"Potent" means (among other things) " concentrated", "strong", "efficient". I doubt Potentate etymology refers to ..pots (other than just a wink), even for From/GRR.
Something to consider as well is that she did not enact a genocide upon the hornsent immediately upon ascending to godhood. After the hornsent were banished in the land of shadow, we know that Messmer lived under the Golden Order in the lands between, as we can see impaled Giants in the mountaintops and we know he acted as an older brother to Radahn, meaning he lived there until well after the Liurnian wars. I wonder then if Messmer's Crusade was ordered my Marika in response to the Omen curse. The Hornsent Grandam speaks of issuing a curse to Marika's children, so what if the hornsent created the Omen curse to still torment Marika from the lands of Shadow. In response to this, and perhaps even in response to the births of the Omen twins Mohg and Morgott, Marika then sent Messmer to the lands of shadow to punish the Hornsent.
that was honestly one of the lore highlights for me, finally explaining how it came to the omen curse haunting the golden lineage. there HAD to be something at the bottom of it and I am glad we finally got the answer.
What about the mountain of hornsent corpses around the gate of divinty? We see Marika going up the blood-and-guts-covered steps to the gate in the story trailer. Doesn't that suggest that she ascended to godhood after slaughtering the hornsent? I don't understand how that would work lore/timeline-wise but it's something to consider.
I kept wondering why all of Marika’s children were cursed with traits of her previous enemies - the fire giant, the snake, the crucible, etc. this answered everything. Even her godly flesh is harmoniously melded with others
If she or he because the statue in the shaman village, it looks like it was a man, even in the story trailer it looks like it. if she was harvested perhaps merged with many people or assimilated many of their characteristics. But now emerging as a woman, that would explain why, when she turn in a man she has the red hair that hates so much.
Miyazaki didn’t know the ending to his own dlc. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, Ansbach and Frejya characters arcs foreshadowed and straight away indicated that Miquelle wanted Radahn. But that ending was so underwhelming? Why? Because the buildup to that fantastic ending wasn’t done well. It was mentioned and could be said hey it was mentioned. But to hit the built up to ending that good it’s gotta have more than that. Think of the buildup leading to the Elden Beast. Everyone would love to fight it, but the reveal was so underwhelming of a buildup many people were like who defuq is that gimme torrent to beat its ass
I like to think as a personal head cannon that Guts completes his quest but dies, ultimately gets Isekai'ed into the Elden ring world. Guts becomes lord consort to Ranni to find a means of returning to his world to get a second chance to right the wrongs that are to come!!😂🤣
I think, with what Marika went through, she would have taken the jars from the hornsent and placed them by the erdtree in an effort to return their bodies and let them be revived via erdtree burial, then that over time wouldve led to the religious practice of putting their dead into jars and placing them at minor erdtrees and such after the shattering. Kinda like the real life preference and evolution of burial vs cremation
To add to otherbpeoples comments, people like the Omen can't be taken in by the Erdtree for whatever reason according to the base game. That's why they're "cursed"
This really neatly addresses this confusion I had - i.e. why would Erdtree society continue the jar practice, and how/why did it get re-purposed to feeding the trees. This makes perfect sense though.
@@sailingadventurerpossible, though I'd like to think he is doing it in his own volition, trying to do little bit of good in middle of all the massacre entrusted upon him. It would explain why so manyn of them dies too, afterall Messmer's power is not designed to nurture life, it's to *grant death* to those without grace.
What I find crazy about the Hornsent is that they don't seem to have a clue as to why Marika did what she did. Genocide is a wild thing, certainly, but that their brutality towards these people might inspire a deep hatred in any surviving Shamans doesn't even occur to them. They even call it a betrayal, and they moan about how they were just living peacefully. Really goes to show how they viewed themselves and the Shamans respectively
I also find this part fascinating. "I have horns and Arcane magic, your smooth-skinned argument is invalid. Get into the jar!" No wonder they found a common language with Miquella. He was an expect in ignoring implications of his actions as well.
probably because most of them were not involved in the potting practices? honestly it's quite disturbing to me how people portray marika's genocide as understandable when she's ultimately mostly murdering innocent people, just like how the hornsent did to her people
Real, but that's part of the masks they wear, used to pretty much numb the mind of thought to make the job easier to handle. And we still don't know what these "shamans" were supposed to see in these forms
@@Dressyone223I think that is because he drops a numan's rune at the end of his quest? But I don't think that is clear evidence as other creatures also drop it.
@blakebridges1030 he drops a numen rune once you finish his quest, and once he dies, little Jar boy absorbs his body...........i wonder what will happen to him
There's also a hospital for the hornsent's jar victims in the basement of the shadow keep. It looks like they tried cutting the grafted flesh away, really paints a desperate picture of Marika and Messmer trying to heal what the hornsent did to the shamans in the midst of this eternal war of revenge. Messmer clearly knows the whole story, given that marika's village is guarded by the shadow keep
It also explains why Godrick the Grafted was so reviled. He inherited the ability to "harmoniously merge with flesh" from his mother, and unwittingly recreated the very horror that Marika's people endured at the hands of the Hornsent.
And the Specimen Storeroom / archive of hornsent culture. It's really interesting how Messmer's crusade is so brutal on the face of it all, but when you actually dig into what's happening, depth and layers of complexity arise. The same can be said about most stories in FROMSOFT games, but it's just remarkable to see.
I find it interesting that the greatest f you marika did for the hornsent was by making the living jars an oddly beautiful thing where the bodies of honored dead were entombed and their souls gave birth to a new life in the now living jar and those jars would die and pass their innards on to the next generation making the practice completely different than the forced saintification of the living jars of the hornsent Her vengeance was messmer And the clear difference between the potentates of the lands between who were valued for hands of silk the ability to care for the jars and the butchers of bonny village
On a related note, the design of the furnace golems seems to be a sort of twisted karmic retribution towards the Hornsent approved by Messmer and Marika. The shamans were mutilated, then stuffed into jars to become saints by the Hornsent so in response, Marika orders her son Messmer to wage a brutal, genocidal war against the Land of Shadow, his most prominent war machine being the massive furnace golems where the Hornsent themselves are rounded up in droves, dead or alive (but most likely still alive for extra cruelty), to be stuffed in the golems and lit aflame to bring it to life. Imagine the screams and howls of terror and agony and the smell of burning flesh as the golem surges to life; An instrument of death’s first gasps of “life” brought forth by the deaths of so many within its frame to serve as fuel for the golem as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery as it wears the horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
@@VictorIV0310 AND IT WAS JUSTIFIED! Man this story is CRAZY! Especially when you consider the fact that Marika didn't immediately send Messmer to wage a genocidal war against them. She *almost* seemed to put her own people's genocide behind her, not quite though. It seems it was only after her own children were birthed with a omen curse did she punish them.
@@VictorIV0310 not only that but it pefectly descirbes the crucible, since we see more than just the hornsent inside of them. A crucible of life melted(dragons, horse and hornsent) and then thrown out into the world(fire balls). The fire giant's hold the truth of what the crucible was, fire. From it came all life and from the stars came souls and intelligence.
@@copyninja8756 Well, Rellana is a pretty good jumping off point for my train of thought. Her joining Messmer in the crusade is pretty good evidence that Messmer's crusade only started after the 2nd Liurnian war, during or after Godfrey's long march when Marika banished the Tarnished. Messmer recognizes us as Tarnished. How could he know what we are if he were to have been in the shadowlands earlier in the timeline? It couldn't be possible. You can go further down the rabbit hole from here.
Saint Romina is half woman half centipede. Saint Trina is half woman half flower. So maybe sainthood in Elden Ring means something greater than human alone.
Remember, St Trina was not always a human/flower hybrid. That only happened after she was discarded by Miquella. We can see what she normally looks like in one of the trailers for Shadow of the Erdtree.
Saints do seem to be bonded with others physically as a rule, so as to suggest seeing a picture larger than a single individual...thus acting in a "saintly" manner of putting aside personal ego.
Miquella is half man and half asshole. Point's proven. But seriously, there could be something here. For example, we have Godrick, Marika's child, who merges himself with other beings. Kind of resembles the process of cooking saints in the pots. Rykard merged with a snake. Messmer kind of did the same, I guess? Also, the wonder twins, Miquella and Malenia, are demigods, who are cursed (or shall we say merged?) with some outer gods manifestations. Like, Malenia is a demigod, who's somehow merged with a godess of rot. It is a stretch tho. And yes, Romina is merge of centipede, scorpion, butterfly, flower and human. A very weird mix in a pot. And I also cannot find anywhere why her church was burned by Messmer, what was taht church exactly, and why was she spared. Also, this whole theme of merging is not new in DS universe. Remember Smough? Or Aldritch? Maybe, there are hints in other games.
Lmao Roderika and Hewg was not a wholesome interaction, wasn't it known very early on that her spirit ashes more notably the jellyfish one were once children? And hewg being a slave
You're all silly. Everyone knows that all NPCs in from soft history are depressing jokes of a existence who about to die and be forgotten for forever... EXCEPT for patchez lolz. He's always in a good mood and the true god of from soft games.
I realize as I'm watching this that the Shaman's flesh melding harmoniously is also the basis for why grafting works for Godrick; as one of Marika's descendants, he's genetically a shaman.
There is one question though, why did grafting a dragon's head worked for Godrick? Is it because it was a lesser dragon, not the ancient one, becauce from what I've heard they abandoned their ancient ancestors' traits, joining the erdtree process of death and rebirth? Keep in mind that ancient dragons were in the lands between long before Marika popped out of nowhere and set a new age, so ancient dragons can't possibly have her flesh imbedded withing them. I have no clue how it works with the modern, lesser ones though...
Well Marika created the Erdtree, so Shamans existed before that cycle too. I don't think their ability to meld with flesh has anything to do with the life and death cycle Marika established; if its flesh it melds harmoniously
Well, my theory is that the crazy sacred butcher wielding chick that keeps invading you was their potentate. She's invading to create more jars from the flesh of her victims in an ever dwindling supply. As numen, (shaman), and those with numen blood are seldom born. The DLC explains Godricks ability to graft himself and the nature of the grafted scions as well. They're numens or numen descendants, although diluted, still retain the flesh melding properties. Now grafting isnt exclusive to just them, but I do think they're required as an adhesive between separate races.
Well, you don't see many humans in the Land of Shadows- what if it was originally a continent/region where there were no indigenous humans (or maybe the hornsent were human at some point but the crucible mutated them into something else)? It does say that the numen arrived on ships- like refugees/pilgrims/colonists. So what I'm saying is- what if it's not 'shamans' being the important part, but humans altogether?
Anastasia Tarnished-Eater. That makes sense. And the reason she hadn't returned was because she wasn't able to take down her latest quarry: The player.
Yo, that all clicks - our Tarnished flesh is the only easily melding flesh still around, because we’re some of the only folks who can still claim direct lineage to Marika and her Numan/Shaman kin. It also makes me wonder why Rykard was so selectively targeting Tarnished for his Recusants… perhaps because our flesh would meld the most harmoniously with his intestines.
@@ZarMationStudios18that wouldn't make as much sence as tarnished most of the time ain't numen, hell if that was their intent then they wouldn't allow you to choose different origins most likely, but hey everything is possible in those games
@@SybilantSquid I thought that was tannith under a different name since she killed tarnished by pretending to be a finger maiden which is the outfit Anastasia wears and she would eat tarnished similar to rykard
I personally think the jarring ritual of the Hornsent is different from the jarring ritual of the Living Jars, for one I don't think the ultimate end of the Hornsent ritual was Living Jars. I don't think it had anything to do with the Living Jars beyond inspiring the guy that would one day create them, same principle, different rituals and purposes. Living Jars are a creation made with jars to essentially wander the lands, collecting the meat/essence of dead warriors to create a new life. Saints are a creation made with great jars to just seal dismembered Shamans into a suitably large vessel to force their bodies to merge, for whatever reason the Hornsent desired that. Different rituals/creations based around jars.
They called Marika the Eternal; I'm sure that it might have seemed that way as she was a Numen, who are long lived but seldom born. I think that the Hornsent were trying to synthesize a means of extending their lives by adding in Numen parts to jars full of Hornsent viscera. Seems like everyone is trying to come to grips with the inevitability of death.
If anything, it shows how surprisingly compassionate she was that she didn't kill them the moment they were born, considering what the Hornsent had done. Still not okay to - you know - abandon them in a sewer, but knowing what we know now her reaction could've been a LOT worse.
I had Canada as she basically told those who acted as midwives to " take them out of my sight" in the midst of a panic attack via PTSD. and thus their being throwing the sewers like the other omen. She never rescued them because she couldn't bring herself to even look at them.
@@quietone2674and both are awful reactions.... I understand I'd be pissed if someone killed my family, but even now the lands between are in a constant battle of give and take. And it'll never end.
@@Tortuga2223a Yeah, at no point excusing Marika's actions. Especially considering how heartless she was to her own children. Mohg and Morgott were her chance to break the cycle, to decide to love her children despite the circumstances of their birth. Instead she showed how heartless she was.
@@quietone2674tbh I dont think he abandoned them. Morgot and Mohg are not exactly uncultured or uneducated, from what we see with their achievements (as ruler, as commander, etc). I think Marika still in some form gave them some manner of education and care, she just doesn't want them around to remind her of hornsent and their horn-fetishism. Though then again, it could be godfrey who taught them stuff.
When you think about it, it makes a twisted amount of sense as to there seems to be so many spirits of people and creatures in the Land of Shadow and why Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring; Aside from preventing more of those she cares about from dying and removing a threat to her power, it could also be to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends. Marika hated the Hornsent so much that she didn't simply want them to die, she wanted them to suffer for all eternity, turning the Land of Shadow, their own homeland, into hell where the crusaders can brutalize, scorch and impale its denizens even when they've long passed into nothing but spirits, all the while Messmer's Shadow Keep looms over the land like Barad-dûr from Lord of the Rings and the Scadutree stands tall and mighty as the Erdtree's shadow, a constant reminder that the Hornsent are condemned to an eternity of brutality under Messmer's rule without even the benefit of an afterlife. Since every hell needs a devil, Marika chose her son Messmer to fulfill that role. On a related note, the design of the furnace golems seems to be a sort of twisted karmic retribution towards the Hornsent approved by Messmer and Marika. The shamans were mutilated, then stuffed into jars to become saints by the Hornsent so in response, Marika orders her son Messmer to wage a brutal, genocidal war against the Land of Shadow with his most prominent war machine being the massive furnace golems where Hornsent themselves are stuffed inside to serve as fuel for the machine as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery with its horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
The Frenzyflame actually has the power to permanently kill spirits according to some item descriptions on Frenzyflame items. I believe this is in reference to the Frenzyflame Outer God's ability and only incarnations of him can do this or if it's all the Frenzyflame.
> "it could also be to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends." Just to add onto this, the vast majority of the hornsent we face in the DLC are these shadowy figures. It looks to me like they are made of the same shadow stuff as the sealing tree which obscures Enir-Ilim. Kind of harkens back to the notion of hollowing. They keep getting killed over and over until there's nothing left but a shadow of their formal selves - lamenting, desperate. If Marika wanted them to suffer, uh... she did it.
That whip's description actually shocked me a little bit. It's nothing new to give a morally questionable character a tragic backstory to explain why they did what they did, but the particular brutality of the whole jar ritual and the crulety of the hornsent towards the Shamans... The absolute confidence of the hornsent, the Shaman spirits begging not to be put into the jar only to essentially be told to "stop whining, this is literally the only reason you exist"... I gotta say it got to me a little bit. It's a familiar trope, for sure, but I think they really made it work with how creatively messed up this is.
FromSoft doesn't deal in absolutes. Any time you think you've found a villain that is irredeemably evil, you discover a bit of lore that humanizes them and makes you...well perhaps not agree with them, but at least understand why they did what they did.
My general timeline for marika is - Born in shaman village that’s matriarchal leader is a woman who entwines herself with a tree and is given the title of grandmother. Shaman village occasionally has to suffer the abduction of its residents to become saints, whether by hornsent raids or as punishment for straying to far from their village. Marika at some point leaves the village and finds herself in proximity to the finger ruins, where she first makes contact with the greater will. With its daughter initially governing over the dragon’s version of the elden ring. This contact with a outer god causes the hornset (a people who are extremely religious) to see marika as their key to divinity. Only for them to be duped by the carefully laid out plan of marika and the greater will. Leading to marika changing the crucible into the erdtree and thereby plugging the flow of most crucible born and superseding plaxiduax after they were battered by bayle. And as marika ascended to godhood she wished to remove death so none of her fellow shaman or people she cared about died. This attracted the ire of the gloam eye queen (with her most likely in charge of returning things back to the crucible after death) who was promptly taken down by the newly formed malikath. But during the battle with the gloam eye queen - the hornset, out of revenge for their religion being practically destroyed with their most holy site now barred from them in shadow and being essentially made infertile, turned all residents of shaman village into pot saints that now suffered a fate worst than death. Which, marika realizing her wish was practically made for naught, did the only thing she thought would justify their deaths despite it going against her people’s peaceful nature. Which was overwriting everything the hornsent ever did so it would be like they never existed. And later having her son messer not only go on a unending purge for the hornsent but also research if there was a way to undo pot sainthood.
One criticism here: Marika was NOT guided by the greater will, she was guided by the two fingers, which are operating on an old vision imparted to their mother.
@@music79075 it's suggested because the shaman village is a big reference to the old celtics worshipping nature also the statue with the woman entwined in a tree gives it away. celtic tribes had female leaders that were similar to shamans as in women were believed to have stronger connections to nature than men so they led all the rituals and stuff.
@@TheSkyfolk Marika was controlled by the Elden Beast though, which was the "vassal beast of the greater will and the living incarnation of the concept of Order".
Interesting. Romina is able to merge with bunch of insects, like "shamans" can merge into.. something.. in the pots. Romina served in church while it was burnt by Messmer. Romina is the only one who was spared by Messmer. If we assume she was a shaman serving in hornsent's church, this kind of makes sense? Also, this may lead to some theories about scarlet rot.
The great thing about this DLC is that I didn't read any description, but I understood Marika's story the second I set foot in the shaman village. When I saw the lady in the tree, I directly connected her ressemblance with fleshs jar womens and the dialogue "your place is in the jar"
Yep. I remember walking up to it and I just had to get off torrent and walk through. Look at every single thing. Her homelands being hidden behind a castle guarded by one of her most violent children, Erdtree sentinels patrolling a quiet and uninhabited land. The small magical tree at the center. Man that was intense.
this just occurred to me, that it is said that the miquella's haligtree has his own blood in it to make it grow, and I always kinda wondered why he would think that would work, but it is so obvious now that the tress are getting nutrients from the flesh and blood from the jars
This theory has a lot of validity. The idea that the lands between and the land of shadow are mirrors of one another could explain a few other things. Like how omens are looked down upon in the lands between. Mohg and Margit were abandoned and shunned for being omens despite being children of Marika. It could shed some light on Anastasia as well. She invades us 3 times and wields a butchering knife. It could be that she was one of the people who conducted the ritual in the Lands between at one point and is continuing that practice by killing tarnished, disguising herself as a finger maiden while she does it.
Maybe Anastasia is Tanith in disguise, we know Tanith is from the lands of shadow. Maybe she is even Hornsent and that's why she leads Rykard to hate the erdtree so much.
Marika uses to be an Empyrean, but whether she was chosen by the hornsent or the fingers is not certain to me. From Ymir it sounds like Marika conspired with the fingers against the hornsent
Mother of Fingers has a role in it somewhere as its a Daughter of the Greater Will. It was flawed though as it never recieved any signals from the Greater Will. But at some stage the Greater Will also sent down the Elden Beast as a vassel to inact and embody Order itself
@@fishnutz5196 I do wonder how the Elden Beast relates to the Greater Will. It's interesting that the Elden Beast is the Elden Ring and the Elden Ring governs reality for the lands between, and the fact that like you mentioned the Greater Will send the Elden Beast down to the lands between. Makes me think whether the Elden Beast is more of a tool or an actual child of the Greater Will, like Metyr.
@@TheScrootchi think he is a child of it. He has the same looks as metyr atleast in head shape and eye shape. The only difference is the bodies, and there seems to be no answer as to why the elden beast is like a black goop. My only assumption as to why hes a black goop essentially is that godwyn corrupted him with death, his dead body being directly under the old capital next to the roots of the tree.
@@TheScrootch its not 100% clear but it could be a case of the Greater Will sending the Elden Beast to inact Order on the Lands Between once it noticed Marikas ascension to godhood. Its head is kind of like a finger but more importantly its design is like a living universe with the human nervous system. Whats more interesting to me is the 3 fingers. Hyeta says its from the One Great which is still might be but also could it just be a malformed child of Metyr? A birth defect in a way. Also makes me question why the fingerscreepers are so so weak to fire this whole time and now finding out the they are related in some way to the 2 fingers and most likely the 3 fingers too
@@fishnutz5196 I personally think the Elden Beast is much, much older than Marika and her Golden Order. We see Elden Ring motifs, though looking different from Marika's Elden Ring, in Farum Azula. Farum Azula is of course from Placidusax's time and according to his title, he was the first Elden Lord. We also know that parts of the Elden Ring can be added and removed, so it may have been the case that it's been modified a lot over all those years. And as for the 3 fingers, I think it's hard to say. Perhaps it's indeed a defect child of Metyr or perhaps the 3 fingers are made in mockery of the Greater Will by the Frenzied Flame. I still somewhat subscribe to the idea the One Great used to be a combination of multiple God like figures including the Greater Will, but it split apart and the Greater Will is the Order part and the Frenzied Flame is the Chaos part. But on the other hand, the One Great might just be another name for the Greater Will
Fantastic video, its very cool seeing some of the extrapolations you made and conclusions you came to after our short discussion on the jars, and you presented it incredibly well!
Miquella's basically a 2nd Marika that's why I think it's a good thing we put a stop to him in the Dlc he's honestly way more dangerous than Marika since he can charm things and control people freely to do his bidding whereas Marika achieved this by using War as her form of dominion and control much more of a struggle and challenge compared to what miquella can easily do. Still even with the new backstory of Marika that we have in the Dlc it still dosen't justify all she's done. It did a good job on humanizing her just to show she wasn't alyways this power hungry ruler but ironically enough she ends up doing even worse than the people who wronged her in the Future as the saying goes you either die a hero or live long enough to become the Villain.......
@@sitowatit's justified.. well it depends on what's side you're on.. the hornset also massacred marika's people.. the description in the minor erdtree can prove that since it state that "marika cast a healing spell knowing full well that there's no one to heal" and the hornset are the ones who put the shamans in the jar.. so there's a chance that marika is the only survivor she's weak in that state until she became a god.. also only the weak seek justice, the strong seek glory.. and there's always two sides of the same.. but the anomaly is the tarnished who just showed up to become a new lord
Miquella did and intended to do worse things than Marika. Marika was somewhat justified, the Hornsents weren't saints at the slightest, that's for sure.
Damn son that was great. I’d love to know more about the mother of fingers and how the golden order is possibly founded on a broken framework. I feel like there’s a ton of implications you can make from the finger ruins and Count Ymir’s dialogue
Ymir is definitely right about a rotten foundation. The greater will hasn't communed with metyr in ages, making everything the fingers do and say is at best outdated and at worst their own made up bullshit, this is from metyrs rememberence staff. metyr is mother of all fingers, 2 fingers, and finger creepers, and is probably in command of them all to some degree.
The 2 fingers faith and the finger readers yes, not so much the entire Golden order. The Golden order was founded on the back of the Greater Will accepting Marika as its vassal god and sending the Elden Beast down to give her the Elden Ring, legitimizing her godhood and the golden order she would create. The fingers set it into motion, but the Greater Will legitimized it.
@@shanedoesyoutube8001 That's great! I would probably do that. When is this in the video? I also think that both of them were mean to her, there is no one good enough to be her spouse cuz she's just too good for them.
I have to say, after 13 years of consuming souls lore over and over I have never came across someone who can wrap things up as neatly as you sir. Incredible summary and takes. You should be big
Another interesting thing is that when you first enter messmer’s bossroom, he calls you a mongrel intruder before realising you are a tarnished. And then he says to Markia would your lord be one so devoid of light. I think your theory about burial and golden order makes sense because you have come from outside the lands between, thus you would have no trace of the golden lineage
Thats been one of the biggest questions i havent managed to answer myself, at all. Was it the elden beast because she revolted against the greater will? Was it radagon doing it out of fear? Was it miquella trying to usurp the throne ? I have no idea
@@joshlong6733 i think it's clear by it's color that it was maliketh with destined death, i think by marika's order , maliketh has the dialougue toward marika " is it what it's like to sin?" i assume it can be because of that piercing her womb is a THE sin and not the stolen fragment of death by ranni . i think overall marika's sorrow is for everything she is done and happened to her (based on gideon dialougue ), she wants to restart everything , i think that's why she told people to search in the depth of the golden order , banished the tarnished outside ,to wage war and gather power and come back to start everything a new without any of the existing history. people that have limited connection to any history of the lands between ( shadow realm by extension). that add greater will , hornset, marika,elden ring ,etc makes it best decision she could do . i think of it quiet genius tbh
@@joshlong6733The Elden Beast. It has a grab attack in which it crucifies you, and stabs you in the exact same way from the exact same angle, with a similar looking spear. The only thing that's off is the color (gold/vs red) but to me that can be explained by time
I think they are turning saints into the trees. Back in the Shaman Village it is not a statue but the body of Marika's grandma that is inside the tree. Similarity in Bony village it is a body of another saint and tree branches are growing out of it. We can also see female bodies in the golden trees in the tower. That is what saints are for.. to grow the trees.
Before the DLC, I kind of wondered if Alexander's compulsion to find the remains of great warriors was because he was a tool created in an attempt to create a Lord to challenge the Elden Lord, kind of like how the Nightfolk made the Mimics.
You still kill him after he invades you and he then dying knows that the only reason he was able to win against Messmer was because of one he so despised and that he couldn't even win against one tarnished of no renown
You know you are doing something right when the number of views of one video surpasses the number of subscribers. I am glad to have discovered your channel and I thoroughly enjoyed this video. Thanks.
One thing i found interesting is Jar bairn rejects you as a new potentate because your hands are too rough. Which means you should have a kind soul and essentially a no murder history. Thats why Diallos was accepted because he was gentle (well he thought a coward but stay with me) which would make sense that in the lands between jars were created with gentle hands and respectful kindness as a memorial (in contradiction to their past) unlike how in the land of shadow the potentates were butchers, bore harm and torturing their victims who they filled the jars with.
One issue I'd raise is the mentioning of the "seduction and betrayal" from the story trailer. The hornsent grandam in Belurat repeatedly refers to Marika as a "strumpet", or basically an old way of saying a slut. I think there's more to this story. Also considering the Golden Braid mentions the Grandmother, I'm wondering if the Grandam is this person as well.
i personally think jars of the lands between (the one with erdtree seal on top of it) are different from the jars of the land of shadow (the one with knot seal). since alexander use dead warrior as his innard rather than living being (as seen after the radahn festival). idk why golden order take the practice of the living jars, but i think they found another way to create the living jars, perhaps this time they use a royal warrior remains ( as stated on warrior jar shard talisman )
I think Marika didn't intend for the practice to continue, and that it started by bringing the pots made of her kin to the trees to free them into the golden order. And that by the time they finished with those pots, it had already taken long enough to have become a tradition, leading to the erdtree warrior pots for gathering the fallen dead. Presumably, the erd tree potentate has to be a pure numen - who also presumably have naturally smooth hands, given the jarburg rejection - so the erd tree pots maybe involve their blood grafting the corpse mass together instead of a tortured numan serving as the core of a corpse bramble like the hornsents version. Maybe.
I assume that because Godrick is of the same lineage as Marika, he was able to perform grafting. And because of this grafting, Godefroy was likely imprisoned for practicing this grafting as the ability of shaman flesh being so compatible with any other flesh was a well kept secret.
This actually makes the most sense. I think this is one of the truths of the story. And is one of the reasons him grafting a dragon arm to his body is a big point of the boss fight it even has its own cutscene. Its trying to show us that his shaman flesh melds with everything, even beings that are completely different to his own genetic make up and non human. The other reply makes a lot of sense to involving godwyn the golden.
Also marika's home village is overlooking one of the finger star crash landing areas... the one with the more golden dotted spots on the map, and not the more blue/glintstone like crater. It seems that Marika was CHOSEN as an emperyean by the fingers, and it seems the hornsent ALSO FOLLOWED THE FINGERS AS WELL CONSIDERING THE CRUCIBLE AS PART OF THE GREATER WILL! The old woman with the lion dancer is called the emperyean grandam... she obviously was like some form of guide, or gatekeeper, watcher type person for the emperyeans of the hornsent. MARIKA WAS PROBABLY MADE ONE TO THE DISMAY OF THE HORNSENT CHOSENITE'S! A shaman... not a glorious hornsent... but it was the greater wills... will lol... so marika realizes this is her chance to betray them, and uses it. She must have somehow convinced all of them that there were no hard feelings, and she didnt give A FOOK about them enslaving, and destroying her village... and they believed her.. until she murdered whoever was the god beforehand, and took over, and then repaying the hornsent IN KIND! Them still being petty, and pissed about "being betrayed" is simply sour grapes bullshit, and they deserved it. Unwilling to accept their fate, and the actions that lead them there.
There’s something about combining that seems tied closely with the outer will. Irinas quest regarding the frenzy flame has her consume multiple eyes of those touched by it. She says that the more she eats, the better she can see the far distant flame. I wonder if the Hornsent were trying to do something similar; using a mass of combined entities to sense an aspect the greater will better. They’d have motivation to do this too, since the mother of fingers no longer has the guidance of the outer will
Rubber Room thought here and I don’t know if it’s been mentioned: Think of the jars as mini crucibles to mix flesh of different species together. Much like actual crucibles used to create metal alloys. There has to be a connection there between primordial gold (red/copper) and actually gold being alloyed. Gold + Copper = Rose Gold. This is just a thought: Marika = Gold. Radagon = Copper Miquella is referred to as pure and radiant and is known for using unalloyed or pure gold, which is known for never tarnishing or corroding, just as Miquella is cursed with being forever youthful, he never ages, much like gold. Gold is also commonly used in wedding bands to symbolize love/a bond between two people. When we get to the end of the DLC, we see that Miquella has taken Radahn as his consort, as promised in a vow long ago. Can’t think of any other thoughts to connect the dots to without going off the rails. I’m sure there’s holes to poke in this, it’s not a very thought out hypothesis, just mental diarrhea spewing forth from my mind lol. Edit: just got to the end of the video and you mentioned almost exactly this lol. You charmed me like Miquella into this train of thought!
Question - Merika put the erdtree incarnation in the village after everyone had been turned to pots (from the item description; also states it was ‘only the kindness of gold, without Order). Then her braid was left at the shrine of her old shaman religion, where she prayed and then in the cinematic of her entering the divine gate it very prominently shows her hair doesn’t have a braid. So Merica had faith powers (i.e. gold incantations) presumably from the golden beast, BEFORE she became a god and took on the Order (greater will’s design). We also know she met the Mother of Fingers before her ascension, who was pretending to channel the greater will. So does this mean: Merika was born in Shaman village under hornsent oppression. She discovers the fingers and leaves to find the Elden Beast, succeeds, and upon returning finds her whole village destroyed. She makes a deal with the Elden beast to become its god in exchange for removing death from the order. She then usurps the dragons and places a human as lord. Then eventually she breaks the Elden ring… maybe because she finds out the greater will was never backing her and the order and fingers and everything were a lie? The beast imprisons her as punishment and the Tav story begins? Of note - the Elden beast and/or Mother of Fingers are directing grace (not Merika) for Tav since the cut scene with Morgott shows grace from each of their point of view pointing to the other - so the default end game of replacing Merika head, fully defeated, and remaking the Elden ring as it was being the goal - yet Tav’s will allows for other outcomes. Was Merika’s original sin giving her self, body and soul, to the greater will in exchange for power? Was her betrayal of the golden order when she smashed the Elden ring, exerting her will one last time? Were the Tarnished her ultimate gamble? Knowing the golden order to be a falsehood and a jail, to allow them outside of grace, outside of the golden order’s will, so they could have true free will? Is all of this just a metaphor for Fromsoft making their first open world game? Are we really here or is this all a simulation? Idk I’ve watched too many of these videos and i need a 45 min nap to process this 😂 😆
Glad I came across this video. It explains this part of the game very well and is really twisted in how it brings everything together. Horrific all around.
@ProfOrProf yeah while I was watching it, I wrote the coment, then later on it was mention, but hey, we are here trying to gather pieces of lore of this great game, by the way, good video
Potent - of great strength or power Potentate - a ruler (see potent) Potential - ability to achieve great strength or power, or maximum level of such Pot - a vessel , traditionally of clay. Potter - one who crafts pots Pottery - the craft and product of a potter Potting - the act of filling a pot Potentation, if there was such a word, would be the method of becoming a potentate.
I do think it’s very fitting that it wasn’t some petty goal as just becoming a god for power but to get revenge and everything we see is the consequence of someone just grieving hard. Still doesn’t justify doing mohg and morgott so dirty tho
Morgott and Mohg were imprisoned not because of Marika's bad memories. She's too calculated to act that way. And marks of the Crucible ain't some random cosmetic detail. Omens have an innate affinity for Arcane magic, and are connected to something in the Shadow Lands. Probably, to the old gods of the Hontsent, like Formless Mother, who could be the reason why Hornsents had their bloody rituals. This connection is strong enough for common talentless Omens to have strange visions. The stronger Omens like Mohg could come in a direct contact with the old gods, and be seduced into starting their own cult of Blood. It seems, Omens are literal walking portals to some nightmare dimension, and this was the real issue Marika had with them. The Dung Eater, another enjoyer of the terrifying rituals, also had something to do with Omens.
I don't think the hornsent ever say they are trying to make living jars. They are stuffing shamans together in jars to meld them together, and it happened that if left long enough, they would meld into the jar itself. That was not their intent however as we see the melded creatures coming out of the jars often. I think they were trying to create something in the jars and then take them out.
yap session (also spoilers) I'm kinda starting to think that Marika might have been what the Hornsent were hoping to achieve by the "divine ritual" they did to the shamans. From my point of view, the Hornsent did not think that once a shaman reaches sainthood, they would forget their hatred or that the Hornsent "knew whats best for the shamans", so they held Marika in high regard, ignorant to her hatred of them. I don't want to go to the direction that her and Radagon were merged in that way, but her sainthood could be the reason she and Radagon are one, but have different minds. back to the Hornsent. they held Marika in high regard and even possibly she was an empyrean at that time and was at the care of the Hornsent grandam. She could've been working with the Two Fingers behind the Hornsents' backs. that could be why we see many crucible related incantations used by some of Marika's followers, like the crucible knights who while serving under Godfrey, they were undeniably following Marika as well. Marika leaving one of her twin braids is probably a sign of her passing a point of no return, or in this case, ascending to godhood and at the expense of the Hornsent. Upon her reaching godhood then maybe with the help of the two fingers communing with the Greater Will (or Metyr) the Erdtree came to be. and then another Shadow Tree was made to hide away the whole land (now known as the realm of shadow) and another smaller one to hide the spiraling tower, that hid away the gate of divinity, something that she used to become a god leading to it to become a well known artifact of the Hornsent from a well hidden thing. even the "hidden rite" needed was revealed, meaning Marika used a lord's soul and a vessel for a lord there as well. I don't know why Enir-Ilim is covered in ash when we get there though. If it was to destroy the gate of divinity so that no one else would use it (I have the image of two very tall spiraling trees "reaching into heaven") then Miquella should not be able to use it, but he does. I also don't know the reason behind all the bodies around the gate as well. we know they are fresh corpses when Marika uses the gate there's a lot of blood but when we get there there's just ash. If the presence of bodies is enough as a requirement then that would work for Miquella as well. It also kinda explains as to why the gate was not used frequently to mass produce gods. Thanks for coming to my yap session
wanted to yap about a lot more things like the implications of the names chosen by each god, the timeline of Greater Will's abandonment of Metyr, Elden Beast' star coming to the lands between upon Marika reaching godhood or at an earlier time, Placidussax being an elden lord before there was an erdtree. was elden beast already there when marika created the erdtree with the help of the two fingers, marika offering a prayer, confession or something like that to "The Grandmother", Empyrean Grandmother? or someone else? who'se the skinny person who has a statue in the shaman village and a headless version in bonny village? and such
Counteryap alert: I like the idea of Marika being the success of the jarring project. I also think the word "again" in the description of the Golden Braid is important. Together with the erdtree incantations description gives me the understanding of the chain of events as follows: Marika was taken from her village, jarred, turned into a saint, became an important figure in the hornsent society, betrayed them, stole their divinity and ascended to godhood. This is what we see in the story trailer for sote. The following in my opinion is not so clear in terms of timeline but I personally think Marika came back into the village only after the crusade of Messmer. Killing the hornsent did not bring her family back. It did not fix anything. Just now she was shackled by her divinity. After that I'd imagine she sealed the land of shadow away with the sealing pillar in order to create her perfect utopia. Maybe that was her promise. To turn away from the horrific bloodshed committed in her name. That's why she took the rune of death out: to prevent someone losing everyone they ever knew and loved permanently. But she is human at the end of the day and couldn't help but try and force things.
@shobooknight this dlc had an emphasis on marika's very human nature. Before this my image of her was someone that planned a million steps ahead and had a mentality far beyond humans
I do agree the bodies at the gate of divinity are weird. Maybe it works kind of like the jarring, where an empyrean can meld together with a lot of powerful people, but not in flesh but in soul. Maybe thats what the hornsent were trying to do with the jarring, but it eventually became a muddied version and led to the disfigured abominations that we see in the dungeons. Them basically trying to recreate a god but failing over and over again in a delusion that it will work because it worked with merika. Idk but your theory does seem very close to whats true.
If you can sympathize with Messmer, you ought to sympathize with Marika. The Hornsent were the perpetrators of the "evil" in the entire game and dlc. Until we get more info about the Hornsent and the Shamans (Numen), that is what it looks like. However, at the end of the day, everyone is responsible for their own actions. Whether in action or reaction, what you do is in your hands alone
I havent played the DLC, but listening to lore videos I wounder if Marika was subjected to this jaring process and came out as a successful saint creation, but instead of being a saint who would help the hornsent decided to enact vegeance on them
23:35 2 possibilities I’m fighting rn. 1. The tarnished are the offspring of Godfrey and marika or they’re you’re theory of the genetics being passed on, THEN she stripped them of their grace and forsook the crucible knights and crucible aspects and once she gave everyone she conquered Grace and defined history, she set in motion her grand plan of one of her tarnished returning to become Elden lord after the shattering. This is a theory of us being Demi gods from a recent vid where a Japanese guy has boosted the background audio of your character waking up at the start of the game and you hear a walking mausoleum said to hold the bodies of Demi gods, this explains why godrick needs tarnished to graft into him and explains the hornsent and shaman and why they needed them. 2. We aren’t Demi gods or her descendants and the phrase “bonds harmoniously with others” is referring to how all the jars in sote appear to be shaman women with viscera in them, meaning their backs were whipped and lumps of “other” flesh meaning just any corpse/species. It makes sense too, as to why they’d be special if you could ONLY graft 10-50 other kinds of being onto a single shaman, their backs are bulging so that really makes a lot of sense with the whip, but what I haven’t figured out with these theories is WHO THE FUCK was lord and god at this point and I have another suspicion that marika veiled the shadow realm after ascending to god hood and that’s why there’s 2 manifestations of all the gods excepts the fell god, it was all 1 place but all the gods that we fight again seem to have been there and got trapped and manifested again. The giants were just out of the way on their mountain, it’s said the serpent has always been in the mountain too but messmer is referred to as a god killer too in the same regard so he was its envoy but marika sealed that with his eye and also to protect herself sent him into the shadow realm, then the rest have come out in some regard to oppose her golden order. Unless the god spot opened once placiducax’s god left, the hornsent with their divinity tried to use the shamans to achieve godhood, cos the shamans would’ve died off if it was a forever thing, then marika goes to metyr and gets the ACTUAL method, probably the dragons used the shamans cos in Japanese they’re “Mikos” which are divine shrine maidens that commune with gods and they’re usually female with marikas ppl all being female or atleast the shamans appear to be, or they all have a male/female side, we don’t know. So the dragons used grandmother to figure out metyr and commune then grandmother gave it marika to free the shamans of the hornsent after the dragon left, probably what st.trina was referring to as a godhood is a prison and that bitch fled leaving the hornsent to try become gods, then marika becomes god using their flesh, and wars with the dragons and stuff we’ve all seen in a vaati video. This is all just my theories of logically why would these events play out and seeing the Japanese meaning of a lot of stuff helps make it make sense, like I don’t think in ALL my speculation there, I said something that doesn’t logically follow unless I fucked up some timelines then that’s on me.
i agree , i think difference between shadow realm jars and lands between jars are in this aspect. differnce between a butcher(hornset potantate) and a delicate cook (Land's between potantate)who works with all ingrenident with class.
Interesting, I got to the opposite conclusion playing the Dlc Marika CHOSE this, everything that happens including the extermination of her people happens because Marika lets it happen, because she needs it to happen in order to ascend to god hood. She betrayed the horsent and exterminated them only after she becomes a god, if she was so traumatized she would have wage war againts them way before, perhaps she needed the horsent to kill and merge all her shaman people to truly create one divinity HER.
this theory also recontexualizes the law of regression and causality. "things all yearn eternally to converge" "that which links all things in a chain of relation" it's quite literally a genetic chain spanning across everything in the lands between. traits converging with one another forming new combinations.
Hold the phone, I just had a revelation watching this. The part where there are jars in the lands between…you need numen people to fuse the flesh together to make the insides right? Because numen flesh melds with other well, but there are no numen in the lands between…except there are…or were. Base or Rogier’s dialogue and the black armor/knife items, the black knife were scions of the eternal city (Nokstella and Nokron), and rumored to be of Marika’s kind…the numen. I think after the rebellion of the eternal cities, Marika brought them low (literally) and as punishment, she use their numan to make the jars. This would tie in the night of the black knives because the survivors partner with Ranni to kill Godwyn as revenge for what Marika did to them. Oh my god, if that is true, that would be poetic justice.
Good point! The nox were numen and no longer exist. They could very well be extinct because they were used for the jars in lands between. And this makes sense why the black hand assassins sided with Ranni to plot revenge on Marika. The cycle continuing
Except u forgot that the pots in the lands between are made of dead flesh, the jar stuff took hold in the lands between to be able to transport the corpses of the dead to the erdtree where they will be reborn
I kinda doubt that as jars in lands are themself collecting corpses so that they can either form a great warrior or to reach minor erdtrees so that the guardian will smash them and then corpses would be returned to erdtree, while shamans were used to stuff jars with supposed "sainthood" in mind. I think that Marika just recreated the practice without needing numen as she didn't want to create saints so corpses didn't need to stick together but for them to help dead return to tree. And why jars you may ask? Because she wanted to honor her village and what happened to them and turn it into positive thing
Someone mentioned somewhere that all of the prettified people in Nokron & Nokstella might have been the Nox trying to recreate the divine gateway (as they also experimented in creating life and the cut Asimi question-line notes they were trying very hard to create a Sovereign Eternal - i.e. Elden lord of their own age)
No. Not everyone needs to be shaman. Godrick had shaman flesh which melds with anything else. Jars like alexander, if they have a single mound of shaman flesh that should be Enough to trigger the process.
I agree that she has melded her flesh with all the land through erdtree burial and giving of golden grace. All of the lands between are inside of a pot being melded together either literally or figuratively. Not sure which yet
I feel like the ultimate purpose of the “Saints” is to enable the ritual at the Gate of Divinity seen in the story trailer, or even to construct the gate itself. The Gate is the only other instance of bodies and viscera being accumulated by Hornsent culture for religious reasons, so it’s parsimonious to connect the jars and the gate. The Hornsent, living in an age abandoned by its god (see Placidusax), sought to elevate a candidate to godhood, making direct communion with the divine and fully embracing the Crucible. Marika hijacked this process, apparently through seduction and deception, either gaining unauthorized access to the Gate or working within the rules to have herself selected for the ritual and then subverting it.
Knowing what horns on a human figure means to Marika, Imagine the utter Horror she would have experienced after birthing the omen twins. Imagine your entire people are butchered, twisted and experimented on, out of religious zealotry, by a people with twisted horns growing on their heads. So, as the last of your people, you lead a rebellion, you find an ancient finger being and its golden god, and gain truly divine power to smite your enemies. You seal these people away in another dimension, end death itsekf, and build a mighty kingdom, free of those evil horned people. You turn their horrid ritual practice into something kind, something that prevents people's souls from dying. You rule for thousands of years. And then, one day, after loving another to the point they are LITERALLY your other half, you give birth to children... Only for them to be covered, head to toe, in those accursed, evil, twisting horns. Your OWN CHILDREN are now constant reminders of a trauma you BUILT A KINGDOM to run from, to overcome, yet here they are, grown from your own womb. Imagine the horror that would bring...
The "seduction and betrayal" aspect of the story doesn't refer to anything Marika did to the Hornsent. I've seen it suggested that Marika pulled some type of Eclipse on them to achieve her ascension, but that wouldn't make sense since Messmer and co were in the lands between long after the Carian wars which shows us that the Golden Order and the Hornsent co-existed peacefully for quite some time after she achieved godhood. Marika herself rather was victim of the seduction, that being groomed into godhood by Metyr and her fingers. Marika, who witnessed the horrific butchering of everyone she ever knew, sought to use her newfound powers promised by the fingers to create a world without death (the seduction), thus preventing the loss of anyone who was important to her ever again, but Metyr is at best dysfunctional and at worst insane and was bullshitting this whole time (the betrayal) Marika's realization of this, specifically after the death of Godwyn, is what causes her to shatter the Elden Ring and kickstarts the event of our story. Metyr is both the true main antagonist of the story and also the origin of the cycle of familial and motherly neglect present throughout, and she herself is very intentionally described as a daughter of the Greater Will but is forsaken by it.
Going to that shaman village felt…important somehow but I just didn’t know why. It’s the only location in the entire game that’s ever felt like that to me. Like there was something there and I just don’t know what it was. Finding out it’s Marika’s home before she became a god was a revelation I was not expecting. This tiny village is literally where it all started.
This comment is actually great find here, also this makes total sense, if Marika a successful saint from the jar after ascending the godhood connects with the greater will (or two fingers) and finds that her entire kind was decimate, this could ignite the hatred and the vengeance against the hornsent (which blindly dig their own sepulture doing the jar rituals to achieve the promised saint). Also, she came from the jar with another saint which was Radagon, that also gave birth to Mesmer.
From what I understand he built up the universe for the most part with help from Miyazaki then Miyazaki found ways to tear it all apart and set up the world we play in
Numen flesh melding into others could have large implications for what it means to be an empyrean and how Radagon became a part of marika. Messmers eye looks like a soreseal, and most of the empyreans that are opposing marika tend to be one eyed (as if they also plucked out an eye). Malenias and miquellas eyes are always obscured. If Radagon was revealed to also be an empyrean, the implication could be that marika "infects" herself upon people through soreseal eyes harvested from herself - melding herself into them and thus making them eligible to become a god (that god being marika herself).
I think the betrayal was that Maricka was the Saint the hornsent were trying to create. She was probably put into a jar and actually made a saint, that’s probably how she can turn into other people. That’s like the goal of the jarring. So they probably worshipped her but then she wanted to destroy them for what they did.
I bet it was the hornsent themselves who sacrificed their own people to make the divine gate. Marika must have simply seized the opportunity and become God due to the guidance of her two fingers.
@@oldscratch2506 I thought that the golden hair was from the horn sent people sacrificed on the gates, their hair was used to create the first rune, maybe?
I think this interpretation is based on a false premise. Sure, the whip's description says that "the flesh of shaman harmonously melds together" but nowhere is it stated that any other flesh wouldn't do the same in similar circumstances. Hence, I don't think shamans were being jarred because of a special ability to meld together, nor do I buy your whole "genetics" interpretation. Obviously I can't disprove it either, but there are not enough elements to confidently assert this is the basis of ER's story. Also, regarding Marika"s "betrayal" being a simple slave revolt, I think there is more to it. We have an example of a slave revolt in ER with the misbegotten at Castle Morne and Edgard, who was one of their captors, never calls it a betrayal even though he says : "The menials have all rebelled. They gave me good service, or so I thought, but it seems it was all an act. Foul creatures, as it's said. And true enough they're foul inside and out" Now, the situation might have been similar with Marika, but if she was rebelling, who was she rebelling with? if by the time she left her village she knew "there was nobody left to heal" it implies all the other shamans where dead at the time. Now, the other shamans might have simply died during the rebellion and she was the only survivor, but if that's was the case, it's suprising she would have suceeded. Finally, the mention of "betrayal" coincides in the trailer with Marika crossing the Gates of Divinity, which seems like an important clue, especially when you know the other shamans where destined to "sainthood". So here is my theory (and I'm probably not the first one to think that so no need to tell me if somone else mentionned it first) : The hornsent were enslaving and jarring the shamans, not because of a special ability of their but because they were hornless and thus deemed inferior and expendable. Their goal, by fusing them together, was to create a saint, that is, an incarnation of the Crucible, which makes sense since it's the place where every life fuses together. From what we see of jar people, they are not avatars of the cruicible, so we can assume the plan didn't work, so at some point the hornsent went further and tried to create this "Saint" on a larger scale. That's when they created the Doors of Divinity by merging together the bodies of all the remaining shamans except one, which was supposed to fuse with all their souls and finally create an avatar of the Crucible in their service. As a receptacle, they chose Marika, who was thus treated diffenrently from all the other shamans and allowed to live among the hornsent, apart from her people. We can imagine that at some point though, Marika learned of the mistreatement and genocide of her people, or maybe she knew from the start and only pretended to agree with the hornsent. Anyway, with the help of the Two Fingers, she made a pact with them and devised a plan. On the say of the ceremony, instead of becoming an incarnation of the Crucible, she used the power of the Gates to become an incarnation of the Greater Will. I think it's at this point that she sealed Elum-Illin in shadows, so that nobody else could cross the Gates of Divinity. To that end, she might have used the power of the Scadutree, I wonder if that became the template for the creation of the Erdtree later on. She then left the Land of Shadows after a last visit to her home village and later sent back Messmer both as a means of revenge and to get rid of the later.
This reminds me somewhat of Hollow Knight lore. A kingdom used magic to preserve itself unnaturally, which led to an even greater darkness than leaving the natural cycle of life and death alone. Having an upset balance, and haunted by beings that defy death, they remain in perpetual decay, one that spreads and corrupts everything, without ever attaining any true rest or closure to their stories. That is until, your character, an undead being locked in a cycle of death and rebirth, comes to break the spell.
I feel like Marika's backstory and overall character is a great example of the idea of perspective - meaning that two things can be true at the same time. One could see and validate the fact that her machinations behind the scenes of all the conflicts in the Lands Between and Land of Shadow were genocidal, sinister, and full of deep-seeded hatred and that she is fully accountable for all those things. On the other side of that coin, her own experiences of witnessing, or even perhaps directly experiencing, the abduction, torture, and dismemberment of her own Numen people, her Shaman village, led to such deep trauma that 1) she couldn't even wrap her head around it and 2) since she was pretty much the only one left with no one else she cared about remaining and with no one to help her process what had happened, that trauma would then reveal itself into her vengeance against all those who wronged her and her people - thus setting in motion her bargain with the Greater Will and subsequent events afterwards. A story of the oppressed becoming the oppressor or of the exploited becoming the exploiter. Really tragic honestly.
Here's a thing to ponder: the seed talisman has the same symbol as the land of shadows jars, and the two fingers symbol. I think the two fingers, and fingers in general, are trees. The jars are like any potted plant.
I believe Marika realized she is a pawn until the end. (Judging by how all her children grew up with influence of other outer Gods like, Rot, Omen, giant flame, etc) Even her crucifiction as punishment has her nailed to an Arc Rune - the base for the Elden Ring. (Perhaps meaning she is ultimately the foundation of the base of the entire Rune. A pawn and pedestals to the Outer God's decree.) Very sad.
Wow crazy lol Not only were we wrong about Mogh but also Marika. Which means that I’ll be putting a sword through that NPC Hornsents chest first moment I get. (After his quest of course.) There will be retribution lmao
I think Marika got her retribution via Messmer😂 it’s a cycle of vengeance and hatred. It’s why Miquella just wants to mind control everyone to be peaceful.
Marika is called Strumpet multiple times in the dlc which basically means a women who sleeps around a lot. This gives me the impression that there is more to the seduction part in the trailer. Perhaps it was how she survived the genocide or maybe she is the only successful Saint.
There is always a choice, and markia made bad ones. I understand why, but she caused a whole hell of a lot of pain and suffering, and her own tragic past doesn't make it right. It kinda makes it even worse, she should know better than anyone, but she doesnt stop at the hornsent, she does the fire giants over just as bad as the hornsent did her over.
Yeah, people just love to flip and polarize the narrative, which is what the majority of these lore videos are doing post dlc. “Actually he was bad! Actually she wasn’t!” and out goes the nuance.
It's amazing how much hatred and trauma combined can blind a person. I think when Godwyn was killed and Marika was left alone with the Elden Ring, hammer in hand, she realized that she fucked up... and SHE couldn't fix it. But someone else could: us.
Maybe the Hornsent were right and Marika is the result of reaching sainhood, Radagon could be one of her many parts. And if the Hornsent cursed her and she kept having cursed children, Marika could have ripped Radagon apart from her to search for a solution, so Ranni, Radahn and Rykard were born normal. So empyreans actually having another half is not a natural requirement but actually involves ripping parts of yourself, which Miquella probably ended up doing with Saint Trina while Ranni and Malenia didnt.
Stop EVERYTHING... Hear me out, because as I'm listening things are coming together... Marika not only led a rebellion against the hornsent. She also escaped from the shadowlands WITH her "family", the shamans in the jars marked with stamped with the erdtree. I'm a little over 16 minutes hearing jar-bairn saying the line "Hey cuz"... and it was just speculated, idk if confirmed, but the tarnished is somehow a child of Marika (or something like that). For jar-bairn to call us "cuz" it's because we ACTUALLY ARE his cousins! Omfg. The jars there, in the shadowland, that don't speak at because they no longer have the shamans there to meld with the flesh, this is why they are brainless monsters that always attack you. Holy crap... I wonder if you get to it in the video by the end, but that has got to be what's up.
After the DLC i looked at "The seduction, and the betrayal" as the Mother of Fingers seducing Marika into giving her an answer to the revenge she felt the hornsent needed against her people(which is following the Greater Will and becoming a god, but the Greater Will actually just used Marika as it saw fit without caring about Marika's wants and needs because it has the ultimate power over the lands now. I don't think she harbored hatred or disgust for Mohg and Morgott, I think that was the Greater Will forcing her to give up and abandon her children to the depths of the jail because The Greater Will saw it as heretical, same as with the serpent and fire, which is why Messmer is basically stuck in the land of shadow. She was a mother, she wanted a family, and every member ended up having some curse written upon them, eventually breaking Marika when she realized her son Godwyn, despite having the rune of death plucked away, the Greater Will couldn't or didn't do anything. She was a broken girl who became a puppet and all she wanted was a family. I never looked at Marika as evil, there was always something in the back of mind that made me think she was trying to break The Greater Will because he was false and the world needed something better, something actually true in heart..I just want to give her a hug tbh and tell her I'm sorry.
Follow my other channels!
Twitch: twitch.tv/ProfOrProf
VODS: ua-cam.com/users/ProfOrVods
First Plays: ua-cam.com/users/ProfOrPlaythroughs
Let’s go prof this video came out amazing bro
so it's quite humane to kill jars in the lands between
@@BenAbrigil the ones in the lands between are actually good people….or good pots I guess lol
I wander is there new ending hiden no one find yet wich we side with miqulla
"Potent" means (among other things) " concentrated", "strong", "efficient".
I doubt Potentate etymology refers to ..pots (other than just a wink), even for From/GRR.
Something to consider as well is that she did not enact a genocide upon the hornsent immediately upon ascending to godhood. After the hornsent were banished in the land of shadow, we know that Messmer lived under the Golden Order in the lands between, as we can see impaled Giants in the mountaintops and we know he acted as an older brother to Radahn, meaning he lived there until well after the Liurnian wars. I wonder then if Messmer's Crusade was ordered my Marika in response to the Omen curse. The Hornsent Grandam speaks of issuing a curse to Marika's children, so what if the hornsent created the Omen curse to still torment Marika from the lands of Shadow. In response to this, and perhaps even in response to the births of the Omen twins Mohg and Morgott, Marika then sent Messmer to the lands of shadow to punish the Hornsent.
If that’s the case then Hornsent definitely deserved what happened to them.
that was honestly one of the lore highlights for me, finally explaining how it came to the omen curse haunting the golden lineage.
there HAD to be something at the bottom of it and I am glad we finally got the answer.
This makes a lot of sense
What about the mountain of hornsent corpses around the gate of divinty? We see Marika going up the blood-and-guts-covered steps to the gate in the story trailer. Doesn't that suggest that she ascended to godhood after slaughtering the hornsent? I don't understand how that would work lore/timeline-wise but it's something to consider.
I would say that omen only existed because of the dying erdtree, causing a loss of control over crucible energies more so than a hornsent curse.
I kept wondering why all of Marika’s children were cursed with traits of her previous enemies - the fire giant, the snake, the crucible, etc. this answered everything. Even her godly flesh is harmoniously melded with others
its interesting that godwyn was the only one of marika's that was not cursed and was the heir of the golden lineage.
@@cool2314 probably because of godfrey and the fact he was a follower of the crucible.
The Hornsent Empyrian cursed her, Hornsent Grandam in the Divine Beast legacy Dungeon
It also explains how she merged with Radagon.
If she or he because the statue in the shaman village, it looks like it was a man, even in the story trailer it looks like it. if she was harvested perhaps merged with many people or assimilated many of their characteristics. But now emerging as a woman, that would explain why, when she turn in a man she has the red hair that hates so much.
sometimes i feel miyazaki knows the endings of both berserk and one piece.
I’m sure he and miura were friends.
Miyazaki didn’t know the ending to his own dlc. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, Ansbach and Frejya characters arcs foreshadowed and straight away indicated that Miquelle wanted Radahn. But that ending was so underwhelming? Why? Because the buildup to that fantastic ending wasn’t done well. It was mentioned and could be said hey it was mentioned. But to hit the built up to ending that good it’s gotta have more than that. Think of the buildup leading to the Elden Beast. Everyone would love to fight it, but the reveal was so underwhelming of a buildup many people were like who defuq is that gimme torrent to beat its ass
the one piece was the elden ring the whole time
I like to think as a personal head cannon that Guts completes his quest but dies, ultimately gets Isekai'ed into the Elden ring world. Guts becomes lord consort to Ranni to find a means of returning to his world to get a second chance to right the wrongs that are to come!!😂🤣
@@GeraltOfArabiaRadahn's remembrance eluded to a trailer for Elden Ring's release. This was already planned long ago.
I think, with what Marika went through, she would have taken the jars from the hornsent and placed them by the erdtree in an effort to return their bodies and let them be revived via erdtree burial, then that over time wouldve led to the religious practice of putting their dead into jars and placing them at minor erdtrees and such after the shattering. Kinda like the real life preference and evolution of burial vs cremation
That would explain why we find so many jars around minor erdtrees in the land between
Mesmer had built hospitals and was researching to cure These jar people. Maybe on Marika's orders??
To add to otherbpeoples comments, people like the Omen can't be taken in by the Erdtree for whatever reason according to the base game. That's why they're "cursed"
This really neatly addresses this confusion I had - i.e. why would Erdtree society continue the jar practice, and how/why did it get re-purposed to feeding the trees. This makes perfect sense though.
@@sailingadventurerpossible, though I'd like to think he is doing it in his own volition, trying to do little bit of good in middle of all the massacre entrusted upon him. It would explain why so manyn of them dies too, afterall Messmer's power is not designed to nurture life, it's to *grant death* to those without grace.
What I find crazy about the Hornsent is that they don't seem to have a clue as to why Marika did what she did. Genocide is a wild thing, certainly, but that their brutality towards these people might inspire a deep hatred in any surviving Shamans doesn't even occur to them. They even call it a betrayal, and they moan about how they were just living peacefully. Really goes to show how they viewed themselves and the Shamans respectively
I also find this part fascinating. "I have horns and Arcane magic, your smooth-skinned argument is invalid. Get into the jar!"
No wonder they found a common language with Miquella. He was an expect in ignoring implications of his actions as well.
probably because most of them were not involved in the potting practices? honestly it's quite disturbing to me how people portray marika's genocide as understandable when she's ultimately mostly murdering innocent people, just like how the hornsent did to her people
Real, but that's part of the masks they wear, used to pretty much numb the mind of thought to make the job easier to handle. And we still don't know what these "shamans" were supposed to see in these forms
No different from real life. They're sugarcoating their brutality through religion
@@manafish8732how isn't understable. It maybe questionable if is right,but understandable
It is now ironic that a numan, Diallos, becomes a Potentate without knowing that his people were victims of the very practice he was entrusted with
YES!!! I hadn’t considered that irony.
Diallos is a numen ? How’s you find that out?
@@Dressyone223I think that is because he drops a numan's rune at the end of his quest? But I don't think that is clear evidence as other creatures also drop it.
@@Dressyone223 doesn't he drop a numen rune when you finish his quest?
@blakebridges1030 he drops a numen rune once you finish his quest, and once he dies, little Jar boy absorbs his body...........i wonder what will happen to him
There's also a hospital for the hornsent's jar victims in the basement of the shadow keep. It looks like they tried cutting the grafted flesh away, really paints a desperate picture of Marika and Messmer trying to heal what the hornsent did to the shamans in the midst of this eternal war of revenge. Messmer clearly knows the whole story, given that marika's village is guarded by the shadow keep
It also explains why Godrick the Grafted was so reviled. He inherited the ability to "harmoniously merge with flesh" from his mother, and unwittingly recreated the very horror that Marika's people endured at the hands of the Hornsent.
And the Specimen Storeroom / archive of hornsent culture. It's really interesting how Messmer's crusade is so brutal on the face of it all, but when you actually dig into what's happening, depth and layers of complexity arise. The same can be said about most stories in FROMSOFT games, but it's just remarkable to see.
I find it interesting that the greatest f you marika did for the hornsent was by making the living jars an oddly beautiful thing where the bodies of honored dead were entombed and their souls gave birth to a new life in the now living jar and those jars would die and pass their innards on to the next generation making the practice completely different than the forced saintification of the living jars of the hornsent
Her vengeance was messmer
And the clear difference between the potentates of the lands between who were valued for hands of silk the ability to care for the jars and the butchers of bonny village
On a related note, the design of the furnace golems seems to be a sort of twisted karmic retribution towards the Hornsent approved by Messmer and Marika. The shamans were mutilated, then stuffed into jars to become saints by the Hornsent so in response, Marika orders her son Messmer to wage a brutal, genocidal war against the Land of Shadow, his most prominent war machine being the massive furnace golems where the Hornsent themselves are rounded up in droves, dead or alive (but most likely still alive for extra cruelty), to be stuffed in the golems and lit aflame to bring it to life. Imagine the screams and howls of terror and agony and the smell of burning flesh as the golem surges to life; An instrument of death’s first gasps of “life” brought forth by the deaths of so many within its frame to serve as fuel for the golem as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery as it wears the horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
@@VictorIV0310 AND IT WAS JUSTIFIED! Man this story is CRAZY!
Especially when you consider the fact that Marika didn't immediately send Messmer to wage a genocidal war against them. She *almost* seemed to put her own people's genocide behind her, not quite though. It seems it was only after her own children were birthed with a omen curse did she punish them.
@@VictorIV0310 not only that but it pefectly descirbes the crucible, since we see more than just the hornsent inside of them. A crucible of life melted(dragons, horse and hornsent) and then thrown out into the world(fire balls).
The fire giant's hold the truth of what the crucible was, fire. From it came all life and from the stars came souls and intelligence.
@@copyninja8756 Well, Rellana is a pretty good jumping off point for my train of thought. Her joining Messmer in the crusade is pretty good evidence that Messmer's crusade only started after the 2nd Liurnian war, during or after Godfrey's long march when Marika banished the Tarnished.
Messmer recognizes us as Tarnished. How could he know what we are if he were to have been in the shadowlands earlier in the timeline? It couldn't be possible.
You can go further down the rabbit hole from here.
Amazing how a couple item descriptions and a village has completely shifted my view of Marika
It takes a village sometimes.
Hey i still hate her but now its more sad than anything
Marika did nothing wrong.
The fact that these stories are told through item descriptions is really really really really really fucking lame
@@mrlahey88Get Gud.
Saint Romina is half woman half centipede. Saint Trina is half woman half flower. So maybe sainthood in Elden Ring means something greater than human alone.
Remember, St Trina was not always a human/flower hybrid. That only happened after she was discarded by Miquella. We can see what she normally looks like in one of the trailers for Shadow of the Erdtree.
Saint Trina became a flower after joining with the muck she was discarded into when Miquella abandoned her.
Saints do seem to be bonded with others physically as a rule, so as to suggest seeing a picture larger than a single individual...thus acting in a "saintly" manner of putting aside personal ego.
Miquella is half man and half asshole. Point's proven.
But seriously, there could be something here.
For example, we have Godrick, Marika's child, who merges himself with other beings. Kind of resembles the process of cooking saints in the pots.
Rykard merged with a snake. Messmer kind of did the same, I guess?
Also, the wonder twins, Miquella and Malenia, are demigods, who are cursed (or shall we say merged?) with some outer gods manifestations. Like, Malenia is a demigod, who's somehow merged with a godess of rot. It is a stretch tho.
And yes, Romina is merge of centipede, scorpion, butterfly, flower and human. A very weird mix in a pot. And I also cannot find anywhere why her church was burned by Messmer, what was taht church exactly, and why was she spared.
Also, this whole theme of merging is not new in DS universe. Remember Smough? Or Aldritch? Maybe, there are hints in other games.
dont forgot the scorpion part of romina
"maybe the only wholesome interaction in the game."
Roderika: Am I a joke to you?!
Hewg: Am I a j... Ahh, whatever, piss off.
Lmao Roderika and Hewg was not a wholesome interaction, wasn't it known very early on that her spirit ashes more notably the jellyfish one were once children? And hewg being a slave
You're all silly. Everyone knows that all NPCs in from soft history are depressing jokes of a existence who about to die and be forgotten for forever... EXCEPT for patchez lolz. He's always in a good mood and the true god of from soft games.
@@soyborne.bornmadeandundone1342 Patches has that vague simp storyline that's sad in a different way.
@@maidros85Hewg: Am I a jo- .. ahh no matter. Lay down your arms.
I realize as I'm watching this that the Shaman's flesh melding harmoniously is also the basis for why grafting works for Godrick; as one of Marika's descendants, he's genetically a shaman.
There is one question though, why did grafting a dragon's head worked for Godrick? Is it because it was a lesser dragon, not the ancient one, becauce from what I've heard they abandoned their ancient ancestors' traits, joining the erdtree process of death and rebirth? Keep in mind that ancient dragons were in the lands between long before Marika popped out of nowhere and set a new age, so ancient dragons can't possibly have her flesh imbedded withing them. I have no clue how it works with the modern, lesser ones though...
@@ursidae1651 maybe lesser dragons came about as the result of humans mating with the ancient dragons while in human form
I don't think there's anything that specifies the flesh has to be other humans to meld harmoniously
Well Marika created the Erdtree, so Shamans existed before that cycle too. I don't think their ability to meld with flesh has anything to do with the life and death cycle Marika established; if its flesh it melds harmoniously
Well, my theory is that the crazy sacred butcher wielding chick that keeps invading you was their potentate. She's invading to create more jars from the flesh of her victims in an ever dwindling supply. As numen, (shaman), and those with numen blood are seldom born. The DLC explains Godricks ability to graft himself and the nature of the grafted scions as well. They're numens or numen descendants, although diluted, still retain the flesh melding properties. Now grafting isnt exclusive to just them, but I do think they're required as an adhesive between separate races.
Well, you don't see many humans in the Land of Shadows- what if it was originally a continent/region where there were no indigenous humans (or maybe the hornsent were human at some point but the crucible mutated them into something else)? It does say that the numen arrived on ships- like refugees/pilgrims/colonists.
So what I'm saying is- what if it's not 'shamans' being the important part, but humans altogether?
Anastasia Tarnished-Eater. That makes sense. And the reason she hadn't returned was because she wasn't able to take down her latest quarry: The player.
Yo, that all clicks - our Tarnished flesh is the only easily melding flesh still around, because we’re some of the only folks who can still claim direct lineage to Marika and her Numan/Shaman kin.
It also makes me wonder why Rykard was so selectively targeting Tarnished for his Recusants… perhaps because our flesh would meld the most harmoniously with his intestines.
@@ZarMationStudios18that wouldn't make as much sence as tarnished most of the time ain't numen, hell if that was their intent then they wouldn't allow you to choose different origins most likely, but hey everything is possible in those games
@@SybilantSquid I thought that was tannith under a different name since she killed tarnished by pretending to be a finger maiden which is the outfit Anastasia wears and she would eat tarnished similar to rykard
I personally think the jarring ritual of the Hornsent is different from the jarring ritual of the Living Jars, for one I don't think the ultimate end of the Hornsent ritual was Living Jars. I don't think it had anything to do with the Living Jars beyond inspiring the guy that would one day create them, same principle, different rituals and purposes.
Living Jars are a creation made with jars to essentially wander the lands, collecting the meat/essence of dead warriors to create a new life. Saints are a creation made with great jars to just seal dismembered Shamans into a suitably large vessel to force their bodies to merge, for whatever reason the Hornsent desired that.
Different rituals/creations based around jars.
If you look at the divine tower you will see the reason for them melding flesh, building materials.
You also find jar warriors in the dlc catacombs, kinda disproves your point friend.
@@PyramidHeadsLacky It doesn't at all, jar warriors are scavengers, of course they'll be in the catacombs.
They called Marika the Eternal; I'm sure that it might have seemed that way as she was a Numen, who are long lived but seldom born. I think that the Hornsent were trying to synthesize a means of extending their lives by adding in Numen parts to jars full of Hornsent viscera.
Seems like everyone is trying to come to grips with the inevitability of death.
Everyone is imortal after marika becomes god anyway so it hardly matters.
@jamesn0va So,they succeeded in some way,just never got to use it themselves
@@jamesn0va Everyone except those who Marika sent Maliketh after.
Marika became "the Eternal" after enacting the Golden Order and subtracting Destined Death.
@Alellion thank you for clarifying that. People literally make stuff up
I can only imagine Marika's despair when her sons were omen, looking like the exact kind of creatures that subjected her people to countless suffering
If anything, it shows how surprisingly compassionate she was that she didn't kill them the moment they were born, considering what the Hornsent had done. Still not okay to - you know - abandon them in a sewer, but knowing what we know now her reaction could've been a LOT worse.
I had Canada as she basically told those who acted as midwives to " take them out of my sight" in the midst of a panic attack via PTSD. and thus their being throwing the sewers like the other omen. She never rescued them because she couldn't bring herself to even look at them.
@@quietone2674and both are awful reactions....
I understand I'd be pissed if someone killed my family, but even now the lands between are in a constant battle of give and take.
And it'll never end.
@@Tortuga2223a Yeah, at no point excusing Marika's actions. Especially considering how heartless she was to her own children. Mohg and Morgott were her chance to break the cycle, to decide to love her children despite the circumstances of their birth. Instead she showed how heartless she was.
@@quietone2674tbh I dont think he abandoned them. Morgot and Mohg are not exactly uncultured or uneducated, from what we see with their achievements (as ruler, as commander, etc). I think Marika still in some form gave them some manner of education and care, she just doesn't want them around to remind her of hornsent and their horn-fetishism. Though then again, it could be godfrey who taught them stuff.
When you think about it, it makes a twisted amount of sense as to there seems to be so many spirits of people and creatures in the Land of Shadow and why Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring; Aside from preventing more of those she cares about from dying and removing a threat to her power, it could also be to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends. Marika hated the Hornsent so much that she didn't simply want them to die, she wanted them to suffer for all eternity, turning the Land of Shadow, their own homeland, into hell where the crusaders can brutalize, scorch and impale its denizens even when they've long passed into nothing but spirits, all the while Messmer's Shadow Keep looms over the land like Barad-dûr from Lord of the Rings and the Scadutree stands tall and mighty as the Erdtree's shadow, a constant reminder that the Hornsent are condemned to an eternity of brutality under Messmer's rule without even the benefit of an afterlife. Since every hell needs a devil, Marika chose her son Messmer to fulfill that role.
On a related note, the design of the furnace golems seems to be a sort of twisted karmic retribution towards the Hornsent approved by Messmer and Marika. The shamans were mutilated, then stuffed into jars to become saints by the Hornsent so in response, Marika orders her son Messmer to wage a brutal, genocidal war against the Land of Shadow with his most prominent war machine being the massive furnace golems where Hornsent themselves are stuffed inside to serve as fuel for the machine as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery with its horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
The Frenzyflame actually has the power to permanently kill spirits according to some item descriptions on Frenzyflame items. I believe this is in reference to the Frenzyflame Outer God's ability and only incarnations of him can do this or if it's all the Frenzyflame.
> "it could also be to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends."
Just to add onto this, the vast majority of the hornsent we face in the DLC are these shadowy figures. It looks to me like they are made of the same shadow stuff as the sealing tree which obscures Enir-Ilim. Kind of harkens back to the notion of hollowing. They keep getting killed over and over until there's nothing left but a shadow of their formal selves - lamenting, desperate. If Marika wanted them to suffer, uh... she did it.
That whip's description actually shocked me a little bit. It's nothing new to give a morally questionable character a tragic backstory to explain why they did what they did, but the particular brutality of the whole jar ritual and the crulety of the hornsent towards the Shamans...
The absolute confidence of the hornsent, the Shaman spirits begging not to be put into the jar only to essentially be told to "stop whining, this is literally the only reason you exist"...
I gotta say it got to me a little bit. It's a familiar trope, for sure, but I think they really made it work with how creatively messed up this is.
FromSoft doesn't deal in absolutes. Any time you think you've found a villain that is irredeemably evil, you discover a bit of lore that humanizes them and makes you...well perhaps not agree with them, but at least understand why they did what they did.
Ok. Then explain the Hornsent. @@WobblesandBean
My general timeline for marika is -
Born in shaman village that’s matriarchal leader is a woman who entwines herself with a tree and is given the title of grandmother. Shaman village occasionally has to suffer the abduction of its residents to become saints, whether by hornsent raids or as punishment for straying to far from their village.
Marika at some point leaves the village and finds herself in proximity to the finger ruins, where she first makes contact with the greater will. With its daughter initially governing over the dragon’s version of the elden ring.
This contact with a outer god causes the hornset (a people who are extremely religious) to see marika as their key to divinity. Only for them to be duped by the carefully laid out plan of marika and the greater will.
Leading to marika changing the crucible into the erdtree and thereby plugging the flow of most crucible born and superseding plaxiduax after they were battered by bayle.
And as marika ascended to godhood she wished to remove death so none of her fellow shaman or people she cared about died. This attracted the ire of the gloam eye queen (with her most likely in charge of returning things back to the crucible after death) who was promptly taken down by the newly formed malikath.
But during the battle with the gloam eye queen - the hornset, out of revenge for their religion being practically destroyed with their most holy site now barred from them in shadow and being essentially made infertile, turned all residents of shaman village into pot saints that now suffered a fate worst than death.
Which, marika realizing her wish was practically made for naught, did the only thing she thought would justify their deaths despite it going against her people’s peaceful nature. Which was overwriting everything the hornsent ever did so it would be like they never existed. And later having her son messer not only go on a unending purge for the hornsent but also research if there was a way to undo pot sainthood.
One criticism here: Marika was NOT guided by the greater will, she was guided by the two fingers, which are operating on an old vision imparted to their mother.
Where is the information about Marikas shaman people being Matriarchal and tree melding?
@@music79075 it's suggested because the shaman village is a big reference to the old celtics worshipping nature also the statue with the woman entwined in a tree gives it away. celtic tribes had female leaders that were similar to shamans as in women were believed to have stronger connections to nature than men so they led all the rituals and stuff.
@@TheSkyfolk Marika was controlled by the Elden Beast though, which was the "vassal beast of the greater will and the living incarnation of the concept of Order".
@@MrNephthys17its clearly stated that Metyr stopped receiving orders from the greater will and just told the fingers to do things lol
Howls Moving Castle
Sophie gives her hair braid for the fire Calcifer to consume
I think Miyazaki being a Miyazaki fan has done it again
Was waiting for someone to say something like this for years 🥲❤️
I just watched boy and heron and yeah both mayazakis play off each other for sure
About Shamans in DLC, Japanese use 巫女 or Miko - medium, shrine maiden etc.
Interesting.
Romina is able to merge with bunch of insects, like "shamans" can merge into.. something.. in the pots.
Romina served in church while it was burnt by Messmer.
Romina is the only one who was spared by Messmer.
If we assume she was a shaman serving in hornsent's church, this kind of makes sense? Also, this may lead to some theories about scarlet rot.
@@Almoniification Scarlet rot in Lands Between associated with fusing between plants and Golden order descendants.
@@andrewshmelyov well, this checks out. Bud has a special place in her lore, and her head is covered with petals.
The great thing about this DLC is that I didn't read any description, but I understood Marika's story the second I set foot in the shaman village. When I saw the lady in the tree, I directly connected her ressemblance with fleshs jar womens and the dialogue "your place is in the jar"
Yep. I remember walking up to it and I just had to get off torrent and walk through. Look at every single thing. Her homelands being hidden behind a castle guarded by one of her most violent children, Erdtree sentinels patrolling a quiet and uninhabited land. The small magical tree at the center. Man that was intense.
this just occurred to me, that it is said that the miquella's haligtree has his own blood in it to make it grow, and I always kinda wondered why he would think that would work, but it is so obvious now that the tress are getting nutrients from the flesh and blood from the jars
I mean that's pretty obvious in the base game when you get to the first catacomb and see all the corpses at the roots.
@@teagancombest6049 no it's not
Also makes sense how he could become saint Trina, shed pieces of himself off, etc. He inherited his mothers abilities as a Numen.
This theory has a lot of validity. The idea that the lands between and the land of shadow are mirrors of one another could explain a few other things. Like how omens are looked down upon in the lands between. Mohg and Margit were abandoned and shunned for being omens despite being children of Marika.
It could shed some light on Anastasia as well. She invades us 3 times and wields a butchering knife. It could be that she was one of the people who conducted the ritual in the Lands between at one point and is continuing that practice by killing tarnished, disguising herself as a finger maiden while she does it.
Maybe Anastasia is Tanith in disguise, we know Tanith is from the lands of shadow. Maybe she is even Hornsent and that's why she leads Rykard to hate the erdtree so much.
13:35 i like to image that Queen Marika was really sad and left one final gift at her village, despite there being no one left
I like to think of it as a symbol of change, cutting her hair off leaving behind the past and welcoming in a new start and motivation (revenge)
@@sammyp578 Maybe both?
Marika uses to be an Empyrean, but whether she was chosen by the hornsent or the fingers is not certain to me.
From Ymir it sounds like Marika conspired with the fingers against the hornsent
Mother of Fingers has a role in it somewhere as its a Daughter of the Greater Will. It was flawed though as it never recieved any signals from the Greater Will. But at some stage the Greater Will also sent down the Elden Beast as a vassel to inact and embody Order itself
@@fishnutz5196 I do wonder how the Elden Beast relates to the Greater Will. It's interesting that the Elden Beast is the Elden Ring and the Elden Ring governs reality for the lands between, and the fact that like you mentioned the Greater Will send the Elden Beast down to the lands between.
Makes me think whether the Elden Beast is more of a tool or an actual child of the Greater Will, like Metyr.
@@TheScrootchi think he is a child of it. He has the same looks as metyr atleast in head shape and eye shape. The only difference is the bodies, and there seems to be no answer as to why the elden beast is like a black goop. My only assumption as to why hes a black goop essentially is that godwyn corrupted him with death, his dead body being directly under the old capital next to the roots of the tree.
@@TheScrootch its not 100% clear but it could be a case of the Greater Will sending the Elden Beast to inact Order on the Lands Between once it noticed Marikas ascension to godhood. Its head is kind of like a finger but more importantly its design is like a living universe with the human nervous system. Whats more interesting to me is the 3 fingers. Hyeta says its from the One Great which is still might be but also could it just be a malformed child of Metyr? A birth defect in a way. Also makes me question why the fingerscreepers are so so weak to fire this whole time and now finding out the they are related in some way to the 2 fingers and most likely the 3 fingers too
@@fishnutz5196 I personally think the Elden Beast is much, much older than Marika and her Golden Order. We see Elden Ring motifs, though looking different from Marika's Elden Ring, in Farum Azula. Farum Azula is of course from Placidusax's time and according to his title, he was the first Elden Lord.
We also know that parts of the Elden Ring can be added and removed, so it may have been the case that it's been modified a lot over all those years.
And as for the 3 fingers, I think it's hard to say. Perhaps it's indeed a defect child of Metyr or perhaps the 3 fingers are made in mockery of the Greater Will by the Frenzied Flame.
I still somewhat subscribe to the idea the One Great used to be a combination of multiple God like figures including the Greater Will, but it split apart and the Greater Will is the Order part and the Frenzied Flame is the Chaos part. But on the other hand, the One Great might just be another name for the Greater Will
So Godrick's grafting ritual is basically him using becoming a jar without a jar XD
Fantastic video, its very cool seeing some of the extrapolations you made and conclusions you came to after our short discussion on the jars, and you presented it incredibly well!
couldn’t have done it without you!!!
Miquella's basically a 2nd Marika that's why I think it's a good thing we put a stop to him in the Dlc he's honestly way more dangerous than Marika since he can charm things and control people freely to do his bidding whereas Marika achieved this by using War as her form of dominion and control much more of a struggle and challenge compared to what miquella can easily do. Still even with the new backstory of Marika that we have in the Dlc it still dosen't justify all she's done. It did a good job on humanizing her just to show she wasn't alyways this power hungry ruler but ironically enough she ends up doing even worse than the people who wronged her in the Future as the saying goes you either die a hero or live long enough to become the Villain.......
@Glatisant_gallashe’s caused multiple genocides not just the hornset so no she is not justified for everything she’s done
@@sitowatit's justified.. well it depends on what's side you're on.. the hornset also massacred marika's people.. the description in the minor erdtree can prove that since it state that "marika cast a healing spell knowing full well that there's no one to heal" and the hornset are the ones who put the shamans in the jar.. so there's a chance that marika is the only survivor she's weak in that state until she became a god.. also only the weak seek justice, the strong seek glory.. and there's always two sides of the same.. but the anomaly is the tarnished who just showed up to become a new lord
Miquella would have used Radhan against anyone he couldn't charm. That's the real reason he chose him as his consort.
@@axolotl3883so what about the other genocides?
Miquella did and intended to do worse things than Marika.
Marika was somewhat justified, the Hornsents weren't saints at the slightest, that's for sure.
Damn son that was great.
I’d love to know more about the mother of fingers and how the golden order is possibly founded on a broken framework. I feel like there’s a ton of implications you can make from the finger ruins and Count Ymir’s dialogue
Ymir is definitely right about a rotten foundation. The greater will hasn't communed with metyr in ages, making everything the fingers do and say is at best outdated and at worst their own made up bullshit, this is from metyrs rememberence staff.
metyr is mother of all fingers, 2 fingers, and finger creepers, and is probably in command of them all to some degree.
The 2 fingers faith and the finger readers yes, not so much the entire Golden order. The Golden order was founded on the back of the Greater Will accepting Marika as its vassal god and sending the Elden Beast down to give her the Elden Ring, legitimizing her godhood and the golden order she would create. The fingers set it into motion, but the Greater Will legitimized it.
"This is a Marika simping zone" You are now free to simp to the golden mommy
POV, you're Godfrey/radagon
@@shanedoesyoutube8001 So what you're saying is I get to have kids with her?
Golden genocide mommy 😍
@@shanedoesyoutube8001 That's great! I would probably do that. When is this in the video? I also think that both of them were mean to her, there is no one good enough to be her spouse cuz she's just too good for them.
I have to say, after 13 years of consuming souls lore over and over I have never came across someone who can wrap things up as neatly as you sir. Incredible summary and takes. You should be big
Another interesting thing is that when you first enter messmer’s bossroom, he calls you a mongrel intruder before realising you are a tarnished. And then he says to Markia would your lord be one so devoid of light. I think your theory about burial and golden order makes sense because you have come from outside the lands between, thus you would have no trace of the golden lineage
All tarnished were originally from the lands between, banished, and then called back.
@@teagancombest6049exactly
Fuck me this take totally fits with the divine mother aspect of marika. It might even explain why her womb was pierced by the spear.
But who exactly pierced her with the spear ? 🤨
Thats been one of the biggest questions i havent managed to answer myself, at all. Was it the elden beast because she revolted against the greater will? Was it radagon doing it out of fear? Was it miquella trying to usurp the throne ? I have no idea
@@joshlong6733 i think it's clear by it's color that it was maliketh with destined death, i think by marika's order , maliketh has the dialougue toward marika " is it what it's like to sin?" i assume it can be because of that piercing her womb is a THE sin and not the stolen fragment of death by ranni . i think overall marika's sorrow is for everything she is done and happened to her (based on gideon dialougue ), she wants to restart everything , i think that's why she told people to search in the depth of the golden order , banished the tarnished outside ,to wage war and gather power and come back to start everything a new without any of the existing history. people that have limited connection to any history of the lands between ( shadow realm by extension). that add greater will , hornset, marika,elden ring ,etc makes it best decision she could do . i think of it quiet genius tbh
@@joshlong6733The Elden Beast. It has a grab attack in which it crucifies you, and stabs you in the exact same way from the exact same angle, with a similar looking spear.
The only thing that's off is the color (gold/vs red) but to me that can be explained by time
@@piotr78 i also think now it was the elden beast. Ive thought on the subject a bit more at this point and the story in general and came up with this.
The Shaman Village is so beautiful that it makes me want to cry. There's no beauty like it anywhere else in the game
I think they are turning saints into the trees. Back in the Shaman Village it is not a statue but the body of Marika's grandma that is inside the tree. Similarity in Bony village it is a body of another saint and tree branches are growing out of it. We can also see female bodies in the golden trees in the tower. That is what saints are for.. to grow the trees.
Before the DLC, I kind of wondered if Alexander's compulsion to find the remains of great warriors was because he was a tool created in an attempt to create a Lord to challenge the Elden Lord, kind of like how the Nightfolk made the Mimics.
Well, I'd beaten the base game and I just helped Hornsent kill Messmer, now I'm just gonna go start a new journey and do things a little different....
You still kill him after he invades you and he then dying knows that the only reason he was able to win against Messmer was because of one he so despised and that he couldn't even win against one tarnished of no renown
You know you are doing something right when the number of views of one video surpasses the number of subscribers. I am glad to have discovered your channel and I thoroughly enjoyed this video. Thanks.
One thing i found interesting is Jar bairn rejects you as a new potentate because your hands are too rough. Which means you should have a kind soul and essentially a no murder history. Thats why Diallos was accepted because he was gentle (well he thought a coward but stay with me) which would make sense that in the lands between jars were created with gentle hands and respectful kindness as a memorial (in contradiction to their past) unlike how in the land of shadow the potentates were butchers, bore harm and torturing their victims who they filled the jars with.
One issue I'd raise is the mentioning of the "seduction and betrayal" from the story trailer. The hornsent grandam in Belurat repeatedly refers to Marika as a "strumpet", or basically an old way of saying a slut. I think there's more to this story. Also considering the Golden Braid mentions the Grandmother, I'm wondering if the Grandam is this person as well.
i personally think jars of the lands between (the one with erdtree seal on top of it) are different from the jars of the land of shadow (the one with knot seal). since alexander use dead warrior as his innard rather than living being (as seen after the radahn festival). idk why golden order take the practice of the living jars, but i think they found another way to create the living jars, perhaps this time they use a royal warrior remains ( as stated on warrior jar shard talisman )
I think Marika did this to honor her fallen kin
I think Marika didn't intend for the practice to continue, and that it started by bringing the pots made of her kin to the trees to free them into the golden order. And that by the time they finished with those pots, it had already taken long enough to have become a tradition, leading to the erdtree warrior pots for gathering the fallen dead.
Presumably, the erd tree potentate has to be a pure numen - who also presumably have naturally smooth hands, given the jarburg rejection - so the erd tree pots maybe involve their blood grafting the corpse mass together instead of a tortured numan serving as the core of a corpse bramble like the hornsents version.
Maybe.
I assume that because Godrick is of the same lineage as Marika, he was able to perform grafting. And because of this grafting, Godefroy was likely imprisoned for practicing this grafting as the ability of shaman flesh being so compatible with any other flesh was a well kept secret.
And I think that is why Godwyn is so disfigured. His live flesh is absobing things, melding them together.
This actually makes the most sense. I think this is one of the truths of the story. And is one of the reasons him grafting a dragon arm to his body is a big point of the boss fight it even has its own cutscene. Its trying to show us that his shaman flesh melds with everything, even beings that are completely different to his own genetic make up and non human. The other reply makes a lot of sense to involving godwyn the golden.
Also marika's home village is overlooking one of the finger star crash landing areas... the one with the more golden dotted spots on the map, and not the more blue/glintstone like crater. It seems that Marika was CHOSEN as an emperyean by the fingers, and it seems the hornsent ALSO FOLLOWED THE FINGERS AS WELL CONSIDERING THE CRUCIBLE AS PART OF THE GREATER WILL! The old woman with the lion dancer is called the emperyean grandam... she obviously was like some form of guide, or gatekeeper, watcher type person for the emperyeans of the hornsent. MARIKA WAS PROBABLY MADE ONE TO THE DISMAY OF THE HORNSENT CHOSENITE'S! A shaman... not a glorious hornsent... but it was the greater wills... will lol... so marika realizes this is her chance to betray them, and uses it. She must have somehow convinced all of them that there were no hard feelings, and she didnt give A FOOK about them enslaving, and destroying her village... and they believed her.. until she murdered whoever was the god beforehand, and took over, and then repaying the hornsent IN KIND!
Them still being petty, and pissed about "being betrayed" is simply sour grapes bullshit, and they deserved it. Unwilling to accept their fate, and the actions that lead them there.
Maybe the betrayal was the Greater Will choosing Marika instead of Marika doing the betraying
@@Dressyone223 I don't think the Greater Will chose anything, because the 'satellite receiver' is messed up.
@@elijahherstal776 yeah,it looks like "middle management battle royale to full fill upper management will" kind of stuff
@@elijahherstal776 The Elden beast probably took it upon itself to change things a bit.
@@xnikolasbs2230 Metyr is busted, remember that. The Nox probably did that when they rejected the Greater Will.
There’s something about combining that seems tied closely with the outer will. Irinas quest regarding the frenzy flame has her consume multiple eyes of those touched by it. She says that the more she eats, the better she can see the far distant flame. I wonder if the Hornsent were trying to do something similar; using a mass of combined entities to sense an aspect the greater will better. They’d have motivation to do this too, since the mother of fingers no longer has the guidance of the outer will
In the end Marika becomes a Jar herself. Her stone like skin and her only purpose being to be a vessel to contain the elden ring
Rubber Room thought here and I don’t know if it’s been mentioned:
Think of the jars as mini crucibles to mix flesh of different species together. Much like actual crucibles used to create metal alloys. There has to be a connection there between primordial gold (red/copper) and actually gold being alloyed. Gold + Copper = Rose Gold.
This is just a thought: Marika = Gold. Radagon = Copper
Miquella is referred to as pure and radiant and is known for using unalloyed or pure gold, which is known for never tarnishing or corroding, just as Miquella is cursed with being forever youthful, he never ages, much like gold. Gold is also commonly used in wedding bands to symbolize love/a bond between two people. When we get to the end of the DLC, we see that Miquella has taken Radahn as his consort, as promised in a vow long ago.
Can’t think of any other thoughts to connect the dots to without going off the rails. I’m sure there’s holes to poke in this, it’s not a very thought out hypothesis, just mental diarrhea spewing forth from my mind lol.
Edit: just got to the end of the video and you mentioned almost exactly this lol. You charmed me like Miquella into this train of thought!
Question - Merika put the erdtree incarnation in the village after everyone had been turned to pots (from the item description; also states it was ‘only the kindness of gold, without Order). Then her braid was left at the shrine of her old shaman religion, where she prayed and then in the cinematic of her entering the divine gate it very prominently shows her hair doesn’t have a braid.
So Merica had faith powers (i.e. gold incantations) presumably from the golden beast, BEFORE she became a god and took on the Order (greater will’s design). We also know she met the Mother of Fingers before her ascension, who was pretending to channel the greater will.
So does this mean: Merika was born in Shaman village under hornsent oppression. She discovers the fingers and leaves to find the Elden Beast, succeeds, and upon returning finds her whole village destroyed. She makes a deal with the Elden beast to become its god in exchange for removing death from the order. She then usurps the dragons and places a human as lord. Then eventually she breaks the Elden ring… maybe because she finds out the greater will was never backing her and the order and fingers and everything were a lie? The beast imprisons her as punishment and the Tav story begins?
Of note - the Elden beast and/or Mother of Fingers are directing grace (not Merika) for Tav since the cut scene with Morgott shows grace from each of their point of view pointing to the other - so the default end game of replacing Merika head, fully defeated, and remaking the Elden ring as it was being the goal - yet Tav’s will allows for other outcomes. Was Merika’s original sin giving her self, body and soul, to the greater will in exchange for power? Was her betrayal of the golden order when she smashed the Elden ring, exerting her will one last time? Were the Tarnished her ultimate gamble? Knowing the golden order to be a falsehood and a jail, to allow them outside of grace, outside of the golden order’s will, so they could have true free will? Is all of this just a metaphor for Fromsoft making their first open world game? Are we really here or is this all a simulation? Idk I’ve watched too many of these videos and i need a 45 min nap to process this 😂 😆
Glad I came across this video. It explains this part of the game very well and is really twisted in how it brings everything together. Horrific all around.
This,sound like the origin of grafting
it’s in the video!
@ProfOrProf yeah while I was watching it, I wrote the coment, then later on it was mention, but hey, we are here trying to gather pieces of lore of this great game, by the way, good video
Potent - of great strength or power
Potentate - a ruler (see potent)
Potential - ability to achieve great strength or power, or maximum level of such
Pot - a vessel , traditionally of clay.
Potter - one who crafts pots
Pottery - the craft and product of a potter
Potting - the act of filling a pot
Potentation, if there was such a word, would be the method of becoming a potentate.
I do think it’s very fitting that it wasn’t some petty goal as just becoming a god for power but to get revenge and everything we see is the consequence of someone just grieving hard. Still doesn’t justify doing mohg and morgott so dirty tho
Morgott and Mohg were imprisoned not because of Marika's bad memories. She's too calculated to act that way. And marks of the Crucible ain't some random cosmetic detail.
Omens have an innate affinity for Arcane magic, and are connected to something in the Shadow Lands. Probably, to the old gods of the Hontsent, like Formless Mother, who could be the reason why Hornsents had their bloody rituals. This connection is strong enough for common talentless Omens to have strange visions. The stronger Omens like Mohg could come in a direct contact with the old gods, and be seduced into starting their own cult of Blood. It seems, Omens are literal walking portals to some nightmare dimension, and this was the real issue Marika had with them.
The Dung Eater, another enjoyer of the terrifying rituals, also had something to do with Omens.
I don't think the hornsent ever say they are trying to make living jars. They are stuffing shamans together in jars to meld them together, and it happened that if left long enough, they would meld into the jar itself. That was not their intent however as we see the melded creatures coming out of the jars often.
I think they were trying to create something in the jars and then take them out.
yap session (also spoilers)
I'm kinda starting to think that Marika might have been what the Hornsent were hoping to achieve by the "divine ritual" they did to the shamans. From my point of view, the Hornsent did not think that once a shaman reaches sainthood, they would forget their hatred or that the Hornsent "knew whats best for the shamans", so they held Marika in high regard, ignorant to her hatred of them. I don't want to go to the direction that her and Radagon were merged in that way, but her sainthood could be the reason she and Radagon are one, but have different minds. back to the Hornsent. they held Marika in high regard and even possibly she was an empyrean at that time and was at the care of the Hornsent grandam. She could've been working with the Two Fingers behind the Hornsents' backs. that could be why we see many crucible related incantations used by some of Marika's followers, like the crucible knights who while serving under Godfrey, they were undeniably following Marika as well. Marika leaving one of her twin braids is probably a sign of her passing a point of no return, or in this case, ascending to godhood and at the expense of the Hornsent. Upon her reaching godhood then maybe with the help of the two fingers communing with the Greater Will (or Metyr) the Erdtree came to be. and then another Shadow Tree was made to hide away the whole land (now known as the realm of shadow) and another smaller one to hide the spiraling tower, that hid away the gate of divinity, something that she used to become a god leading to it to become a well known artifact of the Hornsent from a well hidden thing. even the "hidden rite" needed was revealed, meaning Marika used a lord's soul and a vessel for a lord there as well. I don't know why Enir-Ilim is covered in ash when we get there though. If it was to destroy the gate of divinity so that no one else would use it (I have the image of two very tall spiraling trees "reaching into heaven") then Miquella should not be able to use it, but he does. I also don't know the reason behind all the bodies around the gate as well. we know they are fresh corpses when Marika uses the gate there's a lot of blood but when we get there there's just ash. If the presence of bodies is enough as a requirement then that would work for Miquella as well. It also kinda explains as to why the gate was not used frequently to mass produce gods.
Thanks for coming to my yap session
wanted to yap about a lot more things like the implications of the names chosen by each god, the timeline of Greater Will's abandonment of Metyr, Elden Beast' star coming to the lands between upon Marika reaching godhood or at an earlier time, Placidussax being an elden lord before there was an erdtree. was elden beast already there when marika created the erdtree with the help of the two fingers, marika offering a prayer, confession or something like that to "The Grandmother", Empyrean Grandmother? or someone else? who'se the skinny person who has a statue in the shaman village and a headless version in bonny village? and such
I loooove this!!! I think you’re right, maybe we should call her St. Marika.
Counteryap alert:
I like the idea of Marika being the success of the jarring project. I also think the word "again" in the description of the Golden Braid is important. Together with the erdtree incantations description gives me the understanding of the chain of events as follows: Marika was taken from her village, jarred, turned into a saint, became an important figure in the hornsent society, betrayed them, stole their divinity and ascended to godhood. This is what we see in the story trailer for sote. The following in my opinion is not so clear in terms of timeline but I personally think Marika came back into the village only after the crusade of Messmer. Killing the hornsent did not bring her family back. It did not fix anything. Just now she was shackled by her divinity. After that I'd imagine she sealed the land of shadow away with the sealing pillar in order to create her perfect utopia. Maybe that was her promise. To turn away from the horrific bloodshed committed in her name. That's why she took the rune of death out: to prevent someone losing everyone they ever knew and loved permanently. But she is human at the end of the day and couldn't help but try and force things.
@shobooknight this dlc had an emphasis on marika's very human nature. Before this my image of her was someone that planned a million steps ahead and had a mentality far beyond humans
I do agree the bodies at the gate of divinity are weird. Maybe it works kind of like the jarring, where an empyrean can meld together with a lot of powerful people, but not in flesh but in soul. Maybe thats what the hornsent were trying to do with the jarring, but it eventually became a muddied version and led to the disfigured abominations that we see in the dungeons. Them basically trying to recreate a god but failing over and over again in a delusion that it will work because it worked with merika. Idk but your theory does seem very close to whats true.
If you can sympathize with Messmer, you ought to sympathize with Marika. The Hornsent were the perpetrators of the "evil" in the entire game and dlc. Until we get more info about the Hornsent and the Shamans (Numen), that is what it looks like.
However, at the end of the day, everyone is responsible for their own actions. Whether in action or reaction, what you do is in your hands alone
I havent played the DLC, but listening to lore videos I wounder if Marika was subjected to this jaring process and came out as a successful saint creation, but instead of being a saint who would help the hornsent decided to enact vegeance on them
I had that thought too. Would make sense why the Hornsent feel betrayed as well.
23:35 2 possibilities I’m fighting rn. 1. The tarnished are the offspring of Godfrey and marika or they’re you’re theory of the genetics being passed on, THEN she stripped them of their grace and forsook the crucible knights and crucible aspects and once she gave everyone she conquered Grace and defined history, she set in motion her grand plan of one of her tarnished returning to become Elden lord after the shattering. This is a theory of us being Demi gods from a recent vid where a Japanese guy has boosted the background audio of your character waking up at the start of the game and you hear a walking mausoleum said to hold the bodies of Demi gods, this explains why godrick needs tarnished to graft into him and explains the hornsent and shaman and why they needed them. 2. We aren’t Demi gods or her descendants and the phrase “bonds harmoniously with others” is referring to how all the jars in sote appear to be shaman women with viscera in them, meaning their backs were whipped and lumps of “other” flesh meaning just any corpse/species. It makes sense too, as to why they’d be special if you could ONLY graft 10-50 other kinds of being onto a single shaman, their backs are bulging so that really makes a lot of sense with the whip, but what I haven’t figured out with these theories is WHO THE FUCK was lord and god at this point and I have another suspicion that marika veiled the shadow realm after ascending to god hood and that’s why there’s 2 manifestations of all the gods excepts the fell god, it was all 1 place but all the gods that we fight again seem to have been there and got trapped and manifested again. The giants were just out of the way on their mountain, it’s said the serpent has always been in the mountain too but messmer is referred to as a god killer too in the same regard so he was its envoy but marika sealed that with his eye and also to protect herself sent him into the shadow realm, then the rest have come out in some regard to oppose her golden order. Unless the god spot opened once placiducax’s god left, the hornsent with their divinity tried to use the shamans to achieve godhood, cos the shamans would’ve died off if it was a forever thing, then marika goes to metyr and gets the ACTUAL method, probably the dragons used the shamans cos in Japanese they’re “Mikos” which are divine shrine maidens that commune with gods and they’re usually female with marikas ppl all being female or atleast the shamans appear to be, or they all have a male/female side, we don’t know. So the dragons used grandmother to figure out metyr and commune then grandmother gave it marika to free the shamans of the hornsent after the dragon left, probably what st.trina was referring to as a godhood is a prison and that bitch fled leaving the hornsent to try become gods, then marika becomes god using their flesh, and wars with the dragons and stuff we’ve all seen in a vaati video. This is all just my theories of logically why would these events play out and seeing the Japanese meaning of a lot of stuff helps make it make sense, like I don’t think in ALL my speculation there, I said something that doesn’t logically follow unless I fucked up some timelines then that’s on me.
29:24 this probably explains why they told the shamans they were gonna be saints. The were LITERALLY making the into living crucibles.
The Flame of Frenzy does kinda look Good to me after the Dlc
Smooth hands is evidence of lack of working with them ...like not using giant swords to chop ppl up and stuff them in jars.
i agree , i think difference between shadow realm jars and lands between jars are in this aspect. differnce between a butcher(hornset potantate) and a delicate cook (Land's between potantate)who works with all ingrenident with class.
Interesting, I got to the opposite conclusion playing the Dlc Marika CHOSE this, everything that happens including the extermination of her people happens because Marika lets it happen, because she needs it to happen in order to ascend to god hood. She betrayed the horsent and exterminated them only after she becomes a god, if she was so traumatized she would have wage war againts them way before, perhaps she needed the horsent to kill and merge all her shaman people to truly create one divinity HER.
this theory also recontexualizes the law of regression and causality.
"things all yearn eternally to converge"
"that which links all things in a chain of relation"
it's quite literally a genetic chain spanning across everything in the lands between. traits converging with one another forming new combinations.
Hold the phone, I just had a revelation watching this.
The part where there are jars in the lands between…you need numen people to fuse the flesh together to make the insides right? Because numen flesh melds with other well, but there are no numen in the lands between…except there are…or were.
Base or Rogier’s dialogue and the black armor/knife items, the black knife were scions of the eternal city (Nokstella and Nokron), and rumored to be of Marika’s kind…the numen.
I think after the rebellion of the eternal cities, Marika brought them low (literally) and as punishment, she use their numan to make the jars.
This would tie in the night of the black knives because the survivors partner with Ranni to kill Godwyn as revenge for what Marika did to them.
Oh my god, if that is true, that would be poetic justice.
Good point! The nox were numen and no longer exist. They could very well be extinct because they were used for the jars in lands between. And this makes sense why the black hand assassins sided with Ranni to plot revenge on Marika. The cycle continuing
Except u forgot that the pots in the lands between are made of dead flesh, the jar stuff took hold in the lands between to be able to transport the corpses of the dead to the erdtree where they will be reborn
I kinda doubt that as jars in lands are themself collecting corpses so that they can either form a great warrior or to reach minor erdtrees so that the guardian will smash them and then corpses would be returned to erdtree, while shamans were used to stuff jars with supposed "sainthood" in mind.
I think that Marika just recreated the practice without needing numen as she didn't want to create saints so corpses didn't need to stick together but for them to help dead return to tree. And why jars you may ask? Because she wanted to honor her village and what happened to them and turn it into positive thing
Someone mentioned somewhere that all of the prettified people in Nokron & Nokstella might have been the Nox trying to recreate the divine gateway (as they also experimented in creating life and the cut Asimi question-line notes they were trying very hard to create a Sovereign Eternal - i.e. Elden lord of their own age)
No. Not everyone needs to be shaman. Godrick had shaman flesh which melds with anything else.
Jars like alexander, if they have a single mound of shaman flesh that should be Enough to trigger the process.
I agree that she has melded her flesh with all the land through erdtree burial and giving of golden grace. All of the lands between are inside of a pot being melded together either literally or figuratively. Not sure which yet
I feel like the ultimate purpose of the “Saints” is to enable the ritual at the Gate of Divinity seen in the story trailer, or even to construct the gate itself. The Gate is the only other instance of bodies and viscera being accumulated by Hornsent culture for religious reasons, so it’s parsimonious to connect the jars and the gate. The Hornsent, living in an age abandoned by its god (see Placidusax), sought to elevate a candidate to godhood, making direct communion with the divine and fully embracing the Crucible. Marika hijacked this process, apparently through seduction and deception, either gaining unauthorized access to the Gate or working within the rules to have herself selected for the ritual and then subverting it.
Knowing what horns on a human figure means to Marika, Imagine the utter Horror she would have experienced after birthing the omen twins.
Imagine your entire people are butchered, twisted and experimented on, out of religious zealotry, by a people with twisted horns growing on their heads. So, as the last of your people, you lead a rebellion, you find an ancient finger being and its golden god, and gain truly divine power to smite your enemies. You seal these people away in another dimension, end death itsekf, and build a mighty kingdom, free of those evil horned people. You turn their horrid ritual practice into something kind, something that prevents people's souls from dying.
You rule for thousands of years.
And then, one day, after loving another to the point they are LITERALLY your other half, you give birth to children... Only for them to be covered, head to toe, in those accursed, evil, twisting horns. Your OWN CHILDREN are now constant reminders of a trauma you BUILT A KINGDOM to run from, to overcome, yet here they are, grown from your own womb.
Imagine the horror that would bring...
Ironically the caterpillar mask thing reminds me of the omen killer that had to basically suppress his own emotion to kill the omen babies.
The "seduction and betrayal" aspect of the story doesn't refer to anything Marika did to the Hornsent. I've seen it suggested that Marika pulled some type of Eclipse on them to achieve her ascension, but that wouldn't make sense since Messmer and co were in the lands between long after the Carian wars which shows us that the Golden Order and the Hornsent co-existed peacefully for quite some time after she achieved godhood. Marika herself rather was victim of the seduction, that being groomed into godhood by Metyr and her fingers. Marika, who witnessed the horrific butchering of everyone she ever knew, sought to use her newfound powers promised by the fingers to create a world without death (the seduction), thus preventing the loss of anyone who was important to her ever again, but Metyr is at best dysfunctional and at worst insane and was bullshitting this whole time (the betrayal) Marika's realization of this, specifically after the death of Godwyn, is what causes her to shatter the Elden Ring and kickstarts the event of our story. Metyr is both the true main antagonist of the story and also the origin of the cycle of familial and motherly neglect present throughout, and she herself is very intentionally described as a daughter of the Greater Will but is forsaken by it.
Going to that shaman village felt…important somehow but I just didn’t know why. It’s the only location in the entire game that’s ever felt like that to me. Like there was something there and I just don’t know what it was. Finding out it’s Marika’s home before she became a god was a revelation I was not expecting. This tiny village is literally where it all started.
What if Merika is a successful pot? An amalgamation of many people that actually succeeded? Something like a homunculus from Full Metal Alchemist.
This comment is actually great find here, also this makes total sense, if Marika a successful saint from the jar after ascending the godhood connects with the greater will (or two fingers) and finds that her entire kind was decimate, this could ignite the hatred and the vengeance against the hornsent (which blindly dig their own sepulture doing the jar rituals to achieve the promised saint). Also, she came from the jar with another saint which was Radagon, that also gave birth to Mesmer.
Great video and breakdown. A lot of work put into this and it shows. Love what you've put together here man. And you've got a great face for Radio :)
GRRM definitely had his hands in this story jar
From what I understand he built up the universe for the most part with help from Miyazaki then Miyazaki found ways to tear it all apart and set up the world we play in
@@almostawesome5934GRRM wrote the lore basically and then fromsoft used that lore to create the characters and items
Numen flesh melding into others could have large implications for what it means to be an empyrean and how Radagon became a part of marika. Messmers eye looks like a soreseal, and most of the empyreans that are opposing marika tend to be one eyed (as if they also plucked out an eye). Malenias and miquellas eyes are always obscured. If Radagon was revealed to also be an empyrean, the implication could be that marika "infects" herself upon people through soreseal eyes harvested from herself - melding herself into them and thus making them eligible to become a god (that god being marika herself).
I think the betrayal was that Maricka was the Saint the hornsent were trying to create. She was probably put into a jar and actually made a saint, that’s probably how she can turn into other people. That’s like the goal of the jarring. So they probably worshipped her but then she wanted to destroy them for what they did.
I was thinking: the divine gate is made of... merged people, isn't it?
I still have unanswered questions from that trailer. What was the gold hair stuff? What was it taken from?
I bet it was the hornsent themselves who sacrificed their own people to make the divine gate. Marika must have simply seized the opportunity and become God due to the guidance of her two fingers.
@@oldscratch2506 I thought that the golden hair was from the horn sent people sacrificed on the gates, their hair was used to create the first rune, maybe?
@@eduardopereira2431 An plausible theory
Amazing Essay, Sir, that climax was very well executed.
Let me leave you with my humble Sub.
I think this interpretation is based on a false premise.
Sure, the whip's description says that "the flesh of shaman harmonously melds together" but nowhere is it stated that any other flesh wouldn't do the same in similar circumstances. Hence, I don't think shamans were being jarred because of a special ability to meld together, nor do I buy your whole "genetics" interpretation. Obviously I can't disprove it either, but there are not enough elements to confidently assert this is the basis of ER's story.
Also, regarding Marika"s "betrayal" being a simple slave revolt, I think there is more to it. We have an example of a slave revolt in ER with the misbegotten at Castle Morne and Edgard, who was one of their captors, never calls it a betrayal even though he says : "The menials have all rebelled. They gave me good service, or so I thought, but it seems it was all an act. Foul creatures, as it's said. And true enough they're foul inside and out"
Now, the situation might have been similar with Marika, but if she was rebelling, who was she rebelling with? if by the time she left her village she knew "there was nobody left to heal" it implies all the other shamans where dead at the time. Now, the other shamans might have simply died during the rebellion and she was the only survivor, but if that's was the case, it's suprising she would have suceeded.
Finally, the mention of "betrayal" coincides in the trailer with Marika crossing the Gates of Divinity, which seems like an important clue, especially when you know the other shamans where destined to "sainthood".
So here is my theory (and I'm probably not the first one to think that so no need to tell me if somone else mentionned it first) : The hornsent were enslaving and jarring the shamans, not because of a special ability of their but because they were hornless and thus deemed inferior and expendable. Their goal, by fusing them together, was to create a saint, that is, an incarnation of the Crucible, which makes sense since it's the place where every life fuses together.
From what we see of jar people, they are not avatars of the cruicible, so we can assume the plan didn't work, so at some point the hornsent went further and tried to create this "Saint" on a larger scale. That's when they created the Doors of Divinity by merging together the bodies of all the remaining shamans except one, which was supposed to fuse with all their souls and finally create an avatar of the Crucible in their service.
As a receptacle, they chose Marika, who was thus treated diffenrently from all the other shamans and allowed to live among the hornsent, apart from her people. We can imagine that at some point though, Marika learned of the mistreatement and genocide of her people, or maybe she knew from the start and only pretended to agree with the hornsent. Anyway, with the help of the Two Fingers, she made a pact with them and devised a plan. On the say of the ceremony, instead of becoming an incarnation of the Crucible, she used the power of the Gates to become an incarnation of the Greater Will. I think it's at this point that she sealed Elum-Illin in shadows, so that nobody else could cross the Gates of Divinity. To that end, she might have used the power of the Scadutree, I wonder if that became the template for the creation of the Erdtree later on. She then left the Land of Shadows after a last visit to her home village and later sent back Messmer both as a means of revenge and to get rid of the later.
Oh man can’t wait to peep this once I finish the dlc! Great work brotha!
How could such a small channel have such a high quality video? You get a like and a sub from me.
Thanks! I love lore so much, and I’m a professor, I had to give it a go.
This reminds me somewhat of Hollow Knight lore. A kingdom used magic to preserve itself unnaturally, which led to an even greater darkness than leaving the natural cycle of life and death alone. Having an upset balance, and haunted by beings that defy death, they remain in perpetual decay, one that spreads and corrupts everything, without ever attaining any true rest or closure to their stories. That is until, your character, an undead being locked in a cycle of death and rebirth, comes to break the spell.
I feel like Marika's backstory and overall character is a great example of the idea of perspective - meaning that two things can be true at the same time. One could see and validate the fact that her machinations behind the scenes of all the conflicts in the Lands Between and Land of Shadow were genocidal, sinister, and full of deep-seeded hatred and that she is fully accountable for all those things. On the other side of that coin, her own experiences of witnessing, or even perhaps directly experiencing, the abduction, torture, and dismemberment of her own Numen people, her Shaman village, led to such deep trauma that 1) she couldn't even wrap her head around it and 2) since she was pretty much the only one left with no one else she cared about remaining and with no one to help her process what had happened, that trauma would then reveal itself into her vengeance against all those who wronged her and her people - thus setting in motion her bargain with the Greater Will and subsequent events afterwards. A story of the oppressed becoming the oppressor or of the exploited becoming the exploiter. Really tragic honestly.
It makes sense now why grafting is frowned upon in the Land Between.
As are Omens. And Serpents.
Here's a thing to ponder: the seed talisman has the same symbol as the land of shadows jars, and the two fingers symbol. I think the two fingers, and fingers in general, are trees. The jars are like any potted plant.
I like how in its most basic description, the idea for the magic works essentially the same way as a deeply fucked up Frosty the snowman
“Combined people together to create a saint” what if radagon and Marika came from this? Lol
I think they're more together in soul than in flesh
@@TheScrootch I'm not convinced by the original thought but I'm not so sure about the flesh thing if it is correct. St Trina?
With what we've seen so far, one can easily note that Marika and her bloodline have a tendency to split parts of themselves off.
@@geneticjen9312 Radagon really remains a mystery
@geneticjen9312 what if her children- specifically the ones that result from incest of the same person- would retain the sainthood qualities though?
This revelation really makes the Great Jar in Caelid a horrifying prospect
One interesting thing I found that must relate to this, is a large snake shedding found just outside of Bonny Village.
I believe Marika realized she is a pawn until the end. (Judging by how all her children grew up with influence of other outer Gods like, Rot, Omen, giant flame, etc)
Even her crucifiction as punishment has her nailed to an Arc Rune - the base for the Elden Ring. (Perhaps meaning she is ultimately the foundation of the base of the entire Rune. A pawn and pedestals to the Outer God's decree.)
Very sad.
Amazing lore video Prof . Hopefully we learn of the origin of the seal pattern of the jars in the land of the shadows.
Wow crazy lol Not only were we wrong about Mogh but also Marika. Which means that I’ll be putting a sword through that NPC Hornsents chest first moment I get. (After his quest of course.) There will be retribution lmao
I think Marika got her retribution via Messmer😂 it’s a cycle of vengeance and hatred. It’s why Miquella just wants to mind control everyone to be peaceful.
Marika is called Strumpet multiple times in the dlc which basically means a women who sleeps around a lot. This gives me the impression that there is more to the seduction part in the trailer. Perhaps it was how she survived the genocide or maybe she is the only successful Saint.
There is always a choice, and markia made bad ones. I understand why, but she caused a whole hell of a lot of pain and suffering, and her own tragic past doesn't make it right. It kinda makes it even worse, she should know better than anyone, but she doesnt stop at the hornsent, she does the fire giants over just as bad as the hornsent did her over.
Yeah i was about to say, she came from a traumatic past but that does not cover up the atrocities she has done to innocent people.
My next video will extrapolate on the possibility of free will in these lands. :)
Yeah, people just love to flip and polarize the narrative, which is what the majority of these lore videos are doing post dlc. “Actually he was bad! Actually she wasn’t!” and out goes the nuance.
Nah she was justified. The Hornsent got what they deserved
It's amazing how much hatred and trauma combined can blind a person. I think when Godwyn was killed and Marika was left alone with the Elden Ring, hammer in hand, she realized that she fucked up... and SHE couldn't fix it. But someone else could: us.
Maybe the Hornsent were right and Marika is the result of reaching sainhood, Radagon could be one of her many parts. And if the Hornsent cursed her and she kept having cursed children, Marika could have ripped Radagon apart from her to search for a solution, so Ranni, Radahn and Rykard were born normal. So empyreans actually having another half is not a natural requirement but actually involves ripping parts of yourself, which Miquella probably ended up doing with Saint Trina while Ranni and Malenia didnt.
Amazing video Mr. Forp
Could this not be a type of Kratos situation?
Got the powers for noble purpouse, but made the wrong choices down the line?
Crazy video, 10/10 would recommend!! :D
Stop EVERYTHING...
Hear me out, because as I'm listening things are coming together... Marika not only led a rebellion against the hornsent. She also escaped from the shadowlands WITH her "family", the shamans in the jars marked with stamped with the erdtree.
I'm a little over 16 minutes hearing jar-bairn saying the line "Hey cuz"... and it was just speculated, idk if confirmed, but the tarnished is somehow a child of Marika (or something like that). For jar-bairn to call us "cuz" it's because we ACTUALLY ARE his cousins! Omfg. The jars there, in the shadowland, that don't speak at because they no longer have the shamans there to meld with the flesh, this is why they are brainless monsters that always attack you. Holy crap... I wonder if you get to it in the video by the end, but that has got to be what's up.
Does Anesthesia have a connection here? She wields a similar weapon wielded by the potentates in shadow realm.
I was saving the cannibals for the video after next. :)
Who?
After the DLC i looked at "The seduction, and the betrayal" as the Mother of Fingers seducing Marika into giving her an answer to the revenge she felt the hornsent needed against her people(which is following the Greater Will and becoming a god, but the Greater Will actually just used Marika as it saw fit without caring about Marika's wants and needs because it has the ultimate power over the lands now. I don't think she harbored hatred or disgust for Mohg and Morgott, I think that was the Greater Will forcing her to give up and abandon her children to the depths of the jail because The Greater Will saw it as heretical, same as with the serpent and fire, which is why Messmer is basically stuck in the land of shadow. She was a mother, she wanted a family, and every member ended up having some curse written upon them, eventually breaking Marika when she realized her son Godwyn, despite having the rune of death plucked away, the Greater Will couldn't or didn't do anything. She was a broken girl who became a puppet and all she wanted was a family. I never looked at Marika as evil, there was always something in the back of mind that made me think she was trying to break The Greater Will because he was false and the world needed something better, something actually true in heart..I just want to give her a hug tbh and tell her I'm sorry.