Fellow Tarnished! In this video, we examine the metaphysics of Elden Ring. Namely, how the Erdtree is a tree of memories, how we are memories, and how all memories together make up the collective "memory of the world". The "memory of the world" requires a vessel, which seems to be Marika. We'll build upon these ideas over the next few videos, which I will try to get out ASAP (the scripts are already written). EDITS/CORRECTIONS: - There are some minor audio issues, which I tried to clean up manually by scrubbing the waveforms, but some of them remain. I think I know what went wrong when I was originally recording, and will fix for next time. - I probably misspoke when I said "Marika is the source of grace". She is not the ultimate source of it. She is the vessel for grace, and has control over it, so she is the "source" in the sense she acts like a giant jar which can pour out grace to her followers. - It is likely that runes/memory are not JUST golden. We see remembrances of many different colors, implying that memory is not JUST golden. I do not have the "gold" nature stuff worked out yet. - Thank you to user @komputerkaput1757 who pointed out that the Three-Eyed Raven/Crow is actually tangled in the ROOTS of the Erdtree, not the branches. My bad! - @BogdanPilyavets made a good point that if Melina is a memory hewn totally into the Erdtree then why didn't she burn when the Flame of Frenzy was released? It may be that she is tied both to the Sites of Grace and to the Hold within the Tree. Or, it may have something to do with her GEQ-esque nature. I will investigate for the future!
I wonder if it adds anything to this train of thought, comparing Marika, Odin and Jesus, but the name "Marika" is a form of the name Mary! I don't see many youtubers talk about it.
I have suspected that Melina is a fragment of Marika for some time. The sites of grace aren't just any lost grace...but are the grace/memories of Marika herself. This is why they lead us on the journey they do. This is why they frequently relate to important memories in Marika's journey. It still leaves the idea open that Melina is the GeQ as well, since that would imply that the GeQ is to Marika as St. Trina is to Miquella.
This is one of the biggest compliments. I disdain clickbait and want to never fall into its alluring baiteyness, nor use it to draw people in. Cheers to anti clickbait!
The exact opposite of channels like Emerald Gecko, which is complete clickbait nonsense. I wish people would stop watching that low rent James Corden's videos, but every time I scroll by one I still see plenty of views there, sadly.
@@DoctorPecker No need to be so harsh, Gecko is just having fun and wild fringe speculation has a place Souls fans have enough attention hours to make space for every kind of creator.
The Sap of the Erdtree being "blood" connects really well with that period of time in which Marika and Godfrey were waging wars of conquest all across the continent in the name of the Erdtree and drenching it with blood. These were the primordial days of "Plenty", when gold was "Red tinged" and sap flowed seemingly endlessly from the canopies of the Tree. It seems that once death was removed, eventually the tree physically dried up, with only its metaphysical aspects remaining, Grace. This was in which it became a mere obect of worship, people honouring what the tree did for them even in the distant past. Meaby thats why Marika and her followers faith faltered, as Melina mentioned at the church ruins. She must have realized that no matter how much effort she put into it, she couldn't create a perfect world of unending life she desired. Eventually everything stagnated and became old, memories slipping from people's minds. Must have been at his point in which Marika's loyal and dutiful self, Radagon, created the modern Golden Order, which we all know its very flawed in all its aspects, perhaps trying to paint the decaying world we see in game as perfect and how it is all meant to be. After her whole village died, her plans failed, the lose Messmer and Godywn, and 4 other malformed children, she must have snapped and eventually rebelled against the Elden Beast and decided to put and end to her life's work before more was taken from her, meaby in an effort to give the world another chance to breathe (or perhaps she was just trying to go the easy way out and finally die in peace )
TBH I don't think I have anything to add. I think you nailed it. I think yeah, this is basically the story of Elden Ring. At least of Marika. Excellent job. I am honored that this comment is on my video.
12:07 I don’t think the skulls holding runes is meant to indicate that the runes are in our brains or minds somehow… The game emphasizes that it’s specifically the eyes, as the eyes irl are called “the window to the soul.” Higher level runes even look like golden eyes with pupils. It’s a small difference that doesn’t change much, but the lore around frenzy flame developing in the eyes, Godfrey’s eyes when he was exiled, Melina’s hidden eye, Messemer removing his golden eye to unleash the serpent, etc, etc… it all seems to revolve around eyes. Just my two-cents.
The next 2-3 videos will cover the soul-Rune-eye connection. because you're right, the eye connection is everywhere. I think it has to do with the concept of the third eye being the soul/memory, which one can use to see into the collective consciousness aka fate. The frenzied flame stuff starting in the eyes is, I think, related to the notion that the eyes are the windows to the soul. In a way eyes ~ souls perhaps. Frenzied flame seems to start from suffering. So when the soul suffers, it may reach some tipping point where the frenzy begins, and this is what causes the eye/soul to change from the normal rune to the frenzied version. Godfrey's eyes having the golden nature could symbolize that the "golden" memory is something different from his own memory. When he was blessed with grace he received this other kind of memory which guided him, and when it was gone he no longer had that guiding memory of grace, basically. I am thinking there are likely different kinds of memory, but I haven't figured that out totally yet.
@NamelessSingerEldenRing I think that the DLC lore about the crucible and spirits can also teach us about eyes. The Rauh burrow item acts as a sort of container for a sprite, it being held in place with its the runic engravings. If it had capacity for more souls, perhaps it would have been a crucible. That might be what the Hornsent scholars led to their own experiments with their crucibles, like the shaman pots. I think that the most crucial part for a crucible is the cavity that's common between the burrows and the pots, the Grandmother tree in the Shaman Village also has a hole within it, likely also to do with souls (this was pointed out by Scum Mage Infra in a video of theirs). I also think it's no coincidence that this cavity can alternatively be interpreted as a womb, which can quite literally be described as "a melting pot of life." Much like the burrows and pots, eyes are also very similar to this shape. A round object with a hole, that has runic encryptions near the cavity (much like the Rauh burrows) in the form of an iris. It's like a microcosmic crucible that makes up a single soul, and when one collects runes, they form themselves around that soul. The Abyssal Serpent was sealed within Messmer, and we can assume that it wasn't their physical being, but their metaphysical being, or their soul, that was sealed. And in the cutscene where Messmer breaks Marika's seal, we see a writhing mass in his eye socket. The Abyssal Serpent's soul was sealed using an eye, much like a sprite in a Rauh burrow.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing OH I AM SO EXCITED to hear you are doing the Soul Cycle! I refer to it as 'soul currency' from Michael Kirkbride's stranger Morrowind lore as well as the fact you can spend them lol Seriously this is probably my most wanted subject for deep dives and is SO underrepresented in the lore community. Singer I am so glad you chose to make this channel and share your discoveries
@@zeppie_ Ok wow this is really good stuff. I've been thinking a lot about Rauh recently and the burrows in specific. NEVER ONCE did I evenm make the crucible connection. I'm going back to check the HD art, I think you are exactly right. It's the cavity, like the one Metyr made when she crashed and made the crucible. Burrows are tiny recapitulations of that life birthing catastrophe
Same with ashes. The scarabs literally gather memories of past arts, the ashes, was confirmed somewhere in the lore texts. And summons are also memories of the past... I absolutely love this theory. Works with most things in the game.
Your videos are a work of art. The editing , the vocabulary, your cadence, your voice , and the subject matters you bring to the Elden Ring community are seriously some of the best. I am genuinely captivated by your videos and you deserve ALL the praise and recognition. Its a selfish want, but I hope you keep making videos, you could seriously become one of the best lore/analysis channels for Elden Ring. Peak... Peak content , I hope you keep bringing more and more insights and ideas to life.
Thank you so much for your kinds words and support. It is my goal to do my utter best in all aspects. Part of why I wanted to make videos is purely just to make something beautiful. I promise to you, I will keep going and making videos. I have so many theories queued up. The scripts for the next few videos are essentially done, so now it is just about producing the videos. I should be able to get at least the next two vids out in short(er) succession. Thank you again.
GLORIOUS! SHE WHO CANNOT BE NAMED IS RETURNED! The Norns and Odin's self sacrifice are super important, I also think the self hanging is a super interesting concept and am exploring it soon- I am convinced it is tied to divine knowledge (understanding of life, death, and souls [power]) and the wisdom of stone. Totally agree with Erdtree Sap, it is 100% soul juice. I honestly think sap is a bit of a strange concept in this game because it is conflated with resin as well (Which is not sap, but which becomes amber- which sap cannot, yet amber is described as sap in ER) [For context, sap is a nutrient carrier and resin is more a defence mechanism] AMAZING ASOIAF references, I just know you and Jack is a Mimic are going to have some amazing chats about that. Haven't seen such on point references to it since his vids. I really gain so much from hearing them, and they reinforce so many of my ideas- I rely on people like you and Jack for those wonderful connections. BUT WESTWORLD references? I never saw that coming. Loved it! So glad you've released again, you are a bar raiser for the community
So that is why the headless demigods of the mausoleums are souless. No head, no memories, no soul... This explains too why the headless nights that protect the mausoleums go away when we destroy the skull at the mausoleums feet and bring them down: they are the memories of the knights and they come from the skulls.
Yes exactly. Which is why we can duplicate remembrances there. They have no head which means their bodies are basically "empty vessels". "This explains too why the headless nights that protect the mausoleums go away when we destroy the skull at the mausoleums feet and bring them down: they are the memories of the knights and they come from the skulls." HOLY SNAP I DIDN'T REALIZE THIS!!! That's amazing! I think you're right!
@NamelessSingerEldenRing 🤯. A little bit of a crazy theory, but, this could explain the changes to Godwyn's body? His soul/memory was killed, might this be the reason why his body changed? If his bodie lived but it lost all its memories, It could be like being born again? I would love to hear your theory about this topic.
@@ElMasCaporo99 Marika's tits, you're a genius, you just blew my mind there!!! How could we not see this?! Headless knights + skull shaped "barnacles" 🤯 Man, it's been almost three years and we still haven't connected all the dots 😂😭
@@allthe1 I just started a new game and the intro cinematic blew my mind. Rycard sacrificed himself to te serpent and in the intro we see that he gave his head in a silver plate.
First - you tackled the concept of The Trinity with poignancy and professionalism. Mad respect. Not many channels would even dare. Second - I love that you pointed out a returning motif between all figures. They are ultimately taken from the highest forms (future seers, the wisest beings, the embodiment of deities, etc.) and must be bonded with the world through a tree in some form. Doing so many "kill" the living body or taint the memories, but this sacrifice awakens a deeper understanding through that act of sacrament.
I think there is a completely respectful and honest way to go about discussion religion in the context of all that came before. One easy way is to look at the stories as myths and the symbols as expressions of some truth. Then you can compare between them and learn things. As you recognized, the shared motifs between all the figures. It's what that shared motif represents to us as humanity that really fascinates me.
OH AND! @08:45 "The verb "to remember" is 'runagon'". Runagon... Radagon... Hewn... Hewg... Someone pointed out in my comments recently that they think Rodrika and Hewg either somehow are incarnations of Marika and Radagon, or at least echoes of them thematically. And I love this idea and it's part of my headcannon now.
Someone else pointed out that Hewg likely comes from the Old Norse "hugi" which means "mind, thought" and that blew MY mind. Especially the notion that Hewg aka thought it hammering away within the Erdtree, trying to create a weapon that slays a god. I am leaning towards Hewg being akin to Radagon. I like that a lot. But I also like the idea that Radagon once had a sword and could be the person in the Divine Bridge statues. So idk. Those types of lore secrets are buried deep as hell IMO.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing well, Hewg is a misbegotten, which are protégés of Radagon. Plus he wields a hammer like Marigon/Radika. Maybe Radagon became a god as Marika did, by shedding his own memories. Hewg also asks Marika for forgiveness, maybe his sin was Radagon's?
This was an excellent, well-articulated analysis that certainly has its finger on the pulse of ER’a mythology and world-building. I really enjoyed the parallels between Westworld as I’ve never seen the comparison drawn prior but I think it holds conceptual weight through shared origins of nothing else. Thanks for another fantastic upload!
Thank you very much for the lovely words. I didn't know how people would react to the Westworld portion of the video because it seems like its so far away from ER/GOT, but the "raven" part of the name from Engerraund was just something I could never get over. When I revisited that theory for this video I was pleasantly surprised to find even more connections. Probably just shared origins, but I do think there is some truth of a theory of consciousness buried in both properties that may be legit. Possibly something akin to Douglas Hofstadter's "Eternal Golden Braid" ideas.
iirc transformed silver tears never drop runes, whereas untransformed ones have them as part of their loot pool, so it's likely that silver tears tranform by "consuming" the memory in the runes that have somehow ended up within them, whether they collected them on their own or whether the nox injected them with the runes.
oh this is really interesting. thank you man, that is really useful information. someone else had mentioned to me the function of consuming Runes and there is a case of where it actually happens. like maybe to become the form of the person they needed to consume the Runes. Love it.
No surprise that the other ASOIAF fan would make the Erdtree is made of Memories video! No lie, I have been producing a similar video for like three months now. Happy to see we think alike! Watching this video is so funny for me, it’s like we went to the Wandering Mausoleum and duplicated a memory! Phenomenal video! Gosh you don’t know how happy this makes me to see someone else do this!
Ooooh have you really? You should message me on Discord so we can talk. Great minds think alike! And it's extra exciting we came to these conclusions independently because that means that they're legit (or more likely to be legit). Love that you're also an ASOIAF fan. Originally I was gonna do ASOIAF lore videos for this channel but ugh there's just too much text and not enough visuals to satisfy me. Which is why I am so happy that Elden Ring exists haha. I WAS ABLE TO USE MY HIGH VALYRIAN KNOWLEDGE IN THIS VIDEO!!! That makes me so happy. I almost included a few lines about the duplicating remembrances at the Wandering Mausoleums! But axed it and can't recall why lol.
how happy are you really about the wombmen folk sharing did you know in biology, Chalazae hold yolks safe in space centrifugal and egglectic while mimics cry and nameless jane does die. while all eyes lie on the jacks yolks of all trades Master of none joke's on us, all of uns big, little, in the middle and as above, sow below cheerio and tootles, meet you at the corner of Chat Noir rue née Maladie de Malaria
On weirwood - the name also references a fishing weir, which is a wooden trap used in streams to trap fish. That is why 3ER is described as being trapped in a spider web with how he's all snarled up in the roots. David Lightbringer has a video on how the Ice Spiders are actually the Weirwoods themselves, and that ties into the "Erdtree is a bloodsucking parasite" theories in Elden Ring
Oh snap I had heard about LmL/David's theory on the Ice Spiders being weirwoods thing on ASOIAF reddit and I thought it was insane but the fishing weir does make sense. A lot of people really love the Erdtree is a parasite idea, but I had never been a huge follower of it mainly because its not something I saw in historical myths that I had read. Like I never heard about the World Tree being described as such. But its a compelling argument. It may eat memories? I'll put this theory on my watchlist, thanks for the heads up!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRingCould the Erdtree be Elden Ring's stand-in for the Demiurge? That seems to fit with the revelation from Metyr that the Greater Will has not touched the Lands Between since before the Age of the Erdtree.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing the weirwood theories hinge on the idea that weirwoods aren't in an okay state when we see them, having blood agonized faces leaking "blood" is a clue that they're to trees what wights are to humans (the town of Whitetree could be a play on wight tree). By the time we see the Erdtree, it's definitely not doing so well either being crooked and all. Personally I think the erdtree is the ultimate form of the jar saints. We see minor Erdtrees fertilized by the warrior jars, but the base game warrior jars use dead bodies instead of live ones and don't have shamans in them. It really makes me wonder what the Haligtree's role in the story is since it's the closest we see to recreating the erdtree
Here's my thoughts Babies and buds are also seen as parasitic. It becomes the new embodiment of the memories like our children become the new embodiment of our genetic memories. We pass our teachings and stories to our children. As anyone who has gone through labor can tell you it is a sacrifice. That is why magic is inherent into women. We have a womb, a crucible of life. Men sacrifice their flesh and blood in a different way. They hang from the Tree of Life like buds. Women are reborn as mothers through labor. To give birth is also said to dar la luz. To bring from the hidden and unformed place to the light. By hanging in the Tree you are giving birth to yourself. You gestate and birth yourself. It requires blood and pain. We are each exploring creation and the influences and powers of and how we relate to them. It gets wilder if you think about how all life is interconnected and has a sort of awareness. We are trying to understand who we are who we were and who we might be. Conflict is also part of the gestation of life. We debate the meaning sometimes with our minds however if feelings are strong sometimes with violence. I have hope for humanity. Thank y'all the musings here are exquisite!
"We are memories"... But who's memories are we? And why? And why are there so many "memories" represented in physical form throughout the Lands Between? Who's memories are we inhabiting and interacting with? And what about the Scadutree remembrances? Who do those memories belong to? What about the Miquella vs. Radahn fight? We're just fighting a memory of something that already happened?
1. So I think that we are memories of the Erdtree, or perhaps the World Soul. Enia tells us that the remembrances of demigods/champions are hewn into the Erdtree "upon their end", so it may be that those hewn into the Erdtree lived real lives before being reborn. Which is the cutscene we see at the very beginning of the game when grace returns to us and we arise from within the tree. So I wouldn't say that we're anyone's memories specifically, more like memories exist as part of the fabric of this world. 2. The Scadutree remembrances belong to the Scadutree, hewn the same way as the Erdtree. But someone else pointed out that it seems like the Scadutree/Shadow Realm seem to be a realm of "memory" (or whatever) that has been separated/excised from the Erdtree. So the memories there are separated from the Lands Between. 3. Idk about Miquella/Radahn. I think I should have clarified more in this video that the "memory" stuff is more complex than a scenario where everything already happened. I promise to do so in a future video when I bring this stuff up again. I think its more the "Memory of First Grace" item is the memory of us, the Tarnished, our personality and such, that was hewn into the Erdtree. Some important part of who we are. Maybe our will, or our dreams, or whatever. But we still amass new memories throughout the game. The small-r runes are memories, experience, that we collect as we go along. Think of the memory stuff as different permutations of the different ways things could play out. That's as far as I've gotten with that. I am not an expert on Radahn/Miquella stuff (yet) so I won't speculate on that.
Great video! There is an interpretation of the game that whole world is inside Marika’s mind and for Erdtree to be the memory tree - it just makes sense!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing girl… I think you would LOVE RDR2. It’s the prequel to the first and if you loved WW I think it’ll be right up your alley. The single most immersive gaming experience I’ve ever had. And Arthur Morgan is 🤌
This fits into the idea of Great Runes pretty well. God's memory is the reality in Elden Ring. Individuals who see the world differently can forge the essence of their vision into a Great Rune. And this specific vision becomes a reality when we share it with God by adding the Great Rune to the Ring. (in times of Placidusax, the world must have been really complex) Here's another interpretation, that draws a parallel not with simulation but with the real world. The Erdtree, as a collection of reality-shaping memories, can be interpreted as society / civilization as a whole. A God is a personification of the civilization, or its "will". The Ring is a dominant teaching, or a mental framework provided by God. By changing it, we change the way people view the reality and interact with it. This approach does not require a simulation to explain this effect. This interpretation pops up in different games (like "Slay the Princess") or animation ("Over the Garden Wall")
I really like what you said about how an individual who sees the world differently can forge the essence of their vision into a Great Rune, which can then become part of reality when joined with the Elden Ring, this metaphysical object that exists in God's memory. This thing inside of the Erdtree. You are basically getting at what I will be getting at with (I think) the next video, or at least, one of them. Especially with the "Erdtree is a collection of reality-shaping memories". I am thinking that these all live in a metaphysical dimension that is the collective "memory of the world". This is also where the Elden Ring exists. I have been thinking that the Elden Ring's shape is dependent on the collective memories of all beings in the world, and its shape changes as the beliefs/memories of the populace are hewn into the Erdtree/pool into the collective memory. So for example, in order for Marika to remove Destined Death, she had to conquer the world and spread the Erdtree religion so that everyone would "believe"/"remember" that Death doesn't exist. She was able to make them believe this by using grace to grant life to those who had died. But your Great Rune idea has given me pause. I think that the notion that the Elden Ring's shape changes within this metaphysical reality is still legit, but it seems like changing it is not something that can happen... naturally? Like with the conquest idea. By your idea, it is dependent on a person with a strong enough vision, and then physically changing the Rune shape by adding it to Marika. Like we have to interact with Marika at the very end. Us needing to interact with Marika to change the ring may make extra sense when you look at her hanging upon the cross, or "crux", as the crux being the crossing point between the metaphysical dimension and the physical one. Marika is who joins the two of them. The "God as a personification of the civilization it its 'will'" is genius and I love it. "The Ring is a dominant teaching, or a mental framework provided by God. By changing it, we change the way people view the reality and interact with it." So its just a single strong-willed individual with a vision who can do this. That does make sense. My question then becomes, what is the mechanism for forging the Great Rune? Or rather, the Mending Rune, I suppose. Goldmask, Fia, the Dung Eater, all have their newly forged Runes. Great comment. You rock.
@ Thank you for the great content. It seems, a Mending Rune is a memory/soul of an individual who envisioned a new order. And they turn to Great Runes after we mend the Elden Ring. A Lord chooses a specific vision they wish to enforce. Such a vision comes from an obsessed and somewhat brilliant individual who creates it at the expense of their lives. (I don’t understand Goldmask’s quest enough to figure out how this works) But I don’t see what choices are left for a God. Are there any? An Empyrean divests themselves of everything and dies to be reborn as a God… I wonder how much of their personality survives. If the parallel with Jesus stands, it can’t be much left from a person.
@@your_neko Well Goldmask believes that there is some willpower left for a god. The "fly in the ointment" is the free will/fickle nature of the gods I believe is what he alludes to. Maybe the demigods are the ones who have more of the free will. But this goes against Smoughtown's "kami"/forces of nature idea for the gods. But Goldmask is just a person still, and can make mistakes/wrong conclusions, even though he is very smart clearly. We know that Marika did have some semblance of will when she decided to search the depths of the golden order. And perhaps also shatter the Ring. By the 3ER/Dolores parallel, it does seem that the individuals still also retain their own memory in addition to everyone else they have inside of them. Bran still has his memories and interacts with some characters in a personal capacity, though he seems much less human. Dolores forgets but then eventually remembers her memories and then she is able to act in the same manner. Miquella/Marika only had her one memory left, but maybe it is possible for each of them to recollect those memories (this works quite nicely for Melina being akin to Marika and recollecting her memories). So maybe in order to become a god, one must lose their memories, but that doesn't mean they have to STAY lost. But back to the Mending Rune - I think you are correct that it is forged at the expense of their lives. Which is super curious as to what the mechanism is there. And I love what you said about the Mending Runes turning to Great Runes once the Elden Ring is mended. It makes me wonder if the other Great Runes were created in the same manner. Very interesting stuff.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing It feels right but it also has to be more complicated. Like, Radagon managed to get his thorns into the Elden Ring and survived (sort of, it’s hard to say he/Marika are well and alive when we meet them) I thought that Marika sacrificed her humanity in an attempt to heal what was left of her people. So I basically discard all moral objections to her decisions because she’s more of an embodied ideal than a normal person. And whatever regained a personhood later, it was not exactly Marika. If the previous guesses were correct, that was not a part of a God, and it has to be seen as a separate entity. That’s who I suppose was the Gloam-Eyed Queen.
yes absolutely! i went on a writing/lore spree the past few months and now am turning to just making videos. I hope to be able to churn out quite a few over the next month or two, ASAP. because i kept you guys waiting for so long haha
Thank you for making such amazing videos. I've never watched Got or westworld but was still able to follow and understand your connections due to how well you explain them. Really like that you bring a different perspective to the lore that I'd never notice myself. Mainly commenting to say thanks and hopefully boost your video and channels rating with the algorithm as more people would enjoy watching them in my opinion.
Your contribution to the algorithmic boost is noted and appreciated 😁 I am really glad that the WW/GOT trains of thought were easy to follow even for someone who hasn't watched those shows. I tried to take that into account and it seems I may have succeeded.
Ohhhhhh, and Melina doesn't really know/remember what purpose she serves, because she's already been _burned_ away. Her memories are gone along with her body.
Yeah so it's possible that as a demigod she always kinda existed as a memory of sorts. There is clearly some part of her that survives, maybe a "Memory of First Grace" deal, but the rest of her memories seem to be erased.
Your work is so inspiring. I have watched each of your videos so many times. I can only imagine the work that goes into each one, but they are soooo worth it to me!
Thank you so much for the support and your extra views haha xD I think I am getting the hang of making the vids and at a decent quality and faster. Honestly this one seemed like it was coming together way faster but then I realized there were a bunch of little audio issues and I spent two weekends trying to fix them. I will not make the same mistake again haha
You are my new favourite Souls UA-camr! Please continue with what you do, you draw links between different topics (especially mythology) like no one else ;)
Maaaaan I did not know how the GOT and especially the WW stuff was gonna go over but people have been receptive and positive so I think it went okay! I'm really looking forward to my future videos as well 😅
Amazing video! Loved the Game of Thrones and Westworld references! Marika’s shattering of the Elden Ring being a possible self sacrifice to gain knowledge/memories and power is really thought provoking and I’m going to be stewing about it for awhile lol. But really great video, you are one of my inspirations for my channel!
Thank you so much! If you haven't already, there are links in the description under RESOURCES to high quality icon art + text lore dumps which I use all the time to speed up theory crafting. Good luck with your channel!
Thank you so much!! This theory has a very special place in my heart as I very much love Westworld and GOT and noticed the parallels many years ago and I am honored I finally got to share it with the world.
This video and observations are the best Elden Ring content I've seen so far. Yes, including the king or lore videos, who is also up there. Just wow -- loved the whole approach and explanation.
Thank you so much. I am aiming to produce exactly what you described. Now I just have to figure out how to do it faster while keeping the same quality level.
The part about pain and consciousness struck a nerve. I'm not someone who ever wanted to touch a souls-like game, but at the time Elden Ring was released, it was my pain that it spoke to and my tarnished soul it gave light to. Only feedback I have that I feel is worth noting is the use of AI images. They make the video feel cheap and I can't help but feel a simple image search, especially for high quality antique paintings that are fair-use and free should have been used instead of A.I. generated images. Such beautiful connections made here. I loved it and it even made me cry. Keep up the amazing work.
Figuring out how to deal with my pain is what led me to get so deep into lore in the first place, and is a major motivating factor why I make these videos. Because I suffered, and to handle that I needed to learn things, and if I can share what I learned with people which might help them through their suffering, well, that is a damn good reason to do so. There is so much beauty in these games. Not even just the lore, but what they show us we are capable of. We must learn to become better in order to defeat these really hard bosses. We must overcome the pain of losing again and again until we WIN. I am honored that you felt emotional while watching the video. I was emotional while making it. Thank you. I am more than happy to not use AI generated images. I removed a few of them but kept in others that I really liked, but I can minimize that even further.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing geez, now I'm really crying. Thank you for sharing some of your story. That is exactly how I feel about pushing forward through so much failure. Thank you for holding up your light. Elden Ring is truly beautiful on so many levels. It has been a long-time dream of mine to contribute to environmental art in video games and I am far along the road to seeing those dreams through. What a joy to see your work and hear your story.
@@OX_Tools This UA-cam channel is my dream. It took me a long time to achieve it and still am working on it obviously lol. I almost felt like it was too late and I released my first video a day before the DLC came out. Good luck with achieving your dream. Keep going, you can and will do it!
@@OX_Tools I'm screencapping this comment. I was as touched as you were by this game, and continue being touched by the loretuber community's passion. Elden Ring came out at a pivotal moment in my life, I was starting my life over. Complete career change, breakup, cutting off family, starting therapy. Idk why but Elden Ring felt like a manageable mini-hell where I could test my character and enjoy repeated defeat in a virtual way. It kinda gave me the opportunity to feel things I needed to feel - rage, pain, exultation - in private, before I let myself out in the harsh world we live in and face the bigger challenges. You're definitely not alone!
So many great observations and comparisons here that I hadn't heard before. It's so great to still be learning new things about Elden Ring even after all this time. Great video!!! This is going to need at least half a dozen watches to take it all in though, my head hurts.
I think there's still SO much to learn about Elden Ring. The lore patterns are buried SO deep in this game that I think we are just scratching the surface of the biggest mysteries. There is plenty of magic & metaphysics yet to come but then we have the architecture to get to which is a LOT. All in due time! Make sure to rest your mind. I would know, my head hurts from coming up with this stuff lol
The runes being memories and memories being an important part of our tarnished's very being also provides an in lore explanation for leveling up. We are taking the runes/memories of our enemies and "hewing" them into ourselves, making us stronger. The more memories you are made of, the harder it is for you to be completely forgotten, and thus the harder it is for you to truly die. Awesome video, it really got me thinking and left me feeling really inspired!
Yeah this is making me think that the memory/hewn/known stuff is related to being "renowned". I think that the spirit ashes that are named (like Lhutel) vs. those without names (Fanged Imp Spirit Ashes or Three Wolves or whatever) determines whether they can be leveled up with Grave Gloveworts vs. Ghost Gloveworts. The difference is "renown", that is, if their name is remembered or not. Those with more power are more likely to be renowned and therefore have more runes. Something like that. There's a LOT of fun one can have with this idea. I'm so glad you enjoyed!! Thanks for watching
I knew this was going to be good, because let's face it, you're awesome. But I was not prepared for just how flipping cool this was going get. The connections and themes are brilliant.
YOU'RE awesome. Thank you for appreciating the themes! I've had the 3ER-Westworld theory in my brain for years and I'm so happy I finally got to share it with the world.
26:17 “...We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open...Fear the old blood." A lot of Bloodborne vibes from that segment! Miyazaki and GRRM really shares some cool inspirations.
This in turn is greatly parallelled to insight in Bloodborne and how Willem wants the hunters to avoid it. And as we saw there, we become beasts or new infant great one. St. Trina tells us how godhood is enslavement, you must cast of yourself to become one. To carry the world you become the memory of it, and lose yourself. Bur the fallen leaves tell only the story of the memory of the Elden lord. The lord's view of the world and the current vessel: queen Marika. Ranni wants to take these memories away for life to create a new way through suffering and hardship. And frenzy wants to burn it all away to end suffering as a whole.
I don't think I had heard the "frenzy wants to burn it all away to end suffering" but that makes so much sense. yeah i think ranni wants free will/freedom, which i love. freedom is hard but its also, well, free. and we humans love to be free I think you nailed the whole "fear the old blood" stuff. If memories are indeed tied to blood then if you come into contact with blood like that then you may be subject to the memories of the old ones and be influenced by them. i'll be honest, i made a mistake and never played bloodborne. i had taken a video game break for a few years when i got real obsessed with ASOIAF and I KNOW that hurt my theory skills for this game.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing that's completely fine, can't play them all. There are a lot of lore fanatics that can help with blank spots in theory crafting for you, if you just throw the questions out there. And if you get motivated to play it, you have a great game to watch forward to. Hopefully you'll like it! Thanks for a great video
your videos are among the best i have seen for ER content and its meanings even more so than some of the most popular creators. hope to keep enjoying this very high quality content. you'll blow up soon im sure of it.
I hope to keep producing high quality content! I think I've got enough to keep it going for a while. The challenge will be if I can produce it on a fast enough timeline while maintaining the quality. But that is for me to worry about :) I do already have the next few scripts written and the holidays tend to allow for more free time, so I am optimistic. Thank you for the support, it means a lot!
someone else pointed out that the reason why Miquella may have mixed his blood with Mohg's is because he wanted to get access to the memories of the hornsent culture/shadow realm that Mohg would have access to as an Omen. which i totally believe in and find fascinating. Which does support the notion that there is a metaphysical realm of memory that one can access, and the reason the Shadow Realm has been sealed away is because it was excised from memory when the Erdtree/Scadutree were split.
This was a bit of a stretch of a video! I tried to weave together many different things and we covered a LOT of ground. I hope to bolster the connections with future videos!
@NamelessSingerEldenRing that's a great way to put it... you had to bolster them. But just know it was very well structured, presented, and, as someone who is familiar with all the universes you compared, and a fan of most of them, it was a fun experience. I've watched it twice and will watch it more. Please continue with this intelligent and fun content.
First things first - thank you for making these, you are my favorite ER youtuber alongside with the Tarnished Archaeologist. To me it seems that you are definitely onto something here, but as of now the theory seems to be a bit undercooked and involving a lot of conjectures in comparison to your other videos (granted it might be the only way to talk about metaphysics). May be that's just because it is not yet complete - you said somewhere in the comments that 2-3 videos on the topic are in the works, can't wait to see these! Still, what, in my opinion, distinguishes a great theory from a good one is willingness to not only find supporting evidence, but also to engage with counterpoints. One particular example from the top of my head is "Melina is hewn into Erdtree hence she is burning together with the Erdtree". If that was the case, would't she also burn when we MEGABURN the Erdtree with the Flame of Frenzy?
Yeah one of the reasons why this video took so long is because metaphysics is WAY harder to talk about than archaeology. But in order to talk about the archaeology and history I really want to understand the metaphysics/magic more first so that we can discuss how those ideas would have influenced the civilizations and their leaders who lived in this world and understood them. Which part in particular is undercooked? I will try to focus more on that for future videos. We'll touch upon the pooling into the Erdtree and anima mundi/axis mundi more in the next video I believe, and then the idea of grace being memory will be touched upon in more detail in the video after that. Also agree on the counterpoint stuff, but I'm ngl the counterpoint stuff in regards to metaphysics becomes so tricky because, in a way, there are SO many counterpoints. Like there are different colored remembrances and then what about spirit energy and is that memory and how does that differ from the soul... I think I should have been more skeptical in my language during parts of the video, which I did a good job with for the first two videos. Weirdly its easier for me to be skeptical about architecture but for some reason I didn't use that same voice about metaphysics??? that seems backwards I straight up didn't think about the Flame of Frenzy-Melina thing when crafting this theory, that is a great counterpoint and I'll put it under corrections. Then again it seems to be a different part of Melina who awakes when we awake the FoF so idk about that either. I will be totally honest with you that I plan to mainly stay away from doing character theories until I have more vids out establishing the world, magic, metaphysics, and history. once I understand the world i'll feel more comfortable writing about the characters. Appreciate the feedback very much
oh now that i'm thinking about it, the thing for melina may be that she isn't purely hewn into the Erdtree/Hold, just that a part of her is. She seems to be more closely linked to the sites of grace and tied to them. and its perhaps only when we return to the Erdtree that the sites of grace are linked back up? there is something unique about the memory in teh sites of grace vs. the Erdtree but idk what yet
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Wow, thank you for answering! Not everyday I get the chance to talk to a creator of your caliber) Yeah, metaphysics of Elden Ring are indeed VERY, VERY hard to talk about and huge respect to you for not shying away from that. As for "undercooked" I think it was an unfortunate word choice (I am not a native speaker). Better way to phrase it (and elaborate) would be to say that "this word sounds kinda like this word" and "there are parallels with other works of media tangentially related to the creators of Elden Ring" make for shaky foundations of any theory. But if we accept them (and we do have to postulate something if we are going to analyze metaphysics) than you've absolutely cooked! And anyways, I am all in for this more mythological/cultural studies approach over the "akchually it's all about Jung like every second Japanese game out there"
Vaati has always been a lore aggregator, bringing the interesting work less visible creators make. I love the guy but he doesn't have a lot of original ideas anymore Honestly I think his skill as a writer, editor, and voice actor are value adds and he's usually pretty good about crediting. PLUS he's a huge small artist supporter. It's a complex ecosystem but one I think is better for his presence, even if his role has shifted
@@arglebargle42 I'm a recent follower of Vaati, probably a couple months after the release of ER. I've never seen his channel as a lore channel, but more as an artistic, cinematic retelling of well known side stories in the game... Does a fantastic job at that, but it hasn't taken long for him to run out of good ideas. Idk, maybe I'm more of a deep lore nerd, it's not for me anymore. And his last drop was a bit frustrating, as I felt he was kind of reversing the roles with the smaller channels, rehashing NamelessSinger and Tarnished Archeologist content, with a disclaimer every two minutes about how speculative all of it is. I feel he's venturing on uneasy grounds, and forcing himself to do so since, I feel, loretubers and tinfoil hat theorists are on the rise.
I don't know Westworld, but I'm a huge ASOIAF fan. This was a fantastic presentation of the metaphysical elements shared between them. Just another example that brings me joy to see how Elden Ring is exactly what should have happened when you bring together the minds behind Dark Souls and ASOIAF. Truly an extraordinary myth and a remarkable execution of its interactive medium.
I dove deep into ASOIAF lore for a number of years and I used to be obsessed with Dark Souls lore. It is insane to me just how beautifully interwoven the lore is from both properties. Miyazaki really is a huge GRRM fan and he put his heart soul and everything into the lore for this game. It's truly incredible and I love how many layers there are. The lore is a masterpiece.
I always viewed grace as the "hallelujah" type of necromancy as opposed to the stinky Ghostflame necromancy :D I love this so much! This is cannon now! Runes/Grace is memories!
I like it! Ghostflame necromancy seems to be missing something important. Maybe memory/soul, or maybe willpower? The toughest part of doing this metaphysics stuff is that the nature of the soul/self is inherently fuzzy and not agreed upon by humanity as a whole. but it sure does seem like this game and the devs had a guiding light/structure of how everything fit together. and I do believe runes/grace == memories is part of that!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing I think you are absolutely onto something here about 'willpower' and I think that might be the essence of gold, I mean more complex because it represents also power, the right to rule, authority, value and rank but they all tie into the nietzschean 'will to power' concept. Also, apologies for spamming you but there is SO MUCH good stuff in the comments I can't help myself Maybe it could be referred to as 'soul alchemy' as we sift apart the lore supported portions. Entities burned in ghostflame could still produce something like Spirit Ashes for their priests (in the deathbird wings) so it didn't fully consume everything, but maybe Gold didn't even exist in the world (I have a hypothesis that the deathbirds and Rauh predate the arrival of the golden star) We have the runes, which are strength, will and memory, Sword of Milos and Blasphemous Blade split off the life and magic (intelligence) HOLD ON I JUST HAD A REVELATION! What if, the times when we kill creatures and they fade into nothingness with a grey mist, THAT GREY MIST is the primal form of the Immortal Essence! It would fit with the Souls 'before everything grey fog' theme, and looks a lot like what forms around spirit summons But what could it represent if absent of vitality, thought, and memory. Something a lot closer to DS's Ancient Dragons, a mineral beast without everything we consider living, yet alive. Sorry I'm rambling, please I know you are probably super busy so you don't have to reply it's just I've found no other place with people who saw the same thing I did in the Soul Currency(alchemy?), and you're probably going to cover so much of this and more in your future videos. SO EXCITE!
I love your work. Today while i was on Reddit i just thought when u will upload again and was happy when i saw this video. For me youre the best ER lore youtuber rightnow.
I heard you and I complied! Thanks for the compliment. I really want to be the best, its sort of a dream of mine, and you saying that just made part of my dream come true so thank you! I intend to keep putting out high quality content and I think you'll like what I have in store :)
Linking Westworld to Elden Ring is not something that I expected but here WE here. Makes me even sadder for the show, but maybe by the end of this video I can make peace with that.
Elden Ring is actually season 5 lol I do have hope for you. Lisa Joy said that we would get to know what they had planned for Season 5 no matter what. Even if she just releases her notes on Reddit. But we may yet get another studio to pick it up for the last season, or maybe a book or comic. So have hope!
You would know!! I have heard speak of your investigations into the Jungian cosmology interpretation (at least I think that was you, someone else phrased it that way). If you have a video(s) recommendation I should watch I will absolutely do so!
@ I don’t have one video that ties everything together…. Yet:), but all of my lore videos are framed within psychology. One of my favorite videos doesn’t have many views but I think it’s a compelling idea: “Fear the Night”. It centers around the idea of Marika’s psyche being the landscape of the LB and the events that happen at night occur while Marika is dreaming/ nightmare. Things that haunt her.
Interesting. I like this theory. The land of shadow being the death realm makes more sense now too. It isn’t about an actual death, it’s about being out of memory and forgotten! No longer connected to the Erdtree.
OOOOH I love this. I hadn't made this connection yet, but I think you are totally right. Great comment. Someone else said that Miquella mixing his blood with Mohg is what could have allowed him to access the memories of the hornsent. So basically Mohg had the memories of the Shadow Realm in his blood and Miquella used that to access it. I am not 100% clear on how it all works, but I think I can think it through. There's evidence that the holes in the landscape of the Omens mind may be because they are caught between two dimensions. So Mohg may indeed be caught between the two.
Great video ^^ I really enjoyed the metaphysical topic. I wasnt aware of Westworld, but I liked the reference to a quantum computer because I do agree that the themes of Superimposition and Interconnectivity present in quantum physics might be useful concept to understand the human psyche better. I believe that Marika becoming a vessel for grace (and the overall idea of MOJ3D) is an allegory of the process of evolution of the human condition. From "objects" of the Universe, to self conscious beings who act like agents in universe, but on whom the Universe also acts retroactively. Without going further, I find all this deeply fascinating and will be eagerly waiting for more videos :D
My Anthropology Professor is teaching my class about how from an anthropological lense God is a ficticious person, which represents the knowledge of long dead people. In this lense we are looking at religious stories as parables that represent anthropological truths. For example, we are viewing the garden of Eden as a metaphor as the birth of society and the evolution of man to have the ability to displace memory. That means that unlike other animals, we can recall the knowledge of people long dead as it was passed down from generation to generation. The casting off from the garden in this lense refers to how humanity acquired this ability and being separated from the other animals in this way. This video just reminded me of this lense of understanding mythology, and I wanted to share.
I love it. So basically God is memory? The memory of long dead peoples, and that memory is maintained in the stories we tell each other. Someone else made a similar comment about how God is a mental construct that is like the "will" of a civilization/society. "will" could be part of it but there's also memory. Which kinda just gets at the notion that humanity as a whole is like one giant brain.
yeah sorry for the delay. my deep dive/lore writing spree took longer than I expected because there were some lore mysteries that I needed to untangle before i could continue making videos in earnest. i'm hoping to get out a few of these vids in short succession. but i also thought i could do that back in september so we'll see when i can get the next one out.
Yeah i wasn't complaining about the wait time, I've tried piecing together elden ring lore by myself once so ik how long it can take to make sense of the story so i don't really have any complaints about that@NamelessSingerEldenRing
I hope you know you deserve all the support to keep making these high-effort, entertaining, informative, and overall mind-provoking videos that I feel like tap into the inner essence of our humanity and culture as a species. Although this may seem like a simple video about Elden Ring, these ideas that tie to humanities culture with primal ideas and our need to express them is something that should be constantly promoted.
Thank you for the kind words. You see what I see. There is a real, beautiful truth woven throughout all these stories that is about US. I am compelled to express them because I am compelled to know myself. I think you're really gonna like some of the stuff I have planned in the next few videos :)
yeah i am hoping to establish some new definitions/interpretations of things and then build on them in future videos so that we can get to the deepest layers of lore. thanks for the sub!
Me too. Though i did like how it ended with the loop idea, though that by nature is not super satisfying. But Lisa Joy said we WOULD get to know eventually what was supposed to happen in S5, even if it means just her releasing her notes to us in some form. We may get a season reboot, or maybe a book, or a comic. But we'll know, one day.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing wow well that's something to hang onto! :) I certainly hope there's something more from that universe. I just thought of this after watching your whole video, the way season 4 was "aiming" seems like, season 5 would have been a new Age (to reference the ranni/miquella end goal). So so cool that you made all those connections, I never would have thought of any of this and it endears the show to me so much more knowing that some of my favorite media has those connections going on. What a gift! Thank you, you're just brilliant
P.S. we need to take a moment to appreciate the fact that your whole comments section is nearly as interesting as the video itself... Kudos times a bajillion
Thank you for another amazing, in-depth, well written and wonderful sounding lore video. Simply CANNOT get enough of this kind of quality content I have been spending a LOT of time thinking about the spirit magics of Rauh, and how Marika had all those tablets from the Specimen Storehouse in her bedchamber. I think she had that knowledge brought to her to 'refine their faith' as she mentioned, understanding the soul currency exchange and 1) Creating the Erd Tree making use of the Great Tree roots, 2) Creating Melina from the memory of the Gloam Eyed Queen, 3) Learning how to modify the Elden Ring All of these are connected to the 'Immortal Essence' that Roderika mentions, which I think are the original basis for the power of runes. I don't think Immortal Essence was always golden, and that before Metyr crashed and created the Crucible, it was likely blue or blue grey like spirit ashes but still acted as runes do now, flowing through the Great Tree and being rained down as blessings and recycled again Really love your 'memory' angle on this and it fits in perfectly with my overall Souls perspective: 'Overcome suffering through sincere struggle, the memory of fighting tactics are your true strength, that which you gain by facing the enemy in the right mindset and learning their ways' One thing I'd like to argue: I don't think Marika is the 'source' of grace, but rather Immortal Essence existed before the Crucible, and was transformed with gold(and originally red) into the tool that Marika and whatever she took it from would use to maintain ultimate sovereignty. I would agree she is this era's sole controller of Grace and that comes from 'ownership' of the Elden Ring Can't wait for your next work Singer, everything you post sets off fireworks in my brain and I didn't think that was even still possible after 3 years of content, thank you so much for your wonderful work!
"I don't think Immortal Essence was always golden" I think you are right about this, and I think I should have clarified this somewhere more in the video. Because essence and remembrances are shown to be many different colors, which means that memories can be many different colors, not just golden. and grace is described as the "grace of gold", so it may be that the "gold" aspect of grace implies something unique about gold that may differentiate between "runes" and "grace". It may be that runes just are the immortal essence aka spirit. this is a high level thing i am not sure about yet. "Really love your 'memory' angle on this and it fits in perfectly with my overall Souls perspective: 'Overcome suffering through sincere struggle, the memory of fighting tactics are your true strength, that which you gain by facing the enemy in the right mindset and learning their ways'" Yeah 100% agree on this and i think this is reflected elsewhere via the "suffering" angle "One thing I'd like to argue: I don't think Marika is the 'source' of grace" Yes I realized when I was showing this vid to my friend that I made a mistake phrasing it this way. She isn't the source, just the "vessel". Or 'controller' as you said. "Can't wait for your next work Singer, everything you post sets off fireworks in my brain and I didn't think that was even still possible after 3 years of content, thank you so much for your wonderful work!" o7 I WILL GET STARTED ON THE NEXT VID RIGHT AWAY! after i sleep lol Thank YOU for the support and thoughtful comments!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Actually you made the 'Marika as Vessel' layout pretty thoroughly towards the end (lol I was taking notes while listening, bad habit of mine I guess)
Due to the theory that rune's are memory or _"a state of being"_ and people figuring out that the rune's we drop, kinda resemble a very small erdtree... 🌴 ... I always thought that the immortality might be genuine and yet fake. Could Marika achieve true immortality for her subjects? What if... you're memory & state of being was simply "copied" and later on inserted into a new vessel? One could argue that is really you... but at the same time it is another, new you that is completely detached of the original vessel in which _"you"_ resided. Like in Nier:Automata for example where the Androids can upload _"themself"_ into a new body-model that will literally get constructed and shipped out so to say, to become a new version of that person, as if that person _"survived"_ and has *not* died on some former last mission, even though this is what has happened most probably. Kinda creepy to think about that all those people are real and yet at the same time fake. And in reality people think they are still themself but they are more like Doppelgangers or Clones who do not know that they are just getting shipped out with memorys of a being that they were... kinda forced to become.
I think a some good evidence supporting this is the whole larval tear rebirth stuff. Where the "soul" or "memory" is uploaded into a new "body" that is the larval tear. But I am not 100% on how that mechanistically works yet. Its basically what Sellen is doing, right? Same soul, different body. Do we know that the original Sellen hasn't died already and what we're getting are just copies? It seems like the soul imbued into the glintstone is the same and has a continuity of memory so it does seem like maybe some form of true immortality is possible. My bet as to the flaw (or maybe design) of marika's immortality is that she wants us to forget aka "die" and then start the cycle over. Basically playing the game another time through with a different build in New Game +. I think this is the "will of Queen Marika" that Gideon may have seen, which he would have hated because I would guess he doesn't want to forget everything that he's learned and what he's sacrificed to gain his knowledge. He may have loved Nepheli deep down, but used her in pursuit of his goals. He was a total asshole in pursuit of knowledge and if he did all of that just to forget... well I would be pretty upset too. That doesn't explain why he is so against a Tarnished becoming Elden Lord though. As for if the copy is really the same person, Westworld would ask "If you can't tell, does it matter?"
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing To me such questions matter only in a sense of loss. Technically it doesn't matter. ... for the _"new version"._ But imagine you have died and lets say there is an afterlife. So you are now a soul in the afterlife, or "isekai", a next world, whatever. 😉 If you lived in the expectation to be revived by Marika's design, you are confused. If you are still in a sort of very spiritual afterlife from which you can observe all but not interact with anything anymore and you see *another you* run around, fully believing it is *YOU* ... isn't that f°°ked up? 🤪 Or you know they are really just perfect copies, but still copies. Can you feel for example a loved one dies and gets _"revived",_ as an inside knower, that they are the same person? In a messed up sense they are of course but at the same time, the original person you loved is gone. What will that do to the human condition and psyche? To that of an inside-knowledge knower at the very least? Is it infantile to cling to the _"originals"_ then or does it make us shallow and superficial to even love the "copies" as if they have always been the original? Wierd stuff, such concepts. I feel like crazyness is going to claw at my mind just for thinking about it at all.
@@LawfulBased I like to think about how even if I am a copy, I am still real because I have thoughts and feelings. And I can't tell if my free will is an illusion or not so I guess I can choose to just HAVE it. And so I can just extrapolate that truth to anyone else who could also be a copy. Maybe I could make 100 of myself. Hmmmm. Would that give me an existential crisis? My first thought is "wow, I could get so many videos done so quickly." Shadow clone jutsu style. And if I had a copy of my deceased relative, hm, well, I would be happy that I still get to know them. I'm also a hardcore optimist though, so I will always be biased towards the optimistic option, even sometimes in the face of better evidence for the pessimistic perspective (re: every take that says we don't have free will lol). I have been through the craziness and back again. The joys of philosophy!! Always walking on the blade edge of insanity
Happy to hear it! Yeah I realized I needed to go and learn a lot about grace before making this video. Which just stressed me out because grace is everywhere. But when I realized that the Golden Runes are called "grace" then it made sense
Holy crap! Wait....if the Tarnished is just a memory, then it also explains why bosses don't remember us when we re-visit them after "dying". The memory fades into dust! The first encounter is the only real one, and everything after that is just a memory being revisited! Which is why the opening cutscene isn't replayed!!!! It explains how despite different origins, our characters have perfect knowledge of how to operate any spell, and use any weapon, or wear any armor. Because our Tarnished are the embodiment of all the different runes and souls and memories in the erdtree via grace!!!! Mind. Blown! It explains SO much!!!
yooooooo I hadn't totally thought of it this way, but I am down! Tbh I haven't fully explored all the implications of this theory, Like to me it is very important that we still have a semblance of free will. Like even though we may be memories, we're more like computer memory. Like we may be the same processes but are running in different ways, and we can make different choices. It's not like the fact that we are memories means that everything is determined, you know? But I think that is what you are getting at with the "the first scene only plays once." That may be the memory of first grace, when we were first given life. And Enia tells us that Remembrances are hewn into the Erdtree "upon their end" referring to the demigods/champions. So it may only be when we die are we hewn into the Erdtree to be "remembered", which allows for free will. I plan to discuss the free will aspect more in a future video and just wanted to keep this one purely about memory.
Loved the lore and philosophical implications of runes being memories, one of those ideas that makes me want to replay the game with just to experience it from that perspective.
Yeah I think the Runes == Memories thing has huge implications that we have only begun scratching the surface of. I plan to keep building out these metaphysical "rules, properties, laws" type of stuff, and then once we have done that, we can really start having fun with interpreting different aspects of the lore in new light.
Love the video! Ravens and crows were thought to carry the souls of the dead to the afterlife. You pointed out that here, souls are memories. I find it interesting that the only crows we find in the lands between are corrupted by scarlet rot, which eats away at the wits of those infected, driving them mad. They are losing their memory. There are some threads here of the entire tapestry, I am sure.
Oooh okay I maybe have the connection. Based on some of Millicent's dialogue, she makes it sound like the scarlet rot is eating away not only at her body, but also at her willpower, her memory, her sense of self. So the scarlet rot may be eating the gold (memory) away. So maybe there is something there will the ravens/crows, who are carrying souls, and then the scarlet rot is going after them too. or they also just have souls/memories and the scarlet rot is eating away at them. Just like what happened with Millicent
🤩This video help me figure out a lot of the lore of Elden Ring.🤩 The Gloam Eyed Queen, who the fled god of the dragons is, what the gate of divinity is, what the sun realm is and how it ended. Thank you for this amazing content
The memory of grace states that it is merely a cycle stand before the elden ring become Elden Lord Now with this perspective of this video taken into account as well. I am starting to wonder if the entire game isn't actually based in any tangible reality and that we are, in fact, just living through the memories of queen marika over and over and over again, until we accomplish what it is she wanted to see done One tarnished, even going as far as burning the Erdtree and sacrificing Melina, but failed to kill Radagon. Which could explain 1.0 weeping penninsula map description in which Radagon warned of the return of the tarnished, and their crusade for the Elden ring. I could've got lost in the sauce there towards the end But a very cool video nonetheless, I really enjoyed it
I think that the notion of us living through the memories of Queen Marika IS possible, and part of what I was getting at. We start out receiving grace within the Erdtree, then are reborn, and then return and "it is merely a cycle". Then we start New Game + and choose a new build and do the whole thing over again. Which honestly is not a bad deal because the game is really fun. But to do that for eternity? Idk. I think Gideon may have realized this and he was upset that he would basically forget everything each time and I think he did some shitty things in his pursuit of knowledge, only to realize that it was all for nothing and he was just going to forget. I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Thanks for watching
Another great video! Just finished recent one piece chapters and its looking like Yggdrasil/norse lore is going to play a piece there so this was like a primer.
I’ve felt recently that I’ve seen all there was to see and learned all I could from Elden Ring. Thank you for showing me this game still has secrets and meanings left to behold
So, if Melina is indeed now a fragmented memory of the Erdtree, and her amnesia is explained with how she burned herself and the Erdtree in the past, does this also lend credence to the idea that she was indeed the Gloam-Eyed Queen? Both she and her brother Messmer are affiliated with snakes and fire, and if Messmer’s flame burns people down to their souls, then wouldn’t it make sense for Melina to complete that process by using the Black Flame to burn souls themselves via Destined Death? Also, her being a fragmented memory due to her burning herself and the Erdtree would help explain why the GEQ’s history and records have been almost completely erased from history save for the Godskins and her greatsword. With how Messmer was sequestered away to the Land of Shadow, which itself is governed by the Scadutree that embodies the outcast and those that should be hidden from the Erdtree, would this cement the connection even further? Anyways, fantastic video!
Yes I was thinking about this idea the other day. I am wondering if the power of Messmer's flame was split from the Flame of Ruin, so now his ownly burns people down to their souls, and Melina's is meant to finish the job by burning away memory/soul. Exactly what you said. I would have to guess that maybe Melina & Messmer were originally twins with opposing dual natures, like how Miquella is meant to be about growth & abundance and Malenia is about rot & decay. They are natural pairs, basically. As to your other point, I do think that Marika was likely manipulating memories to some degree. Cutting some memories out so that they could be erased, but she wasn't 100% successful. Which would explain the lack of info on the GEQ. She's literally been excised from memory. And yes I really like what you said about Messmer being sealed away/outcast. I think him being sealed supports the notion that he is the other half of the original Black Flame power. Marika couldn't get rid of this stuff completely but she could nerf it by splitting it up, and that seems to be what could have happened.
@ I personally wouldn’t associate Messmer’s Flame with that of the Flame of Ruin, as the Flame of Ruin is more affiliated with the Fire Giants and the Fell God, and the sigil on Messmer’s incantations is different to the sigil used by the Giantsflame incantations. Though I guess you could argue that since Messmer is the child of Radagon, who inherited the red hair of the Fire Giants, the connection between his flame and that of the Fell God could be there? Granted, the Flame of the Fell God seems to be more affiliated with smithing than anything else (referring to the golems of the Land of Shadow and the flame within the halberd/bow-wielding golems in the Lands Between), whereas Messmer’s Flame and the GEQ’s Black Flames of Destined Death share more in common with the Frenzied Flame, which also can burn away body AND soul. But I do agree that Messmer and Melina being a pair would make a lot of sense, especially since they share a lot of motifs in regards to how they both are kindling, are affiliated with snakes, and both were secret children of Marika and Radagon.
So if the Erdtree was burned before, why would they just leave all that ash lying around the capital? You'd think physical evidence of the first cardinal sin would be something Marika simply wouldn't tolerate. I do like the idea of Messmer and Melina being twins with similar but opposing aspects, and nothing explicitly disproves it. Messmer is the flame, Melina is the kindling. I almost wonder if she wasn't burned away in the womb before she was even born...
King Allant and the Demons in Demons Souls are also memories, the nexus was a sort of proto erdtree which feeds the Old Beast which is pretty interesting if you think about the parallels between both games.
Dammit, I never played Demon Souls, I only got started with Dark Souls 1. But this is great evidence. I am gonna look this up and see if I can fit this into one of the next videos because the notion of memories feeding a "beast" is basically what I was kinda getting at with the Elden Beast being a candidate for the World Soul
I think the runes look very similar to the rings inside of a tree stump. Much like older trees have more rings, greater runes are larger and contain more rings of color. Theres also the connection that you can only see the shape of the rings once a tree is felled, so too do you only see the runes size upon death. The tree rings also tie into the memories aspect, with the size and number of the rings reflecting the age of the tree, as how the larger runes reflect more/greater memories
Something that always eluded me was Sir Moore and his quote saying “Miquella the Kind will help us forget.” Us? Forget? As well as everyone in the DLC seem to act so differently when Miquella shatters his own Rune, but Ansbach says. ,”in the end, I couldn’t bury the memory, of my lord and master Mogh.” Ansbach is able to retain his some bit of memory despite being under Miquellas influence. Suggesting it’s not that strong if you fight for against it? Memories might be a sort of curse, and that amplifies the most in Marika since she is the vessel of it, all the good and especially the bad in the Lands Between and Realm of Shadow. Might be the reason she shattered the Elden Ring to escape this endless torture. I see the DLC as a parallel to the main game, Miquella abandoning parts of himself all over the Realm of Shadow is what I believe Marika was also doing, by putting parts of her self through her children which could be the why of them all having certain curses. Miquella seducing his followers and then betraying them by destroying his rune could be a small parallel to Rennala? The seduction and the betrayal. Another odd thing that always gets me is when we first appear in the world when grace is given to us, it almost looks like we are in the Erdtree, it reminds me so much of when we enter it the very first time to fight Radagon, being overwhelmed by light and swallowed by it. Just what are we?
Regarding Melina's in the Frenzied Flame ending, I believe that Melina's GEQ quality is that she is connected to the primal Chaos that Life arises and returns to. The Erd Tree's Order gives shape to Life by providing the instruction code for shaping it through memory. Chaos is that Death aspect opposing the Tree's Life aspect. That Death principle would require a vessel to operate in the world. Whether Melina was the prior GEQ or if GEQ is a title passed down to new vessels doesn't matter, she is the GEQ in a Frenzied Flame ending where she survives. Just as Marika as the vessel of Life and Order preserves memory, the GEQ deletes memory through Death to create space for new creations. This is why the Lands Between are in such poor shape. They haven't been properly reformatted for literal Ages. This is also why a GEQ Melina opposes a Tranished Lord of Frenzied Flame in that ending. The purpose of Death is to create the possibility of new Life. The disordered state the Frenzied Flame leaves everything in doesn't allow new life so GEQ Melina needs to kill the corrupted Tarnish and bring Death back to the Land Between so that Life can return. Her speech to a Tarnished set upon becoming the Lord of Frenzied Flame about the suffering within Life not invalidating the value of Life could be seen as Melina advocating for the Death principle. That the necessity that Death must exist to allow Life to exist does not invalidate the value of Life. It is also my belief that if Melina is dead in a FF ending, Destined Death will find a new vessel. The Wheel of Fate keeps turning and even cosmic nihilism isn't going to stop it.
This interpretation of the Erdtree makes Miquella's powers even more sinister. He erases memory. Not only this act blurs personal boundaries but it also destroys life, or a part of a living being that the memory he erases represents. This interpretation also suggests that Miquella watered the tree with his blood to incorporate his memories into the tree to make it a living thing, and then he mixed his blood with that of Mogh to access the memories of those who experienced the suffering that attacked the Formless Mother so that he could grant them compassion in the form of memory erasure. Previously, I thought that only Trina was meant to replace the GEQ but it seems that she and her other self, Miquella, both were born as alternatives to Destined Death. I wonder if Marika used her memory tree to revive the shamans or did she forget to do so. Maybe this power was off the table.
OOOOH I LOVE THIS!!! Yes I am totally on board with this. You are right, he does manipulate memory in some way. Although he seems to manipulate willpower or desire, which is a form of memory. And his compassion is a form of memory erasure. That is brilliant, and fits with ideas of how "blindness is bliss" and all. The idea of mixing his blood with Mohgs to access Mohg's memories is a WILD idea and I am totally there for it. This fits with the notion of the collective memory too, and how it could tie to fate. I wonder, could we say that the Realm of Shadow is a place that exists only in memory then? I would bet Marika did this as well, when she passed out all of the sap to everyone. If the sap truly did contain grace, and thus memories, it could explain how she manipulated/conquered the Lands Between and got everyone to believe in the Elden Religion. Life is memories, and so by conquering people/killing them and then returning them to "life" as memories, she could replace their memories with her modified ones. That is totally feasible based on the evidence. Man, that is a good question about the shamans. Love this comment, you rock!!
I'm close to halfway through, so not sure if this will be covered, but I just realized that runes are real beyond just the world of Elden Ring. For us, the human being controlling the player character, it is truly our memories and experience that allows us to improve, learn to defeat difficult enemies and gain strength through that obtained first-hand knowledge.... And it is real. The skills gained can be used in a completely new gamefile or even in Sekiro, Dark Souls, etc., which means runes are real and transferable in a sense.... Even though you can't use them to level up in this life lol their impact is still real.
Yes, runes are real. Runes are basically knowledge, and knowledge is power. You can use the knowledge from this game in other Souls-like games, but also in a real world sense. By defeating boss after boss, you learn how to overcome adversity and achieve difficult things. The fact that you are capable of doing so in a video game means that you are also capable of doing so in real life, but the boss might be a test or some work challenge or whatever. At least, this is what I like to believe. Perhaps as justification for being so obsessed with a video game hahaha
@@NamelessSingerEldenRingHahaha it's all completely justified! You lay out some great examples. There has definitely been research done on video gaming and how it has a positive impact on cognitive performance as well... I like to think it helps me become a better problem-solver IRL and hones my skills for paying attention to the right things... And since we were granted FromSoft, there is so much philosophical content to contemplate... One might even say "insights all over the shop". Congrats on your channel and great analysis yet again 💖
I just had an epiphany. I don't know why I didn't put this together. The old English/old Germanic word Rune or Run means "secret or knowledge." Rune in context of Elden Ring does indeed mean Experience.
Yep! I should have included the "rune means knowledge" bit in the video but will do so in the future because its a fun piece of knowledge and is good support. It's so wonderful how much etymologies play a role in helping to make sense of this game. I used to not give af about linguistics and now its one of my favorite subjects
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing I LOVE etymology. I try to use it as much as I can in my own writings. When you know the meaning of words and phrases history, myths, legends begin to make sense. Since Dark Souls, and learning the Anor Londo is elvish, and naming conventions of Gwyn and his children I have been obsessed with learning more, and seeing what other runes I can discover.
So much cool stuff to absorb!! ... and now I'm googling how to watch West World :P I loved that you brought Dark Souls' souls and humanity into the discussion! I think my take on the mechanics of souls/humanity might diverge from yours slightly based on the visuals during your video, but not irreconcilably so! I think that souls are just like runes just as you point out. And I love your take that runes are memory and therefore the soul is memory. I think in Dark Souls the soul is the source of consciousness, enlightenment, and more spiritual aspects of the self. And Humanity, the dark, is the source of strong emotions and those indescribable qualities that make us human. And it's the combination of the soul and humanity, of light and dark, that makes up a human. I think the First Flame consumes Dark/Humanity as fuel to produce souls. And that is why Undead are immortal, the Dark Sign links them to the Flame so that when they die, the flame consumes some of their humanity to reproduce their body and soul at a bonfire. NPC's all only go Hollow after they die. I think, it's because once you've lost your will to go on that's an indication that you've exhausted all of your Humanity, your dark. The next time you die the Dark Sign causes the Flame to recreate your body again, but with no humanity left to fuel the Flame your new body is soulless. Lacking consciousness.. and after your video, I'm convinced memory. Anyway! Back to Elden Ring. I'm convinced the same relationship and metaphysics exist in the Lands Between but with a different look and labels. Like you said, the soul is now Grace/Runes/Gold. And Humanity/Dark is now Shadow. And the same kind of dark we see in the Dark Souls' humanity sprites can be seen within the Omen's cursed flame stuff they shoot at you. Or in the wraiths that the wraithcallers shoot. Or in the projectiles that the Scadutree Avatar shoots out. And great presentation of the Odin and the Norns! Hehe I get excited about anything that might bring insights regarding the Three Sisters! haha I already see that you and Jackisamimic have gotten in touch! That's awesome because Jack is the only other person I've heard saying that the Erdtree is a tree of memories. Great minds and parallel thinking! I know so little about ASOIAF and I really love these dives into GRRM lore! Very insightful!
Over all I loved this video. Backing up with clear examples and connecting the dots! I do have minor feedback. Around the 9-11 minute mark, give or take, I personally felt a bit that it was repeating the same concept/analogy a bit too much. Other than that though, everything else was clear and polished!
oh 100% fair. when i was rereading the script I actually thought myself i was being too repetitive in parts. but i say eh f it with metaphysics its not bad to repeat the ideas to hammer them home. i am glad you loved it and i will keep it up for the future!
Love this theory, haven’t read through all the comments yet but this idea makes me curious, could we be like the reincarnation of vyke ? Hents are memory basically spreading the entire lands between as he nearly became lord, he shares the same affinity to kill demigods before rune of death is unlocked and it would also explain why we are able to accept the frenzied flame, and why Melina warns us super early about not pursuing the flame frenzy as she knows how the tarnished or previously vyke thought and does not want us to risk such a fate again ? Edit: and why we just happen to meet hyetta as if it’s all planned maybe
Fellow Tarnished! In this video, we examine the metaphysics of Elden Ring. Namely, how the Erdtree is a tree of memories, how we are memories, and how all memories together make up the collective "memory of the world". The "memory of the world" requires a vessel, which seems to be Marika. We'll build upon these ideas over the next few videos, which I will try to get out ASAP (the scripts are already written).
EDITS/CORRECTIONS:
- There are some minor audio issues, which I tried to clean up manually by scrubbing the waveforms, but some of them remain. I think I know what went wrong when I was originally recording, and will fix for next time.
- I probably misspoke when I said "Marika is the source of grace". She is not the ultimate source of it. She is the vessel for grace, and has control over it, so she is the "source" in the sense she acts like a giant jar which can pour out grace to her followers.
- It is likely that runes/memory are not JUST golden. We see remembrances of many different colors, implying that memory is not JUST golden. I do not have the "gold" nature stuff worked out yet.
- Thank you to user @komputerkaput1757 who pointed out that the Three-Eyed Raven/Crow is actually tangled in the ROOTS of the Erdtree, not the branches. My bad!
- @BogdanPilyavets made a good point that if Melina is a memory hewn totally into the Erdtree then why didn't she burn when the Flame of Frenzy was released? It may be that she is tied both to the Sites of Grace and to the Hold within the Tree. Or, it may have something to do with her GEQ-esque nature. I will investigate for the future!
the erdtree is sidra ultima
I wonder if it adds anything to this train of thought, comparing Marika, Odin and Jesus, but the name "Marika" is a form of the name Mary! I don't see many youtubers talk about it.
I have suspected that Melina is a fragment of Marika for some time. The sites of grace aren't just any lost grace...but are the grace/memories of Marika herself. This is why they lead us on the journey they do. This is why they frequently relate to important memories in Marika's journey. It still leaves the idea open that Melina is the GeQ as well, since that would imply that the GeQ is to Marika as St. Trina is to Miquella.
This titles such good anti clickbait. Just tells you straight out what the video is going to tell me and still makes me want to click and learn more.
This is one of the biggest compliments. I disdain clickbait and want to never fall into its alluring baiteyness, nor use it to draw people in. Cheers to anti clickbait!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing I'd say this is more like 'Clicksteak' than clickbait as there is just so much delicious MEAT to chew on here
The exact opposite of channels like Emerald Gecko, which is complete clickbait nonsense. I wish people would stop watching that low rent James Corden's videos, but every time I scroll by one I still see plenty of views there, sadly.
@@DoctorPecker No need to be so harsh, Gecko is just having fun and wild fringe speculation has a place
Souls fans have enough attention hours to make space for every kind of creator.
The Sap of the Erdtree being "blood" connects really well with that period of time in which Marika and Godfrey were waging wars of conquest all across the continent in the name of the Erdtree and drenching it with blood. These were the primordial days of "Plenty", when gold was "Red tinged" and sap flowed seemingly endlessly from the canopies of the Tree. It seems that once death was removed, eventually the tree physically dried up, with only its metaphysical aspects remaining, Grace. This was in which it became a mere obect of worship, people honouring what the tree did for them even in the distant past.
Meaby thats why Marika and her followers faith faltered, as Melina mentioned at the church ruins. She must have realized that no matter how much effort she put into it, she couldn't create a perfect world of unending life she desired. Eventually everything stagnated and became old, memories slipping from people's minds. Must have been at his point in which Marika's loyal and dutiful self, Radagon, created the modern Golden Order, which we all know its very flawed in all its aspects, perhaps trying to paint the decaying world we see in game as perfect and how it is all meant to be.
After her whole village died, her plans failed, the lose Messmer and Godywn, and 4 other malformed children, she must have snapped and eventually rebelled against the Elden Beast and decided to put and end to her life's work before more was taken from her, meaby in an effort to give the world another chance to breathe (or perhaps she was just trying to go the easy way out and finally die in peace )
TBH I don't think I have anything to add. I think you nailed it. I think yeah, this is basically the story of Elden Ring. At least of Marika.
Excellent job. I am honored that this comment is on my video.
The memory of this video is actively being hewn into my personal erdtree. Thanks for another great lore theory!
Hehehe personal erdtree == nervous system. In ancient mythology trees are used as symbols to represent the human spine.
Thanks for watching!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing I read it much less innocently, I am happy people are better humans than I :p
@@TheFeralFerret Have you watered your Erdtree today?
12:07 I don’t think the skulls holding runes is meant to indicate that the runes are in our brains or minds somehow…
The game emphasizes that it’s specifically the eyes, as the eyes irl are called “the window to the soul.”
Higher level runes even look like golden eyes with pupils.
It’s a small difference that doesn’t change much, but the lore around frenzy flame developing in the eyes, Godfrey’s eyes when he was exiled, Melina’s hidden eye, Messemer removing his golden eye to unleash the serpent, etc, etc… it all seems to revolve around eyes.
Just my two-cents.
The next 2-3 videos will cover the soul-Rune-eye connection. because you're right, the eye connection is everywhere. I think it has to do with the concept of the third eye being the soul/memory, which one can use to see into the collective consciousness aka fate.
The frenzied flame stuff starting in the eyes is, I think, related to the notion that the eyes are the windows to the soul. In a way eyes ~ souls perhaps. Frenzied flame seems to start from suffering. So when the soul suffers, it may reach some tipping point where the frenzy begins, and this is what causes the eye/soul to change from the normal rune to the frenzied version.
Godfrey's eyes having the golden nature could symbolize that the "golden" memory is something different from his own memory. When he was blessed with grace he received this other kind of memory which guided him, and when it was gone he no longer had that guiding memory of grace, basically. I am thinking there are likely different kinds of memory, but I haven't figured that out totally yet.
@NamelessSingerEldenRing I think that the DLC lore about the crucible and spirits can also teach us about eyes. The Rauh burrow item acts as a sort of container for a sprite, it being held in place with its the runic engravings. If it had capacity for more souls, perhaps it would have been a crucible. That might be what the Hornsent scholars led to their own experiments with their crucibles, like the shaman pots. I think that the most crucial part for a crucible is the cavity that's common between the burrows and the pots, the Grandmother tree in the Shaman Village also has a hole within it, likely also to do with souls (this was pointed out by Scum Mage Infra in a video of theirs). I also think it's no coincidence that this cavity can alternatively be interpreted as a womb, which can quite literally be described as "a melting pot of life."
Much like the burrows and pots, eyes are also very similar to this shape. A round object with a hole, that has runic encryptions near the cavity (much like the Rauh burrows) in the form of an iris. It's like a microcosmic crucible that makes up a single soul, and when one collects runes, they form themselves around that soul.
The Abyssal Serpent was sealed within Messmer, and we can assume that it wasn't their physical being, but their metaphysical being, or their soul, that was sealed. And in the cutscene where Messmer breaks Marika's seal, we see a writhing mass in his eye socket. The Abyssal Serpent's soul was sealed using an eye, much like a sprite in a Rauh burrow.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing
Can’t wait to see em!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing OH I AM SO EXCITED to hear you are doing the Soul Cycle! I refer to it as 'soul currency' from Michael Kirkbride's stranger Morrowind lore as well as the fact you can spend them lol
Seriously this is probably my most wanted subject for deep dives and is SO underrepresented in the lore community. Singer I am so glad you chose to make this channel and share your discoveries
@@zeppie_ Ok wow this is really good stuff. I've been thinking a lot about Rauh recently and the burrows in specific. NEVER ONCE did I evenm make the crucible connection. I'm going back to check the HD art, I think you are exactly right. It's the cavity, like the one Metyr made when she crashed and made the crucible. Burrows are tiny recapitulations of that life birthing catastrophe
That's probably the best explanation for why we go to the the Roundtable Hold as a separate metaphysical space.
Given this, it makes sense that remembrances can be used to gain a huge amount of runes. You're basically absorbing a huge memory from the Erdtree.
Same with ashes. The scarabs literally gather memories of past arts, the ashes, was confirmed somewhere in the lore texts. And summons are also memories of the past... I absolutely love this theory. Works with most things in the game.
Your videos are a work of art. The editing , the vocabulary, your cadence, your voice , and the subject matters you bring to the Elden Ring community are seriously some of the best. I am genuinely captivated by your videos and you deserve ALL the praise and recognition. Its a selfish want, but I hope you keep making videos, you could seriously become one of the best lore/analysis channels for Elden Ring. Peak... Peak content , I hope you keep bringing more and more insights and ideas to life.
Thank you so much for your kinds words and support. It is my goal to do my utter best in all aspects. Part of why I wanted to make videos is purely just to make something beautiful.
I promise to you, I will keep going and making videos. I have so many theories queued up. The scripts for the next few videos are essentially done, so now it is just about producing the videos. I should be able to get at least the next two vids out in short(er) succession.
Thank you again.
I second this! Insightful, holistic, mindblowing, well presented.
GLORIOUS!
SHE WHO CANNOT BE NAMED IS RETURNED!
The Norns and Odin's self sacrifice are super important, I also think the self hanging is a super interesting concept and am exploring it soon- I am convinced it is tied to divine knowledge (understanding of life, death, and souls [power]) and the wisdom of stone.
Totally agree with Erdtree Sap, it is 100% soul juice. I honestly think sap is a bit of a strange concept in this game because it is conflated with resin as well (Which is not sap, but which becomes amber- which sap cannot, yet amber is described as sap in ER) [For context, sap is a nutrient carrier and resin is more a defence mechanism]
AMAZING ASOIAF references, I just know you and Jack is a Mimic are going to have some amazing chats about that. Haven't seen such on point references to it since his vids. I really gain so much from hearing them, and they reinforce so many of my ideas- I rely on people like you and Jack for those wonderful connections.
BUT WESTWORLD references? I never saw that coming. Loved it!
So glad you've released again, you are a bar raiser for the community
So that is why the headless demigods of the mausoleums are souless. No head, no memories, no soul... This explains too why the headless nights that protect the mausoleums go away when we destroy the skull at the mausoleums feet and bring them down: they are the memories of the knights and they come from the skulls.
Yes exactly. Which is why we can duplicate remembrances there. They have no head which means their bodies are basically "empty vessels".
"This explains too why the headless nights that protect the mausoleums go away when we destroy the skull at the mausoleums feet and bring them down: they are the memories of the knights and they come from the skulls."
HOLY SNAP I DIDN'T REALIZE THIS!!! That's amazing! I think you're right!
@NamelessSingerEldenRing 🤯. A little bit of a crazy theory, but, this could explain the changes to Godwyn's body? His soul/memory was killed, might this be the reason why his body changed? If his bodie lived but it lost all its memories, It could be like being born again? I would love to hear your theory about this topic.
@@ElMasCaporo99 Marika's tits, you're a genius, you just blew my mind there!!!
How could we not see this?!
Headless knights + skull shaped "barnacles" 🤯
Man, it's been almost three years and we still haven't connected all the dots 😂😭
This goes back to Demon's souls. So it's been more than a decade and we haven't figured it all out 😂
@@allthe1
@@allthe1 I just started a new game and the intro cinematic blew my mind. Rycard sacrificed himself to te serpent and in the intro we see that he gave his head in a silver plate.
First - you tackled the concept of The Trinity with poignancy and professionalism. Mad respect. Not many channels would even dare.
Second - I love that you pointed out a returning motif between all figures. They are ultimately taken from the highest forms (future seers, the wisest beings, the embodiment of deities, etc.) and must be bonded with the world through a tree in some form. Doing so many "kill" the living body or taint the memories, but this sacrifice awakens a deeper understanding through that act of sacrament.
I think there is a completely respectful and honest way to go about discussion religion in the context of all that came before. One easy way is to look at the stories as myths and the symbols as expressions of some truth. Then you can compare between them and learn things. As you recognized, the shared motifs between all the figures. It's what that shared motif represents to us as humanity that really fascinates me.
Tarnished being a memory really puts being called foul tarnished repeatedly into a new context.
OH AND! @08:45 "The verb "to remember" is 'runagon'".
Runagon... Radagon...
Hewn... Hewg...
Someone pointed out in my comments recently that they think Rodrika and Hewg either somehow are incarnations of Marika and Radagon, or at least echoes of them thematically. And I love this idea and it's part of my headcannon now.
Someone else pointed out that Hewg likely comes from the Old Norse "hugi" which means "mind, thought" and that blew MY mind. Especially the notion that Hewg aka thought it hammering away within the Erdtree, trying to create a weapon that slays a god.
I am leaning towards Hewg being akin to Radagon. I like that a lot. But I also like the idea that Radagon once had a sword and could be the person in the Divine Bridge statues. So idk. Those types of lore secrets are buried deep as hell IMO.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing well, Hewg is a misbegotten, which are protégés of Radagon. Plus he wields a hammer like Marigon/Radika. Maybe Radagon became a god as Marika did, by shedding his own memories.
Hewg also asks Marika for forgiveness, maybe his sin was Radagon's?
This was an excellent, well-articulated analysis that certainly has its finger on the pulse of ER’a mythology and world-building. I really enjoyed the parallels between Westworld as I’ve never seen the comparison drawn prior but I think it holds conceptual weight through shared origins of nothing else. Thanks for another fantastic upload!
Thank you very much for the lovely words. I didn't know how people would react to the Westworld portion of the video because it seems like its so far away from ER/GOT, but the "raven" part of the name from Engerraund was just something I could never get over. When I revisited that theory for this video I was pleasantly surprised to find even more connections. Probably just shared origins, but I do think there is some truth of a theory of consciousness buried in both properties that may be legit. Possibly something akin to Douglas Hofstadter's "Eternal Golden Braid" ideas.
iirc transformed silver tears never drop runes, whereas untransformed ones have them as part of their loot pool, so it's likely that silver tears tranform by "consuming" the memory in the runes that have somehow ended up within them, whether they collected them on their own or whether the nox injected them with the runes.
oh this is really interesting. thank you man, that is really useful information. someone else had mentioned to me the function of consuming Runes and there is a case of where it actually happens. like maybe to become the form of the person they needed to consume the Runes. Love it.
No surprise that the other ASOIAF fan would make the Erdtree is made of
Memories video! No lie, I have been producing a similar video for like three months now. Happy to see we think alike!
Watching this video is so funny for me, it’s like we went to the Wandering Mausoleum and duplicated a memory!
Phenomenal video! Gosh you don’t know how happy this makes me to see someone else do this!
Ooooh have you really? You should message me on Discord so we can talk. Great minds think alike! And it's extra exciting we came to these conclusions independently because that means that they're legit (or more likely to be legit). Love that you're also an ASOIAF fan. Originally I was gonna do ASOIAF lore videos for this channel but ugh there's just too much text and not enough visuals to satisfy me. Which is why I am so happy that Elden Ring exists haha. I WAS ABLE TO USE MY HIGH VALYRIAN KNOWLEDGE IN THIS VIDEO!!! That makes me so happy.
I almost included a few lines about the duplicating remembrances at the Wandering Mausoleums! But axed it and can't recall why lol.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Sent!
how happy are you really
about the wombmen folk sharing
did you know in biology, Chalazae
hold yolks safe in space
centrifugal and egglectic
while mimics cry and
nameless jane does die. while
all eyes lie on the jacks
yolks of all trades
Master of none
joke's on us, all of uns
big, little, in the middle and as above,
sow below
cheerio and tootles, meet you at the corner of Chat Noir rue née Maladie de Malaria
Looking forward to all of your ideas! Keep 'em coming
On weirwood - the name also references a fishing weir, which is a wooden trap used in streams to trap fish. That is why 3ER is described as being trapped in a spider web with how he's all snarled up in the roots.
David Lightbringer has a video on how the Ice Spiders are actually the Weirwoods themselves, and that ties into the "Erdtree is a bloodsucking parasite" theories in Elden Ring
Oh snap I had heard about LmL/David's theory on the Ice Spiders being weirwoods thing on ASOIAF reddit and I thought it was insane but the fishing weir does make sense.
A lot of people really love the Erdtree is a parasite idea, but I had never been a huge follower of it mainly because its not something I saw in historical myths that I had read. Like I never heard about the World Tree being described as such. But its a compelling argument. It may eat memories? I'll put this theory on my watchlist, thanks for the heads up!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRingCould the Erdtree be Elden Ring's stand-in for the Demiurge? That seems to fit with the revelation from Metyr that the Greater Will has not touched the Lands Between since before the Age of the Erdtree.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing the weirwood theories hinge on the idea that weirwoods aren't in an okay state when we see them, having blood agonized faces leaking "blood" is a clue that they're to trees what wights are to humans (the town of Whitetree could be a play on wight tree). By the time we see the Erdtree, it's definitely not doing so well either being crooked and all.
Personally I think the erdtree is the ultimate form of the jar saints. We see minor Erdtrees fertilized by the warrior jars, but the base game warrior jars use dead bodies instead of live ones and don't have shamans in them. It really makes me wonder what the Haligtree's role in the story is since it's the closest we see to recreating the erdtree
Here's my thoughts
Babies and buds are also seen as parasitic. It becomes the new embodiment of the memories like our children become the new embodiment of our genetic memories. We pass our teachings and stories to our children. As anyone who has gone through labor can tell you it is a sacrifice. That is why magic is inherent into women. We have a womb, a crucible of life. Men sacrifice their flesh and blood in a different way. They hang from the Tree of Life like buds. Women are reborn as mothers through labor. To give birth is also said to dar la luz. To bring from the hidden and unformed place to the light. By hanging in the Tree you are giving birth to yourself. You gestate and birth yourself. It requires blood and pain.
We are each exploring creation and the influences and powers of and how we relate to them.
It gets wilder if you think about how all life is interconnected and has a sort of awareness. We are trying to understand who we are who we were and who we might be. Conflict is also part of the gestation of life. We debate the meaning sometimes with our minds however if feelings are strong sometimes with violence.
I have hope for humanity.
Thank y'all the musings here are exquisite!
I love how different interesting creators like you make the lore of Elden ring so rich ! Thanks
thank you for watching!!
"We are memories"... But who's memories are we? And why? And why are there so many "memories" represented in physical form throughout the Lands Between? Who's memories are we inhabiting and interacting with?
And what about the Scadutree remembrances? Who do those memories belong to?
What about the Miquella vs. Radahn fight? We're just fighting a memory of something that already happened?
1. So I think that we are memories of the Erdtree, or perhaps the World Soul. Enia tells us that the remembrances of demigods/champions are hewn into the Erdtree "upon their end", so it may be that those hewn into the Erdtree lived real lives before being reborn. Which is the cutscene we see at the very beginning of the game when grace returns to us and we arise from within the tree. So I wouldn't say that we're anyone's memories specifically, more like memories exist as part of the fabric of this world.
2. The Scadutree remembrances belong to the Scadutree, hewn the same way as the Erdtree. But someone else pointed out that it seems like the Scadutree/Shadow Realm seem to be a realm of "memory" (or whatever) that has been separated/excised from the Erdtree. So the memories there are separated from the Lands Between.
3. Idk about Miquella/Radahn. I think I should have clarified more in this video that the "memory" stuff is more complex than a scenario where everything already happened. I promise to do so in a future video when I bring this stuff up again. I think its more the "Memory of First Grace" item is the memory of us, the Tarnished, our personality and such, that was hewn into the Erdtree. Some important part of who we are. Maybe our will, or our dreams, or whatever. But we still amass new memories throughout the game. The small-r runes are memories, experience, that we collect as we go along. Think of the memory stuff as different permutations of the different ways things could play out. That's as far as I've gotten with that. I am not an expert on Radahn/Miquella stuff (yet) so I won't speculate on that.
"All vessels are destined to one day break"
Still continues to be my favorite Elden Ring quote.
👀 👀 👀
well. i love that.
Marika loves you
And I love her booty, ehm 'beauty'. 😁
awwwww I love her too
I would be happy if this really replaced those annoying "Jesus loves you" comments lmao
@@Buzk_4 doing Marika's work as always
Great video! There is an interpretation of the game that whole world is inside Marika’s mind and for Erdtree to be the memory tree - it just makes sense!
Oh my gosh loved Westworld!! I still think RD2 is the closest we’ll have ever gotten to it
I haven't played RD or RD2 yet 😭 which is my own fault because I took a break from gaming for a bit. But I LOVE WESTWORLD!!!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing girl… I think you would LOVE RDR2. It’s the prequel to the first and if you loved WW I think it’ll be right up your alley. The single most immersive gaming experience I’ve ever had. And Arthur Morgan is 🤌
Thanks for putting it so eloquently together
I am glad that came across. Thank you for watching
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing and ur voice is very comfortable. Audiobook quality!
This fits into the idea of Great Runes pretty well.
God's memory is the reality in Elden Ring. Individuals who see the world differently can forge the essence of their vision into a Great Rune. And this specific vision becomes a reality when we share it with God by adding the Great Rune to the Ring. (in times of Placidusax, the world must have been really complex)
Here's another interpretation, that draws a parallel not with simulation but with the real world.
The Erdtree, as a collection of reality-shaping memories, can be interpreted as society / civilization as a whole.
A God is a personification of the civilization, or its "will".
The Ring is a dominant teaching, or a mental framework provided by God. By changing it, we change the way people view the reality and interact with it. This approach does not require a simulation to explain this effect.
This interpretation pops up in different games (like "Slay the Princess") or animation ("Over the Garden Wall")
I really like what you said about how an individual who sees the world differently can forge the essence of their vision into a Great Rune, which can then become part of reality when joined with the Elden Ring, this metaphysical object that exists in God's memory. This thing inside of the Erdtree.
You are basically getting at what I will be getting at with (I think) the next video, or at least, one of them. Especially with the "Erdtree is a collection of reality-shaping memories". I am thinking that these all live in a metaphysical dimension that is the collective "memory of the world". This is also where the Elden Ring exists. I have been thinking that the Elden Ring's shape is dependent on the collective memories of all beings in the world, and its shape changes as the beliefs/memories of the populace are hewn into the Erdtree/pool into the collective memory. So for example, in order for Marika to remove Destined Death, she had to conquer the world and spread the Erdtree religion so that everyone would "believe"/"remember" that Death doesn't exist. She was able to make them believe this by using grace to grant life to those who had died.
But your Great Rune idea has given me pause. I think that the notion that the Elden Ring's shape changes within this metaphysical reality is still legit, but it seems like changing it is not something that can happen... naturally? Like with the conquest idea. By your idea, it is dependent on a person with a strong enough vision, and then physically changing the Rune shape by adding it to Marika. Like we have to interact with Marika at the very end. Us needing to interact with Marika to change the ring may make extra sense when you look at her hanging upon the cross, or "crux", as the crux being the crossing point between the metaphysical dimension and the physical one. Marika is who joins the two of them.
The "God as a personification of the civilization it its 'will'" is genius and I love it.
"The Ring is a dominant teaching, or a mental framework provided by God. By changing it, we change the way people view the reality and interact with it."
So its just a single strong-willed individual with a vision who can do this. That does make sense. My question then becomes, what is the mechanism for forging the Great Rune? Or rather, the Mending Rune, I suppose. Goldmask, Fia, the Dung Eater, all have their newly forged Runes.
Great comment. You rock.
@ Thank you for the great content.
It seems, a Mending Rune is a memory/soul of an individual who envisioned a new order. And they turn to Great Runes after we mend the Elden Ring.
A Lord chooses a specific vision they wish to enforce. Such a vision comes from an obsessed and somewhat brilliant individual who creates it at the expense of their lives. (I don’t understand Goldmask’s quest enough to figure out how this works)
But I don’t see what choices are left for a God. Are there any? An Empyrean divests themselves of everything and dies to be reborn as a God… I wonder how much of their personality survives.
If the parallel with Jesus stands, it can’t be much left from a person.
@@your_neko Well Goldmask believes that there is some willpower left for a god. The "fly in the ointment" is the free will/fickle nature of the gods I believe is what he alludes to. Maybe the demigods are the ones who have more of the free will. But this goes against Smoughtown's "kami"/forces of nature idea for the gods. But Goldmask is just a person still, and can make mistakes/wrong conclusions, even though he is very smart clearly. We know that Marika did have some semblance of will when she decided to search the depths of the golden order. And perhaps also shatter the Ring.
By the 3ER/Dolores parallel, it does seem that the individuals still also retain their own memory in addition to everyone else they have inside of them. Bran still has his memories and interacts with some characters in a personal capacity, though he seems much less human. Dolores forgets but then eventually remembers her memories and then she is able to act in the same manner. Miquella/Marika only had her one memory left, but maybe it is possible for each of them to recollect those memories (this works quite nicely for Melina being akin to Marika and recollecting her memories). So maybe in order to become a god, one must lose their memories, but that doesn't mean they have to STAY lost.
But back to the Mending Rune - I think you are correct that it is forged at the expense of their lives. Which is super curious as to what the mechanism is there. And I love what you said about the Mending Runes turning to Great Runes once the Elden Ring is mended. It makes me wonder if the other Great Runes were created in the same manner. Very interesting stuff.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing It feels right but it also has to be more complicated. Like, Radagon managed to get his thorns into the Elden Ring and survived (sort of, it’s hard to say he/Marika are well and alive when we meet them)
I thought that Marika sacrificed her humanity in an attempt to heal what was left of her people. So I basically discard all moral objections to her decisions because she’s more of an embodied ideal than a normal person. And whatever regained a personhood later, it was not exactly Marika. If the previous guesses were correct, that was not a part of a God, and it has to be seen as a separate entity. That’s who I suppose was the Gloam-Eyed Queen.
Another great video! Glad to see you’re still making content.
yes absolutely! i went on a writing/lore spree the past few months and now am turning to just making videos. I hope to be able to churn out quite a few over the next month or two, ASAP. because i kept you guys waiting for so long haha
Thank you for making such amazing videos. I've never watched Got or westworld but was still able to follow and understand your connections due to how well you explain them. Really like that you bring a different perspective to the lore that I'd never notice myself. Mainly commenting to say thanks and hopefully boost your video and channels rating with the algorithm as more people would enjoy watching them in my opinion.
Your contribution to the algorithmic boost is noted and appreciated 😁
I am really glad that the WW/GOT trains of thought were easy to follow even for someone who hasn't watched those shows. I tried to take that into account and it seems I may have succeeded.
Ohhhhhh, and Melina doesn't really know/remember what purpose she serves, because she's already been _burned_ away. Her memories are gone along with her body.
Yeah so it's possible that as a demigod she always kinda existed as a memory of sorts. There is clearly some part of her that survives, maybe a "Memory of First Grace" deal, but the rest of her memories seem to be erased.
Once again, a really incredibly compelling video, whose research and connections-made have blown me away!
Thanks for the lovely comment. I hope to keep it up!!
Your work is so inspiring. I have watched each of your videos so many times. I can only imagine the work that goes into each one, but they are soooo worth it to me!
Thank you so much for the support and your extra views haha xD
I think I am getting the hang of making the vids and at a decent quality and faster. Honestly this one seemed like it was coming together way faster but then I realized there were a bunch of little audio issues and I spent two weekends trying to fix them. I will not make the same mistake again haha
Marika is basically Ymir from Attack on Titan
yes
Or father from Fullmetal Alchemist. (In a way)
You are my new favourite Souls UA-camr! Please continue with what you do, you draw links between different topics (especially mythology) like no one else ;)
Thank you so much, this means a lot and inspires me to keep going
Top notch video! I was impressed with how you threaded in the GoT and Westworld references. I'm really looking forward to your future videos!!!
Maaaaan I did not know how the GOT and especially the WW stuff was gonna go over but people have been receptive and positive so I think it went okay!
I'm really looking forward to my future videos as well 😅
Amazing video! Loved the Game of Thrones and Westworld references!
Marika’s shattering of the Elden Ring being a possible self sacrifice to gain knowledge/memories and power is really thought provoking and I’m going to be stewing about it for awhile lol.
But really great video, you are one of my inspirations for my channel!
Thank you so much! If you haven't already, there are links in the description under RESOURCES to high quality icon art + text lore dumps which I use all the time to speed up theory crafting. Good luck with your channel!
@ thanks that is helpful I’ll check them out!
Wow this video is fantastic! Just really awesome, seriously, well done!!
Thank you so much!! This theory has a very special place in my heart as I very much love Westworld and GOT and noticed the parallels many years ago and I am honored I finally got to share it with the world.
This video and observations are the best Elden Ring content I've seen so far. Yes, including the king or lore videos, who is also up there. Just wow -- loved the whole approach and explanation.
Thank you so much. I am aiming to produce exactly what you described. Now I just have to figure out how to do it faster while keeping the same quality level.
The part about pain and consciousness struck a nerve. I'm not someone who ever wanted to touch a souls-like game, but at the time Elden Ring was released, it was my pain that it spoke to and my tarnished soul it gave light to.
Only feedback I have that I feel is worth noting is the use of AI images. They make the video feel cheap and I can't help but feel a simple image search, especially for high quality antique paintings that are fair-use and free should have been used instead of A.I. generated images.
Such beautiful connections made here. I loved it and it even made me cry. Keep up the amazing work.
Figuring out how to deal with my pain is what led me to get so deep into lore in the first place, and is a major motivating factor why I make these videos. Because I suffered, and to handle that I needed to learn things, and if I can share what I learned with people which might help them through their suffering, well, that is a damn good reason to do so. There is so much beauty in these games. Not even just the lore, but what they show us we are capable of. We must learn to become better in order to defeat these really hard bosses. We must overcome the pain of losing again and again until we WIN.
I am honored that you felt emotional while watching the video. I was emotional while making it. Thank you.
I am more than happy to not use AI generated images. I removed a few of them but kept in others that I really liked, but I can minimize that even further.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing geez, now I'm really crying. Thank you for sharing some of your story. That is exactly how I feel about pushing forward through so much failure. Thank you for holding up your light.
Elden Ring is truly beautiful on so many levels. It has been a long-time dream of mine to contribute to environmental art in video games and I am far along the road to seeing those dreams through.
What a joy to see your work and hear your story.
@@OX_Tools This UA-cam channel is my dream. It took me a long time to achieve it and still am working on it obviously lol. I almost felt like it was too late and I released my first video a day before the DLC came out.
Good luck with achieving your dream. Keep going, you can and will do it!
@@OX_Tools I'm screencapping this comment. I was as touched as you were by this game, and continue being touched by the loretuber community's passion.
Elden Ring came out at a pivotal moment in my life, I was starting my life over. Complete career change, breakup, cutting off family, starting therapy. Idk why but Elden Ring felt like a manageable mini-hell where I could test my character and enjoy repeated defeat in a virtual way. It kinda gave me the opportunity to feel things I needed to feel - rage, pain, exultation - in private, before I let myself out in the harsh world we live in and face the bigger challenges.
You're definitely not alone!
So many great observations and comparisons here that I hadn't heard before. It's so great to still be learning new things about Elden Ring even after all this time. Great video!!!
This is going to need at least half a dozen watches to take it all in though, my head hurts.
I think there's still SO much to learn about Elden Ring. The lore patterns are buried SO deep in this game that I think we are just scratching the surface of the biggest mysteries. There is plenty of magic & metaphysics yet to come but then we have the architecture to get to which is a LOT. All in due time!
Make sure to rest your mind. I would know, my head hurts from coming up with this stuff lol
The runes being memories and memories being an important part of our tarnished's very being also provides an in lore explanation for leveling up. We are taking the runes/memories of our enemies and "hewing" them into ourselves, making us stronger. The more memories you are made of, the harder it is for you to be completely forgotten, and thus the harder it is for you to truly die.
Awesome video, it really got me thinking and left me feeling really inspired!
Yeah this is making me think that the memory/hewn/known stuff is related to being "renowned". I think that the spirit ashes that are named (like Lhutel) vs. those without names (Fanged Imp Spirit Ashes or Three Wolves or whatever) determines whether they can be leveled up with Grave Gloveworts vs. Ghost Gloveworts. The difference is "renown", that is, if their name is remembered or not. Those with more power are more likely to be renowned and therefore have more runes. Something like that. There's a LOT of fun one can have with this idea.
I'm so glad you enjoyed!! Thanks for watching
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing phenomenal idea!
I knew this was going to be good, because let's face it, you're awesome. But I was not prepared for just how flipping cool this was going get. The connections and themes are brilliant.
YOU'RE awesome. Thank you for appreciating the themes! I've had the 3ER-Westworld theory in my brain for years and I'm so happy I finally got to share it with the world.
Great job. It’s wonderful to see a new thoughtful creator. Congrats
Thank you so much!! Happy to be here :)
26:17 “...We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open...Fear the old blood."
A lot of Bloodborne vibes from that segment! Miyazaki and GRRM really shares some cool inspirations.
This in turn is greatly parallelled to insight in Bloodborne and how Willem wants the hunters to avoid it. And as we saw there, we become beasts or new infant great one. St. Trina tells us how godhood is enslavement, you must cast of yourself to become one. To carry the world you become the memory of it, and lose yourself.
Bur the fallen leaves tell only the story of the memory of the Elden lord. The lord's view of the world and the current vessel: queen Marika.
Ranni wants to take these memories away for life to create a new way through suffering and hardship. And frenzy wants to burn it all away to end suffering as a whole.
I don't think I had heard the "frenzy wants to burn it all away to end suffering" but that makes so much sense.
yeah i think ranni wants free will/freedom, which i love. freedom is hard but its also, well, free. and we humans love to be free
I think you nailed the whole "fear the old blood" stuff. If memories are indeed tied to blood then if you come into contact with blood like that then you may be subject to the memories of the old ones and be influenced by them.
i'll be honest, i made a mistake and never played bloodborne. i had taken a video game break for a few years when i got real obsessed with ASOIAF and I KNOW that hurt my theory skills for this game.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing that's completely fine, can't play them all. There are a lot of lore fanatics that can help with blank spots in theory crafting for you, if you just throw the questions out there. And if you get motivated to play it, you have a great game to watch forward to. Hopefully you'll like it!
Thanks for a great video
My heart goes out to all Souls + ASoiAF cross over fans out there ❤
This game was MADE for US!!!!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Tfw you step out of your damp crypt and are greeted with a colossal golden Weirwood
your videos are among the best i have seen for ER content and its meanings even more so than some of the most popular creators. hope to keep enjoying this very high quality content. you'll blow up soon im sure of it.
I hope to keep producing high quality content! I think I've got enough to keep it going for a while. The challenge will be if I can produce it on a fast enough timeline while maintaining the quality. But that is for me to worry about :)
I do already have the next few scripts written and the holidays tend to allow for more free time, so I am optimistic.
Thank you for the support, it means a lot!
Congrats on the Vaati shout-out! You deserve it
Thanks so much!! A huge honor, truly
Memories are very good, but sometimes they are bad. Like, if you are a Hornsent and you remember what Messmer did to your people... 😅
someone else pointed out that the reason why Miquella may have mixed his blood with Mohg's is because he wanted to get access to the memories of the hornsent culture/shadow realm that Mohg would have access to as an Omen. which i totally believe in and find fascinating. Which does support the notion that there is a metaphysical realm of memory that one can access, and the reason the Shadow Realm has been sealed away is because it was excised from memory when the Erdtree/Scadutree were split.
Excellent work. I got a bit skeptical at times as some of the connections were stretched, but that makes it more fun. Well done!
This was a bit of a stretch of a video! I tried to weave together many different things and we covered a LOT of ground. I hope to bolster the connections with future videos!
@NamelessSingerEldenRing that's a great way to put it... you had to bolster them. But just know it was very well structured, presented, and, as someone who is familiar with all the universes you compared, and a fan of most of them, it was a fun experience. I've watched it twice and will watch it more. Please continue with this intelligent and fun content.
I really like your theory and analysis, and mythological parallels, this is very interesting
First things first - thank you for making these, you are my favorite ER youtuber alongside with the Tarnished Archaeologist. To me it seems that you are definitely onto something here, but as of now the theory seems to be a bit undercooked and involving a lot of conjectures in comparison to your other videos (granted it might be the only way to talk about metaphysics). May be that's just because it is not yet complete - you said somewhere in the comments that 2-3 videos on the topic are in the works, can't wait to see these! Still, what, in my opinion, distinguishes a great theory from a good one is willingness to not only find supporting evidence, but also to engage with counterpoints. One particular example from the top of my head is "Melina is hewn into Erdtree hence she is burning together with the Erdtree". If that was the case, would't she also burn when we MEGABURN the Erdtree with the Flame of Frenzy?
Yeah one of the reasons why this video took so long is because metaphysics is WAY harder to talk about than archaeology. But in order to talk about the archaeology and history I really want to understand the metaphysics/magic more first so that we can discuss how those ideas would have influenced the civilizations and their leaders who lived in this world and understood them. Which part in particular is undercooked? I will try to focus more on that for future videos. We'll touch upon the pooling into the Erdtree and anima mundi/axis mundi more in the next video I believe, and then the idea of grace being memory will be touched upon in more detail in the video after that.
Also agree on the counterpoint stuff, but I'm ngl the counterpoint stuff in regards to metaphysics becomes so tricky because, in a way, there are SO many counterpoints. Like there are different colored remembrances and then what about spirit energy and is that memory and how does that differ from the soul... I think I should have been more skeptical in my language during parts of the video, which I did a good job with for the first two videos. Weirdly its easier for me to be skeptical about architecture but for some reason I didn't use that same voice about metaphysics??? that seems backwards
I straight up didn't think about the Flame of Frenzy-Melina thing when crafting this theory, that is a great counterpoint and I'll put it under corrections. Then again it seems to be a different part of Melina who awakes when we awake the FoF so idk about that either. I will be totally honest with you that I plan to mainly stay away from doing character theories until I have more vids out establishing the world, magic, metaphysics, and history. once I understand the world i'll feel more comfortable writing about the characters.
Appreciate the feedback very much
oh now that i'm thinking about it, the thing for melina may be that she isn't purely hewn into the Erdtree/Hold, just that a part of her is. She seems to be more closely linked to the sites of grace and tied to them. and its perhaps only when we return to the Erdtree that the sites of grace are linked back up? there is something unique about the memory in teh sites of grace vs. the Erdtree but idk what yet
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Wow, thank you for answering! Not everyday I get the chance to talk to a creator of your caliber)
Yeah, metaphysics of Elden Ring are indeed VERY, VERY hard to talk about and huge respect to you for not shying away from that. As for "undercooked" I think it was an unfortunate word choice (I am not a native speaker). Better way to phrase it (and elaborate) would be to say that "this word sounds kinda like this word" and "there are parallels with other works of media tangentially related to the creators of Elden Ring" make for shaky foundations of any theory. But if we accept them (and we do have to postulate something if we are going to analyze metaphysics) than you've absolutely cooked! And anyways, I am all in for this more mythological/cultural studies approach over the "akchually it's all about Jung like every second Japanese game out there"
Found you through the recent video Vaati halfway ripped off from you, I’m glad he mentioned your channel…
Keep up the amazing work!
Thank you so much!!! I'll keep chugging along
Classic Vaati…
Like a stand-up comedian who steals jokes but at the end says, "I stole those jokes, by the way." 😂
Vaati has always been a lore aggregator, bringing the interesting work less visible creators make. I love the guy but he doesn't have a lot of original ideas anymore
Honestly I think his skill as a writer, editor, and voice actor are value adds and he's usually pretty good about crediting. PLUS he's a huge small artist supporter. It's a complex ecosystem but one I think is better for his presence, even if his role has shifted
@@arglebargle42 I'm a recent follower of Vaati, probably a couple months after the release of ER. I've never seen his channel as a lore channel, but more as an artistic, cinematic retelling of well known side stories in the game...
Does a fantastic job at that, but it hasn't taken long for him to run out of good ideas. Idk, maybe I'm more of a deep lore nerd, it's not for me anymore. And his last drop was a bit frustrating, as I felt he was kind of reversing the roles with the smaller channels, rehashing NamelessSinger and Tarnished Archeologist content, with a disclaimer every two minutes about how speculative all of it is. I feel he's venturing on uneasy grounds, and forcing himself to do so since, I feel, loretubers and tinfoil hat theorists are on the rise.
I don't know Westworld, but I'm a huge ASOIAF fan. This was a fantastic presentation of the metaphysical elements shared between them.
Just another example that brings me joy to see how Elden Ring is exactly what should have happened when you bring together the minds behind Dark Souls and ASOIAF.
Truly an extraordinary myth and a remarkable execution of its interactive medium.
I dove deep into ASOIAF lore for a number of years and I used to be obsessed with Dark Souls lore. It is insane to me just how beautifully interwoven the lore is from both properties. Miyazaki really is a huge GRRM fan and he put his heart soul and everything into the lore for this game. It's truly incredible and I love how many layers there are. The lore is a masterpiece.
Good video as always
I always viewed grace as the "hallelujah" type of necromancy as opposed to the stinky Ghostflame necromancy :D I love this so much! This is cannon now! Runes/Grace is memories!
I like it! Ghostflame necromancy seems to be missing something important. Maybe memory/soul, or maybe willpower? The toughest part of doing this metaphysics stuff is that the nature of the soul/self is inherently fuzzy and not agreed upon by humanity as a whole. but it sure does seem like this game and the devs had a guiding light/structure of how everything fit together. and I do believe runes/grace == memories is part of that!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing I think you are absolutely onto something here about 'willpower' and I think that might be the essence of gold, I mean more complex because it represents also power, the right to rule, authority, value and rank but they all tie into the nietzschean 'will to power' concept. Also, apologies for spamming you but there is SO MUCH good stuff in the comments I can't help myself
Maybe it could be referred to as 'soul alchemy' as we sift apart the lore supported portions. Entities burned in ghostflame could still produce something like Spirit Ashes for their priests (in the deathbird wings) so it didn't fully consume everything, but maybe Gold didn't even exist in the world (I have a hypothesis that the deathbirds and Rauh predate the arrival of the golden star)
We have the runes, which are strength, will and memory, Sword of Milos and Blasphemous Blade split off the life and magic (intelligence)
HOLD ON I JUST HAD A REVELATION! What if, the times when we kill creatures and they fade into nothingness with a grey mist, THAT GREY MIST is the primal form of the Immortal Essence! It would fit with the Souls 'before everything grey fog' theme, and looks a lot like what forms around spirit summons
But what could it represent if absent of vitality, thought, and memory. Something a lot closer to DS's Ancient Dragons, a mineral beast without everything we consider living, yet alive. Sorry I'm rambling, please I know you are probably super busy so you don't have to reply it's just I've found no other place with people who saw the same thing I did in the Soul Currency(alchemy?), and you're probably going to cover so much of this and more in your future videos. SO EXCITE!
I love your work. Today while i was on Reddit i just thought when u will upload again and was happy when i saw this video. For me youre the best ER lore youtuber rightnow.
I heard you and I complied!
Thanks for the compliment. I really want to be the best, its sort of a dream of mine, and you saying that just made part of my dream come true so thank you! I intend to keep putting out high quality content and I think you'll like what I have in store :)
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Thank you for your kind replie ❤
Linking Westworld to Elden Ring is not something that I expected but here WE here. Makes me even sadder for the show, but maybe by the end of this video I can make peace with that.
Elden Ring is actually season 5 lol
I do have hope for you. Lisa Joy said that we would get to know what they had planned for Season 5 no matter what. Even if she just releases her notes on Reddit. But we may yet get another studio to pick it up for the last season, or maybe a book or comic. So have hope!
It’s all THE BRAIN❤
Well done, beautiful video and content!
You would know!! I have heard speak of your investigations into the Jungian cosmology interpretation (at least I think that was you, someone else phrased it that way). If you have a video(s) recommendation I should watch I will absolutely do so!
@ I don’t have one video that ties everything together…. Yet:), but all of my lore videos are framed within psychology.
One of my favorite videos doesn’t have many views but I think it’s a compelling idea: “Fear the Night”. It centers around the idea of Marika’s psyche being the landscape of the LB and the events that happen at night occur while Marika is dreaming/ nightmare. Things that haunt her.
Interesting. I like this theory. The land of shadow being the death realm makes more sense now too. It isn’t about an actual death, it’s about being out of memory and forgotten! No longer connected to the Erdtree.
OOOOH I love this. I hadn't made this connection yet, but I think you are totally right. Great comment.
Someone else said that Miquella mixing his blood with Mohg is what could have allowed him to access the memories of the hornsent. So basically Mohg had the memories of the Shadow Realm in his blood and Miquella used that to access it. I am not 100% clear on how it all works, but I think I can think it through. There's evidence that the holes in the landscape of the Omens mind may be because they are caught between two dimensions. So Mohg may indeed be caught between the two.
Great video ^^ I really enjoyed the metaphysical topic. I wasnt aware of Westworld, but I liked the reference to a quantum computer because I do agree that the themes of Superimposition and Interconnectivity present in quantum physics might be useful concept to understand the human psyche better. I believe that Marika becoming a vessel for grace (and the overall idea of MOJ3D) is an allegory of the process of evolution of the human condition. From "objects" of the Universe, to self conscious beings who act like agents in universe, but on whom the Universe also acts retroactively. Without going further, I find all this deeply fascinating and will be eagerly waiting for more videos :D
My Anthropology Professor is teaching my class about how from an anthropological lense God is a ficticious person, which represents the knowledge of long dead people. In this lense we are looking at religious stories as parables that represent anthropological truths. For example, we are viewing the garden of Eden as a metaphor as the birth of society and the evolution of man to have the ability to displace memory. That means that unlike other animals, we can recall the knowledge of people long dead as it was passed down from generation to generation. The casting off from the garden in this lense refers to how humanity acquired this ability and being separated from the other animals in this way. This video just reminded me of this lense of understanding mythology, and I wanted to share.
I love it. So basically God is memory? The memory of long dead peoples, and that memory is maintained in the stories we tell each other. Someone else made a similar comment about how God is a mental construct that is like the "will" of a civilization/society. "will" could be part of it but there's also memory. Which kinda just gets at the notion that humanity as a whole is like one giant brain.
Ayyeeeee, she back
yeah sorry for the delay. my deep dive/lore writing spree took longer than I expected because there were some lore mysteries that I needed to untangle before i could continue making videos in earnest. i'm hoping to get out a few of these vids in short succession. but i also thought i could do that back in september so we'll see when i can get the next one out.
Yeah i wasn't complaining about the wait time, I've tried piecing together elden ring lore by myself once so ik how long it can take to make sense of the story so i don't really have any complaints about that@NamelessSingerEldenRing
I hope you know you deserve all the support to keep making these high-effort, entertaining, informative, and overall mind-provoking videos that I feel like tap into the inner essence of our humanity and culture as a species. Although this may seem like a simple video about Elden Ring, these ideas that tie to humanities culture with primal ideas and our need to express them is something that should be constantly promoted.
Thank you for the kind words. You see what I see. There is a real, beautiful truth woven throughout all these stories that is about US. I am compelled to express them because I am compelled to know myself.
I think you're really gonna like some of the stuff I have planned in the next few videos :)
Wow 7 mins in…haven’t heard lore like this. So fitting !! Sub
yeah i am hoping to establish some new definitions/interpretations of things and then build on them in future videos so that we can get to the deepest layers of lore.
thanks for the sub!
I was freakin DEVASTATED when they cancelled west world. it was shaping up to be such an epic finale season :(
Me too. Though i did like how it ended with the loop idea, though that by nature is not super satisfying. But Lisa Joy said we WOULD get to know eventually what was supposed to happen in S5, even if it means just her releasing her notes to us in some form. We may get a season reboot, or maybe a book, or a comic. But we'll know, one day.
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing wow well that's something to hang onto! :) I certainly hope there's something more from that universe. I just thought of this after watching your whole video, the way season 4 was "aiming" seems like, season 5 would have been a new Age (to reference the ranni/miquella end goal). So so cool that you made all those connections, I never would have thought of any of this and it endears the show to me so much more knowing that some of my favorite media has those connections going on. What a gift! Thank you, you're just brilliant
P.S. we need to take a moment to appreciate the fact that your whole comments section is nearly as interesting as the video itself... Kudos times a bajillion
babyyyy wake up, nameless singer just dropped a video 🔥🔥🔥
😎
Thank you for another amazing, in-depth, well written and wonderful sounding lore video. Simply CANNOT get enough of this kind of quality content
I have been spending a LOT of time thinking about the spirit magics of Rauh, and how Marika had all those tablets from the Specimen Storehouse in her bedchamber. I think she had that knowledge brought to her to 'refine their faith' as she mentioned, understanding the soul currency exchange and 1) Creating the Erd Tree making use of the Great Tree roots, 2) Creating Melina from the memory of the Gloam Eyed Queen, 3) Learning how to modify the Elden Ring
All of these are connected to the 'Immortal Essence' that Roderika mentions, which I think are the original basis for the power of runes.
I don't think Immortal Essence was always golden, and that before Metyr crashed and created the Crucible, it was likely blue or blue grey like spirit ashes but still acted as runes do now, flowing through the Great Tree and being rained down as blessings and recycled again
Really love your 'memory' angle on this and it fits in perfectly with my overall Souls perspective: 'Overcome suffering through sincere struggle, the memory of fighting tactics are your true strength, that which you gain by facing the enemy in the right mindset and learning their ways'
One thing I'd like to argue: I don't think Marika is the 'source' of grace, but rather Immortal Essence existed before the Crucible, and was transformed with gold(and originally red) into the tool that Marika and whatever she took it from would use to maintain ultimate sovereignty. I would agree she is this era's sole controller of Grace and that comes from 'ownership' of the Elden Ring
Can't wait for your next work Singer, everything you post sets off fireworks in my brain and I didn't think that was even still possible after 3 years of content, thank you so much for your wonderful work!
"I don't think Immortal Essence was always golden"
I think you are right about this, and I think I should have clarified this somewhere more in the video. Because essence and remembrances are shown to be many different colors, which means that memories can be many different colors, not just golden. and grace is described as the "grace of gold", so it may be that the "gold" aspect of grace implies something unique about gold that may differentiate between "runes" and "grace". It may be that runes just are the immortal essence aka spirit. this is a high level thing i am not sure about yet.
"Really love your 'memory' angle on this and it fits in perfectly with my overall Souls perspective: 'Overcome suffering through sincere struggle, the memory of fighting tactics are your true strength, that which you gain by facing the enemy in the right mindset and learning their ways'"
Yeah 100% agree on this and i think this is reflected elsewhere via the "suffering" angle
"One thing I'd like to argue: I don't think Marika is the 'source' of grace"
Yes I realized when I was showing this vid to my friend that I made a mistake phrasing it this way. She isn't the source, just the "vessel". Or 'controller' as you said.
"Can't wait for your next work Singer, everything you post sets off fireworks in my brain and I didn't think that was even still possible after 3 years of content, thank you so much for your wonderful work!"
o7 I WILL GET STARTED ON THE NEXT VID RIGHT AWAY!
after i sleep lol
Thank YOU for the support and thoughtful comments!
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Actually you made the 'Marika as Vessel' layout pretty thoroughly towards the end (lol I was taking notes while listening, bad habit of mine I guess)
i take it back. you just had a weird cadence in the start
many amazing shots of the game in here, gg
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing Artwork of a thousand artists
Due to the theory that rune's are memory or _"a state of being"_ and people figuring out that the rune's we drop, kinda resemble a very small erdtree... 🌴
... I always thought that the immortality might be genuine and yet fake. Could Marika achieve true immortality for her subjects? What if... you're memory & state of being was simply "copied" and later on inserted into a new vessel?
One could argue that is really you... but at the same time it is another, new you that is completely detached of the original vessel in which _"you"_ resided. Like in Nier:Automata for example where the Androids can upload _"themself"_ into a new body-model that will literally get constructed and shipped out so to say, to become a new version of that person, as if that person _"survived"_ and has *not* died on some former last mission, even though this is what has happened most probably.
Kinda creepy to think about that all those people are real and yet at the same time fake.
And in reality people think they are still themself but they are more like Doppelgangers or Clones who do not know that they are just getting shipped out with memorys of a being that they were... kinda forced to become.
I think a some good evidence supporting this is the whole larval tear rebirth stuff. Where the "soul" or "memory" is uploaded into a new "body" that is the larval tear. But I am not 100% on how that mechanistically works yet. Its basically what Sellen is doing, right? Same soul, different body. Do we know that the original Sellen hasn't died already and what we're getting are just copies? It seems like the soul imbued into the glintstone is the same and has a continuity of memory so it does seem like maybe some form of true immortality is possible.
My bet as to the flaw (or maybe design) of marika's immortality is that she wants us to forget aka "die" and then start the cycle over. Basically playing the game another time through with a different build in New Game +. I think this is the "will of Queen Marika" that Gideon may have seen, which he would have hated because I would guess he doesn't want to forget everything that he's learned and what he's sacrificed to gain his knowledge. He may have loved Nepheli deep down, but used her in pursuit of his goals. He was a total asshole in pursuit of knowledge and if he did all of that just to forget... well I would be pretty upset too. That doesn't explain why he is so against a Tarnished becoming Elden Lord though.
As for if the copy is really the same person, Westworld would ask "If you can't tell, does it matter?"
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing To me such questions matter only in a sense of loss.
Technically it doesn't matter.
... for the _"new version"._ But imagine you have died and lets say there is an afterlife.
So you are now a soul in the afterlife, or "isekai", a next world, whatever. 😉
If you lived in the expectation to be revived by Marika's design, you are confused.
If you are still in a sort of very spiritual afterlife from which you can observe all but not interact with anything anymore and you see *another you* run around, fully believing it is *YOU* ... isn't that f°°ked up? 🤪
Or you know they are really just perfect copies, but still copies.
Can you feel for example a loved one dies and gets _"revived",_ as an inside knower, that they are the same person?
In a messed up sense they are of course but at the same time, the original person you loved is gone.
What will that do to the human condition and psyche?
To that of an inside-knowledge knower at the very least?
Is it infantile to cling to the _"originals"_ then or does it make us shallow and superficial to even love the "copies" as if they have always been the original?
Wierd stuff, such concepts.
I feel like crazyness is going to claw at my mind just for thinking about it at all.
@@LawfulBased I like to think about how even if I am a copy, I am still real because I have thoughts and feelings. And I can't tell if my free will is an illusion or not so I guess I can choose to just HAVE it. And so I can just extrapolate that truth to anyone else who could also be a copy. Maybe I could make 100 of myself. Hmmmm. Would that give me an existential crisis? My first thought is "wow, I could get so many videos done so quickly." Shadow clone jutsu style. And if I had a copy of my deceased relative, hm, well, I would be happy that I still get to know them.
I'm also a hardcore optimist though, so I will always be biased towards the optimistic option, even sometimes in the face of better evidence for the pessimistic perspective (re: every take that says we don't have free will lol).
I have been through the craziness and back again. The joys of philosophy!! Always walking on the blade edge of insanity
This theory explains so many things that I forgot (hehe) that I didn't understand yet.
Happy to hear it! Yeah I realized I needed to go and learn a lot about grace before making this video. Which just stressed me out because grace is everywhere. But when I realized that the Golden Runes are called "grace" then it made sense
Holy crap! Wait....if the Tarnished is just a memory, then it also explains why bosses don't remember us when we re-visit them after "dying".
The memory fades into dust! The first encounter is the only real one, and everything after that is just a memory being revisited! Which is why the opening cutscene isn't replayed!!!!
It explains how despite different origins, our characters have perfect knowledge of how to operate any spell, and use any weapon, or wear any armor. Because our Tarnished are the embodiment of all the different runes and souls and memories in the erdtree via grace!!!!
Mind. Blown! It explains SO much!!!
yooooooo I hadn't totally thought of it this way, but I am down! Tbh I haven't fully explored all the implications of this theory,
Like to me it is very important that we still have a semblance of free will. Like even though we may be memories, we're more like computer memory. Like we may be the same processes but are running in different ways, and we can make different choices. It's not like the fact that we are memories means that everything is determined, you know? But I think that is what you are getting at with the "the first scene only plays once." That may be the memory of first grace, when we were first given life.
And Enia tells us that Remembrances are hewn into the Erdtree "upon their end" referring to the demigods/champions. So it may only be when we die are we hewn into the Erdtree to be "remembered", which allows for free will.
I plan to discuss the free will aspect more in a future video and just wanted to keep this one purely about memory.
BABE WAKE UP! New Nameless Singer lore just dropped!
Shut up, babe. It's on UA-cam. I'll watch it when I wake up. 🥱
Another great lore video maker has entered the Lands Between 🙂👍
Loved the lore and philosophical implications of runes being memories, one of those ideas that makes me want to replay the game with just to experience it from that perspective.
Yeah I think the Runes == Memories thing has huge implications that we have only begun scratching the surface of. I plan to keep building out these metaphysical "rules, properties, laws" type of stuff, and then once we have done that, we can really start having fun with interpreting different aspects of the lore in new light.
Love the video! Ravens and crows were thought to carry the souls of the dead to the afterlife. You pointed out that here, souls are memories. I find it interesting that the only crows we find in the lands between are corrupted by scarlet rot, which eats away at the wits of those infected, driving them mad. They are losing their memory. There are some threads here of the entire tapestry, I am sure.
Oooh okay I maybe have the connection. Based on some of Millicent's dialogue, she makes it sound like the scarlet rot is eating away not only at her body, but also at her willpower, her memory, her sense of self. So the scarlet rot may be eating the gold (memory) away. So maybe there is something there will the ravens/crows, who are carrying souls, and then the scarlet rot is going after them too.
or they also just have souls/memories and the scarlet rot is eating away at them. Just like what happened with Millicent
🤩This video help me figure out a lot of the lore of Elden Ring.🤩
The Gloam Eyed Queen, who the fled god of the dragons is, what the gate of divinity is, what the sun realm is and how it ended.
Thank you for this amazing content
You are very welcome! But now I am really curious as to what you figured out and would love to hear you share it haha
The memory of grace states that it is merely a cycle stand before the elden ring become Elden Lord
Now with this perspective of this video taken into account as well. I am starting to wonder if the entire game isn't actually based in any tangible reality and that we are, in fact, just living through the memories of queen marika over and over and over again, until we accomplish what it is she wanted to see done
One tarnished, even going as far as burning the Erdtree and sacrificing Melina, but failed to kill Radagon.
Which could explain 1.0 weeping penninsula map description in which Radagon warned of the return of the tarnished, and their crusade for the Elden ring.
I could've got lost in the sauce there towards the end But a very cool video nonetheless, I really enjoyed it
I think that the notion of us living through the memories of Queen Marika IS possible, and part of what I was getting at. We start out receiving grace within the Erdtree, then are reborn, and then return and "it is merely a cycle". Then we start New Game + and choose a new build and do the whole thing over again. Which honestly is not a bad deal because the game is really fun. But to do that for eternity? Idk.
I think Gideon may have realized this and he was upset that he would basically forget everything each time and I think he did some shitty things in his pursuit of knowledge, only to realize that it was all for nothing and he was just going to forget.
I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Thanks for watching
Your videos are so well crafted and lovingly made, up there with Vaati, thank you for the interesting revelations.
Wow, big compliment, thank you!! I did make it with lots of love.
Another great video! Just finished recent one piece chapters and its looking like Yggdrasil/norse lore is going to play a piece there so this was like a primer.
Westworld has such a special place in my heart so it was amazing to hear someone else speak so passionately about it 😊
Same here
I’ve felt recently that I’ve seen all there was to see and learned all I could from Elden Ring. Thank you for showing me this game still has secrets and meanings left to behold
there are soooooooo many things left to uncover. I hope to be able to bring more to the table still!!
THIS MF SPITTIN. Top 5 Elden Lore Video Maker.
So, if Melina is indeed now a fragmented memory of the Erdtree, and her amnesia is explained with how she burned herself and the Erdtree in the past, does this also lend credence to the idea that she was indeed the Gloam-Eyed Queen?
Both she and her brother Messmer are affiliated with snakes and fire, and if Messmer’s flame burns people down to their souls, then wouldn’t it make sense for Melina to complete that process by using the Black Flame to burn souls themselves via Destined Death?
Also, her being a fragmented memory due to her burning herself and the Erdtree would help explain why the GEQ’s history and records have been almost completely erased from history save for the Godskins and her greatsword. With how Messmer was sequestered away to the Land of Shadow, which itself is governed by the Scadutree that embodies the outcast and those that should be hidden from the Erdtree, would this cement the connection even further?
Anyways, fantastic video!
Yes I was thinking about this idea the other day. I am wondering if the power of Messmer's flame was split from the Flame of Ruin, so now his ownly burns people down to their souls, and Melina's is meant to finish the job by burning away memory/soul. Exactly what you said. I would have to guess that maybe Melina & Messmer were originally twins with opposing dual natures, like how Miquella is meant to be about growth & abundance and Malenia is about rot & decay. They are natural pairs, basically.
As to your other point, I do think that Marika was likely manipulating memories to some degree. Cutting some memories out so that they could be erased, but she wasn't 100% successful. Which would explain the lack of info on the GEQ. She's literally been excised from memory. And yes I really like what you said about Messmer being sealed away/outcast. I think him being sealed supports the notion that he is the other half of the original Black Flame power. Marika couldn't get rid of this stuff completely but she could nerf it by splitting it up, and that seems to be what could have happened.
@ I personally wouldn’t associate Messmer’s Flame with that of the Flame of Ruin, as the Flame of Ruin is more affiliated with the Fire Giants and the Fell God, and the sigil on Messmer’s incantations is different to the sigil used by the Giantsflame incantations.
Though I guess you could argue that since Messmer is the child of Radagon, who inherited the red hair of the Fire Giants, the connection between his flame and that of the Fell God could be there? Granted, the Flame of the Fell God seems to be more affiliated with smithing than anything else (referring to the golems of the Land of Shadow and the flame within the halberd/bow-wielding golems in the Lands Between), whereas Messmer’s Flame and the GEQ’s Black Flames of Destined Death share more in common with the Frenzied Flame, which also can burn away body AND soul.
But I do agree that Messmer and Melina being a pair would make a lot of sense, especially since they share a lot of motifs in regards to how they both are kindling, are affiliated with snakes, and both were secret children of Marika and Radagon.
So if the Erdtree was burned before, why would they just leave all that ash lying around the capital? You'd think physical evidence of the first cardinal sin would be something Marika simply wouldn't tolerate.
I do like the idea of Messmer and Melina being twins with similar but opposing aspects, and nothing explicitly disproves it. Messmer is the flame, Melina is the kindling. I almost wonder if she wasn't burned away in the womb before she was even born...
King Allant and the Demons in Demons Souls are also memories, the nexus was a sort of proto erdtree which feeds the Old Beast which is pretty interesting if you think about the parallels between both games.
Dammit, I never played Demon Souls, I only got started with Dark Souls 1. But this is great evidence. I am gonna look this up and see if I can fit this into one of the next videos because the notion of memories feeding a "beast" is basically what I was kinda getting at with the Elden Beast being a candidate for the World Soul
Another amazing video. Your content is so enlightening. I think only tarnished archaeologist for me is on par.
Thank you so much!!
Hey, this is, like... really, really good. Changes my whole outlook on the game.
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed :)
I think the runes look very similar to the rings inside of a tree stump. Much like older trees have more rings, greater runes are larger and contain more rings of color.
Theres also the connection that you can only see the shape of the rings once a tree is felled, so too do you only see the runes size upon death.
The tree rings also tie into the memories aspect, with the size and number of the rings reflecting the age of the tree, as how the larger runes reflect more/greater memories
This is a great video, an a great theory. Definitely had a lot of well I’m be damned moments. Well done!
Thank you so much!
Something that always eluded me was Sir Moore and his quote saying “Miquella the Kind will help us forget.” Us? Forget? As well as everyone in the DLC seem to act so differently when Miquella shatters his own Rune, but Ansbach says. ,”in the end, I couldn’t bury the memory, of my lord and master Mogh.” Ansbach is able to retain his some bit of memory despite being under Miquellas influence. Suggesting it’s not that strong if you fight for against it? Memories might be a sort of curse, and that amplifies the most in Marika since she is the vessel of it, all the good and especially the bad in the Lands Between and Realm of Shadow. Might be the reason she shattered the Elden Ring to escape this endless torture. I see the DLC as a parallel to the main game, Miquella abandoning parts of himself all over the Realm of Shadow is what I believe Marika was also doing, by putting parts of her self through her children which could be the why of them all having certain curses. Miquella seducing his followers and then betraying them by destroying his rune could be a small parallel to Rennala? The seduction and the betrayal. Another odd thing that always gets me is when we first appear in the world when grace is given to us, it almost looks like we are in the Erdtree, it reminds me so much of when we enter it the very first time to fight Radagon, being overwhelmed by light and swallowed by it. Just what are we?
Another banger
🤘💛
Regarding Melina's in the Frenzied Flame ending, I believe that Melina's GEQ quality is that she is connected to the primal Chaos that Life arises and returns to. The Erd Tree's Order gives shape to Life by providing the instruction code for shaping it through memory. Chaos is that Death aspect opposing the Tree's Life aspect. That Death principle would require a vessel to operate in the world. Whether Melina was the prior GEQ or if GEQ is a title passed down to new vessels doesn't matter, she is the GEQ in a Frenzied Flame ending where she survives. Just as Marika as the vessel of Life and Order preserves memory, the GEQ deletes memory through Death to create space for new creations. This is why the Lands Between are in such poor shape. They haven't been properly reformatted for literal Ages.
This is also why a GEQ Melina opposes a Tranished Lord of Frenzied Flame in that ending. The purpose of Death is to create the possibility of new Life. The disordered state the Frenzied Flame leaves everything in doesn't allow new life so GEQ Melina needs to kill the corrupted Tarnish and bring Death back to the Land Between so that Life can return. Her speech to a Tarnished set upon becoming the Lord of Frenzied Flame about the suffering within Life not invalidating the value of Life could be seen as Melina advocating for the Death principle. That the necessity that Death must exist to allow Life to exist does not invalidate the value of Life.
It is also my belief that if Melina is dead in a FF ending, Destined Death will find a new vessel. The Wheel of Fate keeps turning and even cosmic nihilism isn't going to stop it.
Great video! Definitely subscribing. 👍
Thank you so much! Appreciate the sub
this was a awesome video!
This interpretation of the Erdtree makes Miquella's powers even more sinister. He erases memory. Not only this act blurs personal boundaries but it also destroys life, or a part of a living being that the memory he erases represents. This interpretation also suggests that Miquella watered the tree with his blood to incorporate his memories into the tree to make it a living thing, and then he mixed his blood with that of Mogh to access the memories of those who experienced the suffering that attacked the Formless Mother so that he could grant them compassion in the form of memory erasure. Previously, I thought that only Trina was meant to replace the GEQ but it seems that she and her other self, Miquella, both were born as alternatives to Destined Death.
I wonder if Marika used her memory tree to revive the shamans or did she forget to do so. Maybe this power was off the table.
OOOOH I LOVE THIS!!! Yes I am totally on board with this. You are right, he does manipulate memory in some way. Although he seems to manipulate willpower or desire, which is a form of memory. And his compassion is a form of memory erasure. That is brilliant, and fits with ideas of how "blindness is bliss" and all.
The idea of mixing his blood with Mohgs to access Mohg's memories is a WILD idea and I am totally there for it. This fits with the notion of the collective memory too, and how it could tie to fate. I wonder, could we say that the Realm of Shadow is a place that exists only in memory then?
I would bet Marika did this as well, when she passed out all of the sap to everyone. If the sap truly did contain grace, and thus memories, it could explain how she manipulated/conquered the Lands Between and got everyone to believe in the Elden Religion. Life is memories, and so by conquering people/killing them and then returning them to "life" as memories, she could replace their memories with her modified ones. That is totally feasible based on the evidence.
Man, that is a good question about the shamans.
Love this comment, you rock!!
I'm close to halfway through, so not sure if this will be covered, but I just realized that runes are real beyond just the world of Elden Ring.
For us, the human being controlling the player character, it is truly our memories and experience that allows us to improve, learn to defeat difficult enemies and gain strength through that obtained first-hand knowledge.... And it is real. The skills gained can be used in a completely new gamefile or even in Sekiro, Dark Souls, etc., which means runes are real and transferable in a sense.... Even though you can't use them to level up in this life lol their impact is still real.
Yes, runes are real. Runes are basically knowledge, and knowledge is power. You can use the knowledge from this game in other Souls-like games, but also in a real world sense. By defeating boss after boss, you learn how to overcome adversity and achieve difficult things. The fact that you are capable of doing so in a video game means that you are also capable of doing so in real life, but the boss might be a test or some work challenge or whatever. At least, this is what I like to believe. Perhaps as justification for being so obsessed with a video game hahaha
@@NamelessSingerEldenRingHahaha it's all completely justified! You lay out some great examples. There has definitely been research done on video gaming and how it has a positive impact on cognitive performance as well... I like to think it helps me become a better problem-solver IRL and hones my skills for paying attention to the right things... And since we were granted FromSoft, there is so much philosophical content to contemplate... One might even say "insights all over the shop".
Congrats on your channel and great analysis yet again 💖
I just had an epiphany. I don't know why I didn't put this together. The old English/old Germanic word Rune or Run means "secret or knowledge." Rune in context of Elden Ring does indeed mean Experience.
Yep! I should have included the "rune means knowledge" bit in the video but will do so in the future because its a fun piece of knowledge and is good support. It's so wonderful how much etymologies play a role in helping to make sense of this game. I used to not give af about linguistics and now its one of my favorite subjects
@@NamelessSingerEldenRing I LOVE etymology. I try to use it as much as I can in my own writings. When you know the meaning of words and phrases history, myths, legends begin to make sense.
Since Dark Souls, and learning the Anor Londo is elvish, and naming conventions of Gwyn and his children I have been obsessed with learning more, and seeing what other runes I can discover.
I love how in depth this is
More to come!!
So much cool stuff to absorb!!
... and now I'm googling how to watch West World :P
I loved that you brought Dark Souls' souls and humanity into the discussion! I think my take on the mechanics of souls/humanity might diverge from yours slightly based on the visuals during your video, but not irreconcilably so!
I think that souls are just like runes just as you point out. And I love your take that runes are memory and therefore the soul is memory.
I think in Dark Souls the soul is the source of consciousness, enlightenment, and more spiritual aspects of the self. And Humanity, the dark, is the source of strong emotions and those indescribable qualities that make us human. And it's the combination of the soul and humanity, of light and dark, that makes up a human. I think the First Flame consumes Dark/Humanity as fuel to produce souls. And that is why Undead are immortal, the Dark Sign links them to the Flame so that when they die, the flame consumes some of their humanity to reproduce their body and soul at a bonfire. NPC's all only go Hollow after they die. I think, it's because once you've lost your will to go on that's an indication that you've exhausted all of your Humanity, your dark. The next time you die the Dark Sign causes the Flame to recreate your body again, but with no humanity left to fuel the Flame your new body is soulless. Lacking consciousness.. and after your video, I'm convinced memory.
Anyway! Back to Elden Ring. I'm convinced the same relationship and metaphysics exist in the Lands Between but with a different look and labels. Like you said, the soul is now Grace/Runes/Gold. And Humanity/Dark is now Shadow. And the same kind of dark we see in the Dark Souls' humanity sprites can be seen within the Omen's cursed flame stuff they shoot at you. Or in the wraiths that the wraithcallers shoot. Or in the projectiles that the Scadutree Avatar shoots out.
And great presentation of the Odin and the Norns! Hehe I get excited about anything that might bring insights regarding the Three Sisters!
haha I already see that you and Jackisamimic have gotten in touch! That's awesome because Jack is the only other person I've heard saying that the Erdtree is a tree of memories. Great minds and parallel thinking! I know so little about ASOIAF and I really love these dives into GRRM lore! Very insightful!
I want this vid to be heard from MORE PEOPLE
Over all I loved this video. Backing up with clear examples and connecting the dots!
I do have minor feedback. Around the 9-11 minute mark, give or take, I personally felt a bit that it was repeating the same concept/analogy a bit too much. Other than that though, everything else was clear and polished!
oh 100% fair. when i was rereading the script I actually thought myself i was being too repetitive in parts. but i say eh f it with metaphysics its not bad to repeat the ideas to hammer them home.
i am glad you loved it and i will keep it up for the future!
Love this theory, haven’t read through all the comments yet but this idea makes me curious, could we be like the reincarnation of vyke ? Hents are memory basically spreading the entire lands between as he nearly became lord, he shares the same affinity to kill demigods before rune of death is unlocked and it would also explain why we are able to accept the frenzied flame, and why Melina warns us super early about not pursuing the flame frenzy as she knows how the tarnished or previously vyke thought and does not want us to risk such a fate again ?
Edit: and why we just happen to meet hyetta as if it’s all planned maybe
I like the idea about runes being some kind of memories. 😊
I'm glad 😁