”
3:10 being crucified by a god as soon as you try turning against it is not what I call "the highest power in the land"
Well she is the highest power in the land, the Greater Will is just not of this land.
I remember the Official Gameplay Trailer had a line early on where Melia literally says the Golden Order is broken to its core. Who'd have thought that line extended so deep into the game?
"When I said 'to its core' did you think I was just exaggerating"
Honestly, I don't blame Marika for this. Obviously any outsider to the situation like us can point out the hypocrisy, but when I put myself in her shoes, I can see why. Marika probably thinks she's doing good, that by oppressing the Omens, she's keeping evil acts like those of the Hornsent from happening. In her eyes, there's probably no difference between the Hornsent and the Omens. It's honestly sad to see, Marika unknowingly upholding a cycle of oppression that the Hornsent started, all to keep her people safe from an evil that she's already thoroughly crushed, brought about by a people she doesn't t understand are different from the Hornsent.
It heartbreaking how marikas own trauma caused such harm to the omen, and it's also even more heartbreaking how miquella took the blame for, being so scarred form learning about his mother's own past to the point he would forsake himself to try and do good as he felt it was the only way he could repair things. In short generational trauma sucks. And can ruin even the best of people.
And the best irony is, you can turn this around yet again by helping the Dung Eater.
That’s also not “right.” Murdering people in cold blood just to “curse” their soul is no different than what Marika is doing to the omen. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
I thought dung eater was going to turn everyone into a cursed omen. So not quite the same as the prejudice of Marika and the hornsent.
Bro the dung eater just wants to turne the world into hell through unspeakable acts, there's nothing he can do on his own either. It's you who becomes the monster.
@@doodlebop921 The other thing is we don't know if Dungeater's plan even works or its just him being insane and wanting to molest corpses.
@@doodlebop921 That is not the dungeater ending though
The oppressed who achieve victory and go on to be oppressors is a common theme in history. A relatively recent and extreme example would be the Rwandan Genocide.
I don't know about this, what happened? Did they turn the acts around on the previous oppressors?
Current Palestine is an even more recent example
@@BygoneT Rwandan history manages to include both an expression of and an exception to this trope. The Tutsi minority ruled before colonialism, then were colonised, the british now using them as intermediaries to rule Rwanda, later, as colonialism ended, and with the help of the catholic and protestant churches, who saw the Hutu as suffering an injustice by being denied power in the land where they were the majority, the majority Hutu took power from the Tutsi, and a Tutsi rebellion started, hoping to regain power. The Hutu began to discriminate against the Tutsi, which culminated in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, where 500,000 to 100,000,0 Tutsi, moderate Hutu and Twa (Pygmies who make up about 1% of the population) were killed in 100 days. This ended when the Tutsi rebellion, their ranks swelled due to the genocide, overthrew the Hutu. The Tutsi then established a highly authoritarian government, however they did not begin reprisals against the Hutu, punishing those who participated in the genocide, but leaving the rest alone. The remaining Hutu extremists fled to the Congo, where they still fight with Rwandan backed forces. Rwanda has economically prospered since.
If you want the account of someone who survived the genocide, I reccomend Tharcisse Semingawa, and his book "No greater love" or the article "Remebering the Rwandan genocide 25 years on."
@@odenetheus I was about to say this.
Israel-Palestine is another example.
“The Golden Order may not be perfect, but it’s the best system we have” -Marika probably
The garnished of no renown: my order actually allows everyone in it BECAUSE EVERYONE HAS TRIED KILLING ME SO I GET TO RULE OVER THEN AND BRING JOY TO SPITE YOU WITCH
This is easily one of the most elucidating explanations connecting the themes of the base game and the dlc. Your work is always interesting but this is sublime.
My heart sank with such ominous title in my notifs, before realizing it's just a Zullie upload.
Sank* 👊🤓
@@coffeestirrer5711Sank you for the info!
The Noble Goldmask has always seemed like the best ending
He basically says: "You are all fucked up. The laws of nature are not yours to do whatever you want. Go to therapy"
Unraveling the mystery of what shackled the Golden Order was such an interesting experience. If my heart wasn't rooted in the Age of Stars that's the ending I'd have gone with. I had like 3 or 4 mending Runes I could use at the end of my playthrough
Ehh, not entirely. The best way to describe the GM end is this.
The foundation of your house is terrible. However, you still like some of the quirks of it. Instead of removing the foundation, you reinforce and repair what you can. This is great! But alas, there as still creaks, cracks and other damaged points that are too big to mend. In this case, those cracks being the many prejudices of the GO and its many faults. It's just now its a lot more stable. Like a lengthened leash or a sharpened rusted blade. They are better, yes, but not what *could* be.
Reformation always seemed better to me than simply a new regime.
**Looks at Ranni.**
@@giantslayer9335 Ironically ranni isn't even in that "regime", She basically pulls a Melina and space-KYS's herself, taking out ever outer-god's influence along with it. She basically strips all forms of "divinity" so the *people* can make their own choices.
Tbh the only one that even counts as that kinda ending is the poopoo muncher.
It would have been so beautiful if she triumphed over her trauma and embraced Mohg and Morgott.
Yeah, but that's far too, eh, positive for a Miyazaki FromSoft game...
Forgiving people probably isn't in her vocabulary
Those boys deserve a hug both.
Godfrey at least seems to care for Morgott, but still not enough to rescue him and his brother from the sewers...
@@nautilus2342 To be a little fair with him, we don't know much about his life so it could have been he was too busy warring Marika's wars and when he became the first tarnished, she exiled him, effectively losing connection with his omen children.
Tbh i don't blame Marika for setting herself up on the wrong path.
The lesson of "the children are not responsible for the actions of their ancestors" is correct, but there was no one there to teach her because the hornsent fucking killed all of her people.
Someone who grows surrounded by injustice and despair will likely learn how to act in the same way. It's tragic, but i don't blame her for choosing this path.
Stuff like this only be changed over a long period of time, and in fact in the end she seemed to recognise the errors in her ways and tried to break the cycle by shattering the Elden Ring and setting us up to a path for a better future.
After the death of Godwyn, she realised the true consequences of her actions. Yet it’s ironic that of all the people to force Marika to change, it’s the half-Carian princess who doesn’t want to be told what to do that brings the end of her age, and not the persecution of a cursed group of people, the refusal to let anyone die or let her own children suffer because of her personal issues.
@@joshuaconnall4237 Since it's so heavily implied she was in some way responsible for the night of black knives, or at least aided Ranni in it, she likely intended for Godwyn to die. Marika is perfectly willing to sacrifice her own children, that much is clear. So what was her goal in the end? I'm personally a fan of the theory that she wanted to die, to escape the prison of godhood.
Injustice and despair? The hornsent made a goddess out of her.
@@josephbulkin9222and they also killed all her family and loved ones, i dont think that Marika would want to become a godess if they werent all killed
@@MiguelSanchezDelVillar Still will take the Hornsent's side, they are the chosen people.
I've never played elden ring or any dark souls game, but goddam do I love these videos!
“Maybe something went tits up with it. Maybe it’s been broke for a good long time.”
The Omens were the hornsent’s final attack against the Golden Order. They were defeated so they cursed the order to have to bear children that they would hate.
And the omen themselves are punished for it too. Their horns are not the styled and nice horns of the hornsent, they painfully grow all over them and can be seen piercing back into them or blinding them while their bodies grow deformed and oger-like while their dreams are haunted by horned figures (These figures are not the omen-killers, they just styled their masks after the figures in the nightmares to better traumatize the omen). Their entire existance looks painfull.
How tf do cures work in ER? You'd think Marika being a god would stop Hornsent curses from working on her lineage.
@@anonisnoone6125Marika is only a vassal/mortal god. A kind of tier-1 god if you will. She still carries all her mortal flaws and can be injured, killed, and cursed. Its the outer gods and greater will and the like that are higher tiers above the cursing of mere mortals.
@@rwberger6she is not a mortal God Game stated multiple times she’s Eternal she’s not even dead post game she’s a spirit like Miquella she just lost her physical body that’s it and is the grace that guides us through the game
@@anonisnoone6125 and yet she couldn't cure the curses of the Empyrean's. (hey are the empyreans cursed by the Hornsent too or was that just some prophecy shenanigans)
"Suffering doesn't make you strong. It just makes you suffer" - Art Spiegelman
Here before thumbnail/title change
You're never here before thumbnail change now. UA-cam lets you upload three thumbnails and have the algorithm sort out which one is performing best.
@@ZullietheWitch TIL another YT secrets
@@ZullietheWitchGod is a hypocrite, Marika is a hypocrite. What’s the third one?
@@leiferikson5029It's "did they deserve this?"
@@lorenzotagliaferri2458Honestly my favorite of the three, although I like them all and all three are valid.
"When education is not freeing, the dream of the oppressed is to become oppressors themselves"
- Paulo Freire
As Friere is often attributed as the source for most of the terrible ideas currently ruining public education in the West, that quote has fascinating implications.
@@buzzsawkhan wait what? Bro, he's only hated by extremists groups because of his method involved critical thinking and aproaching the student as a person and using their world as a basis for learning. He was so good he could teach adults to read and write in less than a year and his students were always very fond of him, just watch their interviews. He's the most influencial educator in the world but most schools don't use his ideas aside from the very expensive elite schools and colleges. It's an anectote, but when he was arrested by the millitary dictadorship they asked him to teach their ranks, to which he replied "you ask me to do the same thing that got me in jail in the first place?" People only hate him because he was a huge for good but the powers that be would rather have alieneted masses.
@arthurdossantos6826 Just to be clear, you are referring to the author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, who is often held forth as either the founder or extremely influencial to the founding of Critical Pedagogy? Critical, as used here, having the Post-Marxist meaning of adhering to doctrinal thoughts, not questioning all underlying assumptions, of course.
@@buzzsawkhan That's him, yeah
@arthurdossantos6826 Well, I suppose then the easiest way to illustrate the point is to ask if your use of "critical tihnking" above meant having an open mind and questioning all underlying assumptions (the "traditional" usage), or the political use described by Horkheimer as: "a “critical” theory may be distinguished from a “traditional” theory according to a specific practical purpose: a theory is critical to the extent that it seeks human “emancipation from slavery,” acts as a “liberating … influence,” and works “to create a world which satisfies the needs and powers” of human beings."
Just to clarify one other thing: I wasn't saying Freire personally was a terrible person, I know nothing about him as a person except he worked in Brazil among people that were actually in dire straights. My point is that his ideas, most specifically his book (The Pedagogy of the Oppressed) has inspired many terrible trends and movements in US education that are objectively terrible for educating students in things like Math, Science and English literacy.
Elden Ring is basically a grimdark retelling of Dr. Sues's _Sneetches on Beaches,_ with the Greater Will being the jackass with the star-belly machine.
"They were never saints; they just hapened to be on the losing side of a war."
Edit:
Let me be clear before more people get the wrong idea, I despise Marika.
"But it's still a wretched shame" remember both parts of that quote, they are both important
Edit: so you are based after all 🗿
@@filipporapetti9354 Maaan, Screw you. I was just about to post that. Lmao. That’s right, I hate how people just remove that part to justify Marika’s actions. It’s still messed up.
@@simonealcazar816it’s only all too easy to believe that when there are people who unironically believe in that the Imperium of Man are good guys who deserve to have their ideals dominate everything.
@@simonealcazar816 Exactly, the lore reveals in the DLC only made me hate the golden strumpet even more, as now she's also a massive hypocrite in addition to a genocidal maniac
@@riokollivier Or people who unironically believe Eren Jaeger did nothing wrong at all
The Omen are a curse placed on Marika and her followers by the hornsent after the massacre. At least one can infer from the dialog from a hornsent ghost placed just outside of the first town in the Shadow Realm, before the first fire golem.
the fact nothing happens to jarred shamans after death but if you defile someones corpse the way Dung Eater did he will reborn as omen gives an interesting implication of how people can actually ascend into godhood.
It's interesting that the hornless have chains and are treated as servant, yet apparently Midra had a pretty important role in hornsent society despite his lack of horns. Perhaps this is because he was particularly wise and intelligent, until his research drove him to the Frenzied Flame
Probably also explains why Messmer’s army is ok with having the hornless shadow ones around the Shadow Keep
Well, he also lived far away in a forest - he quite probably was seen as lesser by the horned, but they didn’t bother to go down and do something about it until they decided he was a heretic. Then they slaughtered his disciples and punished him worse than anyone else had ever been punished, with a ghost in the manor asking ‘aren’t we kinfolk?’
I don't think Midra was important in hornsent society at all, quite the contrary... those shades at his place are his servitors, like the ghost that hails you when you enter, as for the inquisitors and horned warriors, they are there because they purged his place and killed Nanaya before sticking him with that giant tooth pick.
@@Sewersyrup Since he lives in a manse he was most likely a priest or somenthing like that, so I believe that he had a somewhat important role. Also if I remember correctly his servants have horns, so at least some of the people of the Tower did not have a problem with serving a hornless scholar like him, even if he was technically inferior to them. But still as another comment pointed out Midra lived isolated so he was surely an exception
He was an intellectual. A “sage”. You see some ruined experiments around the place-but I really don’t think intelligence is useful when it comes to figuring out the Frenzied Flame… it appears to embrace raw madness.
Midra probably tried to understand the Frenzied Flame, to total disaster. He does not want its embrace.
Variant of Marika... Island of horns
Find the tree of a land forlorn
Stunt of Omen, metabolise Hornsent
Morgott and Mohg revile vice regent
The data supports servants of gold
Endlessly telling this story of old
Throw me to the sewers, let me there ponder
Just keep me away from the false Golden Order
>did they deserve this?
>memories of hornsworn dudes with infinite stamina, crit immunity, no stagger and no chill
Yes they did, and they still got off easy.
If my people got genocided by doing what I was told to do was right since my birth, then yeah I’d also use as much bs power as possible
you know the saying, an eye for an eye... leaves the whole world blind.
ive always loved the politics of the souls games. its painfully reflective of the human world
I think its a pretty underappreciated detail of the franchise. Its really dark dark fantasy without becoming really silly over the top grimdark.
Well George R R Martin is great at political intrigue from what I've heard and you can definitely see that influence in ER imo
@@alfalldoot6715 not just George Martin, but the writers for the other souls games as well. I especially love the dark souls series
@@maxwellsmith9988miyazaki was inspired by GRRM, that's why dark souls shares a lot of similar themes.
This is my favorite one you've done, so far. Plus, that's my favorite of the Kings Field tracks that you use.
Thanks for the awesome stuff you create 😎💜
I wonder if Ranni succeeded in escaping the shackles of Godhood, or if she's cursed in another way.
She still bears her fate - a fate woven in the stars. She thinks she can manipulate it or distort it into the ‘dark Empyrean’ - an Order hidden and obscure, to prevent what she sees as the fundamental failure of the Golden Order, its visibility and direct theocratic institution. But it is an Order and there are flaws that frankly seem obvious: leaving the Lands Between in anarchy, hiding the truth (perhaps astrologers will learn something of it), condemning the people to doubt and uncertainty. A cold, distant order instead of the bounty and iron grip of Gold. Is this better? Certainly better than what’s left after thousands of years of the current Age stagnating.
But every Age ends and every Age will have suffering, because the only absolute solution to suffering in the game is to kill everything. I’d rather have a world with life, even if it means some suffering, than the peace of a universal grave. Ranni, Miquella, Goldmask, Fia, they’re all better than the status quo.
She does become a God in her ending since she takes on the elden ring and you could argue the puppet body she has is already a "curse" since it makes her sleep a lot.
Something I see no one talking about: Ranni and god Miquella have 4 arms. makes one think...
@@Sewersyrup Empyreans were traditionally 4 armed, but Ranni chose to forego her lineage in order to make decisions on her own.
I think that’s why her character is beautiful, it shows her flaws and how deeply her trauma affects her character, hell it’s very common for victims of trauma to see anything that is similar to that event as bad
My biggest takeaway from the DLC was that Marika was ABSOLUTELY a monster. BUT I can see how she got there and understand it, making me feel more sorry for her than anything.
Interesting thing I noticed about the Omen twins recently is how they dealt with their mommy issues. Morgott leaned into upholding the status quo, maybe in an attempt to earn his mother's love. Mohg went the other way and tried to establish a brand new order and even began worshipping a new "mother": the Formless Mother.
I always leaned towards the side of Mohg rather than Morgott for that particular reason. No way I'm serving an order that hates and mistreat my kin for simple being born different. But also felt that Morgott is protecting the order more so for Godfrey rather than Marika, Godfrey being the only one to give the twins a fighting chance and loved them despite their afflictions. So Morgott protects the other his father fought so hard to create. I bet Godfrey regrets helping in the creation of the Golden Order but you can't really do much if your wife is a god and has control over the laws of the world.
Might even call it some kind of spiral.
I've barely played the game but I've watched hundreds of hours of Lore Content. Keep up the good work!
Thankfully people seem to have their wits about them; elden ring is (when it comes to interpersonal relationships) about parental abuse and abandonment, and subsequent effects, all the way from the greater will and metyr (somehow, which is insane) to marika and her three cursed sons (one became a mass murderer, one turned to the formless mother who seems to prey upon pretty much everyone who gets spurned by society, and morgott died in service of an order that despised him). Marika's actions were so despised by everyone that they had an effect on pretty much everyone in her family, from Ranni rejecting the golden order outright and being driven to extremes, ro Rykard being used as the GO's torturer-in-charge leading him to abandoning it and basically going insane, and even Radahn opposed the destruction of Selia and Miquella did all he did partly so he wouldn't repeat Marika's mistakes.
Not to mention the Omen aren't all who were targeted by her, because the nox, ancestral followers (who don't seem to be related culturally to the hornsent even if they both worship the crucible as they despise metalwork while hornsent use metal implements a lot), tarnished, great caravan, albinaurics, those who live in death (who only exist because of her btw), demihumans, misbegotten, fire giants (?) etc. who had nothing to do with her past were still oppressed by the GO for pretty much the same reason shamans were (no grace/horns).
The reason I laid down all this groundwork, just as an addendum to the lore in the video, is simply because a bunch of people somehow defend marika/get very weird about it, just because of her backstory? I find that a fairly insane position to hold, because within the context of all that has happened in elden ring's world, the golden order and marika herself is indefensible, from a moral standpoint. A very layered character who's the victim of the grander theme of elden ring along with omen/hornsent, that is interference from outer gods completely ruining the lands between, sure, but indefensible all the same.
A detail that frequently seems to be overlooked about the Omen is how those with their horns intact can summon/channel the very same black/gold wraiths as the Wraith Callers and Royal Revenants, and the same applies to the Omen Bairn and Regal Omen Bairn. Meanwhile, the Horned Bairn not only uses overtly parallel wording in its description, but summons "vengeful spirits," which wraiths are also stated to be, save for the distinction that wraiths are born of those who died while *cursed.* As mentioned in the video, the Omen are also haunted by horned faces in their nightmares, and although Omen obviously bear similar horns to the hornsent, they consistently have a very different appearance otherwise (Morgott notwithstanding), with bulky figures, ink-black complexions, and twisted facial features. Truth be told, they conspicuously resemble Bayle, himself an Ancient Dragon most likely born with a blessing/curse/mutation of the Crucible.
To me, all these points together imply that the nature of the Omen is that of a curse, born of the collective resentment of the Shadow Realm's condemned and abandoned inhabitants. Vengeful spirits indwelling the bodies of infants of the Erdtree's people prior to their births, plaguing their dreams and warping their forms. The curse targeting those born of the Golden Order stems from the hornsent, while the physical appearance of the Omen derives from Bayle's resentment for all in the Lands Between (as perhaps the most uniquely powerful and significant being in the Realm of Shadow, it tracks that his influence upon the curse would be outsized). Personally, I also speculate that the consistent birth of Omen among Leyndell's nobility was due to the resentment of Messmer's army, not only for being abandoned in the Shadow Realm, but for having been spurned by their own aristocratic families for having joined Messmer in the first place.
As a curse, these wraiths manifests with the same appearance as those afflicting the Revenants and Wraith Callers, as well as Godwyn's death-flames, but unlike those instances, this persists through accursed blood, giving rise to bloodflame should its true potential be unlocked. I think it's all but certain that this curse is enabled by the Formless Mother, who seems to consistently pity and embrace the maligned and downtrodden, and who came to be worshiped by a number of destitute hornsent in the wake of Messmer's crusade. This would further explain why Miquella needed a blood ritual to cross over into the Realm of Shadow; the Formless Mother maintains a connection between the two planes in order to perpetuate the Omen curse.
I think Marika only sided with the Greater Will, which would have been an outside god at the time, to overcome the Hornsent. This success was marred by Marika having to become a vessel of the GW, pretty much putting her in servitude again.
Marika arising our Tarnished to free her and clean up the mess of a world, starting a new cycle.
Another banger. Love these short form bits of analysis. I think Marika's attempt to snuff out every trace of the crucible also result in the Omen being ogre-like and full of painful horns. It's like a rebellion of the old powers against her cleansing obsession.
It is honestly tragic that Marika could have created an age where she ended the suffering and prejudice, but instead chose vengeance and had the roles reversed.
It's only human to do so.
The only way to end suffering and prejudice would be to end free will. Ironically, that is the conclusion Miquella comes to as well.
But could she really? Who knows what she had to cast aside to become god. Miquella had good intentions as well, but sliced off too much and became a mockery of himself. A hollow image and ambitions unending. I think Margit was right to believe that the flames of ambitions must be put off so the suffering won't propagate again. If only he didn't shine with them as well.
Nah hornsent deserved it.
Suffering, of some kind, is an inevitable result of distinction - at least, that’s the doctrine of the Frenzied Flame. We can see many ways her Order attempted to reconcile and repair the prior Order’s faults. But causality is not so easily escaped, to reference Berserk’s terminology. That’s why Miquella wanted to wipe away history, to make everyone forget all the old enmities - both revenge and justice set aside. Would that be a better way? A kind of Eden, perhaps.
Well at least we now know the answer to the line "golden one at whom were you so angry?"
Abused becoming the abusers, makes sense.
I like how both, Morgott and Mogh, have horns only on their heads, resembling their connection with the hornsent warriors and tutelary deities.
Morgott has horns all over his tail, and the way his cape falls on his back, it's implied he has some horns there too. Mohg has a horn growing between his fingers on his left hand, and when his body is altered by Miquella, we can see horns on the arms and poking through the back of the boots above the heel.
@@nightscout9979 Hmmph, yes and no. Morgott inherited the tail of the hornsent beasts that can be found in Messmer's fortress and Mogh inherited wings. There was no link between omens and winged beings, but with DLC lore, we can assume that Mogh inherited the wings of hornsent birds
@@Charleseed IIRC, Morgott's tail has more horns growing along the length of his tail when compared to those specimens' tails. As for the wings, the Divine Bird Warriors are probably the best indication of what the divine birds' wings look like, and they lack the leathery aspects and curling spikes of Mohg's wings. Also, Mohg's wings seem to be created on the spot by Nihil, so the Formless Mother is probably responsible for them.
@@nightscout9979 🤔🤔🤔
This won't stop me from giving every wandering hornsent I encounter a swirly in the nearest furnace golem.
Respect
I just love the way you write your stuff
What a title. Immediately caught my attention. Great work Zullie.
Which one did you get?
@@Gortallit was originally “god is a hypocrite”
@@Gortall I got “God is a hypocrite”
@@RepublicOfTruth Same and I love the title
@@RepublicOfTruth Damn! It IS good!
I don't really know if we can call her a hypocrite as I never saw her trying to push for peace and solidarity in the lore. She ran a police state after having conquered the world for what she thought was the greater will, with discriminated groups and inquisitors for the goal of protecting her own and rooting out heresy. And it makes sense, because her lessons are from the Hornsent. Hurt people hurt people, and the DLC shows us she's one of the most damaged people around.
oh no, boo hoo.Don't care. The Golden Order is the only pro human entity in the entire Lands Between.
in short, there are no good factions in The Lands Between (with the exception of Gold Mask but his group barely counts since he only has one sycophant)
Goldmask and Ansbach along Saint Trina may be right,
@@metal_fusion oh yeah, I forgot about Trina
Golden Order is pro-human. That makes it good to me.
oh, no, having a martial culture and waging war. SO EVIL. Cry harder hippie. better than Socialism.
IF GOLDMASK HAS 100,000 FANS I'M ONE OF THEM
IF GOLDMASK HAS 1,000 FANS I'M ONE OF THEM
IF GOLDMASK HAS 100 FANS I'M ONE OF THEM
IF GOLDMASK HAS 1 FAN IT'S ME
IF GOLDMASK HAS 0 FANS I NO LONGER EXIST
Marika's order is definitely more progressive than the Hornsent's (under the Crucible Order, your status in life is purely determined by your birth, how many horns you have, but under the Golden Order your status is determined by how much grace you have, which is something that can be gained or lost depending on your actions). But it's clearly a deeply flawed system that could never last. The only hope is that it will be succeeded by something better still (even if the new order is still itself imperfect) - Ranni, Fia and maybe even Goldmask seem to all have good suggestions at least.
"The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment."
The Mending Rune of Perfect Order, summing up the entire story in two sentences.
Just for the path leading up to the Divine Beast Dancing Lion, the Hornsent deserve much worse.
3:07 this look like "The Fallen Angel" to anyone else, or am I just reaching?
I like to think that even though she despised the horned beings and even those like the misbegotten who bore other aspects of the hornsent crucible, marika still had a messed up soft spot for the omen children. Omen Bairns exist to commemorate the “cursed” children and we see this practice comes from the land of shadow. As much as she was able to under her loathing, marika still held her children in her heart
That's the point. Marika is not better than the Hornsent, neither is Miquella
Violence begets violence. The broken seek to break others. The moral of Elden Ring is that cycles are insidious and ever-present. Only the truly great and virtuous can break these cycles, and even then it may come at great cost.
Honestly I’m not sure Elden Ring believes you can break those cycles - all falls within causality. But I don’t think it’s a message of despair. Births continue. Better things can be done, even if eventually more suffering must always arise. There is beauty in that, is there not?
@@WanderedIn I guess "break" isn't the correct term. "Reshape" maybe? All the endings available ask the same question: What can YOU do? Lord over a fractured world? Purge the world of mortal gods? Redefine death? Curse those beneath you? Remove the meddling of gods outright? Burn it all down? There is no perfect solution, but there are treatments and ultimatums.
It was miquellas mistake to believe he could escape causality.
It's a shortcut we can't take, we have to accept the horrors of the world as they are, and all that caused them to be.
Healing takes generations, it's a painful and seemingly endless task.
This is why I see Goldmasks ending as the truest best ending: stop anyone from meddling in the grand designs of power, and let the world heal on its own.
There is no hypocrisy, that would imply Marika wanted or claimed to want a fair world free of oppression. The hornsent made her people suffer, and so she made them suffer. There is no hypocrisy in revenge.
Like many oppressed people, she didn't dislike oppression itself, just that it was done to her.
Fact. Marika never claimed to be better. The hornsent got what they deserved. Marika is consistent. She hates horns. Even if its her own blood.
there is no such thing as a world free of oppression. Socialism is evil.
There's an interesting line from Nelson Mandela "and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a point, one can only fight fire with fire.""
I don't think Marika was doomed to repeat the oppression she experienced. I think that was why she shattered the Elden Ring. She realized she was perpetuating the same problem and tried to destroy it.
The lands between certainly would have been better if she had used her powers to help, rather than try to burn it all down.
damn, that title goes hard
Thank you so much. I've seen your videos for years and you helped me Connecting so many dots. In the dlc aw i spent hours with no answer trying to understand the symbols of the bodies below the spiral tower. And again without having names of mobs and with how easily you could me the chains on the hornless ones, I find that way too often the enviromental details re way too hidden. Despite loving an enviromental narrative, important details must be noticible
I will mention that the horn sent grandma has dialogue if you hit her talking about the “omen curse” being out on Marika and her progeny. I do wonder if the omen are different from the horn sent because of that.
"A curse upon the strumpet's progeny, upon Marika's children each and all. The curse of the omen shall strike thee down... In the form of the sacred beast's ire."
While it’s unfair to the Omens who haven’t done anything, I understand where Marika is coming from considering what the Hornsent did.
Though I don’t think Mogh and Morgott deserved to be exiled. Especially poor Morgott who helped the GO and it’s people despite being an Omen.
The crucible itself doesn’t seem evil. So while she’s justified in getting retribution against the Hornsent, her measures beyond that go a bit too far.
Summary of Elden Ring: If you have horns you are fucked
Unless an ancient blood goddess communes with you then you should be alright for a bit
Having someone be born, and on to exist without the trauma that bind them is a rare thing indeed.
the omen should definitely not have to suffer for this, but also, it's not as if each individual hornsent was responsible for the crimes you mention in this video. i find it disturbing how willing people are to paint their entire race in that way, and seem to revel in the purge marika ordered on them.
Sad as it is to say, people are very *very* willing to forgive horrible crimes as long as the person committing them is hot.
@@alfalldoot6715 i think the issue is rather that these people think the hornsent, as a race, deserve to be punished for the actions of those in power. there's nothing to "forgive" marika for if you don't believe she was wrong in the first place.
Yes, the first Hornsent spirit you encounter in the Gravesite Plains for example does not understand why they were burned to the ground by Messmer. There is a theory that only the upper classes/priest class of the Hornsents were aware of the practice. In a similar way that the priest class of the Aztecs were the ones practicing human sacrifices.
"disturbing"? Really? It's not real dude. Fromsoft is presenting us two clearly bad genocides. The hornsent killed all the Shine Maidens, and Marika genocides the hornsent in return. Picking a side doesn't matter, since both sides have purposely murdered innocent's. But realistically, a society that skins a race of people alive and stuffs them in jars with dismembered body parts so they can merge together cannot be allowed to exist. Especially when they have to wear masks so they don't get too excited while skinning them. Marika isn't doing any better, she banished a whole part of the country to a different dimension for gods sake. But to pretend like feeling more sympathy twords any side makes you "disturbing" doesn't make sense. Especially when this was a part of the hornsent culture. Sure, the average hornsent didn't participate, but they definitely didn't disagree with what was happening. Noting in the game even speaks about a hornsent feeling bad for the Shrine Maidens, so why would I feel for them? Makes no sense to have this pearl clutchy take when both sides are undeniably beyond evil.
She also continues to allow jars in her society. I really got the feeling it's part of a cycle of violence that shows that those who get in power start to inevitably abuse that power
It's hard to sympathize with the omen, since every single one I have encountered tried to kill me.
Same
I mean... So does pretty much everyone.
I like to imagine that Marika was "the prankster Miko" who did not take her job seriously while messing with everybody in her village until they were all massacred by the hornsent while young Queen Marika was watching, and the trauma made a hatred so visceral that looking Omen even her own children would rekindle her hatred and trauma and she would have probably killed them on the spot if Godfrey didn't interviene
after markia became a god and left, markia was about to let hornsent alone (after they successfully genocided her people), trapped in the lands of shadow.
after making marika a god and being abandoned, the hornsent grew resentful enough to curse the 'harlot' with horns to sprout from her children (which at this point is basically the lands between), at this point [unless i have the timeline wrong] marika's mercy broke, and she orderd mesmer to purge those who first purged her people, and still would not forgive her.
as poor as her reaction was against the omen, considering what she went through i cant say im surprised she couldnt stand the sight of the hatred of her owners have for her given physical form. being the equivalent of 'honored slave' to both the hornsent and then after escaping them almost immediately the 'honored slave' of the greater will.... not being able to take this actual symbol of hatred on that which she made to get away from her horrible situation is very.... human.
hypocrite? yeah, thats pretty fair.... kinda takes the nuance out of the situation though, doesnt it?
when one is borne at the middle of an ocean of sin, even with the best of intentions, how do you find your way to the surface?
Wrong, the Hornsent only started calling her that after she sicced Messmer on them. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the Hornsent contributed to Marika's ascension.
@@alfalldoot6715
first 'harlot' was not specifically a referance to the timeline, besides that:
yes, that is exactly what i said "trapped in the lands of shadow. after making marika a god,"
please actually read a comment before you respond to it: its in the first two paragraphs for crying out loud.
I always got the impression that the oppression of the Omen came later on, that it was more of a Radagon thing, when he was Lord, than explicitly Marika. There’s also the signs that the Hornsent existed somewhat peacefully within Erdtree society for a while.
Marika knew at least her golden rule problem, she knew her sins, but the difference is that Hornsent don't know their sins...
I think a lot of things are attributed to Marika that are probably better attributed to the religion that grew around her. Jesus didn't tell anyone to do the crusades or the inquisition(s), other men did.
I wish there was some greater interactions with Marika besides lore hints. It would've been interesting to have met with some npcs that had genuine first-hand accounts with Marika to share in the dlc. I do like her being more obscured in the base game, but I wish the curtain was pulled back just a bit more in the dlc.
I think she is meant to be like an irl relgiious figure. Where if she lived its so long ago no one alive would have an account anymore.
Hewg provides this actually.
Well there is one. The old hornsent granny who revives the dancing lion and gives you the soup is implied to have directly known Marika in some way and speaks ill of her.
"Yeah so anyway I met these whacky three fingers..." -Me my first playthrough burning it all down