I've gotten a lot of comments asking to show the model for Ranni's Two Fingers, usually because people want evidence for or against the theory that they have a third finger buried in the ground. This seems like a pretty solid point against it, but at the same time, the way its modeled seems strangely deliberate. The whole point of keeping clear answers scarce is to promote speculation, and misdirection is just another way of muddying the waters.
I think the more important question is: If all the Empyreans had Fingers with thumbs, did they have a big Thumb-War Tournament to decided which Empyrean was going to succeed Marika?
Hey I noticed something in the video about the Finger Slayer Blade. Maybe I'm mistaken but the cross-guard looks very similar to the cross-guard of the Ancient Relic Sword. The Relic Sword was made from the corpse of a God (Marika/Radagon) so is there a connection there?
That's exactly what I imagined as well. It's also possible that the Fingers were above ground in the cathedral and burrowed underground as soon as they saw Ranni with the fingerslayer blade.
The three fingers is stated to scrape its walls as a way to communicate without a finger reader by engraving its fingerprints, maybe Ranni’s fingers were doing something similar?
Remember guys before we beat the first demi god and the finger chamber opened up, everyone thought 'fingers' was probably what you called the members of some super secret organisation. Only to be greeted by two actual fingers. I love this fucking game.
Oh my god yeah I really thought “fingers” would just be like high ranking priests or something so when I killed Godrick and went back and was greeted by like gigantic, rotting, hairy, disgusting fingers I was beyond shocked
@@skilletborne i mean, considered I had finished all the souls and bloodborne I thought it wouldn't have been possible to see weirder shit than that. Boy was I wrong.
One thing I really love about the fingers is they only kind of look like fingers. It's pretty easy to see from their grotesqueness that the name is descriptive instead of prescriptive, helps to reinforce the cosmic nature of the outer gods.
Outer gods from japanase seems to intend they are just outside of the established order. It does not imply that the gods are all of cosmic nature. (I'm sorry I don't have the source ready to back this)
I agree, but I disagree. It makes sense that the Fingers’ name is descriptive. But then why did a different outer god make the Three Fingers - and more importantly, why then *stick to the theme?*
@@aztecserpent5525 Shabriri has been shown to attempt to deceive and coerce the player into becoming Lord of the Frenzied Flame. Perhaps that is precisely the reason this Outer God creates the Three Fingers to resemble the Two Fingers? In a land where tarnished are given guidance by Two Fingers, in order to become Elden Lord, it would make sense to give the tarnished of the Lands Between something they can perceive as trustworthy.
Thou miyazaki practically has included lovecraftian elements in all of his work, your point has some truth to it. Outer gods, in game, just meants they are outside the established order. When creating a world that is consistent and realistical within itself, a name is only what the people in that world have choosen to address a thing in that world. Take in account then, that our brain, and by extension any character we create, because of how it works, will always make interpretations of things, and therefore will never define anything as "uncomprehensible" for similar reasons to why we cannot think about not being able to think. If this happens, its an author antinatural insert, and its not beliable. Now, outer god is at the same time, a concept meant for people in world to get a name to an understood interpretation of something they dont comprehend; while for us, it is a hint pointing to them being cosmic in nature, in part because they are called with such an undescriptive name as "outer god", and in part because of the association with their general ingame portrayal. And finally if you wondering about it, "cosmic" is an adjective created to adress uncomprehensibility without making you think about it, its kinda like a skipover button, and still it unavoidably does try to give comprehension to the uncomprehensible. And its not really much of a common concept, calling stuff cosmic irl is pedantic for a reason and came to be from the minds of literate people with a lot of free time, using the previously existing concept of "cosmic scale" to abridge things. Alan poe didnt use it, and lovecraft, his associates and those that came after him, liked to use ancient and other words for the same purpouse
@@aztecserpent5525 Honestly it's just another fromsoftware trope of the two emissaries, Frampt and Kaathe, Sage Freke and Saint Urbain, the choir and mensis etc. One always represents itself as a herald of the established order; the other subverts by revealing dubious to source knowledge of the established order's lies and provides new information to influence a new perspective antithetical to the established order. If anything, the fingers are the most clear cut version of this trope yet, with one literally attempting to embody the will of order and stasis, and the other attempting to embody the will of chaos and entropy. But the actual interesting thing is how From tends to hammer home that both of these extremes can lead to untold suffering in the pursuit of an idealized form of universal perfection, by either revealing to us that both groups worship or revere the same para-causal force responsible for the current problems in the world, or by revealing a third path that denies the other two, such as with Aldia. of course this is all intentionally left vague while discussing, because we are talking about sweeping general ideas that are used by From as seeds to tell unique iterations of stories rooted in a few base concepts you can see repeating in their works.
It looks to me like whatever Ranni did to them was extremely painful. The fingers look like it's trying to climb away from Ranni's attack. The attack also seems to have done insane damage. Not only is there a huge wound on the creature, but the bottom looks partially melted/liquified. If the Fingerslayer Blade did that then that is truly one powerful weapon.
She had a set that enhances her frost magic, the Fingerslayer , and the Dark Moon Greatsword on her at the time. She went into that fight with a fucking arsenal.
I love the scene of Rannis puppet body sitting atop her massacred fingers. It immediately conveys that Ranni not just killed, but absolutely butchered them. The fingers look torn, cramped, it looks like their last moments were a desperate struggle filled with pain. Fantastic work by the people who made the model!
Upon looking at Rannis two fingers closer, I find it interesting there's a very distinct sense of fear in it's dying/death pose. The positioning of the fingers themselves almost give the impression that they were clawing/grasping at the wall behind them, almost as if they were trying to pull themselves away, presumably from the welder of the blade that slew them in this fashion, in an attempt to escape. This could indicate that the two fingers while being emissaries of the great willing, are still somewhat tied to the physical plain enough to give them a flight response in situations of danger or death and might point to the fact that they have no real power on their own at all. Not a big revelation or important one I know but just some fun musings for though
@@deathfuzz Still curious as to why that is? Her body I mean. Perhaps she opted for a faulty puppet as opposed to a replica what with lunatics like Seluvis prowling around.
@@alabasterindigo probably to imply the passage of time. Any doll will start to deteriorate after some time and use. Edit - oh you mean why she opted for a doll, instead of a replica of her body… well, we don’t know, but the main theory is it served as an homage to her old teacher, renna, the snow witch, since the puppet is supposed to resemble her.
They were literally in hiding in the first place. The place where we would expect to find them is atop a Divine Tower, instead we find them in a literal hole in the ground. I don't know how it went down that they fled, but it appears they did.
Mohg and Morgott's Great Runes are activated at the same Divine Tower, implying that they share the same Two Fingers since they're twins, so if a DLC adds Miquella's Great Rune, it will likely be activated at Malenia's Divine Tower. Since Ranni slew her Two Fingers in order to escape her fate as an Empyrean, Miquella's Two Fingers being slain already could be the reason for why he hasn't revived yet.
@@MetalFingerzz Every divine tower has a dead pair of two fongers at the top of them except Ranni's, which has her corpse. Since those two fingers are what allow the great runes to be reactivated, and since Ranni, the only known demigod to cast aside her rune, is also the only one whose two fingers isn't at her tower, it's commonly believed each of the two fingers correspond to the demigod whose great rune they reactivate.
@@chrisp.9380 Gameplay wise yes that seems to be how it works. However, we are told by Ranni herself that only she, Miquella, and Malenia were chosen by their own Two Fingers to be Empyreans to succeed their mother Marika. The rest of the demigods do not have their own in the lore, nor does it make sense for one's like Morgott and Mohg to have their own when they were supposed to be locked in the sewers for all eternity and only escaped when the Shattering began.
@@chrisp.9380 We don't actually know if they are just random Two Fingers, or specific to the Empyrean/Demigod. There is one in the Roundtable after all, and that one isn't tied to anyone as far as we know. Furthermore, it would be strange for someone like Godrick to even have a Two Fingers bound to him, as he only really gained importance after basically stealing a rune and booking it from the Capital. And even then, it was pretty minor.
Before the title inevitably gets changed, I'd just like everyone to know that I was catfished by the prospect of a feature-length video dedicated to "Ranni's fingers."
Considering Ranni was actively and obviously trying to murder her fingers, it seems like we find her in the aftermath of a battle between the two. Given that and the otherworldly nature of the fingers, maybe her fingers being larger with more joints could be explained by a phase transition we never get to see for ourselves.
i also just figured they were broken, but the idea that they have additional joints that they keep locked around us to look more like regular fingers is so fascinating. like they lull us into a false sense of security by mimicking our own hands, but since they are constructs of the greater will, obviously that limitation doesnt need to exist. why would ranni’s blade impart enough force to break them anyways, and especially at the tips of the fingers, when its heart or whatever is in the palm? what if those are like prehensile eye stalks or something? id kill for more insight into the weird biology of the fingers. even to know how they die as well. ranni’s fingers needed a special blade locked in a chest at the bottom of nokron, but all the other fingers are already dead by the start of the game? maybe sunlight kills them or something and the fingerslayer blade contains a star inside it. that would explain why theyre all underground or at least out of the sun. theres also the half rune of death carved into it but that could just be a calling card that ranni left. i think i like that theory that the fingerslayer blade has one of the stars that float around nokron in it and you need sun kill the fingers. maybe the sun is just general anti greater will? thats why the elden ring is in the tree and the big fish is in some other dimension? obviously the erd trees themselves exist, but if those arent direct constructs of the greater will, then if you consider that the big ethereal erd tree is like the greater will trying to replace the sun’s light so that one day its minions can roam the earth or something yada yada supervillain, the greater will being a sweaty sun allergic vampire could make sense. new headcannon just dropped thanks for commenting this and sorry for having a thorium moment in its replies
I thought that too. I don't think her fingers are any different from the others but either what you said: The fight occured and they transformed for it or maybe they get bigger the closer the person they belong to gets to the throne but that's just my theory.
A lot of comments are pointing out that Ranni’s fingers seem terrified of their incoming death but something I can’t help notice is the signs of a struggle. I didn’t notice it my first play though but it looks like the 2 fingers put up a fight as evident by the fresh bloody scars on the... fingers. After that it seemed to realize Ranni had the upper hand, it tried to escape, terrified of death. Also, that may explain why Ranni looks so out of it when we see her. She’s not wearing her Witch Drip. She’s naked(similar to the three fingers ritual...). She just had her own boss battle with a dagger and a body held together by thick threads. She’s pretty badass all things considered if she fought and killed something that big.
Wow I didn't notice that she might've had to be naked for an audience with the fingers. Another similarity to the three fingers. But Vyke on the other hand has the grasp of the three fingers on his armor, which means that he somehow got in there without getting maked 🤔 Maybe the stripping rule just got made after they realised that the armor is in the way lol
Ranni has bested bigger enemies. The dragon Adula, originally a sorcerer killer iirc, swore allegiance to the dark moon after Ranni beat it. Source: description on Adula's moonblade sorcery.
Now that I realize we were looking at the back of the hand and not the front, it makes me wonder if in it’s final pose, it was in the process of trying to escape. Usually when you enter an area with a pair of two fingers, their palm is facing you or on the corpses their fingers are directed towards the area you enter. And for this hand to be turned away from its room’s entrance, maybe it was trying to flee from Ranni? Clawing at the walls to try and escape before ultimately being killed with the one weapon that could kill it.
@@loadishstone because the god damn doll was broken and it probably didn't happen because Ranni tripped on the way down there. There's fight and there's flight. The situation demands fight, the pose expresses flight.
@@hines182 that might well be, what the doll suggests is that they did the thing where both landed a killing blow at the last second. Obviously you guys are correct, but he questioned how people can get it wrong more often than not.
The music choice fits that creepy observation that in the world of Elden Ring there are right and left hands. Makes you wonder if the channels of Greater will ever had bodies
Interesting concept: Maybe Ranni's Fingers look different as a bizarre, knock-on effect of the way in which she "killed" herself? It stands to reason that they're connected to her in more that just a metaphorical sense, and the effects of slaying her own flesh may have caused unpleasant, mutation-like effects in the Two Fingers in the intervening time between then and when Ranni killed it. We've seen what the whole ordeal did to *Godwyn,* who's to say the after-effects of the Night of Black Knives were exclusive to him and Ranni?
I don't think so because the warping effects on Godwyn are because he only died in soul and still, against better sense, got buried at the Erdtree's roots, infesting the tree. Ranni's fingers shouldn't be connected to Godwyn's corruption except as they're connected to the Erdtree, in which case that would be true for all the fingers. IMO if Ranni's finger's look weird it's either because all fingers are more or less unique(let's not pretend the other fingers look normal), or because Ranni shanked them with a forbidden cursemark.
@@Xandros999 but maybe they’re connected to Ranni. Godwyn’s soul died and the fingers aren’t the soul, they’re more like the flesh to the greater will which is their soul. So maybe when Ranni’s body died, the cursemark also appeared on the fingers, and the twisted appearance is like a body contorting itself in agony
One interesting thing of note: It seems Ranni has carved the cursemark of death into the fingers. But, it's only half of the full mark, and it's the same (leftward-curving) half that was used to kill her own physical body. I wonder if this has some sort of significant implications (why only this half and not the full mark?), or if it's just some sort of ironic calling-card on Ranni's part, as another commenter theorized. Either way, it seems deliberate: Turning the model shows that although the cut is deep, the fingers are not cut the whole way through, so there isn't a "mirrored" cut on the other side.
Presumably the Two Fingers don't have a "soul" worth killing, or at least can no longer pose any threat to Ranni as their equivalent of a disembodied spirit.
I noticed that, as well. It leads me to assume that Ranni first tried to kill the Two Fingers, but when they couldn't be killed through the power of Destined Death (also implied by the Fingerslayer Blade's text), she slew her own body in an attempt to break free. Then, finding how that, too, fell short of achieving freedom, she found a weapon truly capable of killing them.
@@Neo_Theo Considering what happened to Marika and Blaidd I highly doubt Ranni took any overt action against the Two Fingers prior to the Night of the Black Knives. However either she or one of the other assassins (possibly experimenting on her behalf) probably did try to kill some fingers _during_ that night which also helps explain their absence from the Divine Tower.
@@Photoloss Agreed, during that night. I picture Ranni realizing it won't work after carving into the fingers, then immediately carving it onto herself in defiance/desperation.
@@Neo_Theo Probably not quite as desperate. In order for everything to work out she must have prepared the doll body in advance, and presumably arranged some means of timing her death in sync with Godwyn's. I reckon she planned both parts but only one of them worked out, hence her being stuck in hiding instead of discovering Radahn's importance herself and scheming to bring him down a lot earlier.
I love Ranni's story the most. Something about fighting your fate, even though it puts you in a position of power and instead aspiring to control your own destiny just resonates with me.
Or you know, betraying everyone and everything who/which ever trusted you, and dooming the world and its inhabitants without second thought, killing family members, spawning unholy abomination from your brother, enslaving souls as puppets. And that she is allied with satanic archetype Rykard. After all, game does not even hide it, she is literally two-faced and is a puppet and should you complete her questline, you in turn become rather fittingly a puppet for a puppet, Elden Lord to do all her bidding. Ranni does not fight the fate. She wants to be one to decide fate of all others. Tyrant, in all essence. She is adherent to the Dark Moon, Outer God of frigid darkness and cold, after all.
For me, it’s the idea of fighting a fate that’s ultimately forced on you, with the power offered being a carrot dangled in front of your face to entice you into quiet obedience, that’s the part I like most. I dunno, there’s just this super spiteful side of me that gets really irritated when characters in popular media fall to corruption or otherwise become mindless puppets on some half-assed promises of power that anybody with functioning brain cells can tell is a farce.
I'd like Ranni alot more if she didn't cause the Death curse stuff. Especially on Godwyn and Fortisax who both seemed like pretty good people. There's fighting your fate, then there's killing and destroying innocents around you so you can be free. Funny how the pretty girl ranni had a super ugly solition to the issue of the greater will while literal dragons were quietly subverting it lol
@@codenameend3r526 Yeah, Godwyn is the one demigod who got a genuine raw deal (well, okay, Malenia being stuck with the Rot is also pretty rough, I’ll admit) out of everybody. Poor guy was just minding his own business, then for no good reason he gets shanked by his mom’s old drinking buddies, what a crock.
It has the rune of death carved into it, yet Ranni needed the Fingerslayer Blade, whose text indicates that only that weapon can kill the Two Fingers. So, I'm guessing that Ranni tried to kill the fingers (and not herself), and when that proved impossible, she killed her own body in order to seek freedom from her fate. If that's true, then it would show that Ranni is, effectively, on her third attempt to break free of her fate when we meet her. It could also explain why the fingers fled their original location atop the tower, since they had already been attacked up there.
@@jacthing1 not necessarily as these actions didn't affect the greater will it's only after they start to that he goes insane the greater will works on logic not situational information that's clear from how it interacts with us
personally i think ranni just killed the fingers brutally enough for them to twist and contort in something like death throes. combined with the natural decay of flesh that could maybe give it the impression of having a third finger. ranni always refers to them as her "two fingers" i believe, also debunking the third finger theory.
Speaking of Fingers; The Three Fingers during their cutscene appear to just pull themselves forward dragging their "Wrist", but is there anything in the models of the other Fingers or buried in the files that explains why the Finger Medallion shows the Fingers being double sided with two 'Head' fingers and two 'Leg' fingers? My first though before remembering about the 3-fingers cutscene was that maybe all of the fingers are intended to be 'double sided' and Ranni's looks different because during the fight it fell over or something, so we're actually looking at its 'legs', not its 'heads'. Speaking of Ranni; Is there anywhere where we can find like a Portrait of Pre-Cursemark Empyrean Ranni? I can understand her old portraits being discarded in Liurnia and Lyndell, the ghost at the Study Hall seems to know she did something bad so it makes sense that she's been struck from the annals of history, but I'm surprised even Rykard doesn't have a portrait of her. Or at least not one I could find on my last trip through The Manor a couple days ago. I figure Rykard, considering he hates the Golden Order and even worked with Ranni, and does have a portrait of his bro Radahn would have a portrait of her somewhere, but I couldn't find it.
@@Orobolus_Outline it doesn't really look like a shadow of the two fingers, though. The way the shape is on the stairs, it looks like as the op described. I don't think it really means anything in game at this point, but it's definitely interesting
My name is Yoshikage Kira. I'm 33 years old. My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don't smoke, but I occasionally drink. I'm in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I'm trying to explain that I'm a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn't lose to anyone.
Rannis arm looked limp and torn at the joint when she is sitting in front of her fingers corpse, and the fingers being faced away from us and bloodied to me gives a slightly disturbing image of ranni dropping from above to assault the fingers and they tried to crawl away which is why they're facing the wall, I think they had a fight
It does seem like it was a struggle and knowing that at one point the Fingers in the Roundtable Hold were meant to clap quite loudly gives me the sense that if they swung themselves at something there would be some force behind such a strike
Not to mention that Rannis fingers have cuts near their tips, wich could mean that they tryied to defend themselves against the attack, before receiving a deep cut in the back.
@@gabriel4454-c7c or the fingertip wounds were self inflicted as it scraped the stone walls. It further brings to mind the sheer panic and pain this thing must have been in.
Hey Zullie, FYI but the Catheral of Manus Celes has a secret in its name; Manus Celes also means Celestial Hand Celes= Heavenly, of the stars Manus= A Section of the Hand I think the Catheral was a church for Rannis 2 fingers.
I agree with most of the other comments saying the fingers' pose is indicative of the extremely painful way ranni killed them. What I think is more interesting is that these death throes seem to have exposed more of their 'body' than we see in most other fingers. Do they have an underground body that reveals the alien organism they really are? Would that be more or less horrifying than them connecting to an actual hand and arm that just.... keeps going? Personally I always had a horrible suspicion that they're.... connected, or something, down there. They're definitely a spiritual successor to the primordial serpents in more ways than one. Also, worth noting that in most traditional occultism "left hand" is shorthand for the path of chaos and 'evil' things like satanism, while the right hand represents the law of god and divine knowledge. We really shouldn't be suprised at this point that From put that level of thought into the fingers' designs, but I'm somehow still impressed.
On one of the talisman, it is shown that the full figure of the two fingers creatures also have 2 pertrusions below them, kinda like the ones on top. The back of Ranis fingers model looks like this is one of those unseen extremeties going to the side, rather than a third finger or rhumb. This also shows more how the fingers were trying to flee Rani as they were essentially uprooting themselves
I think all 2 fingers used to be three fingers (devoid of the flame of frenzy's presence) and existed as independent beings communicating with the humans through fingerprints. I say this cause I noticed weird holes, similar to Rom's holes where her legs were supposed to be, on the roundtable hold's two fingers' right side. They are different than their rotting marks and almost seem like bone sockets.
This is a really crucial detail to find. Perhaps all fingers were Three Fingers, and the Greater Will turned most of them into servants, save the remaining Three Fingers hidden in the Sewers? Remember also that there are those weird ass hand enemies, so this is definitely not the ONLY living organism modeled on fingers in the Lands Between. If you're spot on, I'm going to assume that the Fingers potentially predate the GW's presence on the Lands Between.
@@KarmaSpaz12 Placi was an enemy of the greater will tho. Infact the stone dragons seemed to be trying to quietly subvert the influence of the greater will once thier war on Leyndell failed.
I'll do you one further and say that they were all five fingers. A whole hand. The Two Fingers look like a left hand's middle and ring finger, while the Three Fingers look like a thumb, index finger, and pinky. Given Hyetta's dialogue about how the Greater Will and Frenzied Flame were once combined into the One Great, it makes sense that the emissaries of each side split when the god did.
@@nebulous9280 I don't think anything can predate the GW's presence in the lands between, since it (The greater will) is responsible for most if not all live in the first place. If the 3 fingers via Hyetta speak the truth that is.
This may go unnoticed, but I'm hoping Zullie spots this: In the canyon, where the great pot is where you can fight 3 red enemies to get the Great-Jar Arsenal, (I'm so sorry about not knowing the names of stuff, it's been so long) there is a set of dead two fingers. I accidently glitched through it while goofing off, and within the pot itself is a set of dead two fingers. If you take a look I guarantee you will see it inside.
@@frostyascent1295 I was able to reproduce this glitch a month ago and had forgotten about this post. Update: it's not the two fingers, but the Great Jar's legs bent into the pot as though squatting. I got a good look but idiotically didn't take any screenshots or video capture.
Didn't realise each demigod had their own set of fingers to act as some sort of power link for their shads tbh, I never stopped to think about it and jsut assumed each set of fingers we see (other than the 3 fingers) was just some sort of sprouting or root of the greater will and they just popped up throughout the lands between to act as terminals for finger readers and other things I still learn something new in every video you upload, which is impressive considering I finished the game months ago
I don’t normally see ur uploads until after the fact, but when I see a bunch to watch it always makes me happy, currently catching up on them all and as always amazing work Zullie :)
I find it interesting that Ranni's Two Fingers seem bigger than all of the others, and they seem to be hidden underground. Are there a special class of Fingers reserved for Empyreans? And are those Fingers hiding underground a sign that they were trying to hide from her? We have to fight Astel to get there. Maybe the Fingers deliberately chose that place because it knew anyone that came after it would have to go through Astel.
I think they were meant to reside on top of Ranni's tower and they fled and hid. I think her fingers are special because she's the selected heir to Marika. All the other demigods have been "cut off" and their fingers have withered, so hers are the only ones alive. This is circular reasoning of course, but it fits.
Can we talk about the whole scene? Did the battle begin in the church above? If so, then that big tunnel must have been the fingers digging to try to get away from Ranni. I know others point out that it's probably climbing away based on its final pose. Just drawing out the full picture though. Or were the fingers actually hidden in the stars and then came crashing down when we defeated Radahn? I've seen that theory as well. Either way, what a crazy scene to come upon.
an interesting coincidence: The right hand of Ranni's corpse is itself missing two fingers, so she has a right hand with three fingers, including a thumb, much like the Fingers she slayed are speculated to be like in this video :)
If Ranni's fingers were indeed the right handed version of the 3 fingers her reaction to what it wanted her to do would make sense. I really wish they'd give us more lore on the 3 fingers though. I imagine it probably goes hand in hand with the things that lived in the lands between before Marika. But it's also plausible that the 3 fingers could be a part of the same being that is the 3 fingers or maybe a corrupted version of the 2 fingers. Really the fingers are so interesting and mysterious to me I hope the dlc provides more insight on them.
I will never forget the first time I went into the room in Roundtable Hold with the Two Fingers. I think I spent a solid ten seconds just staring at them as my brain tried to process what I was looking at.
One theory that constantly runs through my head is that long ago the two fingers and the three fingers were one hand, with the two fingers being the pinky and ring fingers, while the three had the middle, pointer, and thumb. No clue why or how they were split apart though.
At first i thought so too, but every demigod got their own two fingers for some reason. Maybe that means that they all where a full hand at first and there are three fingers for everyone of them locked away somewhere lol
If you look at the two finger talisman, the fingers have 2 on top and 2 on the bottom. It's kind of like they have legs, and I assume that is actually what the third finger actually is.
I like to think that some fromsoft employees must frequent your videos, and that they might take inspiration from your theories. After all, many of the narratives in the souls-like games aren't complete, and your theory-crafting could inspire them not only to do so, but how to as well.
I have some theory that her Fingers is not serving GW, but Nox’s people. It behaves differently from the rest of Two Fingers. Maliketh is not going mad like Blaidd when Marika shattered the ring. Nox has a technology to puppeteer people, Ranni said she won’t be controlled by that thing. Three Fingers was likely to serve GW during dragons era, as beastmen’s intelligence was represented by five fingers. If Three Fingers can decide to serve a different god, then it would be possible that some Fingers would do the same.
@@shnorkeythefourth4572 placidusax had 5 heads but three were removed. Just like a hand has 5 fingers but only 2 represent the greater will. Also, I think some of the faram azula stuff describes a bit more. The 5 fingers on the cinequeda vs the three finger scratches on the clawmark talisman, etc.
@@The-Stone-Lion that seems very shaky evidence when put against the fact that the dragons warred with the golden order despite supposedly having the same master
What is the technology used for puppeteering people? The only thing I can think of with that ability comes from the amber starlight shards. And Seluvis of course, but I don't know in what way that connects to the Nox.
@@shnorkeythefourth4572 my personal thought is the dragons fought representing the full five fingers but lost that war, and that's the link. Placcy's other heads were forcibly removed and that's when the two fingers rose to be the dominant religion of the lands between / the most current representation of the greater will.
Beeni checking since video came out if you'd comment. Finally i know my dreams are of the future. I hope tJenny fron the block doesn't visit her friend Julio by the school yard.
Looking at Astel and the Elden Beast design, I feel like Elden Ring is actually about a land that was invaded by aliens long ago and these aliens feed on souls and use body parts as avatars. The fingers also look a lot like the Aliens in Arrival are portrayed
What's curious is also where we find Ranni's Two Fingers: Countrary to the Tower Fingers and the Tarnished one, they're in an uncivilized environment, surrounded by roots and mushrooms, and facing a wall. Could it be that these Fingers went into hiding when the Centipede Rune was created and their link to Ranni was severed? That the stress, underground life and shock from the severance made them lose mass and hair? The time spent without their Empyrean? (because, of course, the fresh bloos contrasts deeply with the withered Tower Fingers) Also, interestingly the markings on Ranni's Two Fingers and the lack of similar wounds on the others may imply that it was the only one killed with the Fingerslayer Blade, as it gave the same centipedic cracks as seen on Godwyn and Ranni (I'm on the school of belief that these markings were made by the Rune fragment rather than ritualistically carved). As per how and if the rest of the Fingers were killed by more mundane methods, I'll admit my ignorance. Maybe the rune's mark was just not as pronounced as in Ranni's massacre and that it withered away with the thick skin of the fingers.
I do agree they (it ?) went into hiding after seeing the Night of the Black Knives, as to how they could move there, your guess is as good as mine ! I agree with the time spent underground being the cause of its whiteness but I'm wondering (complete speculation on my part, with no evidence) since they are linked with Ranni, could it be the influence of the moon that made them paler ? Do we know of any instances outside of Ranni, Godwyn and those fingers dying by the Blade ? I agree with the centipedic cracks being the effect of the rune rather than a carving, the placement is oddly similar to the mark in Dark Souls too And do we know how the others fingers died ?
@@Makinazion We don't know for sure how the other fingers died afaik (and it's not far, considering I'm fascinated by lore deep dives but am not keeping track of what's sure or not), BUT! a) The Fingerslayer is called that way and described as a "blood-drenched fetish proof of the high treason committed by the Eternal City" _before_ you give it to Ranni, so I would assume it was used to kill Fingers in the past. b) the object's description also says it "Cannot be wielded by those without a fate, but is said to be able to harm the Greater Will and its vassals". Assuming "having a fate" refers to be a named/major NPC, I'd think it means one singular NPC went to massacre the other fingers, either Blaidd or Ranni herself, rather than a member of the Black Knives. (Interestingly enough, the Fingerslayer is said to have been born from a corpse. It's a stretch but it may be that killing Godfrey, in addition to splitting Destined Death so that Ranni would die physically but still live in spirit, may have also served to create the blade. It doesn't really look like the blade in the scene of the execution, though, but may well have been done after that yet before he was sent in the Erdtree's roots.)
*inhale* Also! I like the idea that the Fingers' appearance would be linked to the Empyrean's power. But well, we only have certified linked Fingers to Ranni and Melina, so it's still up there.
@@NWolfsson Thanks for the info ! I completely agree with a) and for the point you made concerning the marks missing from the other fingers, it might be that they were killed by weaker people that might not handle the Rune of Death as well as Rani, she is a Demi-God after all and she might even have developped a peculiar bond with it since she killed her flesh with it. Does that mean she took part in the Night of the Black Knives ? I'm not sure. I would love for b) to mean that it can only be wielded by Empyreans, (since they have the "biggest fate" in the Lands Between of becoming a god) but it might also be for important NPCs, the Knights of the Black Knives are all Numen women, and we know very little of the Numen, except for Marika being one, and since most Empyreans we know something about are Numens or descendants of Numen, I think we can safely say that it is a "special race", might stretch it to a "race with a fate", especially since the Blade comes from Nokron, home of the Numen in the Lands Between (personnal opinion is that Marika still had bounds with the Eternal City and planned to shatter the Ring with them and Ranni seeing the Black Knife Set description) and it would further my point in a) for the other Fingers missing the mark. I don't think Blaidd could have worn it since he was created by the Fingers (since he goes mad anyway, I have trouble believing he could have the "fate" we're talking about) and we can see that Sworn Shadows don't mix that well with the Rune of Death when we see what Maliketh becomes (but who would end well though ?) (It is a really interesting idea, and it might even have been created with the corpse of Ranni since it would be complicated to create such a ritual when assasinating a demi-god, especially when you see Ranni's body is kinda burnt/momified, like the energy was drained out of its body to create the Knife but seeing the properties of Godwyn's corpse after dying, it makes sense too, might even have provoked or amplified what becomes of Godwyn's corpse in the Erdtree's roots !) Sorry about the massive message. Random thought, we know that Malenia and Miquella are both Empyreans with bound Fingers too, shouldn't they have Sworn Shadows too ? We know nothing about them right ? Would love to see them in a DLC with their Fingers like Zullie said ^^
@@Makinazion On Ranni's implication in the Night Of Black Knives, she was supposedly busy killing herself with a fragment of the Rune of Death, but given that Farum Azula is weird time-wise and that the Divine Towers seem to touch upon the same ambiance... May very well be that the window between Ranni and Godwyn dying wasn't that short after all... Indeed I'd love more exploration on important NPCs in extra content, although that's not usually FromSoft's habit x)
The shape of the wound on the Fingers looks very similar to the half weel of the centepide, which is odd. Also since wound is on the back of Fingers it was probably a surprise attack.
Another possible explanation for the strange shape might be that Ranni attacked the two fingers and broke their bones, either in a previous failed effort to kill them before obtaining the Blade or in the struggle to subdue them enough to use the blade. As a result they look deformed even though ordinary weapons (or ordinary destructive magic, which seems more like Ranni's style) can't kill or permanently injure the Fingers.
Soul of the mind, key to life’s aether, Soul of the lost withdrawn from its vessel, Let strength be granted so the world might be mended…so the world might be mended.
There is a video by Illusory Wall about hidden designs in Dark Souls 1, he point out that, on close inspection, the baselisk and the boss Kalameet have normal looking eyes, even though their descriptions say something different. He said that would make sense, since the descriptions of itens could be taking the point of view of inhabitants of that world. Now, looking at the design of the fingers I wonder if that could also be the case, where they are called "fingers" because people think they look like one, but in fact are something different. Heck, that could be the case for anything in Elden Ring lol, I like this type of speculation
Ranni's fingers are below the Cathedral of Manus Celes , which is Latin. The simple, and likely intended, translation, is "Cathedral of (the/a) Hidden Hand." As near as I can tell (I know very little Latin), the more proper translation is hypothetical, something like "Cathedral That Would Hide (the/a) Hand." We saw, with 'vereor nox' in Dark Souls 1, that FromSoft either doesn't have a great grasp of the language either, or is comfortable fudging Latin to make it sound cooler, so I favor the first one.
I always thought the puddle of flesh was either from the two fingers burning up in re-entry, or from the what I would assume to be uncomfortable impact with the church and the bedrock below. The same thought would apply with the hair being gone; burned off on re-entry. Also, it probably can hop around a bit, so when Ranni went all Anakin Skywalker on the now defenseless two fingers, it hopped around and tried to hide (thus the mortal wound being on it's back). Though, another theory that I've heard is that they were kept down there in hiding for a long long time. Things tend to go bald when kept in absolute darkness. Doesn't explain the puddle of palm at the base of the two fingers, but that could be from almost anything.
What I'm most interested in is why Ranni's fingers are under the Cathedral of Manus Celes That cathedral must've been abandoned for ages and the hole leading down to the fingers also doesn't seem natural
OH MY GOSH I ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WAS A GIANTS LOWER PART OF THE TORSO, LIKE LEGS AND KNEES, ON TOP OF THE DIVINE TOWER, AND NOT FINGERS oh my god i feel so stupid lmao
The three fingers do seem to be related to the greater will, but I always thought Ranni killing her fingers just disfigured them. I feel like the agendas of the 2 and 3 fingers are very similar, while also being opposite: both would return power to the Greater will. This is of course if I'm not forgetting an item description mentioning an outer god for the frenzied flame.
Honestly, the positioning of the model, and the fact the hand is facing AWAY, implies to me that they were trying to Scrabble away from Ranni when she turned up with her knife.
Finally, someone talks about these particular fingers. The moment I saw them I knew they were weird, but no one ever seemed to bring it up in lore discussion and the like.
Interesting that the hand is found in a place that translates to "Right Hand of the Gods", and is the only right hand we see. I previously assumed the fingers would add up to a set of two hands (or four like Ranni), but now I'm even less sure. Very cool!
One thing I haven’t seen anyone comment on is that when the fingers are desiccated at that towers they look like they are made of wood, with the same texture as the Erdtree. So it’s kinda like the fingers are branches lopped off from the Erdtree as a physical part of the outer gods.
I still find the theory that they had a third finger enticing. Seeing that the two most drastic endings are that of the frenzied flame and Rannis both introducing change to the lands in between.
At 2:09 you can see both fingers are from the left hand. The 3 fingers are the thumb, index and middle finger where as Ranni's 2 fingers are the remaining ring and pinky fingers and making it a complete left hand. both figures are missing the aforementioned fingers in my opinion. Idk what conclusion it brings to the table.
Really awesome video I always love your work! I do really wish that they were voiced over though, because I like to play these videos while I'm at work and listen to them in the background. I'll replay the same video multiple times sometimes when I get distracted and I didn't hear everything.
I've gotten a lot of comments asking to show the model for Ranni's Two Fingers, usually because people want evidence for or against the theory that they have a third finger buried in the ground. This seems like a pretty solid point against it, but at the same time, the way its modeled seems strangely deliberate. The whole point of keeping clear answers scarce is to promote speculation, and misdirection is just another way of muddying the waters.
Nah it’s just the hands and and feet Ranni fetishists wanting up and close Ranni modeling 😂
I think the more important question is: If all the Empyreans had Fingers with thumbs, did they have a big Thumb-War Tournament to decided which Empyrean was going to succeed Marika?
I'm curious. Is there any info on readerless fingers aside from the fingerprint greatshield?
Hey I noticed something in the video about the Finger Slayer Blade. Maybe I'm mistaken but the cross-guard looks very similar to the cross-guard of the Ancient Relic Sword.
The Relic Sword was made from the corpse of a God (Marika/Radagon) so is there a connection there?
@@brokenlord3218 It was made of a corpse. much like what the Elden Beast did to Radagon's form
It's always looked to me like the fingers were scraping the wall, trying to run away from their inevitable end.
And in their last moments the fingers learn the agony that Ranni suffered all her life; the desperate attempt to run from your inevitable destiny
that is probably accurate.
though it is frightening that the fingesr were so powerful.
That's exactly what I imagined as well. It's also possible that the Fingers were above ground in the cathedral and burrowed underground as soon as they saw Ranni with the fingerslayer blade.
The three fingers is stated to scrape its walls as a way to communicate without a finger reader by engraving its fingerprints, maybe Ranni’s fingers were doing something similar?
That's the first thing I thought too when the video started, it's a bit hard to appreciate it in game
Remember guys before we beat the first demi god and the finger chamber opened up, everyone thought 'fingers' was probably what you called the members of some super secret organisation. Only to be greeted by two actual fingers. I love this fucking game.
Oh my god yeah I really thought “fingers” would just be like high ranking priests or something so when I killed Godrick and went back and was greeted by like gigantic, rotting, hairy, disgusting fingers I was beyond shocked
Yeah, I remember pretty clearly the sensation of "oh, it was literal" when I entered the room.
Only people who haven't played enough other fromsoft titles XD
I knew it was gonna be literal fingers, I just didn't know how they'd present them
@@skilletborne Nah I figured they'd be actual fingers as well, but to see them looming over you as you enter is always a shock.
@@skilletborne i mean, considered I had finished all the souls and bloodborne I thought it wouldn't have been possible to see weirder shit than that. Boy was I wrong.
One thing I really love about the fingers is they only kind of look like fingers. It's pretty easy to see from their grotesqueness that the name is descriptive instead of prescriptive, helps to reinforce the cosmic nature of the outer gods.
Outer gods from japanase seems to intend they are just outside of the established order. It does not imply that the gods are all of cosmic nature.
(I'm sorry I don't have the source ready to back this)
I agree, but I disagree. It makes sense that the Fingers’ name is descriptive. But then why did a different outer god make the Three Fingers - and more importantly, why then *stick to the theme?*
@@aztecserpent5525 Shabriri has been shown to attempt to deceive and coerce the player into becoming Lord of the Frenzied Flame. Perhaps that is precisely the reason this Outer God creates the Three Fingers to resemble the Two Fingers? In a land where tarnished are given guidance by Two Fingers, in order to become Elden Lord, it would make sense to give the tarnished of the Lands Between something they can perceive as trustworthy.
Thou miyazaki practically has included lovecraftian elements in all of his work, your point has some truth to it. Outer gods, in game, just meants they are outside the established order. When creating a world that is consistent and realistical within itself, a name is only what the people in that world have choosen to address a thing in that world.
Take in account then, that our brain, and by extension any character we create, because of how it works, will always make interpretations of things, and therefore will never define anything as "uncomprehensible" for similar reasons to why we cannot think about not being able to think. If this happens, its an author antinatural insert, and its not beliable.
Now, outer god is at the same time, a concept meant for people in world to get a name to an understood interpretation of something they dont comprehend; while for us, it is a hint pointing to them being cosmic in nature, in part because they are called with such an undescriptive name as "outer god", and in part because of the association with their general ingame portrayal.
And finally if you wondering about it, "cosmic" is an adjective created to adress uncomprehensibility without making you think about it, its kinda like a skipover button, and still it unavoidably does try to give comprehension to the uncomprehensible. And its not really much of a common concept, calling stuff cosmic irl is pedantic for a reason and came to be from the minds of literate people with a lot of free time, using the previously existing concept of "cosmic scale" to abridge things. Alan poe didnt use it, and lovecraft, his associates and those that came after him, liked to use ancient and other words for the same purpouse
@@aztecserpent5525 Honestly it's just another fromsoftware trope of the two emissaries, Frampt and Kaathe, Sage Freke and Saint Urbain, the choir and mensis etc. One always represents itself as a herald of the established order; the other subverts by revealing dubious to source knowledge of the established order's lies and provides new information to influence a new perspective antithetical to the established order.
If anything, the fingers are the most clear cut version of this trope yet, with one literally attempting to embody the will of order and stasis, and the other attempting to embody the will of chaos and entropy.
But the actual interesting thing is how From tends to hammer home that both of these extremes can lead to untold suffering in the pursuit of an idealized form of universal perfection, by either revealing to us that both groups worship or revere the same para-causal force responsible for the current problems in the world, or by revealing a third path that denies the other two, such as with Aldia.
of course this is all intentionally left vague while discussing, because we are talking about sweeping general ideas that are used by From as seeds to tell unique iterations of stories rooted in a few base concepts you can see repeating in their works.
It looks to me like whatever Ranni did to them was extremely painful. The fingers look like it's trying to climb away from Ranni's attack. The attack also seems to have done insane damage. Not only is there a huge wound on the creature, but the bottom looks partially melted/liquified. If the Fingerslayer Blade did that then that is truly one powerful weapon.
She had a set that enhances her frost magic, the Fingerslayer , and the Dark Moon Greatsword on her at the time. She went into that fight with a fucking arsenal.
@@thomashooper2451 And the arms to use it.
@@krayzoman NEXT LEVEL DUAL WIELDING
@@thomashooper2451 two hands for the Darkmoon Greatsword, one for the Fingerslayer Blade, and one spare to flip the Greater Will off afterwards :P
@@thomashooper2451 The dual dual wielding.
I love the scene of Rannis puppet body sitting atop her massacred fingers. It immediately conveys that Ranni not just killed, but absolutely butchered them. The fingers look torn, cramped, it looks like their last moments were a desperate struggle filled with pain. Fantastic work by the people who made the model!
If you look closely she carved the mark of the centipede on them.
@@KarmaSpaz122:02 Yep, in this it's clearly seen
Upon looking at Rannis two fingers closer, I find it interesting there's a very distinct sense of fear in it's dying/death pose. The positioning of the fingers themselves almost give the impression that they were clawing/grasping at the wall behind them, almost as if they were trying to pull themselves away, presumably from the welder of the blade that slew them in this fashion, in an attempt to escape.
This could indicate that the two fingers while being emissaries of the great willing, are still somewhat tied to the physical plain enough to give them a flight response in situations of danger or death and might point to the fact that they have no real power on their own at all.
Not a big revelation or important one I know but just some fun musings for though
I don't agree that they have no power though, seeing as they really fucked Ranni('s puppet form) up
@@davidkam4398 she is that damaged when we first meet her. you can see the cracks going up her neck when getting the spirit bell.
@@deathfuzz Still curious as to why that is? Her body I mean. Perhaps she opted for a faulty puppet as opposed to a replica what with lunatics like Seluvis prowling around.
@@alabasterindigo probably to imply the passage of time. Any doll will start to deteriorate after some time and use.
Edit - oh you mean why she opted for a doll, instead of a replica of her body… well, we don’t know, but the main theory is it served as an homage to her old teacher, renna, the snow witch, since the puppet is supposed to resemble her.
They were literally in hiding in the first place. The place where we would expect to find them is atop a Divine Tower, instead we find them in a literal hole in the ground. I don't know how it went down that they fled, but it appears they did.
Mohg and Morgott's Great Runes are activated at the same Divine Tower, implying that they share the same Two Fingers since they're twins, so if a DLC adds Miquella's Great Rune, it will likely be activated at Malenia's Divine Tower.
Since Ranni slew her Two Fingers in order to escape her fate as an Empyrean, Miquella's Two Fingers being slain already could be the reason for why he hasn't revived yet.
Does that mean they each only get a single finger?
Morgott and Mohg aren’t empyreans and wouldn’t have their own Two Fingers
@@MetalFingerzz Every divine tower has a dead pair of two fongers at the top of them except Ranni's, which has her corpse. Since those two fingers are what allow the great runes to be reactivated, and since Ranni, the only known demigod to cast aside her rune, is also the only one whose two fingers isn't at her tower, it's commonly believed each of the two fingers correspond to the demigod whose great rune they reactivate.
@@chrisp.9380 Gameplay wise yes that seems to be how it works. However, we are told by Ranni herself that only she, Miquella, and Malenia were chosen by their own Two Fingers to be Empyreans to succeed their mother Marika. The rest of the demigods do not have their own in the lore, nor does it make sense for one's like Morgott and Mohg to have their own when they were supposed to be locked in the sewers for all eternity and only escaped when the Shattering began.
@@chrisp.9380 We don't actually know if they are just random Two Fingers, or specific to the Empyrean/Demigod. There is one in the Roundtable after all, and that one isn't tied to anyone as far as we know. Furthermore, it would be strange for someone like Godrick to even have a Two Fingers bound to him, as he only really gained importance after basically stealing a rune and booking it from the Capital. And even then, it was pretty minor.
Before the title inevitably gets changed, I'd just like everyone to know that I was catfished by the prospect of a feature-length video dedicated to "Ranni's fingers."
Imma be honest, I never even noticed the fingers behind her cause I was so preoccupied with my witch wife
Same
Why do you think it'll get changed lol
Rannis fingers. Cultured.
@@sweepingmotion I second this, my dream as a hunter having a doll as a wife has finally been granted, nothing else interest me
Considering Ranni was actively and obviously trying to murder her fingers, it seems like we find her in the aftermath of a battle between the two. Given that and the otherworldly nature of the fingers, maybe her fingers being larger with more joints could be explained by a phase transition we never get to see for ourselves.
Or she just broke them…
While there isn't any other evidence for this, I really like your theory. Headcannon accepted.
i also just figured they were broken, but the idea that they have additional joints that they keep locked around us to look more like regular fingers is so fascinating. like they lull us into a false sense of security by mimicking our own hands, but since they are constructs of the greater will, obviously that limitation doesnt need to exist. why would ranni’s blade impart enough force to break them anyways, and especially at the tips of the fingers, when its heart or whatever is in the palm? what if those are like prehensile eye stalks or something? id kill for more insight into the weird biology of the fingers. even to know how they die as well. ranni’s fingers needed a special blade locked in a chest at the bottom of nokron, but all the other fingers are already dead by the start of the game? maybe sunlight kills them or something and the fingerslayer blade contains a star inside it. that would explain why theyre all underground or at least out of the sun. theres also the half rune of death carved into it but that could just be a calling card that ranni left. i think i like that theory that the fingerslayer blade has one of the stars that float around nokron in it and you need sun kill the fingers. maybe the sun is just general anti greater will? thats why the elden ring is in the tree and the big fish is in some other dimension? obviously the erd trees themselves exist, but if those arent direct constructs of the greater will, then if you consider that the big ethereal erd tree is like the greater will trying to replace the sun’s light so that one day its minions can roam the earth or something yada yada supervillain, the greater will being a sweaty sun allergic vampire could make sense. new headcannon just dropped thanks for commenting this and sorry for having a thorium moment in its replies
@@bonzodachimp6897 the big fish is Godwyn, Prince of Death.
I thought that too. I don't think her fingers are any different from the others but either what you said: The fight occured and they transformed for it or maybe they get bigger the closer the person they belong to gets to the throne but that's just my theory.
A lot of comments are pointing out that Ranni’s fingers seem terrified of their incoming death but something I can’t help notice is the signs of a struggle. I didn’t notice it my first play though but it looks like the 2 fingers put up a fight as evident by the fresh bloody scars on the... fingers. After that it seemed to realize Ranni had the upper hand, it tried to escape, terrified of death. Also, that may explain why Ranni looks so out of it when we see her. She’s not wearing her Witch Drip. She’s naked(similar to the three fingers ritual...). She just had her own boss battle with a dagger and a body held together by thick threads. She’s pretty badass all things considered if she fought and killed something that big.
Wow I didn't notice that she might've had to be naked for an audience with the fingers. Another similarity to the three fingers. But Vyke on the other hand has the grasp of the three fingers on his armor, which means that he somehow got in there without getting maked 🤔 Maybe the stripping rule just got made after they realised that the armor is in the way lol
Ranni has bested bigger enemies. The dragon Adula, originally a sorcerer killer iirc, swore allegiance to the dark moon after Ranni beat it.
Source: description on Adula's moonblade sorcery.
ya get REKT ya stupid weird finger plops
Now that I realize we were looking at the back of the hand and not the front, it makes me wonder if in it’s final pose, it was in the process of trying to escape. Usually when you enter an area with a pair of two fingers, their palm is facing you or on the corpses their fingers are directed towards the area you enter. And for this hand to be turned away from its room’s entrance, maybe it was trying to flee from Ranni? Clawing at the walls to try and escape before ultimately being killed with the one weapon that could kill it.
@@loadishstone because the god damn doll was broken and it probably didn't happen because Ranni tripped on the way down there. There's fight and there's flight. The situation demands fight, the pose expresses flight.
@@slyseal2091 ...yeah, the flight comes after losing the fight. It's beyond clear that the fingers died while running away.
@@hines182 that might well be, what the doll suggests is that they did the thing where both landed a killing blow at the last second. Obviously you guys are correct, but he questioned how people can get it wrong more often than not.
The music choice fits that creepy observation that in the world of Elden Ring there are right and left hands. Makes you wonder if the channels of Greater will ever had bodies
Yes, but they were also just fingers themselves
There's a giant kindred of rot underground and these are just each of its hands, just kidding
Incoming Moonlord-esque expansion
maybe that's what the giant Caelid skeletons are?
Interesting concept: Maybe Ranni's Fingers look different as a bizarre, knock-on effect of the way in which she "killed" herself? It stands to reason that they're connected to her in more that just a metaphorical sense, and the effects of slaying her own flesh may have caused unpleasant, mutation-like effects in the Two Fingers in the intervening time between then and when Ranni killed it. We've seen what the whole ordeal did to *Godwyn,* who's to say the after-effects of the Night of Black Knives were exclusive to him and Ranni?
I don't think so because the warping effects on Godwyn are because he only died in soul and still, against better sense, got buried at the Erdtree's roots, infesting the tree. Ranni's fingers shouldn't be connected to Godwyn's corruption except as they're connected to the Erdtree, in which case that would be true for all the fingers.
IMO if Ranni's finger's look weird it's either because all fingers are more or less unique(let's not pretend the other fingers look normal), or because Ranni shanked them with a forbidden cursemark.
@@Xandros999 but maybe they’re connected to Ranni. Godwyn’s soul died and the fingers aren’t the soul, they’re more like the flesh to the greater will which is their soul. So maybe when Ranni’s body died, the cursemark also appeared on the fingers, and the twisted appearance is like a body contorting itself in agony
One interesting thing of note: It seems Ranni has carved the cursemark of death into the fingers. But, it's only half of the full mark, and it's the same (leftward-curving) half that was used to kill her own physical body. I wonder if this has some sort of significant implications (why only this half and not the full mark?), or if it's just some sort of ironic calling-card on Ranni's part, as another commenter theorized.
Either way, it seems deliberate: Turning the model shows that although the cut is deep, the fingers are not cut the whole way through, so there isn't a "mirrored" cut on the other side.
Presumably the Two Fingers don't have a "soul" worth killing, or at least can no longer pose any threat to Ranni as their equivalent of a disembodied spirit.
I noticed that, as well.
It leads me to assume that Ranni first tried to kill the Two Fingers, but when they couldn't be killed through the power of Destined Death (also implied by the Fingerslayer Blade's text), she slew her own body in an attempt to break free.
Then, finding how that, too, fell short of achieving freedom, she found a weapon truly capable of killing them.
@@Neo_Theo Considering what happened to Marika and Blaidd I highly doubt Ranni took any overt action against the Two Fingers prior to the Night of the Black Knives. However either she or one of the other assassins (possibly experimenting on her behalf) probably did try to kill some fingers _during_ that night which also helps explain their absence from the Divine Tower.
@@Photoloss Agreed, during that night. I picture Ranni realizing it won't work after carving into the fingers, then immediately carving it onto herself in defiance/desperation.
@@Neo_Theo Probably not quite as desperate. In order for everything to work out she must have prepared the doll body in advance, and presumably arranged some means of timing her death in sync with Godwyn's. I reckon she planned both parts but only one of them worked out, hence her being stuck in hiding instead of discovering Radahn's importance herself and scheming to bring him down a lot earlier.
I love Ranni's story the most. Something about fighting your fate, even though it puts you in a position of power and instead aspiring to control your own destiny just resonates with me.
Even though your fate will never put you in any _real_ position of power.
Or you know, betraying everyone and everything who/which ever trusted you, and dooming the world and its inhabitants without second thought, killing family members, spawning unholy abomination from your brother, enslaving souls as puppets. And that she is allied with satanic archetype Rykard.
After all, game does not even hide it, she is literally two-faced and is a puppet and should you complete her questline, you in turn become rather fittingly a puppet for a puppet, Elden Lord to do all her bidding.
Ranni does not fight the fate. She wants to be one to decide fate of all others. Tyrant, in all essence.
She is adherent to the Dark Moon, Outer God of frigid darkness and cold, after all.
For me, it’s the idea of fighting a fate that’s ultimately forced on you, with the power offered being a carrot dangled in front of your face to entice you into quiet obedience, that’s the part I like most.
I dunno, there’s just this super spiteful side of me that gets really irritated when characters in popular media fall to corruption or otherwise become mindless puppets on some half-assed promises of power that anybody with functioning brain cells can tell is a farce.
I'd like Ranni alot more if she didn't cause the Death curse stuff. Especially on Godwyn and Fortisax who both seemed like pretty good people. There's fighting your fate, then there's killing and destroying innocents around you so you can be free. Funny how the pretty girl ranni had a super ugly solition to the issue of the greater will while literal dragons were quietly subverting it lol
@@codenameend3r526 Yeah, Godwyn is the one demigod who got a genuine raw deal (well, okay, Malenia being stuck with the Rot is also pretty rough, I’ll admit) out of everybody.
Poor guy was just minding his own business, then for no good reason he gets shanked by his mom’s old drinking buddies, what a crock.
It has the rune of death carved into it, yet Ranni needed the Fingerslayer Blade, whose text indicates that only that weapon can kill the Two Fingers.
So, I'm guessing that Ranni tried to kill the fingers (and not herself), and when that proved impossible, she killed her own body in order to seek freedom from her fate.
If that's true, then it would show that Ranni is, effectively, on her third attempt to break free of her fate when we meet her.
It could also explain why the fingers fled their original location atop the tower, since they had already been attacked up there.
I don't think so cause wouldn't that have caused Blaidd to already have gone insane?
@@jacthing1 not necessarily as these actions didn't affect the greater will it's only after they start to that he goes insane the greater will works on logic not situational information that's clear from how it interacts with us
Kinda like when you fail to smoosh a spider and it crawls away never to be seen again. UGH!
personally i think ranni just killed the fingers brutally enough for them to twist and contort in something like death throes. combined with the natural decay of flesh that could maybe give it the impression of having a third finger. ranni always refers to them as her "two fingers" i believe, also debunking the third finger theory.
I liked to believe the fingers could grow another finger and perhaps Ranni's were starting to grow a third, explaining the odd thumb like nub starting
Speaking of Fingers; The Three Fingers during their cutscene appear to just pull themselves forward dragging their "Wrist", but is there anything in the models of the other Fingers or buried in the files that explains why the Finger Medallion shows the Fingers being double sided with two 'Head' fingers and two 'Leg' fingers? My first though before remembering about the 3-fingers cutscene was that maybe all of the fingers are intended to be 'double sided' and Ranni's looks different because during the fight it fell over or something, so we're actually looking at its 'legs', not its 'heads'.
Speaking of Ranni; Is there anywhere where we can find like a Portrait of Pre-Cursemark Empyrean Ranni? I can understand her old portraits being discarded in Liurnia and Lyndell, the ghost at the Study Hall seems to know she did something bad so it makes sense that she's been struck from the annals of history, but I'm surprised even Rykard doesn't have a portrait of her. Or at least not one I could find on my last trip through The Manor a couple days ago. I figure Rykard, considering he hates the Golden Order and even worked with Ranni, and does have a portrait of his bro Radahn would have a portrait of her somewhere, but I couldn't find it.
It's a stylized shadow.
@@Orobolus_Outline it doesn't really look like a shadow of the two fingers, though. The way the shape is on the stairs, it looks like as the op described. I don't think it really means anything in game at this point, but it's definitely interesting
Damn… I miss Demon’s Souls Classic OST
I wish the remake had both OSTs
That OST was really good
Always love these bite-sized bits of lore and mystery
I like how when you look at rannis dead physical body. You can see the rune of death on her lifeless back.
Somebody with a hand fetish is probably VERY happy that this game exists
yoshikage kira moment
My name is Yoshikage Kira. I'm 33 years old. My house is in the northeast section of Morioh, where all the villas are, and I am not married. I work as an employee for the Kame Yu department stores, and I get home every day by 8 PM at the latest. I don't smoke, but I occasionally drink. I'm in bed by 11 PM, and make sure I get eight hours of sleep, no matter what. After having a glass of warm milk and doing about twenty minutes of stretches before going to bed, I usually have no problems sleeping until morning. Just like a baby, I wake up without any fatigue or stress in the morning. I was told there were no issues at my last check-up. I'm trying to explain that I'm a person who wishes to live a very quiet life. I take care not to trouble myself with any enemies, like winning and losing, that would cause me to lose sleep at night. That is how I deal with society, and I know that is what brings me happiness. Although, if I were to fight I wouldn't lose to anyone.
Must be RR martins influence
Where are our feets??
@@fabi3790 Rennala
@@draghettis6524 not enough!!
XD
Love the Demon's Souls track on this video.
Rannis arm looked limp and torn at the joint when she is sitting in front of her fingers corpse, and the fingers being faced away from us and bloodied to me gives a slightly disturbing image of ranni dropping from above to assault the fingers and they tried to crawl away which is why they're facing the wall, I think they had a fight
She is also covered in blood and her Fingers look like she really went ham on them, rather than it just being a "one stab and done" kinda deal
It does seem like it was a struggle and knowing that at one point the Fingers in the Roundtable Hold were meant to clap quite loudly gives me the sense that if they swung themselves at something there would be some force behind such a strike
Not to mention that Rannis fingers have cuts near their tips, wich could mean that they tryied to defend themselves against the attack, before receiving a deep cut in the back.
Maybe they were set aboe the ground first, and then, runninga away from the ranni they crawled into the hole we find them in game
@@gabriel4454-c7c or the fingertip wounds were self inflicted as it scraped the stone walls. It further brings to mind the sheer panic and pain this thing must have been in.
They're not naturally hairless - Ranni just gave them a good shave!
Ranni’s Razors 😂
I think she seared them off while trying to kill the fingers with half the rune of death. The fingers burned, but survived with minimal damage.
Hey Zullie, FYI but the Catheral of Manus Celes has a secret in its name;
Manus Celes also means
Celestial Hand
Celes= Heavenly, of the stars
Manus= A Section of the Hand
I think the Catheral was a church for Rannis 2 fingers.
I agree with most of the other comments saying the fingers' pose is indicative of the extremely painful way ranni killed them. What I think is more interesting is that these death throes seem to have exposed more of their 'body' than we see in most other fingers. Do they have an underground body that reveals the alien organism they really are? Would that be more or less horrifying than them connecting to an actual hand and arm that just.... keeps going? Personally I always had a horrible suspicion that they're.... connected, or something, down there. They're definitely a spiritual successor to the primordial serpents in more ways than one.
Also, worth noting that in most traditional occultism "left hand" is shorthand for the path of chaos and 'evil' things like satanism, while the right hand represents the law of god and divine knowledge. We really shouldn't be suprised at this point that From put that level of thought into the fingers' designs, but I'm somehow still impressed.
That's absolutely terrifying, thanks for that mental image. The Two Fingers connecting to an arm would be fucking horrific.
Could an ultra hand exist?
The Demon's Souls theme is so beautiful
If that's the the back of the fingers I like the thought of them desperately trying to burrow away from Ranni before she 😏coldly😏 slays it.
On one of the talisman, it is shown that the full figure of the two fingers creatures also have 2 pertrusions below them, kinda like the ones on top. The back of Ranis fingers model looks like this is one of those unseen extremeties going to the side, rather than a third finger or rhumb. This also shows more how the fingers were trying to flee Rani as they were essentially uprooting themselves
God what's wrong with me, as soon as I saw the title I clicked the notification
i dont think ive craved a DLC or just more lore for a game this much in my life man
For a decaying corpse, you can see Ranni has hips for days :0
Ranni really out there fighting Master Hand.
Ranni OBLITERATED them finger bois and made a little throne with the flesh
slay i guess
I think all 2 fingers used to be three fingers (devoid of the flame of frenzy's presence) and existed as independent beings communicating with the humans through fingerprints. I say this cause I noticed weird holes, similar to Rom's holes where her legs were supposed to be, on the roundtable hold's two fingers' right side. They are different than their rotting marks and almost seem like bone sockets.
This is a really crucial detail to find. Perhaps all fingers were Three Fingers, and the Greater Will turned most of them into servants, save the remaining Three Fingers hidden in the Sewers?
Remember also that there are those weird ass hand enemies, so this is definitely not the ONLY living organism modeled on fingers in the Lands Between. If you're spot on, I'm going to assume that the Fingers potentially predate the GW's presence on the Lands Between.
@@nebulous9280 Might be why Placidusax only has two remaining heads.
@@KarmaSpaz12 Placi was an enemy of the greater will tho. Infact the stone dragons seemed to be trying to quietly subvert the influence of the greater will once thier war on Leyndell failed.
I'll do you one further and say that they were all five fingers. A whole hand. The Two Fingers look like a left hand's middle and ring finger, while the Three Fingers look like a thumb, index finger, and pinky. Given Hyetta's dialogue about how the Greater Will and Frenzied Flame were once combined into the One Great, it makes sense that the emissaries of each side split when the god did.
@@nebulous9280 I don't think anything can predate the GW's presence in the lands between, since it (The greater will) is responsible for most if not all live in the first place. If the 3 fingers via Hyetta speak the truth that is.
I love this channel so much the Zelda music along with the way you shoot it is so perfect
This may go unnoticed, but I'm hoping Zullie spots this:
In the canyon, where the great pot is where you can fight 3 red enemies to get the Great-Jar Arsenal, (I'm so sorry about not knowing the names of stuff, it's been so long) there is a set of dead two fingers.
I accidently glitched through it while goofing off, and within the pot itself is a set of dead two fingers. If you take a look I guarantee you will see it inside.
This needs to be discovered
@@frostyascent1295 I was able to reproduce this glitch a month ago and had forgotten about this post.
Update: it's not the two fingers, but the Great Jar's legs bent into the pot as though squatting. I got a good look but idiotically didn't take any screenshots or video capture.
Waltuh, dont put me in the elden jar waltuh!
Is there a chance you could go over that giant skeleton maiden in the chair? That’s one thing that really stood out to me on my first play through
Didn't realise each demigod had their own set of fingers to act as some sort of power link for their shads tbh, I never stopped to think about it and jsut assumed each set of fingers we see (other than the 3 fingers) was just some sort of sprouting or root of the greater will and they just popped up throughout the lands between to act as terminals for finger readers and other things
I still learn something new in every video you upload, which is impressive considering I finished the game months ago
and then the DLC showed that the fingers were conveying nonsense and finger readers were completely making stuff up LMAO
I always thought they were made to look like that to make it seem like they were trying to claw through the wall to escape being stabbed by Ranni
Looking at the full model
It really looks like the Fingers melted
You pick the best music for these highly insightful videos.
Visual embellishment to make finding Ranni's body more dramatic, or deeper meaning? We may never know.
I was desperately waiting for this. Thanks Zullie.
I don’t normally see ur uploads until after the fact, but when I see a bunch to watch it always makes me happy, currently catching up on them all and as always amazing work Zullie :)
I find it interesting that Ranni's Two Fingers seem bigger than all of the others, and they seem to be hidden underground. Are there a special class of Fingers reserved for Empyreans? And are those Fingers hiding underground a sign that they were trying to hide from her? We have to fight Astel to get there. Maybe the Fingers deliberately chose that place because it knew anyone that came after it would have to go through Astel.
I think they were meant to reside on top of Ranni's tower and they fled and hid.
I think her fingers are special because she's the selected heir to Marika. All the other demigods have been "cut off" and their fingers have withered, so hers are the only ones alive. This is circular reasoning of course, but it fits.
Thank you for posting the OST. It was bugging me where I heard it before
Can we talk about the whole scene? Did the battle begin in the church above? If so, then that big tunnel must have been the fingers digging to try to get away from Ranni. I know others point out that it's probably climbing away based on its final pose. Just drawing out the full picture though.
Or were the fingers actually hidden in the stars and then came crashing down when we defeated Radahn? I've seen that theory as well. Either way, what a crazy scene to come upon.
why does the character creation theme from Demon Souls go so hard? I'm practically crying in the club right now.
I know, it's so emotional, it really makes me want to play Demons Souls
Elden Ring just keeps on giving. I really hope there is a DLC coming
an interesting coincidence: The right hand of Ranni's corpse is itself missing two fingers, so she has a right hand with three fingers, including a thumb, much like the Fingers she slayed are speculated to be like in this video :)
If Ranni's fingers were indeed the right handed version of the 3 fingers her reaction to what it wanted her to do would make sense. I really wish they'd give us more lore on the 3 fingers though. I imagine it probably goes hand in hand with the things that lived in the lands between before Marika. But it's also plausible that the 3 fingers could be a part of the same being that is the 3 fingers or maybe a corrupted version of the 2 fingers.
Really the fingers are so interesting and mysterious to me I hope the dlc provides more insight on them.
I will never forget the first time I went into the room in Roundtable Hold with the Two Fingers. I think I spent a solid ten seconds just staring at them as my brain tried to process what I was looking at.
One theory that constantly runs through my head is that long ago the two fingers and the three fingers were one hand, with the two fingers being the pinky and ring fingers, while the three had the middle, pointer, and thumb. No clue why or how they were split apart though.
At first i thought so too, but every demigod got their own two fingers for some reason. Maybe that means that they all where a full hand at first and there are three fingers for everyone of them locked away somewhere lol
If you look at the two finger talisman, the fingers have 2 on top and 2 on the bottom. It's kind of like they have legs, and I assume that is actually what the third finger actually is.
I like to think that some fromsoft employees must frequent your videos, and that they might take inspiration from your theories. After all, many of the narratives in the souls-like games aren't complete, and your theory-crafting could inspire them not only to do so, but how to as well.
The demons souls music gave me whiplash and took me back 10 years. Thank you zullie.
I have some theory that her Fingers is not serving GW, but Nox’s people. It behaves differently from the rest of Two Fingers. Maliketh is not going mad like Blaidd when Marika shattered the ring. Nox has a technology to puppeteer people, Ranni said she won’t be controlled by that thing. Three Fingers was likely to serve GW during dragons era, as beastmen’s intelligence was represented by five fingers. If Three Fingers can decide to serve a different god, then it would be possible that some Fingers would do the same.
I see people bring this up a lot but why do they think the GW had anything to do with dragons or created/ruled over dragons?
@@shnorkeythefourth4572 placidusax had 5 heads but three were removed. Just like a hand has 5 fingers but only 2 represent the greater will. Also, I think some of the faram azula stuff describes a bit more. The 5 fingers on the cinequeda vs the three finger scratches on the clawmark talisman, etc.
@@The-Stone-Lion that seems very shaky evidence when put against the fact that the dragons warred with the golden order despite supposedly having the same master
What is the technology used for puppeteering people? The only thing I can think of with that ability comes from the amber starlight shards. And Seluvis of course, but I don't know in what way that connects to the Nox.
@@shnorkeythefourth4572 my personal thought is the dragons fought representing the full five fingers but lost that war, and that's the link. Placcy's other heads were forcibly removed and that's when the two fingers rose to be the dominant religion of the lands between / the most current representation of the greater will.
I die inside a little everytime a video suggests answers might come in the DLC because too often they haven't or the DLC only raised more questions 😂😭
And the Shadows of Miquella and Malenia too
I wouldn’t be surprised if they ‘disposed’ of them, Malenia being fast/strong and Miquella being smart af
I have the impression that Ranni placed her puppet body in order to bathe in the blood of the two fingers, to maybe give life to this body?
Beeni checking since video came out if you'd comment. Finally i know my dreams are of the future. I hope tJenny fron the block doesn't visit her friend Julio by the school yard.
Feel like a lot of lore has hit a brick wall of "where the fuck is that DLC?"
Always quality content, Thanks Zullie!
Looking at Astel and the Elden Beast design, I feel like Elden Ring is actually about a land that was invaded by aliens long ago and these aliens feed on souls and use body parts as avatars. The fingers also look a lot like the Aliens in Arrival are portrayed
What's curious is also where we find Ranni's Two Fingers: Countrary to the Tower Fingers and the Tarnished one, they're in an uncivilized environment, surrounded by roots and mushrooms, and facing a wall.
Could it be that these Fingers went into hiding when the Centipede Rune was created and their link to Ranni was severed? That the stress, underground life and shock from the severance made them lose mass and hair? The time spent without their Empyrean? (because, of course, the fresh bloos contrasts deeply with the withered Tower Fingers)
Also, interestingly the markings on Ranni's Two Fingers and the lack of similar wounds on the others may imply that it was the only one killed with the Fingerslayer Blade, as it gave the same centipedic cracks as seen on Godwyn and Ranni (I'm on the school of belief that these markings were made by the Rune fragment rather than ritualistically carved). As per how and if the rest of the Fingers were killed by more mundane methods, I'll admit my ignorance.
Maybe the rune's mark was just not as pronounced as in Ranni's massacre and that it withered away with the thick skin of the fingers.
I do agree they (it ?) went into hiding after seeing the Night of the Black Knives, as to how they could move there, your guess is as good as mine !
I agree with the time spent underground being the cause of its whiteness but I'm wondering (complete speculation on my part, with no evidence) since they are linked with Ranni, could it be the influence of the moon that made them paler ?
Do we know of any instances outside of Ranni, Godwyn and those fingers dying by the Blade ? I agree with the centipedic cracks being the effect of the rune rather than a carving, the placement is oddly similar to the mark in Dark Souls too
And do we know how the others fingers died ?
@@Makinazion We don't know for sure how the other fingers died afaik (and it's not far, considering I'm fascinated by lore deep dives but am not keeping track of what's sure or not), BUT!
a) The Fingerslayer is called that way and described as a "blood-drenched fetish proof of the high treason committed by the Eternal City" _before_ you give it to Ranni, so I would assume it was used to kill Fingers in the past.
b) the object's description also says it "Cannot be wielded by those without a fate, but is said to be able to harm the Greater Will and its vassals". Assuming "having a fate" refers to be a named/major NPC, I'd think it means one singular NPC went to massacre the other fingers, either Blaidd or Ranni herself, rather than a member of the Black Knives.
(Interestingly enough, the Fingerslayer is said to have been born from a corpse. It's a stretch but it may be that killing Godfrey, in addition to splitting Destined Death so that Ranni would die physically but still live in spirit, may have also served to create the blade. It doesn't really look like the blade in the scene of the execution, though, but may well have been done after that yet before he was sent in the Erdtree's roots.)
*inhale* Also! I like the idea that the Fingers' appearance would be linked to the Empyrean's power. But well, we only have certified linked Fingers to Ranni and Melina, so it's still up there.
@@NWolfsson Thanks for the info ! I completely agree with a) and for the point you made concerning the marks missing from the other fingers, it might be that they were killed by weaker people that might not handle the Rune of Death as well as Rani, she is a Demi-God after all and she might even have developped a peculiar bond with it since she killed her flesh with it. Does that mean she took part in the Night of the Black Knives ? I'm not sure.
I would love for b) to mean that it can only be wielded by Empyreans, (since they have the "biggest fate" in the Lands Between of becoming a god) but it might also be for important NPCs, the Knights of the Black Knives are all Numen women, and we know very little of the Numen, except for Marika being one, and since most Empyreans we know something about are Numens or descendants of Numen, I think we can safely say that it is a "special race", might stretch it to a "race with a fate", especially since the Blade comes from Nokron, home of the Numen in the Lands Between (personnal opinion is that Marika still had bounds with the Eternal City and planned to shatter the Ring with them and Ranni seeing the Black Knife Set description) and it would further my point in a) for the other Fingers missing the mark.
I don't think Blaidd could have worn it since he was created by the Fingers (since he goes mad anyway, I have trouble believing he could have the "fate" we're talking about) and we can see that Sworn Shadows don't mix that well with the Rune of Death when we see what Maliketh becomes (but who would end well though ?)
(It is a really interesting idea, and it might even have been created with the corpse of Ranni since it would be complicated to create such a ritual when assasinating a demi-god, especially when you see Ranni's body is kinda burnt/momified, like the energy was drained out of its body to create the Knife but seeing the properties of Godwyn's corpse after dying, it makes sense too, might even have provoked or amplified what becomes of Godwyn's corpse in the Erdtree's roots !)
Sorry about the massive message.
Random thought, we know that Malenia and Miquella are both Empyreans with bound Fingers too, shouldn't they have Sworn Shadows too ? We know nothing about them right ? Would love to see them in a DLC with their Fingers like Zullie said ^^
@@Makinazion On Ranni's implication in the Night Of Black Knives, she was supposedly busy killing herself with a fragment of the Rune of Death, but given that Farum Azula is weird time-wise and that the Divine Towers seem to touch upon the same ambiance...
May very well be that the window between Ranni and Godwyn dying wasn't that short after all...
Indeed I'd love more exploration on important NPCs in extra content, although that's not usually FromSoft's habit x)
Love your Videos been watching since Dark souls 2. Keep up the great work!
The shape of the wound on the Fingers looks very similar to the half weel of the centepide, which is odd. Also since wound is on the back of Fingers it was probably a surprise attack.
On the other hand, Ranni's death mark is also on her back, and she did that to herself.
@@nacaicon1593 So many incoherences in this game rofl
Another possible explanation for the strange shape might be that Ranni attacked the two fingers and broke their bones, either in a previous failed effort to kill them before obtaining the Blade or in the struggle to subdue them enough to use the blade. As a result they look deformed even though ordinary weapons (or ordinary destructive magic, which seems more like Ranni's style) can't kill or permanently injure the Fingers.
I wonder if it's just meant to show that Ranni's Two Fingers died a horrible and agonizing death due to the Finger-Slayer Blade.
Soul of the mind, key to life’s aether,
Soul of the lost withdrawn from its vessel,
Let strength be granted so the world might be mended…so the world might be mended.
There is a video by Illusory Wall about hidden designs in Dark Souls 1, he point out that, on close inspection, the baselisk and the boss Kalameet have normal looking eyes, even though their descriptions say something different. He said that would make sense, since the descriptions of itens could be taking the point of view of inhabitants of that world. Now, looking at the design of the fingers I wonder if that could also be the case, where they are called "fingers" because people think they look like one, but in fact are something different. Heck, that could be the case for anything in Elden Ring lol, I like this type of speculation
I love the ambient music selection for these vids. I would love to hear Overand by Autechre while watching souls lore lol
Ranni's fingers are below the Cathedral of Manus Celes , which is Latin. The simple, and likely intended, translation, is "Cathedral of (the/a) Hidden Hand." As near as I can tell (I know very little Latin), the more proper translation is hypothetical, something like "Cathedral That Would Hide (the/a) Hand."
We saw, with 'vereor nox' in Dark Souls 1, that FromSoft either doesn't have a great grasp of the language either, or is comfortable fudging Latin to make it sound cooler, so I favor the first one.
Oh interesting, most people think it means Celestial Hand which would also fit with Ranni's aesthetic
Holy fucking shit, this is the best mood track in the whole fucking series. Miss Demons
This song makes me emotional, even though I haven't played Demons souls yet
nice!!))
To me the fingers looked broken, like what happens to peoples limbs in horror movies when they get possessed.
I always thought the puddle of flesh was either from the two fingers burning up in re-entry, or from the what I would assume to be uncomfortable impact with the church and the bedrock below.
The same thought would apply with the hair being gone; burned off on re-entry.
Also, it probably can hop around a bit, so when Ranni went all Anakin Skywalker on the now defenseless two fingers, it hopped around and tried to hide (thus the mortal wound being on it's back).
Though, another theory that I've heard is that they were kept down there in hiding for a long long time. Things tend to go bald when kept in absolute darkness. Doesn't explain the puddle of palm at the base of the two fingers, but that could be from almost anything.
What I'm most interested in is why Ranni's fingers are under the Cathedral of Manus Celes
That cathedral must've been abandoned for ages and the hole leading down to the fingers also doesn't seem natural
Where is the pinned comment with more info? Am I too early?
EDIT: There it be.
she probably writes them after uploading, so yea
OH MY GOSH I ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WAS A GIANTS LOWER PART OF THE TORSO, LIKE LEGS AND KNEES, ON TOP OF THE DIVINE TOWER, AND NOT FINGERS oh my god i feel so stupid lmao
The three fingers do seem to be related to the greater will, but I always thought Ranni killing her fingers just disfigured them. I feel like the agendas of the 2 and 3 fingers are very similar, while also being opposite: both would return power to the Greater will.
This is of course if I'm not forgetting an item description mentioning an outer god for the frenzied flame.
Honestly, the positioning of the model, and the fact the hand is facing AWAY, implies to me that they were trying to Scrabble away from Ranni when she turned up with her knife.
i love al the work put into story for this game. Its wild
Finally, someone talks about these particular fingers. The moment I saw them I knew they were weird, but no one ever seemed to bring it up in lore discussion and the like.
Interesting that the hand is found in a place that translates to "Right Hand of the Gods", and is the only right hand we see.
I previously assumed the fingers would add up to a set of two hands (or four like Ranni), but now I'm even less sure.
Very cool!
One thing I haven’t seen anyone comment on is that when the fingers are desiccated at that towers they look like they are made of wood, with the same texture as the Erdtree. So it’s kinda like the fingers are branches lopped off from the Erdtree as a physical part of the outer gods.
Never noticed she carved the tune of death into the fingers too until I saw it in daylight. Thanks for that!
Can't help but notice what appears to be a Cursemark of Death on her Fingers.
I still find the theory that they had a third finger enticing. Seeing that the two most drastic endings are that of the frenzied flame and Rannis both introducing change to the lands in between.
At 2:09 you can see both fingers are from the left hand. The 3 fingers are the thumb, index and middle finger where as Ranni's 2 fingers are the remaining ring and pinky fingers and making it a complete left hand. both figures are missing the aforementioned fingers in my opinion. Idk what conclusion it brings to the table.
I would give anything to see this combat with my own eyes, that scene is so brutal
I like how the Rune of Death is carved into the Two Fingers here, a direct mark or byproduct of the Fingerslayer Blade and its wielder Ranni.
Really awesome video I always love your work! I do really wish that they were voiced over though, because I like to play these videos while I'm at work and listen to them in the background. I'll replay the same video multiple times sometimes when I get distracted and I didn't hear everything.
Thanks for the phobia of fingers. Chopping them off now.
I could listen to the Demon's Souls Nexus theme forever.
The Fingers are my favorite aspect of this game. They are so mysterious and disturbing but still familiar.