Something that's important to note about Godwyn's death: As far as he knew, for his whole life, he was *immortal.* His mother had taken the very metaphysical concept of death and hid it away. His enemies could wreak destruction, but part of what might explain his highly diplomatic nature is that he himself was functionally without risk. What's his opponent going to do, kill him? Mom said they couldn't, so they physically *couldn't.*
this also makes me think he would 100% think his mom had him murdered. First she has the rune of death and second the assassins were numen like her. wether she did actually help raani or not, that's gotta hurt for godwyn :(
@@rozmarinideas5340Ranni was also a Red Head, like Loki. And he was killed with the only weapon capable to do it. And his death probably was the first step to the Shattering, a war between demigods. And Martin says he don't know norse myth.
@@bisma1352If she wanted him dead, she could just send Maliketh, who was known as Death of Demigods, so probably she did it before. Numens close to her could mean her own family before Godhood or something like her Maidens, who also were descendant of Nox, prople very angry at Marika.
Martin: "I don't know much about mythos" Godwyn is literally Baldur. Perfect. Pure. Shiny. Dies and everything goes to hell. A war between divine beings. And later a tree burns.
Of course it is, this story is a form of ragnorak Messmer is thor who massacred the giants The giant Marika cursed to guard the ruinous flame is sutr Marika is like freya A god but a mom first Freya negotiates with everything she deemed with her time that could be harmful like ticking death itself away Marika loses herself in her pursuit of power, until, ironically godwyns death snaps back to who she truly is Then she defies the golden order and shatters the ring. There is not 1:1 of every character as it's taken from several stories But yea godwyn the golden Baldur the golden boy
The coolest concept in the game, they destroyed his remberance and left his body. Creating a mindless parasite that naturally infects everything around it. The first and most beloved Demigod was transformed into this horrendous abomination
That's not what happened though... That's Rogier theory... But Rogier don't know shit. He never left Limgrave... He is just saying what Fia (who is sleeping with him) said. And Fia is Godwyns companion. They are lovers. So Rogier is telling us what Fia told him... She is manipulating Rogier and Us into doing her dirty work. Sorceress Sellen shows us how Sorcerers like her and Ranni can save their soul in Glintstone and move the Glintstone to a new puppet body. So we have 2 potential methods. One is Rogiers theory. The double kill theory. And the other is a confirmed fact of the setting. Ranni moved her soul into Glintstone and then into her pupper body. Occums razor says we should go with the one with the least amount of assumptions. Rogiers theory is pure assumption. We have NO CLUE if killing two demigods at the same time somehow gets Death confused and causes it to only kill half of one and the other half of the other. (But the whole thing seems ridiculous to me) Or we can go with the verified soul transfer method that we literally performed it ourselves. We moved Sellens soul to a new body. We know it works. So what is happening with Godwyn? Fia is. Deathbed Companionship. It's how Godwyn is undead. Fia steals our HP (and Rogiers, and Lionel, and countless others) and gives it to Godwyn to prevent his True Death. She keeps him Living in Death so she can Gestate the Mending Rune that will bring Those Who Live In Death into the Elden Ring's Order. Remember also, Golden Order incantations are the ONLY super effective damage against Undead creatures. Miquella made a sword for Godwyn that deals extra damage to Godwyn's people. And the item description says Miquella prays for Godwyn to die... It's just so obvious if you don't die on the hill that is Rogiers one line of dialogue. ITS A RED HERRING PEOPLE!
@@darkhobo the glintstone stone transfer works but at what cost to Sellens? She became a useless blob of glintstone heads. And lost her body, soul trapped withing. Ranni wouldn't take a chance on something like that.
the fact that godwyn was the ONLY original child of the golden lineage to be born without any defects was somehow missed by my smooth brain until you said it. that really makes him being the first of the dead that more symbolic thats wild
@@Marcellius_weave Godrick's rune: "The first demigods were The Elden Lord Godfrey and his offspring, the golden lineage." Finger reader Eina: "Ahh, Great Runes are the stuff of demigods: the children of the goddess, Queen Marika. But remember one thing. The demigods are each and all the direct offspring of Queen Marika." Live with that.
The view from the ladder climb in the bottom of Stormveil, especially the first time, ugh. It really is hard to describe just how unnatural Godwyn's form is, and seeing how twisted it is when you see it as a whole. It's genuinely unnerving.
@@donovan4222I think they were calling out the view from the ladder so you had a better shot and then referencing that the view is only partial and the view of the whole godwyn in deeproot depths
Godwyn's fate just sucks. You're killed, but only in spirit, so your body is left behind to just stagnate and decay and warp into...something else, that is continuing to affect the lands to this day, until someone can perhaps help him become the new leader for Those Who Live in Death. And his horrific new appearence has elements of aquatic life in it, and it reflects this Japenese view that stagnant water holds corruption and poison, while flowing water is pure. This is shown elsewhere with Malenia and the Scarlet Rot, with her flowing bladework meant to hold back the spread of rot. But this theme was also explored in Sekiro: the waters of the Fountainhead Palace in that world can grant immortality and great power on those that partake of the wayer, but said water is stagnating and infested with parasites, so that immortality is warping and corrupting the people now.
also, iirc, in japanese mythology and the cultural shorthand, mermaids are very associated with (un)death, so his very weird and warped body makes a lot of sense from that perspective
Yes it is believed that eating the flesh of a mermaid grants immortality. More than stagnant water, I think his fish/ mermaid like appearance is supposed to reflect his undeath.
It's a Miyazaki and Martin game when the "best ending" is about a character who betrayed, caused massive destruction, a curse above all the Lands Between. But she's a wife so everyone loves her.
@@themaniae4803 I also think its because her ending is the most vaguely defined: Godwyn brings the living in death, which is by its nature terrifying The Dung eater brings an ending of vengeance and destruction and defiles before our eyes a character we liked Restoring the golden order in any shape or form is contradictory, witnessing what it had committed and how it fell apart The frenzied ending is embracing chaos and women eating eyeballs So by comparison Rany's night seems almost beautiful and calming and, dare I say, feels better because we know less of it. There is also the fact that the other endings often require the sacrifices of people we like or their horrible fates (Dung eater, Frenzied flame and Living in death al require murdering or the mutilation of an ally)
Ranni: “I have these simps eating out of my hands, nothing will stop me from getting my ending and making Bloodbrone 2.” Miquella approaches on his army of Griffith fans, with his dearly beloved rotten sister Melania and holding a copy of Dark Souls 4 (he’s been working on it this whole time) Miquella: “Hi Ranni.” Ranni: “Oh no…”
@@iordanvassilev8091 Her ending is the most good because we know that she go away with the ER so now the world still has order but not as a Monarchy-Cult. But she's never shows a will to cure Death Roots or fix the Omen problems. Duskborn, Dung and Frenzied are one worst than the other. Golden Mask order is quire literally the Good Monarchy, the same but from now no stupid god can change the things as they want, but at least we are there to fix the problem. I guess is all about personal preference about anarchy, monarchy and MAY CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD.
Honestly took Marika’s words as ones of encouragement and warning. Basically, “hey kids, you have the power and potential to be Great at anything; but if you don’t take advantage of this blessing, others that wish to become great will take this power from you.”
Me wanting 30k runes to put one more lvl into stamina: That's a mighty fine demigod child there, would be a shame of a Foul Tarnished with Bloodhound Fang were to stroll on in and kill em
you're correct. marika told them if they want to go to war to become lords or gods and fail they'll be forgotten and leave sacrifices for nothing behind.
This and a reminder that at the end of the day they have only themselves to count on. Something similar is happening in tbe DLC too. It's not cruelty, though horrible, it is just the reality.
Destined Death is probably my favorite part of the Elden Ring lore. One of the first things Marika ever does to establish her order is seal away true death. But that one decision is why in so many ways she doomed herself and doomed everyone else.
Sealing death was literally almost the very last thing she did... Seal death. Shatter the Elden Ring. Get usurped by Radagon. You got the timeline all bassakwards man. Like. Every masoleum turtle thing .. a dead Child of Marika. So... She had lots of children we don't know about. That died. (And they are in those Mausoleums so that they don't become infected with Deathblight, which has infected those who received Erdtree Burials.) How do you fight several wars if no one dies? You can't. Yet she fought a series of non stop wars against the Giants. The Dragons. Raya Lucaria. The Gloam Eyes Queen... You can't fight wars if your opponents can't die... Come on people. Use those big pink squishers! Don't just repeat what other people say. Think for yourselves.
@darkhobo she sealed it away when the golden order began. Pretty much right after the killing of the giants. Leyndell being seiged by dragons, radagon marrying Rennala, and the birth of most demigods happened after the sealing of destined death. The founding of the Roundtable Hold was the first act of establishing the golden order. Destined Death being sealed was almost at the same time.
@darkhobo I think you misunderstand how death works in the lands between. Since people can't truly die, they are reincarnated by the Erdtree. They still die, but they aren't truly gone. Destined Death is true death, a death that does not allow rebirth. Destined Death existing conflicts with the golden order, which is why Godwyn is the prince of death. Marika didn't have to truly eradicate the souls of her enemies to win against them. The dragons are a different case since they are creatures of gravel and stone that are petrified upon death, making them exempt from Erdtree reincarnation. And every war Marika fought after sealing Destined Death wasn't won by slaughter. It was won by unification. Radagon married Rennala. Godwyn allied with the dragons. Marika subjugated her enemies. She didn't eradicate them. All of that subjugation was the only way she could deal with them because she removed Destined Death from the equation. And that's why she eventually fell.
16:34 Actually if I remember correctly there's one possible depiction of him, in Loretta's boss arena you can see a statue of Malenia and Miquella hugging a bigger male figure it could be Radagon but it seems Miquella had good relations with his bigger brother, even attempted to give him proper death through an eclipse. He also gave up fundamentalism by the time the halig tree was a thing and I feel honouring his brother one last time by erecting a statue showing his love to him.
The weirdest thing about that statue, something I saw on reddit but didn't discover myself - Miquella is shown to literally have death blight sprouting out of his ass. The reddit post made an argument that maybe the is a sly way of saying Godwyn was a consort to Miquella before the Promised Consort (not saying the name due to DLC spoilers). I am not saying this is true but the location of the plant looks like it was deliberately placed there.
I had sort of interpreted Marika’s comment as more a warning, something akin to “you live or you die in the game of thrones”. Shoot for the stars, but be careful because if you fail on the path to power, the stakes are mortal.
Right I fell like she was saying I can’t do everything for you if you fail you fail that’s it and as she then got trapped in the tree maybe it was just foresight and we do kill most of them
I agree. I sort of interpreted her as saying “because of your birth you will either need to become a new elden lord or a new god to replace me/the greater will or else someone else will and they will have to kill you to do it.”
@@megamicromanager2449SPOILER Radahn, the Lion of the Battlefields, the Conqueror of the Stars, the Strongest Demigod, the Reborn, the Domestic Abused
I always like to think that the reason why Godrick of all losers got such a broken rune, the very center of the elden ring at that was because the rune was originally fated for Godwyn in the case he lived to the Shattering but because he was dead it instead just defaulted to his next of kin. I mean Godwyn was essentially the center of Marika's family himself, the moment he was removed, everyone else drifted apart.
It might have been godwyn's rune but godrick either inherited it or stole it as he is referred to as a descendant of Godfrey, "distant relation", "diluted blood" seems to imply he is not a child of Marika but is related somehow. Godwyn might have been the heir apparent to Marika.
My personal favorite character in this series, he’s my favorite because his story is one of the most tragic, and more so because across all of the Lands Between, Godwyn was one of the only genuinely good people in the world, a Scion for the Golden Lineage, he was their golden child, and he was defiled, tossed underground where no one could honor him, because a twisted version of himself sentenced to an eternity in true death, all for Ranni’s schemes, in the same vein Ranni broke her fate, she sealed Blaidd’s and Godwyn’s And for that, my heart sympathizes for Godwyn the most, he didn’t do anything wrong
@@ericsalsbery4363 Ahah i know i ended the game.... 23 times i guess. But he dies very late, the last area, and dies happy doing what he wanted, be a warrior. And who knows, maybe something of him still lives inside the little pot.
@@ericsalsbery4363arguably he died very late into the game. He died in Farum Azula after Maliketh. At that point you only need to defeat Godfrey and Radabeast. Alexander endure.
This is so frustrating. "He's so good. His girlfriend told me so". Why do people not think NPCs in a FROMSOFT GAME can't lie? Motherfucker. Fia. That's Kaathe. She's using us. She's LIEING TO US! WHERE ARE THE GODWYN MONUMENTS? THE STAUES? the ANYTHING that would demonstrate that he had Marika's favor in ANY WAY? There are none. You're basing everything off a couple lines of dialogue at the very beginning of the game.. the dialogue of a WOMAN WHO STARTS KILLING YOUR FRIENDS. A woman who's item description says she is OPPOSED TO THE ROUND TABLE HOLD. Fia TELLS US NOT TO TRUST HER! Why doesn't anyone update their story lines when new things happen Like right off the bat you heard "this guy is the good guy" and EVERYONE TOOK IT TO THE BANK. No one questioned a THING afterwards. Like. You remember GRRM wrote this right? Let's look at his work and compare. Let's see, handsome blonde haired son of the Queen. Handsome and Charming. Just like... Joffrey... Ya know. The sadistic kid who became king before his grandmother in law murdered him? Same character. Y'all are drooling over Joffrey. Claiming he is the Pinnacle of chivalry and shit. Despite literally 0 evidence to prove it save his girlfriend's word on the matter. The same girlfriend who CAUSES HIM TO LIVE IN DEATH IN THE FIRST PLACE. I can't be the only person in the world with media literacy. Come on someone open your eyes!
4:50 I think it’s funny that we keep talking about why the Golden Order was messed up, when it’s been there the whole time: Marika’s removal of the Rune of Death. The Golden Order is basically the manifestation of Order itself, and things living forever is far from Order actually. To even say life is to infer death, so to remove Death from the equation goes directly against Order, and even calls forth Chaos. Marika’s empire falls apart because she removes Destined Death to protect herself & her children, thereby rejecting Order & invoking Chaos.
This was my interpretation as well. I can't recall the exact description but it states the golden order was created and then the rune of destined death was plucked from it. The golden order never even had the chance to work as it was intended.
Godwyn reminds me a lot of Sanguinius from Warhammer 40k. Incredibly honorable, most reasonable of his siblings, aspires for peace rather than war, and blonde headed and Incredibly graceful.
Never noticed that before. Perhaps because Godwyn's life is such a mystery to us, dead before the game starts, while Sanguinius played a big role in the Horus Heresy and only died in the end.
Also, they both suffered horrible and destined endings, dooming the future of their respective worlds. Godwyn becomes unliving pestilence that corrupts all that come in contact, causing conflict with the ones who live in death and the xenophobic golden order, causing more pain and suffering, which he wouldn't have wanted. Sanguinius was literally destined to be killed by his brother, Horus, whom he loved the most out of his many brothers. Fighting constantly against tyranny, betrayals and literal demons while trying to keep his own sons from falling into darkness due to genetic flaws that makes them into blood craving berserkers. And his death, breaks his sons in a fundamental way and births a worse curse upon them, the Black Rage, an illness that causes each of his sons who suffer it, to relive the traumatic death of their own father, driving them mad and forcing them to kill and feed off of foes and friends alike, causing untold suffering to so many.
Where does it say ANYWHERE Godwyn was honorable? Where? His girlfriend told us he was Mommy's favorite and EVERYONE JUST BELIEVED IT. Well he chops the heads off Marika's statues in his Realm. So maybe they aren't as close as everyone wants to believe.
@darkhobo I think you may be confusing Godwyn with Messner. Godwyn is one the first sons of Merika and Godfrey. He fought and defeated the giant dragon in Lyndel and was the first of demigods to die. He becomes the Prince of Death and is the reason for death blight to be a thing. Messmer is the main baddie in the DLC, or one of the main baddies. I haven't finished it yet. Fought him five times and have yet to beat him, lol Unless there's new lore making Godwyn and Messmer the same person, then I am completely wrong and mind blown. If that is the case 😅
@@austinguthrie5528 You got like... Sparksnotes version of the lore here. It's not bad. But it's like... Surface level stuff. Like, just watching cutscenes stuff. But this is Fromsoft. 90% of the lore is in item descriptions and just environmental storytelling. Don't think I'm shitting on you. This is what 99% of people are gonna walk away thinking. But there is WAY more going on. And a lot of what you think you know... You're being mislead. That's GRRM's WHOLE DEAL. That's why they hired him! What's the first line spoken in the game "the fallen leaves tell a story". The first words are telling you the environment is going to tell you the story. Granssax. The big dragon IN Lyendell... We dunno who killed him. We only know Godwyn fought Fortissax. And that he lost that fight. because if he won, it would have stopped them OUTSIDE Lyendell, then the Dragons wouldn't have gotten into Lyendell. But they did. So he can't have stopped them outside Lyendell. You following me? Godwyn fought Fortissax outside of Stormcaller church. There's a monument where they fought. You fight Fortissax's sister Lancennax there too. There's a spell that buffs your defense. Golden dragon lightning weapon or something like that... It's Fortissax's spell she gave to Godwyn. Dragons can only give it to their lovers. Lancennax gave one to Vyke but it's offensively focused and uses the Red lightning associated with the ancient Dragons. Golden Lightning is Always associated with Godwyn. If you see gold Lightning it's because the place has significance to Godwyn story. Okay on to Messmer. Messmer was SENT BY MARKIA to the realm of shadow on a great crusade! That's like... One of the first things out find out about Messmer. It's not his land. He is there to wage war! He is a Conqueror. Like, Godrick doesn't OWN Stormveil. He is holding Stormveil on behalf of Miquella and Malenia. Stormveil was Godwyns back in the day. Just because someone is somewhere doesn't mean the place is theirs. Mogh didn't make the place he is in. He is just inhabiting a place he found. You following me? Several items described the Realm of Shadow as the land where Death Converges. It's the Realm of Death. And what's Godwyns Title? The Prince of Death. Enemies use Death magic. Like, Fia and the Tibia Mariners death magic. Not the Black Flame of the Gloam Eyed Queen or the Red-Black flame of the Rune of Death. The Pale white and black skulls associated with Those Who Live in Death. And since Godwyn was the First Dead Demigod (which totally means he can't have died at the same time as Ranni btw, blowing up Rogiers Theory) he naturally would become the Prince of Death. (The same way it worked for Nito in DS1 I might add)
One point I'd like to mention; Ranni and Godwyn don't "both die." There is "one death" shared between them. Also, it seems like the Black Knife Assasins didn't know Ranni was going to do what she did. Ranni carved the half wheel into herself at the same moment the assassins carved it into Godwyn, and it completed between them. The assassin's goal was to do a full wheel on Godwyn and basically only completed half of it.
Since the black knife assassins seemingly are guarding Miquellas haligtree, could that mean Miquella was also somehow involved? After all he wanted to attain godhood, he could have wanted Godwyn dead for similar reasons to Ranni. The black knife assassins since they are Marika’s original people seem to also share similar goals of destroying the golden order, and bringing in a new god to take over, which Marika seems to be trying to do with the shattering, and which Radagon tried to stop.
@@donovan4222The fact about Miquella is that,with his power,he could have done everything. He could have mind controlled Ranni to act and kill Goldwyn if he wanted to
@@sql638 Yeah that’s true but thinking about this a little more, Miquella was trying to revive Godwyn at castle sol, so it’s actually unlikely he would have helped kill him. There’s also a lot of lore implying that Miquella liked Godwyn and wanted him to die a “true death”
I’ve always read Godwyn’s story as the ultimate tragedy. Godwyn, the perfect son, who seems to have genuinely been the best of the demigods, cruelly and callously taken from the world by the selfish ambitions of another, Ranni. With the death of his soul-that’s it. He’s gone, and never coming back. And his body, twisted and malformed, is capable of little else but mocking his image and memory. There's nothing his loved ones can do but try to bury the horror, yet even under the earth, Godwyn’s corpse continues to unthinkingly spread its rot and curse throughout Godwyn’s former home. Fia, meanwhile, is Godwyn’s epilogue. She’s a lonely and desperate woman, attempting to paint her supposed life’s purpose on the canvas of the so-called Lord of Death, like Ahab against Moby Dick. Moby Dick never knew who Ahab was, never cared; Moby Dick was only ever a whale. But to Ahab, it represented so much more, vengeance, rivalry, spite from God Himself. So too does Fia project her wants and desires and hopes and dreams onto dead flesh. She’s delusional. Such is Godwyn’s final memory-even in death, people can’t help but seem to look up to him. Even twisted as he is, he still represents the glory of a new age; but it’s an age he likely would never approve of, will never see, and is likely to only bring further pain to those who loved him.
what? She collects life force from the PC and others specifically to restore Godwyn to some kind of proper life, because she believes he deserves it. She says that explicitly. She is not delusional about the state of his body or soul, else she wouldn't have a plan to transform him. Fia, as a deathbed companion, was used to collect life force from champions for the sake of extending/resurrecting the life of her liege. She is trying to do the same with Godwyn but this time, it's the liege she chooses rather than the one she is forced to serve. I don't think you have a good grasp of her character.
When i saw Godwyn the first time i was scared to see that giant thing move and attack. Instead he's here, alive but in a twisted body horror coma. Damn creepy. About his fish body, it's a Miyazaki thing, also about Shintoism. Kegare is a conception about Death and Blood create corruption of body and spirit. (It's not just a meme, Miyazaki put a lot of Swamp because this or, like Dark Pus in DS3, something stagnant became corrupted)
@@TokyoprismAt least he has amazing music and deathblight lightning. Though I dunno, Godwyns corpse doesn't even have a single braincell anymore. It'd be like fighting blob king allant in Demon's Souls except that this one doesn't even move.
@@Tokyoprism it felt like a necessary cop out. They establish in the lore that godwyn's body is an unthinking parasite so how could that be a boss that actively defends itself. I was disappointed too but the implications of godwyn's corpse keeps me up at night all the same
@@ValleyofIbis idk, it’s easy to say the lore prevents something until you realize that the lore can be anything when it’s being written. There’s a lot in ER’s lore that don’t really make sense but rules of how things work were clearly written-in to make things happen the way the writers wanted even if it just comes across as a bunch of “and then, and then, because because”. Godwyn died in soul, not in body. The body is alive & actively spreading deathblight so it is essentially moving in some way, they could’ve just said it still moves on its own without thoughts or feelings or something. Idk, or even just had another giant grotesque beast warped by deathblight that looks equally scary to godwyn come up from the waterfall gaping dragon style & be the bossfight. It just felt like way too sinister & creative of an area to have the most unceremoniously executed generic dragon boss. It was extremely rushed, even the lore reason for it, just “hey what if we just put a dragon in there & say it was a formidable dragon from godwyns past & it’s being projected from his dreams somehow even though his soul is dead & therefor all his memories should be too ok sure moving on”.
@@Tokyoprism ha, I forgot about the gaping dragon, what a cool boss. You're right they definitely could've done anything other than a dragon for that boss, I mean just the environment lends itself to something far more grotesque with the sky box being a gnarly mess of eyes and skin.
I honestly don't think Marika is as callous as people assume. I think her message to her children is a *warning* , not a threat. She may feel the statement is true based on everything she's witnessed and her own fate. Her decisions seem to come from panick or desperation and an attempt to undo/mitigate harm.
Slaughters and genocides everyone and everything in the name of some outer space godlike being, banishes own husband and thousands of loyal people only because that thing said so, realizes that she was just played all this time and does the most "mature" and "reasonalbe" move - "screw you guys, your game sucks and i'm breaking it down". I agree, she isn't callous, she's absolutely fucked up
@@MsUndertaker99The Greater Will clearly misled and withheld secrets about the Golden Order from Marika. She admits so herself when she says she needs to unravel the secrets of the Order in one of her dialogue flashbacks. She is culpable for the killing and mistreatment of many peoples, yes. But she was also being guided and granted power by the Greater Will. Even Ranni serves an Outer God, and has done terrible things in its name. She does not banish the Tarnished and Godfrey for the sake of the Greater Will. It's very plainly laid out that she intended to call them back at a later time, likely with the intention of using them to overrturn the Greater Will, which we eventually do. She doesn’t shatter the Elden Ring just because she was throwing a tantrum. Marika realized that the Greater Will was never going to let her truly have freedom to make her own choices and would always run things behind her back with the Two Fingers and Elden Beast. The Greater Will LITERALLY forced Radagon to merge with her body and take control of her, turning her into a blind loyalist to the Golden Order. And on top of that, the Greater Will did nothing to intervene as her favorite child was savagely butchered and carved into a corpse. In a last ditch moment of darkness and despair and anger to the Greater Will, she shattered the Ring. Was it justified? Perhaps not. But understandable, yes. She's absolutely a war criminal and very selfish, but she's not the monster people try to paint her out to be. If you're looking for people to blame, Ranni is literally responsible for the Shattering Wars and the spreading of Deathroot and corruption through Godwyn's corpse.
Right a lot of the lore seems to revolve around demigods trying to break out of the influence of the outer gods. Like Britain’s royal family vs “The Firm” that actually runs the show in The Crown. Godwyn is Princess Diana.
@@MsUndertaker99 I just interpreted her actions and motivates differently. Godfrey was exiled because he didn’t want to be there. Marika released him “The Erdtree governs all. The choice is thine. Become one with the Order. Or divest thyself of it. To wallow at the fringes; a powerless upstart." he had a choice divest. She was trying to help but it backfired. We now know she waged war to retaliate against genocide. The DLC gave my theory some credence.
I figured that Godwyn's post soul death body had animalistic features because he was born under the Crucible's influence, like his omen brothers. The rune of death twisted and corrupted the Crucible's influence along with Godwyn's body itself. Since the Crucible was all about blending all things together, humans, demi-humans, animals etc. then it made sense that Godwyn's body would have animal features when it was corrupted.
I definitely can see what you mean about blending all things together, that seems to be a recurring theme with the crucible, and its worshipers (the Hornsent blend everyone together into jars). But I would also expect Godwyns body to grown horns like an omen if the crucible was what was influencing it…
@@donovan4222The crucible has so many more aspect than just horns, look at the crucible incantation. We got hedgehogs, flowers, wings, reptile tails. Fish are just as logical imo
@@dreamz1417 Yeah true incantations associated with the crucible use things like wings, feathers, tails etc. but in terms of beings that exist nearby the crucible they usually grow horns…like for example the beast horn item description reads: “Found by hunting horned beasts of the realm of shadow. The Crucible has a particularly strong influence on the beasts of the realm of shadow, causing many to grow horns despite the characteristics of their species.”
@@donovan4222 I was moreso trying to point out that they are literally called the aspects of the crucible. Horns are the most prominent thing we see, true, but there's much more. Other crucible-adjacent beings like the Godskins seem to be reptiles for example.
The really interesting thing about godwyn to me is what his state (and the state of all the other soulless demigods in the wandering mausoleums, alongside ranni as an inverse example) says about the function of the soul in elden ring, it seems as though, like in most settings, its the true seat of the mind, but also it seems like a sort of metaphysical glue for the components of the physical body, as seen in the cinematic trailer, the second godwyn's soul dies his body starts producing the insects emblematic of deathblight, and when we see him in game his body has been spreading like some kind of fungus, networks of insect ridden mycelium spreading throughout the roots of the erd tree, his body is still alive but it doesnt know what to do without the soul so its just spreading itself as far and wide as possiblein hopes of self preservation, its a really interesting take on soullessness that i haven't seen anything similar to in other media
My brain the second this video came across my feed: "Oh fuck yes, fatbrett is doing Godwyn now. Sweep everything aside for this immediately" and i did just that.
Just knowing his story and looking at his mangled, mutated, destroyed corpse. Knowing he wasnt a terrible dude by a long shot, but more like Baldur or Jesus. A sacrificial lamb. Robbed in rot of a real good death where he could be remembered, rest in peace and whats worse, his own soul was basically removed from his corpse. His body continues to live, becoming a cancer to the lands. His soul is gone forever, not even resting. When I first saw his corpse I thought nothing much of it. But my second playthrough, It gave me pause once I knew the story. Then it felt like I shouldnt be there, I was not welcomed.
I feel like Godwyn never met his omen brothers. I think that's why Marika sent Godfrey away. Seeing the horns from omens she destroyed centuries ago return scared her. So she sent him away and remarried hoping to stave off her sins of the past
What most people don't understand is the one thing Merika wants that finally breaks her is a perfect child. Godwyn was her only child not inflicted by a curse. A child that didn't carry her sin of who she was when she was mortal. She tried with her consort, then as Radagon, then finally with Radagon. He is literally the one pure thing in this world she created.....and boy did that get twisted. The death of her dream of a pure child had her set in motion events that would lead to someone finally ending her. The worst thing is almost all we know about Godwyn is he was perfect and he was murdered and it drove his mother mad.
Your Final Fanatasy XVI video got me here, and I'm glad that I stayed for the long run. Very cool and well put-together videos, that fill the niche I never knew needed filling!
Fia is Fortissax... Dragons can turn into humans. (And vice versa thanks to Lancennax, Fortissax's sister) Like. You go into Fia's dream and fight Fortissax. Why would she be dreaming of Fortissax? Then you leave the dream and she's dead. And you get her rune. Kill Fortissax, get Fia's runes. Die in a dream, die in real life. We know Fortissax's sister Lancennax TURNED HUMAN to found the Dragon Cult. We know Godwyns soldiers were partakers of the Dragon Communion. Exile soldiers are only at Godwyns castles and Dragon Communion churches... And we see and fight Lancennax AS A DRAGON OUTSIDE OF THE ONE MONUMENT TO GODWYN IN THE WHOLE GAME! (A monument which says he died by the way. "Fought to the last" means you got overrun.) Not one person asked "so who is secretly a dragon" Like come one people… Chekovs gun! You don't say "there are people who are secretly dragons" and then just NOT have a secret dragon somewhere... Of course it's the sister of the person confirmed to be a Dragon!
@@darkhoboUnlikely, Fia has a whole backstory as deathbed companion for nobles. And she was literally dead outside the lands between till she got revived by grace and chased away from her home to the lands between. And thanks to the DLC we now know how dragon-humans look too, Florissax' human form looks nothing like Fia.
Actually Marika might have been referring to Melinda in the comment to her demigod children. Melinda did not want to become a lord nor a god, she had wanted nothing. Hence, she became the sacrifice, burning the erdtree
Godwyn, Miquella and Malenia are probably the only characters I feel truly sorry for in Elden Ring. Their stories are connected in the most tragic way, and while Radahn may not have deserved to be afflicted with rot, nor Morgott to have lived in service to the golden order despite his cursed blood, but they lived and died doing what they believed with all their hearts was right. Godwyn was just family, and his death, and the subsequent shattering of the elden ring, left Malenia and Miquella without a rock, someone who is strong, but also deeply wise and kind, someone who wants to ease the suffering and confusion caused by the afflictions they were born with.
One thing I noticed is that in order to fully perfect Miquella's needle, the thing that would have finally cured Malenia, is only done so through the Dragonlord's power. Godwyn was the demigod closest to the dragons and he could have recreated the conditions necessary to perfect it however his death completely severed that option.
Malenia was dishonorable. She had never known defeat...sort of. But when she was getting her ass handed to her by Radahn, she bloomed and plagued an entire continent, including her half brother, just to cause a stalemate. And when you finally put her on the back foot in your fight against her, she blooms agains to summon help from an outer god rather than her own skill.
Malenia decided it would be better to nuke her own troops, and damn an entire continent just so she didn’t lose to Radhan. I don’t feel sorry for her really. Great character, but I don’t think she deserves pity. Her birth with rot was unfortunate, but that doesn’t give her any right to be a sore loser.
I am wondering if marika discovered that the elden ring was flawed during her research (perhaps something about the greater will) and felt guilty/regret and thus shattered the elden ring. Perhaps she even helped ranni on the night of the black knives. I wonder how much of our story she planned for
@@Ryanin2DI saw a new theory that melania tries to kill radahn no matter what because miquella is waiting for his promised consort. Meaning, he made a promise a long time ago, and probably revoked later. So, melania comes to kill him, miquella brainwashes mohg, promised he would be his consort but lied, we kill mohg and radahn due to melania failing. Miquella gets mohgs body, uses his body to bring back radahn (we know this because radahns new form has omen horns) and im assuming miquella charms new radahn and his goal is complete. It was a good video, with some very plausible ideas.
Man, I found your analyses on God of War a couple of months ago and I've just been suckin' down all of your videos like it's my job, since then. You make an awesome video essay everytime, Mr. Brett. 👍
7:50 her request/expectations are extremely easy to live up to. She wanted the to do something, ANYTHING with their lives. If you as a demigod literally ended up doing nothing and just squandering that right then you don’t deserve to be one. That’s not cruel, that’s just life. If you end up squandering yoir godhood then why should you have it?
There was a death knight in the trailer with a Godwyn corpse in the background of his arena. Perhaps we will get some highly valuable lore from him in the DLC.
Turned out to be guarding his "surrogate" bodies. Interesting that they were twisted as well. So is the storm veil face just another surrogate? The strange thing on the face in the basement is the roots spreading off it do not have the flywings imbedded in them like all other death root, but the root that claims rogier does.
There is a statue of a long haired male embracing two children at the haligtree, this is presumably a representation of Godwyn with young Malenia and Miquella, as he had a close relation to the latter and he is the only one who fits the description
I saw a weird theory on Reddit about that statue. They said that Godwyn and Miquella may have been more than just friends. That maybe Godwyn was Miquella's first consort. The reason the poster said that is, when you look at that statue... there is one place on it that is sprouting death blight (the plant tied to Godwyn) Well, the plant looks like it was placed in that spot on purpose... the death blight is literally blooming out of Miquella's ass. I don't know if it was an accident or some game designer having fun or if it does mean something... it is kinda interesting.
@@andrewfornes5320 While the thought of that last part is uh.... disturbing.... Godwyn being a potential consort of Miquella's might be true. Miquella had tried to resurrect Godwyn previously if the Castle Sol ghosts are to be believed. They make reference to failing to blot out the sun to try to bring back Miquella's comrade who remains soulless. The Mausoleum stuff references eclipses to restore souls to fallen demigods. In theory it could've been done to restore Godwyn's soul, but with Radahn holding all celestial bodies in check, it was impossible to do.
@@dylanchristie7259That and also she needed him to stop holding the stars and therefore keeping fate frozen in place and unable to be altered. Miquela also needed him to die as well for his path.
Miquella sent Malenia to kill Radahn first though. Also, Ranni may of killed Godwyn for kind of vague (maybe selfish?) reasons, but there was a lot of suffering and lies being caused by the golden order before this happened that was bubbling under the surface. Godwyn was said to be nice, but there’s still mass suffering happening under the golden order, and there is probably no taking out the golden order without going through him. Personally, I went with Ranni’s ending not because I trust Ranni…but because it was the closest ending I could find to telling the gods to f*ck off and let people decide things for themselves in the lands between.
Ranni was cruel in killing Godwyn but she was not unfair. She destroyed her body too, in order to make a world for humans to have free will and be free from gods. Seeing how Marika treated everyone and how the other Empyreans used their power, I'd say Ranni is among the most fair demigods.
How does her destroying her body make her fair? She literally only did it so she could get the Greater will off her back. I never went with her ending, but the clips showing more of her quest seem to show that even that wasn't enough. Because her fingers seemed to be brutally murdered as well. There is no guarantee in her ending that things are going to be okay.
Ranni’s dialogue makes it pretty clear that she wasn’t really “part” of the Black Knives plot. She helped them in order to further her own ambitions, which was ultimately to free herself from the Golden Order and the Two Fingers. As such, the plan _wasn’t_ to only kill Godwyn’s soul, the plan was to kill him entirely. But Ranni betrayed the Black Knives by using the other half of the curse rune to kill her own body while leaving her soul in tact. Because she did that, the Black Knife Assassins were unable to fully kill Godwyn as intended.
I full-heartedly believe it was Miquella's doing. They researched how to become a god together - him, Malenia and Ranni, as they were chosen as empyreans, and even received Marika's blessing. Miquella learned of the vessel prophecy and decided to steal Godwyn's healthy body for himself. That required a full death, so he came to Melina to seek help. Melina was around during the fall of the GEQ, so she knew of the rune's of death whereabouts. The girl disclosed its location and what it could do, and then promised to get it for him. But she couldn't do it alone, most likely because she went to the land of shadows with Mesmmer or was there already as a soul that died from fire (it's a pity we do not know how spectral life works, maybe Melina was just fine and was marching the Lands Between on Marika's orders and the two demigods' inquiries did not contradict her mother's plans). Alternatively, Miquella and Ranni could have collaborated to call for Melina using the knowledge of spectral beings. Although, they both were researching godhood, they were doing it for different reasons. Miquella wanted to become a god, whereas Ranni did not, so she saw a window of opportunity when Melina came. Ranni stole a fragment, and Miquella forged a set of daggers from it. Then he charmed a group of assassins and gave them an order. It is possible that Melina participated in the assassination directly, but most likely didn't. What he did not know was that Ranni decided to use his plan for her own advantage. With someone's help, she carved half of the rune on her back and then waited for the assassins to find Godwyn. Before they could finish the carving the ritual was already done, which they did not expect. To cover up her tracks, Ranni asked someone to burn her corpse once she collapses. When Miquella learned of this failure he was shocked but did not abandon on his plans. He made a vow to continue and switched to Radahn. Meantime, Marika was freaking out beyond measure. Previously she told her children that they could do whatever they wanted, aspire to achieve anything of their desire, even become a god. And this was the result. Her perfect son perished because someone desired to take her place. The Elden Ring was the cause of her child's death. She was planning to get rid of it, for some time now but it was too late. She did not finish convincing Radagon to shatter it, yet she was forced to proceed immediately before her other children follow Godwyn. There is even a more terrifying possibility. That Marika herself told Miquella and/or Ranni about the rune, not knowing what they were planning and when Godwyn died she realised the grim reality of her previous 'help'. In that case, Melina was never part of the picture and Ranni recognized the spectral steed because she saw Melina riding it frequently. This was the way Melina visited her brother in the land of shadows. In one of her monologues, she mentioned seeing someone crying, and that person was most likely Messmer. Apparently, Melina was the only one who did not abandon him. It seems that Miquella also knew about the spectral steed and borrowed it at least once to check the land of shadow himself. Or it was Miquella's ride all along and he gave it to Melina upon arrival to the land of shadow, allowing her to escape and go find a person to deliver Radahn.
The thing is the Black Knife assassin where controlled by Markia or where at least loyal to her and probably the golden order. Ranni definitely had something to do with the plot as she does state this but she doesn't say that she killed Godwyn. I'm 100% sure she knew it would happen but I don't think she was the main reason for it. Also people forget that she was not alone in this, her brother, shadow, a giant and a soccer, where working along side her.
Really amazing video! However there's a VERY important correction that I'd like to make. You mention around 14:00 that it was after Godwyn's death that Marika shattered the elden ring. That is untrue and I'm surprised that many people consider that as the catalyst for the shattering because it was not. In the very opening cinematic the timeline that's established is that Marika shattered the ring, Radagon attempted to mend it, Marika was imprisoned and then all hell broke loose. Godwyn's death was a consequence of Marika's imprisonment and inability to defend her lineage, presenting Ranni with the perfect opportunity to enact her plan. It is my belief, that from the very beginning Ranni resented Marika and the golden Order because they stole from her her parents. Her mother was left broken and I do not think that Radagon was ever the same after he returned to Marika as evidenced by Hoarah Loux morphing into Godfrey after becoming Marika's consort. The fact that of ALL the demigods she chose Godwyn to be the lamb she would slaughter is a direct affront against the golden order he was so intrinsically associated with. His death was not JUST the death of a demigod, but of the idea of the golden order as well. In one fell swoop, she would rid herself of her link to the greater will and declare war to all that it stood for.
We do not know if Marikas words towards her children is her rule or a warning about the greater will. She might at this point already doubt the greater will and know what would happen to those who literally "fall from grace".
I think she always hated secretly the Erdtree, because SPOILER FROM THE DLC Behind the Shadow Keep lies a village that you can access only by doing an emote in front of a statue. A message reads something like "Feel sadness for the forgotten shamans". The village seems to be Marika's because there's the Minor Erdtree incantation at the center of it, description pretty much confirms it. My guess is the Greater Will wanted Marika to rule the Lands Between, so it forced her to go to the Lands Between and either killed or took the other shamans. Marika planned a vengeance which could only be fulfilled by the Tarnished who came loooooong after.
@@florianchabaud8548 well it was my own fault for ignoring the spoiler warning... i haven`t played the DLC yet but im getting really impatient and just want play it but i can`t buy it yet.
@@florianchabaud8548 Didn't marika grow the erdtree herself? And in the trailer from the DLC she seems to be stealing the elden ring from a corpse of a previous god, perhaps her grandmother or some shaman. Idk, the info I have is not great
16:35 there’s actually a statue of Godwyn holding Miquela and Malenia somewhere in the Haleg Tree, it was made by miquela to tell the world how much the siblings loved one another
Marika’s line of “should you fail to become anything at all, you will be forsaken” reminds me of Alexander the Great’s answer to who would be his heir. “To the strongest.” It’s a line of logic that makes sense on the surface, but leads to almost endless war and the inevitable civil war of multiple factions all vying for control. The only surprising thing about the Shattering is that there weren’t more upstarts from the golden lineage like a fourth cousin twice removed or something.
There are items or dialogue ingame that mention that the shattering of the elden ring and the night of black knives happened quite a large amount of time apart (if i remember correctly its Rogier who mentions it happening long before the shattering of the elden ring). I see people making this statement that godwyns death was the final straw that caused Marika to shatter the elden ring but that doesnt seem to be the case from the way it's talked about ingame.
16:24 it should be noted that death often has maritime imagery in the Lands Between, from the tibia mariners, to the board like tombs in the DLC, so perhaps Godwyn's fishy appearance is thematic.
Thank you for making this video. Glad you made special point that no matter Godwyn’s virtues as an individual, he was still very likely complicit in some terrible nastiness a Something I love about the Shattering is that when you really get down to brass tacks, it’s a succession crisis. Marika had no clear designated heir and why would she? She’s an immortal god-Queen who literally sealed away the concept of death. And even if she hasn’t designated an heir, Godwyn probably would have been everyone’s first choice. He’s the oldest known demigod, a known diplomat and most people speak of him fondly. In killing him, the Golden Order is thrown into disarray as anybody with a claim is suddenly scrambling. Genius move Ranni
I saw Marika's proclamation to her children as more of a warning than a threat, something along the lines of "If you fail to prove yourself worthy of the power you hold, someone else will by taking it from your corpse."
Since godwyn, is considered such a homie in the lore. I always imagine his boss fight will pretty much be: (turns around) oh, good day to you Tarnished. How about a sparring match to test your skill? No worries. I won't attack to kill." If he kills you: "Oh no. My most humble apologies Tarnished. I got carried away there..." If you beat him: "hahaha **cough** nicely done Tarnished, you may pass to speak to the king of leyndell. I'll be observing your progress with much intrest."
"A corpse should be left well alone. Oh I know, how the secrets beckon so sweetly. Only an honest death will cure you now. Free you from your wild curiosity..."
16:35 There are statues in the Haligtree of three figures. A young child (Miquella), a one armed women (Malenia), and a third figure. Some believe the third is Godwyn.
What I think is important is to seperate Godwyn from the Prince Of Death. While one came from the other, it can be argued via the ship of Theseus analogy that that corpse is no longer Godwyn, given that his soul is long gone. There is no will left in that body. It is as if the entire body from one day until the next became an infection. Just like hair and nails continue to grow a little after death, but then with your entire body. It's just a thing that exists to grow with no other purpose or rationale. It is Fortisax going into him to fight death, Fia, his death knights and mausoleum nights that put him on the pedestal he's at. There is no god or demigod to speak of here, nothing that demands, wishes or needs to be worshipped. Just a thing that should have died, but didn't, yet everything that kept it in check did.
On the Golden lineage, I'd like to point out a parallel with Atlantis as described by Plato. The extremely short version is that Atlantis was a place ruled over by direct discendants of Poseidon, a dinasty of 10 kings that ruled together (Hey there, Rykard. Nice to see you here) and whose first elements were pure and noble (Godwyn) and became progressively more "human", less divine and more flawed by intermingling with the human population up until the point they embraced debauchery and the city was destroyed (Godrick).
I believe godwyn was conceived before godfrey took serosh on his back. The grafting of a magical beast and the possible corruption of his blood would probably explain why the two other sons ended up as omen. It would also explain why marika got rid of her husband as he was unable to give her additional healthy children. Radagon and marika were probably unable to conceive healthy children as they are doing some sort of inbreeding selfcest. Which would explain mikella’s youth, melina’s rot and whatever messmer has (assuming radagon is his father). The union of renala and radagon created healthy demigods as they were not blood related and healthy.
@@silveryo7678 She absolutely orchestrated his death. The only way she could kill her flesh was if she killed someone else's soul at the same time. She chose Godwyn, probably an easy target due to his apparent kindness. The night of the black knives was orchestrated by her, for her.
@@PapaProne she absolutely did not, we have no confirmation she ever orchestrated it, she only confirmed she made the murder weapon. That is not a legitimate motive, if anything, godwyn would’ve been one of the most difficult, being the Demi-god who defeated the dragons. To have orchestrated the night she would have needed control over the black knife assassins, there is no evidence that she had any control over them, in fact, the black knife assassins spend the entire game hunting her down to kill her and her “family”. If she was able to to orchestrate the night, why would her assassin group be attempting to kill her afterwards (it’s because she killed herself which wasn’t apart of the plan). The reality is the black knife assassins likely were created or lead by Marika who is a numen, as the black knife assassins are said to be numen woman who had close ties to Marika specifically. That alone is 100x more evidence that marika controlled the assassins than anything that implicates Ranni.
Marika: conquers lands between with a whole army and 6 demi god children. "So impressive!" Me: conquers lands between and kills the entire family with a giant club and a loin cloth. "Now do it with a rockband drumset!"
It's really difficult to interpret a story you never get to read from characters you never get to see in a world that died hundreds of years ago, but I will always enjoy a good theory video about it. Keep 'em coming!
One of the most terrible things on my first playthrough was defeating Fia’s Champions and uh… Killing Fia… (look i was a faith player and she killed one of the like two faith-centric characters. Sometimes roleplaying calls). I remembered distinctly being disappointed wondering where this supposed Demigod turned Prince of Death was… only to discover it’s the terrifying gargantuan mermaid monster right in front of me
All those born from Marika are twins, symbolizing her and Radagon's duality. Mohg and Morgot. Malenia and Miquella. Godwyn on the other hand was born without a twin. Morgot represents the life above while Mohg embraces the sewers below. Malenia is the embodiment of the everchanging, too bloom or decay, while Miquella stagnates on her enternal youth. This brings us to the conclusion that Godwyn lost his twin. The antithesis to his perfect golden order... the tarnished who destroyed everything on his path and slaughtered every thing that moves and this was done without ushering a single word.
The part in Gransax’s Bolt’s description saying that Gransax’s assault on Leyndell was the only time in historical record that the city’s defenses had been penetrated makes me question if there was a time that wasn’t recorded. Perhaps Messmer might have assaulted the capital having felt dissatisfied with the tasks Marika gave him in the land of shadow he rebelled and broke through the walls.
One thing I feeling like I'm missing from the lore about godwyn is: I've never seen anything saying he was an empyrean. Considering he was the perfect first child, why would other later, imperfect children be chosen over him? Ranni (not interested/not one of "Marrika's" children), Melania (cursed with scarlet rot) and Miquella (cursed with eternal youth) all seem like less worthy candidates for godhood than Marika's special boy. seems a little suspicious to me.
Both Malenia and Ranni are related to a an Outer God, this is why they are empyreans, they are meant to husher a new age of a new God Miquella is the most fearsome Empyrean because he doesnt have an outer God attached to him, its his allure, intelligence what makes him an Empyrean
Honestly, Marika at 7:30 is just asian tiger mom xD I remember mine saying about the same thing. Except "be whatever you want to be" had the caveat of "as long as it's a doctor or lawyer" attached
If you haven’t already, I hope you do a video on Goldmask, and the mending rune he discovered. Personally, of all the Elden Lord endings, the one that results from that is my favorite.
One theory i had with Godwyn is that his body became a vessel for an outer god of death. The game continually shows us that bodies can be taken over by other entities, such as shabriri taking over the hunter, hyetta, and a few others. I assume a demigods body to be no exception.
Would you like to hear that in one of previous Miyazaki games main character destroyed a city of one hundred million people to send a message? And enough of players treat that as good and canon ending?
She could've chosen anyone else, there was no reason to kill him in particular. I guess she just hated what he represented by being a perfect child of the golden lineage
5:25 if you go to Loretta's arena in the Haligtree, you can see in the middle a statue that depicts what I assume to he Godwyn embracing/comforting Malenia and Miquella as children (both are young, so it could be around the time of their curse, idk)
I wonder if Godwyn ever knew about his Omen brothers at all. Perhaps they were long shunned by the time he came along. These ER videos are incredible, please continue the series! And thank you for your hard work and thought provoking content. 😊
Since it's Marika's family, i bet he was raised as perfect firstborn, surrounded only by perfection, order and glory. А perfect son, of a perfect mother in a perfect golden cage, that was hiding all the gross truth from him. Malenia and Miquella were just younger unlucky siblings who deserved only for pity and Omen brothers were way too disgusting to be even mentioned in the presense of our "perfect golden boy"
@@MsUndertaker99 We can't know that for sure. We know he at the very least had a close and warm relationship with Miquella and Malenia, based off of the in game statue of the three of them hugging, and the Golden Epitaph sword. So I'd say Godwyn was definitely exposed to more than his fair share of rough and uncomfortable situations, his siblings were all very varied and complex, many suffering from illnesses and misfortunes.
@@ChanceClubs everything can be. In my interpretation the whole family of Marika is extremely toxic and twisted, with Marika as the worst of them. That woman is literally the source and the attractor of all the problems in the world and i like her for that
13:38 I need not have been a bloody battle. If one of the black knives-who are totally invisible-got behind him, they’d be able to get in a backstab, which would break his poise and have him on his knees…. You know, they way he’s depicted being killed. After that, they grab his arms. Grab attacks are notoriously hard to escape, and you have no choice but to let the whole animation play out. If the keep him stunlocked by constantly hitting him with grab attacks… That’s not even counting the fact they’re a gank squad. Goldwyn never stood a chance.
This is almost beat for beat the death of Arthur Dayne in GoT, a well loved and noble knight who dies mysteriously which then sets off a chain reaction of betrayals, magic, and a shit ton of murder
??? Is there another Arthur Dayne I'm missing? In book and show Arthur was slain by Eddard (and his raiding party) and it's common knowledge in the realm. What makes his death mysterious?
@@GabagoolGang The circumstances of his death are very mysterious and we know very little about it, why did Ned and Arthur fight when they wanted the same thing? Why was Arthur positioned there and not fighting with Rhaegar at the trident? How did Arthur lose to Ned despite Arthur being both older and the more experienced swordsman? There’s a lot about Arthur’s death we just don’t know, that’s why I drew this comparison
I’m late but I wanted to lyk that George R. R. Martin(writer of GoT) was also heavily involved in the writing of Elden Rings lore, that might explain it
@@X_xghixts Yeah- I’ll admit I’m not a big fan of rehashing plot points from other works, especially since the older games do the exact same thing with their stories with little variation between them
That line, "But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken." I wonder if it had a double meaning, Marika is said to have first mentioned 'be a lord or a god', suggesting she'd have incredibly high expectations, planting the idea of great ambitions, but that she'd also settle for her children at least not completely wasting their lives doing nothing, or falling to temptation. Just a random thought, really in hindsight, if she would have been fine with a child going off to some quiet place and caring for a patch of land, or raising a family.
11:38 Ranni is Godwyn's Step-Sister through Radagon, not cousin.😅 16:41 Except at the Hailig Tree if you know where to look, there is one statue of him with Melania & Miqiella when they were younger.
Godwyn is, by far, my most favorite character in Elden Ring-. Thank you for this video! I'm truly sad there is not much to be found of him in the DLC - only that he actually spread into the Shadwrealm! This really made me gasp when I saw his visage in the dungeons. Spoiler for the DLC endboss: I'm still VERY surprised it was Radahn and not Godwyn who Miquella wanted to bring back?? I was very dissapointed by the fact, because I thought they both got along perfectly, as it was never mentioned whatsoever that Miquella is working together with Radahn edit:typos
I'm pretty sure Marika's words were a warning to her children, not that she would forsake them, but that the order, the Great Will and all that it encompasses them would forsake and forget them. They use and throw away these people to pursue their own ends without any regard, even Marika.
I will continue to enjoy the idea that Fia is the lich dragon Fortissax, showing that Fortissax has always been a companion to death and Godwyn. Seeing as the Ancient Dragons were able to take humanoid shapes and interacted with certain humans quite often.
Goofy ass theory. Fia is female, Fortissax is male. Fia is a Tarnished, Fortissax is a ancient dragon. Fia is not plagued by deathblight, Fortissax is.
@somersaultinggiraffe1901 Actually that, Fortissax is never mentioned as a "he" in the game. Any mention of Fort is by their name. As for being tarnished, it could be that other beings could be tarnished. Omen for example can become Tarnished, so who knows. As for the death magic plague stuff and them being a lich dragon, likely from using death magic as when magic is used, it affects the user.
Godwyn's body is genuinely disturbing to me, and it took multiple breakdown videos for me to even start understanding wtf I was even LOOKING at. I feel like his corpse is almost a visually perfect idea of cosmic horror; it is grotesque and wrong, incomprehensible to the human mind. Something alive yet definitely not in the way we perceive aliveness. It's horrifying. Its perfect.
Her Demigod children were, ideed, forsaken and sacrificed. We killed all of them in our quest to become Lords. She wasn't wrong nor threatening, she was warning them. "If you don't do something, someone will come and kill your failure ass", which exactly what happens.
I always thought that Ranni's choice of Godwyn, as part of her ritual was a calculated as well as personal decision. As an Emperian, if Ranni was chosen to be the god of a new order, she's going to have to have a Lord, or consort. There's a pretty good chance that it would have been Godwyn. By making him the target of her ritual, not only will it sew chaos among the Golden Order, but it serves as a final "middle finger" to the Two Fingers and the Greater Will. As to Godrick's lineage, here's a crazy thought: In the cutscene becore you fight Godrick he, speaking to the dragon corpse refers to it as his kindred "Lend me thy strength, o kindred. Deliver me unto greater heights". After the defeat and new alliance with the dragons; Lansseax, the sister of Fortissax, is said to have taken the form of a human priestess in order to commune with the knights of the Ancient Dragon Cult. Could the Golden Lineage have been started by Godwyn and Lansseax?
Something that's important to note about Godwyn's death: As far as he knew, for his whole life, he was *immortal.* His mother had taken the very metaphysical concept of death and hid it away. His enemies could wreak destruction, but part of what might explain his highly diplomatic nature is that he himself was functionally without risk. What's his opponent going to do, kill him? Mom said they couldn't, so they physically *couldn't.*
Hmm. When you put it like that, he reminds me of Baldur.
this also makes me think he would 100% think his mom had him murdered. First she has the rune of death and second the assassins were numen like her. wether she did actually help raani or not, that's gotta hurt for godwyn :(
That is such a flex....till it isn't
@@rozmarinideas5340Ranni was also a Red Head, like Loki. And he was killed with the only weapon capable to do it. And his death probably was the first step to the Shattering, a war between demigods. And Martin says he don't know norse myth.
@@bisma1352If she wanted him dead, she could just send Maliketh, who was known as Death of Demigods, so probably she did it before. Numens close to her could mean her own family before Godhood or something like her Maidens, who also were descendant of Nox, prople very angry at Marika.
Martin: "I don't know much about mythos"
Godwyn is literally Baldur. Perfect. Pure. Shiny. Dies and everything goes to hell. A war between divine beings. And later a tree burns.
Dang good parallels
Martin lied as naturally as he breathed.
Of course it is, this story is a form of ragnorak
Messmer is thor who massacred the giants
The giant Marika cursed to guard the ruinous flame is sutr
Marika is like freya
A god but a mom first
Freya negotiates with everything she deemed with her time that could be harmful like ticking death itself away
Marika loses herself in her pursuit of power, until, ironically godwyns death snaps back to who she truly is
Then she defies the golden order and shatters the ring.
There is not 1:1 of every character as it's taken from several stories
But yea godwyn the golden
Baldur the golden boy
@@Chessheromusic good old asian mom Marika "Children, do whatever you want, but if you fail to reach greatness i'll reject and destroy you mercilesly"
Kratos: Neg Snap! 😂
The coolest concept in the game, they destroyed his remberance and left his body.
Creating a mindless parasite that naturally infects everything around it. The first and most beloved Demigod was transformed into this horrendous abomination
That's not what happened though... That's Rogier theory... But Rogier don't know shit. He never left Limgrave... He is just saying what Fia (who is sleeping with him) said. And Fia is Godwyns companion. They are lovers. So Rogier is telling us what Fia told him...
She is manipulating Rogier and Us into doing her dirty work.
Sorceress Sellen shows us how Sorcerers like her and Ranni can save their soul in Glintstone and move the Glintstone to a new puppet body.
So we have 2 potential methods. One is Rogiers theory. The double kill theory. And the other is a confirmed fact of the setting. Ranni moved her soul into Glintstone and then into her pupper body.
Occums razor says we should go with the one with the least amount of assumptions.
Rogiers theory is pure assumption. We have NO CLUE if killing two demigods at the same time somehow gets Death confused and causes it to only kill half of one and the other half of the other. (But the whole thing seems ridiculous to me)
Or we can go with the verified soul transfer method that we literally performed it ourselves. We moved Sellens soul to a new body. We know it works.
So what is happening with Godwyn? Fia is. Deathbed Companionship. It's how Godwyn is undead. Fia steals our HP (and Rogiers, and Lionel, and countless others) and gives it to Godwyn to prevent his True Death. She keeps him Living in Death so she can Gestate the Mending Rune that will bring Those Who Live In Death into the Elden Ring's Order.
Remember also, Golden Order incantations are the ONLY super effective damage against Undead creatures. Miquella made a sword for Godwyn that deals extra damage to Godwyn's people. And the item description says Miquella prays for Godwyn to die...
It's just so obvious if you don't die on the hill that is Rogiers one line of dialogue.
ITS A RED HERRING PEOPLE!
@@darkhobo Why would Ranni admit to killing Godwyn then?
There is a option to ask her about that.
@@darkhoboranni literally says that she slew her empyrean flesh, and her corpse has one half of the curse mark.
@@darkhobo the glintstone stone transfer works but at what cost to Sellens? She became a useless blob of glintstone heads. And lost her body, soul trapped withing. Ranni wouldn't take a chance on something like that.
@@darkhobobro got tha elden lore
the fact that godwyn was the ONLY original child of the golden lineage to be born without any defects was somehow missed by my smooth brain until you said it. that really makes him being the first of the dead that more symbolic thats wild
There is a theory that Godwyn was patient zero of Deathblight, even before his death. And There might be truth to that.
What is even more impressive, he was the only child to be born without any defects despite the fact his father is also his brother.
@@AlmoniificationGodfrey? Godfrey isn’t his brother
@@AlmoniificationGodfrey? Godfrey isn’t his brother
@@Marcellius_weave Godrick's rune: "The first demigods were The Elden Lord Godfrey and his offspring, the golden lineage."
Finger reader Eina: "Ahh, Great Runes are the stuff of demigods: the children of the goddess, Queen Marika.
But remember one thing.
The demigods are each and all the direct offspring of Queen Marika."
Live with that.
Seeing his grotesque corpse is one of the few moments that ever gave me pause and genuine chills. It is capital W-R-O-N-G in every sense of the word.
Like so many moments in the game, it just makes me feel sorry for everyone involved.
The view from the ladder climb in the bottom of Stormveil, especially the first time, ugh. It really is hard to describe just how unnatural Godwyn's form is, and seeing how twisted it is when you see it as a whole. It's genuinely unnerving.
Please tell me you’ve played the DLC ??
@@akaErma Wait are you talking about his body in stormveil or deeproot depths? I think the deeproot one is significantly more disturbing lol
@@donovan4222I think they were calling out the view from the ladder so you had a better shot and then referencing that the view is only partial and the view of the whole godwyn in deeproot depths
Godwyn's fate just sucks. You're killed, but only in spirit, so your body is left behind to just stagnate and decay and warp into...something else, that is continuing to affect the lands to this day, until someone can perhaps help him become the new leader for Those Who Live in Death.
And his horrific new appearence has elements of aquatic life in it, and it reflects this Japenese view that stagnant water holds corruption and poison, while flowing water is pure. This is shown elsewhere with Malenia and the Scarlet Rot, with her flowing bladework meant to hold back the spread of rot. But this theme was also explored in Sekiro: the waters of the Fountainhead Palace in that world can grant immortality and great power on those that partake of the wayer, but said water is stagnating and infested with parasites, so that immortality is warping and corrupting the people now.
also, iirc, in japanese mythology and the cultural shorthand, mermaids are very associated with (un)death, so his very weird and warped body makes a lot of sense from that perspective
Yes it is believed that eating the flesh of a mermaid grants immortality. More than stagnant water, I think his fish/ mermaid like appearance is supposed to reflect his undeath.
It was a thing in Bloodborne, too. The whole corruption rune thingy
10:10 "He is honourable and noble. He can turn friends into foes."
Wait.
You know, I'm something of a noble myself
As soon as I heard this I came straight here! Hello bretheren!!
I think he meant “friends from foes”😂
Ranni: “And everyone was happy.”
Godwyn: “Ranni, everything’s dying because of you. There is deathblight everywhere!”
Ranni: “And everyone was happy.”
It's a Miyazaki and Martin game when the "best ending" is about a character who betrayed, caused massive destruction, a curse above all the Lands Between. But she's a wife so everyone loves her.
@@themaniae4803 I also think its because her ending is the most vaguely defined:
Godwyn brings the living in death, which is by its nature terrifying
The Dung eater brings an ending of vengeance and destruction and defiles before our eyes a character we liked
Restoring the golden order in any shape or form is contradictory, witnessing what it had committed and how it fell apart
The frenzied ending is embracing chaos and women eating eyeballs
So by comparison Rany's night seems almost beautiful and calming and, dare I say, feels better because we know less of it.
There is also the fact that the other endings often require the sacrifices of people we like or their horrible fates (Dung eater, Frenzied flame and Living in death al require murdering or the mutilation of an ally)
Ranni: “I have these simps eating out of my hands, nothing will stop me from getting my ending and making Bloodbrone 2.”
Miquella approaches on his army of Griffith fans, with his dearly beloved rotten sister Melania and holding a copy of Dark Souls 4 (he’s been working on it this whole time)
Miquella: “Hi Ranni.”
Ranni: “Oh no…”
@@iordanvassilev8091 Her ending is the most good because we know that she go away with the ER so now the world still has order but not as a Monarchy-Cult. But she's never shows a will to cure Death Roots or fix the Omen problems. Duskborn, Dung and Frenzied are one worst than the other. Golden Mask order is quire literally the Good Monarchy, the same but from now no stupid god can change the things as they want, but at least we are there to fix the problem. I guess is all about personal preference about anarchy, monarchy and MAY CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD.
“Because of you” bro she just helped make the weapon lol
Honestly took Marika’s words as ones of encouragement and warning. Basically, “hey kids, you have the power and potential to be Great at anything; but if you don’t take advantage of this blessing, others that wish to become great will take this power from you.”
Me wanting 30k runes to put one more lvl into stamina: That's a mighty fine demigod child there, would be a shame of a Foul Tarnished with Bloodhound Fang were to stroll on in and kill em
That's not what forsaken means
you're correct. marika told them if they want to go to war to become lords or gods and fail they'll be forgotten and leave sacrifices for nothing behind.
This and a reminder that at the end of the day they have only themselves to count on. Something similar is happening in tbe DLC too. It's not cruelty, though horrible, it is just the reality.
@@KhreamedKhorneyou deserve to be forsaken if you do nothing with your life as a demigod royal. She literally told them to just do SOMETHING.
Destined Death is probably my favorite part of the Elden Ring lore. One of the first things Marika ever does to establish her order is seal away true death. But that one decision is why in so many ways she doomed herself and doomed everyone else.
Like Gwyn stopping progress. Stagnant waters lead to vermin and curses. We need to keep moving forward.
it also seems like everything Marika did was to fight against stagnation she caused when she sealed death
Sealing death was literally almost the very last thing she did... Seal death. Shatter the Elden Ring. Get usurped by Radagon.
You got the timeline all bassakwards man.
Like. Every masoleum turtle thing .. a dead Child of Marika. So... She had lots of children we don't know about. That died. (And they are in those Mausoleums so that they don't become infected with Deathblight, which has infected those who received Erdtree Burials.)
How do you fight several wars if no one dies? You can't. Yet she fought a series of non stop wars against the Giants. The Dragons. Raya Lucaria. The Gloam Eyes Queen...
You can't fight wars if your opponents can't die...
Come on people. Use those big pink squishers!
Don't just repeat what other people say. Think for yourselves.
@darkhobo she sealed it away when the golden order began. Pretty much right after the killing of the giants. Leyndell being seiged by dragons, radagon marrying Rennala, and the birth of most demigods happened after the sealing of destined death. The founding of the Roundtable Hold was the first act of establishing the golden order. Destined Death being sealed was almost at the same time.
@darkhobo I think you misunderstand how death works in the lands between. Since people can't truly die, they are reincarnated by the Erdtree. They still die, but they aren't truly gone. Destined Death is true death, a death that does not allow rebirth. Destined Death existing conflicts with the golden order, which is why Godwyn is the prince of death.
Marika didn't have to truly eradicate the souls of her enemies to win against them. The dragons are a different case since they are creatures of gravel and stone that are petrified upon death, making them exempt from Erdtree reincarnation.
And every war Marika fought after sealing Destined Death wasn't won by slaughter. It was won by unification. Radagon married Rennala. Godwyn allied with the dragons. Marika subjugated her enemies. She didn't eradicate them. All of that subjugation was the only way she could deal with them because she removed Destined Death from the equation. And that's why she eventually fell.
16:34 Actually if I remember correctly there's one possible depiction of him, in Loretta's boss arena you can see a statue of Malenia and Miquella hugging a bigger male figure it could be Radagon but it seems Miquella had good relations with his bigger brother, even attempted to give him proper death through an eclipse. He also gave up fundamentalism by the time the halig tree was a thing and I feel honouring his brother one last time by erecting a statue showing his love to him.
The weirdest thing about that statue, something I saw on reddit but didn't discover myself - Miquella is shown to literally have death blight sprouting out of his ass. The reddit post made an argument that maybe the is a sly way of saying Godwyn was a consort to Miquella before the Promised Consort (not saying the name due to DLC spoilers). I am not saying this is true but the location of the plant looks like it was deliberately placed there.
@@andrewfornes5320 yep Godwyn was plan a
Thats statue is godwyn. Not radagon
Its Radahn now
I had sort of interpreted Marika’s comment as more a warning, something akin to “you live or you die in the game of thrones”. Shoot for the stars, but be careful because if you fail on the path to power, the stakes are mortal.
Marika is Cersei with divine powers.
Or she was like: “Get a job or get out!” 😂
Right I fell like she was saying I can’t do everything for you if you fail you fail that’s it and as she then got trapped in the tree maybe it was just foresight and we do kill most of them
I agree. I sort of interpreted her as saying “because of your birth you will either need to become a new elden lord or a new god to replace me/the greater will or else someone else will and they will have to kill you to do it.”
@@KM-vr3kr Wasn't the rune of death taken. How the hell would anyone kill them
“Some Seek Glory, Others Redemption and One is just really attracted to his Younger Brother” - Max0r
And a another is attracted to his elder brother
And another is infatuated with his genes.
😬
Ah Mohglester445
@@megamicromanager2449SPOILER
Radahn, the Lion of the Battlefields, the Conqueror of the Stars, the Strongest Demigod, the Reborn, the Domestic Abused
I always like to think that the reason why Godrick of all losers got such a broken rune, the very center of the elden ring at that was because the rune was originally fated for Godwyn in the case he lived to the Shattering but because he was dead it instead just defaulted to his next of kin. I mean Godwyn was essentially the center of Marika's family himself, the moment he was removed, everyone else drifted apart.
It might have been godwyn's rune but godrick either inherited it or stole it as he is referred to as a descendant of Godfrey, "distant relation", "diluted blood" seems to imply he is not a child of Marika but is related somehow. Godwyn might have been the heir apparent to Marika.
@sangumlinggi8330 Yeah that's what I meant. Godrick is probably like Godwyn's great grand son or something.
Not only did he get the rune, but also the body.
And now he asked the help of godskins with his infestation problem.
My personal favorite character in this series, he’s my favorite because his story is one of the most tragic, and more so because across all of the Lands Between, Godwyn was one of the only genuinely good people in the world, a Scion for the Golden Lineage, he was their golden child, and he was defiled, tossed underground where no one could honor him, because a twisted version of himself sentenced to an eternity in true death, all for Ranni’s schemes, in the same vein Ranni broke her fate, she sealed Blaidd’s and Godwyn’s
And for that, my heart sympathizes for Godwyn the most, he didn’t do anything wrong
In the Game of Thrones nice people die before the others. Except Alexander, because he's the best💜
@@themaniae4803 >except Alexander
I have some bad news for you, friend...
@@ericsalsbery4363 Ahah i know i ended the game.... 23 times i guess. But he dies very late, the last area, and dies happy doing what he wanted, be a warrior. And who knows, maybe something of him still lives inside the little pot.
@@ericsalsbery4363arguably he died very late into the game. He died in Farum Azula after Maliketh. At that point you only need to defeat Godfrey and Radabeast.
Alexander endure.
This is so frustrating.
"He's so good. His girlfriend told me so".
Why do people not think NPCs in a FROMSOFT GAME can't lie?
Motherfucker. Fia. That's Kaathe. She's using us.
She's LIEING TO US!
WHERE ARE THE GODWYN MONUMENTS? THE STAUES? the ANYTHING that would demonstrate that he had Marika's favor in ANY WAY?
There are none. You're basing everything off a couple lines of dialogue at the very beginning of the game.. the dialogue of a WOMAN WHO STARTS KILLING YOUR FRIENDS. A woman who's item description says she is OPPOSED TO THE ROUND TABLE HOLD.
Fia TELLS US NOT TO TRUST HER!
Why doesn't anyone update their story lines when new things happen
Like right off the bat you heard "this guy is the good guy" and EVERYONE TOOK IT TO THE BANK. No one questioned a THING afterwards.
Like. You remember GRRM wrote this right? Let's look at his work and compare.
Let's see, handsome blonde haired son of the Queen. Handsome and Charming. Just like... Joffrey... Ya know. The sadistic kid who became king before his grandmother in law murdered him?
Same character. Y'all are drooling over Joffrey. Claiming he is the Pinnacle of chivalry and shit. Despite literally 0 evidence to prove it save his girlfriend's word on the matter. The same girlfriend who CAUSES HIM TO LIVE IN DEATH IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I can't be the only person in the world with media literacy. Come on someone open your eyes!
4:50 I think it’s funny that we keep talking about why the Golden Order was messed up, when it’s been there the whole time: Marika’s removal of the Rune of Death. The Golden Order is basically the manifestation of Order itself, and things living forever is far from Order actually. To even say life is to infer death, so to remove Death from the equation goes directly against Order, and even calls forth Chaos. Marika’s empire falls apart because she removes Destined Death to protect herself & her children, thereby rejecting Order & invoking Chaos.
This was my interpretation as well. I can't recall the exact description but it states the golden order was created and then the rune of destined death was plucked from it. The golden order never even had the chance to work as it was intended.
The whole point of the golden order is that death is TEMPORARY and that everything will return to the erdtree and come back out.
Godwyn reminds me a lot of Sanguinius from Warhammer 40k. Incredibly honorable, most reasonable of his siblings, aspires for peace rather than war, and blonde headed and Incredibly graceful.
Never noticed that before. Perhaps because Godwyn's life is such a mystery to us, dead before the game starts, while Sanguinius played a big role in the Horus Heresy and only died in the end.
Also, they both suffered horrible and destined endings, dooming the future of their respective worlds. Godwyn becomes unliving pestilence that corrupts all that come in contact, causing conflict with the ones who live in death and the xenophobic golden order, causing more pain and suffering, which he wouldn't have wanted.
Sanguinius was literally destined to be killed by his brother, Horus, whom he loved the most out of his many brothers. Fighting constantly against tyranny, betrayals and literal demons while trying to keep his own sons from falling into darkness due to genetic flaws that makes them into blood craving berserkers. And his death, breaks his sons in a fundamental way and births a worse curse upon them, the Black Rage, an illness that causes each of his sons who suffer it, to relive the traumatic death of their own father, driving them mad and forcing them to kill and feed off of foes and friends alike, causing untold suffering to so many.
Where does it say ANYWHERE Godwyn was honorable? Where?
His girlfriend told us he was Mommy's favorite and EVERYONE JUST BELIEVED IT.
Well he chops the heads off Marika's statues in his Realm. So maybe they aren't as close as everyone wants to believe.
@darkhobo I think you may be confusing Godwyn with Messner.
Godwyn is one the first sons of Merika and Godfrey. He fought and defeated the giant dragon in Lyndel and was the first of demigods to die. He becomes the Prince of Death and is the reason for death blight to be a thing.
Messmer is the main baddie in the DLC, or one of the main baddies. I haven't finished it yet. Fought him five times and have yet to beat him, lol
Unless there's new lore making Godwyn and Messmer the same person, then I am completely wrong and mind blown. If that is the case 😅
@@austinguthrie5528
You got like... Sparksnotes version of the lore here. It's not bad. But it's like... Surface level stuff. Like, just watching cutscenes stuff. But this is Fromsoft. 90% of the lore is in item descriptions and just environmental storytelling.
Don't think I'm shitting on you. This is what 99% of people are gonna walk away thinking. But there is WAY more going on. And a lot of what you think you know... You're being mislead. That's GRRM's WHOLE DEAL. That's why they hired him!
What's the first line spoken in the game "the fallen leaves tell a story". The first words are telling you the environment is going to tell you the story.
Granssax. The big dragon IN Lyendell... We dunno who killed him. We only know Godwyn fought Fortissax. And that he lost that fight. because if he won, it would have stopped them OUTSIDE Lyendell, then the Dragons wouldn't have gotten into Lyendell. But they did. So he can't have stopped them outside Lyendell. You following me?
Godwyn fought Fortissax outside of Stormcaller church. There's a monument where they fought. You fight Fortissax's sister Lancennax there too. There's a spell that buffs your defense. Golden dragon lightning weapon or something like that... It's Fortissax's spell she gave to Godwyn. Dragons can only give it to their lovers. Lancennax gave one to Vyke but it's offensively focused and uses the Red lightning associated with the ancient Dragons. Golden Lightning is Always associated with Godwyn. If you see gold Lightning it's because the place has significance to Godwyn story.
Okay on to Messmer.
Messmer was SENT BY MARKIA to the realm of shadow on a great crusade! That's like... One of the first things out find out about Messmer. It's not his land. He is there to wage war! He is a Conqueror.
Like, Godrick doesn't OWN Stormveil. He is holding Stormveil on behalf of Miquella and Malenia. Stormveil was Godwyns back in the day. Just because someone is somewhere doesn't mean the place is theirs.
Mogh didn't make the place he is in. He is just inhabiting a place he found.
You following me?
Several items described the Realm of Shadow as the land where Death Converges. It's the Realm of Death.
And what's Godwyns Title? The Prince of Death.
Enemies use Death magic. Like, Fia and the Tibia Mariners death magic. Not the Black Flame of the Gloam Eyed Queen or the Red-Black flame of the Rune of Death. The Pale white and black skulls associated with Those Who Live in Death.
And since Godwyn was the First Dead Demigod (which totally means he can't have died at the same time as Ranni btw, blowing up Rogiers Theory) he naturally would become the Prince of Death. (The same way it worked for Nito in DS1 I might add)
One point I'd like to mention; Ranni and Godwyn don't "both die." There is "one death" shared between them.
Also, it seems like the Black Knife Assasins didn't know Ranni was going to do what she did. Ranni carved the half wheel into herself at the same moment the assassins carved it into Godwyn, and it completed between them.
The assassin's goal was to do a full wheel on Godwyn and basically only completed half of it.
but ranni gave them what they needed to do it
Ranni gave them the rune of death, I think she would have told them what to do.
Since the black knife assassins seemingly are guarding Miquellas haligtree, could that mean Miquella was also somehow involved? After all he wanted to attain godhood, he could have wanted Godwyn dead for similar reasons to Ranni.
The black knife assassins since they are Marika’s original people seem to also share similar goals of destroying the golden order, and bringing in a new god to take over, which Marika seems to be trying to do with the shattering, and which Radagon tried to stop.
@@donovan4222The fact about Miquella is that,with his power,he could have done everything. He could have mind controlled Ranni to act and kill Goldwyn if he wanted to
@@sql638 Yeah that’s true but thinking about this a little more, Miquella was trying to revive Godwyn at castle sol, so it’s actually unlikely he would have helped kill him. There’s also a lot of lore implying that Miquella liked Godwyn and wanted him to die a “true death”
I’ve always read Godwyn’s story as the ultimate tragedy. Godwyn, the perfect son, who seems to have genuinely been the best of the demigods, cruelly and callously taken from the world by the selfish ambitions of another, Ranni.
With the death of his soul-that’s it. He’s gone, and never coming back. And his body, twisted and malformed, is capable of little else but mocking his image and memory.
There's nothing his loved ones can do but try to bury the horror, yet even under the earth, Godwyn’s corpse continues to unthinkingly spread its rot and curse throughout Godwyn’s former home.
Fia, meanwhile, is Godwyn’s epilogue. She’s a lonely and desperate woman, attempting to paint her supposed life’s purpose on the canvas of the so-called Lord of Death, like Ahab against Moby Dick.
Moby Dick never knew who Ahab was, never cared; Moby Dick was only ever a whale. But to Ahab, it represented so much more, vengeance, rivalry, spite from God Himself.
So too does Fia project her wants and desires and hopes and dreams onto dead flesh. She’s delusional.
Such is Godwyn’s final memory-even in death, people can’t help but seem to look up to him. Even twisted as he is, he still represents the glory of a new age; but it’s an age he likely would never approve of, will never see, and is likely to only bring further pain to those who loved him.
what? She collects life force from the PC and others specifically to restore Godwyn to some kind of proper life, because she believes he deserves it. She says that explicitly. She is not delusional about the state of his body or soul, else she wouldn't have a plan to transform him.
Fia, as a deathbed companion, was used to collect life force from champions for the sake of extending/resurrecting the life of her liege. She is trying to do the same with Godwyn but this time, it's the liege she chooses rather than the one she is forced to serve. I don't think you have a good grasp of her character.
Damn homes. Well written.
You are completely wrong about Fia. I don’t think you understand her story, character or purpose.
"He can turn friends into foes."
An exceptionally rare FatBrett L 😔
Is he wrong?
@@Copyright_anonymousyes, i think he meant “turn foes into friends”
He's literally me
@@chango4713 I know but what he said isn't wrong
@@Copyright_anonymouscontext matters. He was referring to Godwyn and Fortissax. So he made a mistake there.
When i saw Godwyn the first time i was scared to see that giant thing move and attack. Instead he's here, alive but in a twisted body horror coma. Damn creepy.
About his fish body, it's a Miyazaki thing, also about Shintoism. Kegare is a conception about Death and Blood create corruption of body and spirit. (It's not just a meme, Miyazaki put a lot of Swamp because this or, like Dark Pus in DS3, something stagnant became corrupted)
Would’ve been such a cool fight in such a cool arena but no, instead they opted for generic dragon fight
@@TokyoprismAt least he has amazing music and deathblight lightning. Though I dunno, Godwyns corpse doesn't even have a single braincell anymore. It'd be like fighting blob king allant in Demon's Souls except that this one doesn't even move.
@@Tokyoprism it felt like a necessary cop out. They establish in the lore that godwyn's body is an unthinking parasite so how could that be a boss that actively defends itself. I was disappointed too but the implications of godwyn's corpse keeps me up at night all the same
@@ValleyofIbis idk, it’s easy to say the lore prevents something until you realize that the lore can be anything when it’s being written. There’s a lot in ER’s lore that don’t really make sense but rules of how things work were clearly written-in to make things happen the way the writers wanted even if it just comes across as a bunch of “and then, and then, because because”. Godwyn died in soul, not in body. The body is alive & actively spreading deathblight so it is essentially moving in some way, they could’ve just said it still moves on its own without thoughts or feelings or something.
Idk, or even just had another giant grotesque beast warped by deathblight that looks equally scary to godwyn come up from the waterfall gaping dragon style & be the bossfight. It just felt like way too sinister & creative of an area to have the most unceremoniously executed generic dragon boss. It was extremely rushed, even the lore reason for it, just “hey what if we just put a dragon in there & say it was a formidable dragon from godwyns past & it’s being projected from his dreams somehow even though his soul is dead & therefor all his memories should be too ok sure moving on”.
@@Tokyoprism ha, I forgot about the gaping dragon, what a cool boss. You're right they definitely could've done anything other than a dragon for that boss, I mean just the environment lends itself to something far more grotesque with the sky box being a gnarly mess of eyes and skin.
"He can turn friends into foes"
You might wanna edit that XD
Turns out that making friends into foes is neither remarkable or difficult LMAO
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was thrown off by that
Funniest flex ever
“So what’re you good at?”
“I can make people hate me.”
He can transform friends into hoes
Yeah im a fucking expert at that
I honestly don't think Marika is as callous as people assume. I think her message to her children is a *warning* , not a threat. She may feel the statement is true based on everything she's witnessed and her own fate. Her decisions seem to come from panick or desperation and an attempt to undo/mitigate harm.
Slaughters and genocides everyone and everything in the name of some outer space godlike being, banishes own husband and thousands of loyal people only because that thing said so, realizes that she was just played all this time and does the most "mature" and "reasonalbe" move - "screw you guys, your game sucks and i'm breaking it down".
I agree, she isn't callous, she's absolutely fucked up
@@MsUndertaker99The Greater Will clearly misled and withheld secrets about the Golden Order from Marika. She admits so herself when she says she needs to unravel the secrets of the Order in one of her dialogue flashbacks. She is culpable for the killing and mistreatment of many peoples, yes. But she was also being guided and granted power by the Greater Will. Even Ranni serves an Outer God, and has done terrible things in its name.
She does not banish the Tarnished and Godfrey for the sake of the Greater Will. It's very plainly laid out that she intended to call them back at a later time, likely with the intention of using them to overrturn the Greater Will, which we eventually do.
She doesn’t shatter the Elden Ring just because she was throwing a tantrum. Marika realized that the Greater Will was never going to let her truly have freedom to make her own choices and would always run things behind her back with the Two Fingers and Elden Beast. The Greater Will LITERALLY forced Radagon to merge with her body and take control of her, turning her into a blind loyalist to the Golden Order. And on top of that, the Greater Will did nothing to intervene as her favorite child was savagely butchered and carved into a corpse. In a last ditch moment of darkness and despair and anger to the Greater Will, she shattered the Ring. Was it justified? Perhaps not. But understandable, yes.
She's absolutely a war criminal and very selfish, but she's not the monster people try to paint her out to be. If you're looking for people to blame, Ranni is literally responsible for the Shattering Wars and the spreading of Deathroot and corruption through Godwyn's corpse.
@MsUndertaker99 it's just like raiden said "You're not crazy, you're batshit insane!"
Right a lot of the lore seems to revolve around demigods trying to break out of the influence of the outer gods. Like Britain’s royal family vs “The Firm” that actually runs the show in The Crown. Godwyn is Princess Diana.
@@MsUndertaker99 I just interpreted her actions and motivates differently. Godfrey was exiled because he didn’t want to be there. Marika released him “The Erdtree governs all. The choice is thine. Become one with the Order. Or divest thyself of it. To wallow at the fringes; a powerless upstart." he had a choice divest. She was trying to help but it backfired. We now know she waged war to retaliate against genocide. The DLC gave my theory some credence.
I figured that Godwyn's post soul death body had animalistic features because he was born under the Crucible's influence, like his omen brothers. The rune of death twisted and corrupted the Crucible's influence along with Godwyn's body itself. Since the Crucible was all about blending all things together, humans, demi-humans, animals etc. then it made sense that Godwyn's body would have animal features when it was corrupted.
I definitely can see what you mean about blending all things together, that seems to be a recurring theme with the crucible, and its worshipers (the Hornsent blend everyone together into jars).
But I would also expect Godwyns body to grown horns like an omen if the crucible was what was influencing it…
@@donovan4222The crucible has so many more aspect than just horns, look at the crucible incantation. We got hedgehogs, flowers, wings, reptile tails. Fish are just as logical imo
@@dreamz1417 Yeah true incantations associated with the crucible use things like wings, feathers, tails etc. but in terms of beings that exist nearby the crucible they usually grow horns…like for example the beast horn item description reads: “Found by hunting horned beasts of the realm of shadow. The Crucible has a particularly strong influence on the beasts of the realm of shadow, causing many to grow horns despite the characteristics of their species.”
@@donovan4222 I was moreso trying to point out that they are literally called the aspects of the crucible. Horns are the most prominent thing we see, true, but there's much more.
Other crucible-adjacent beings like the Godskins seem to be reptiles for example.
"Marika may not have been the best mother"
Messmer, Mohg, and Morgott looking on:
"Ya think?"
Messmer should be the exception because its clear that she was unable to return to him due to the events of the shattering.
The really interesting thing about godwyn to me is what his state (and the state of all the other soulless demigods in the wandering mausoleums, alongside ranni as an inverse example) says about the function of the soul in elden ring, it seems as though, like in most settings, its the true seat of the mind, but also it seems like a sort of metaphysical glue for the components of the physical body, as seen in the cinematic trailer, the second godwyn's soul dies his body starts producing the insects emblematic of deathblight, and when we see him in game his body has been spreading like some kind of fungus, networks of insect ridden mycelium spreading throughout the roots of the erd tree, his body is still alive but it doesnt know what to do without the soul so its just spreading itself as far and wide as possiblein hopes of self preservation, its a really interesting take on soullessness that i haven't seen anything similar to in other media
This an impressive stream of Elden Ring content approaching the DLC, friend. I look forward to seeing your analysis of the new enemies as well
My brain the second this video came across my feed: "Oh fuck yes, fatbrett is doing Godwyn now. Sweep everything aside for this immediately" and i did just that.
Just knowing his story and looking at his mangled, mutated, destroyed corpse. Knowing he wasnt a terrible dude by a long shot, but more like Baldur or Jesus. A sacrificial lamb. Robbed in rot of a real good death where he could be remembered, rest in peace and whats worse, his own soul was basically removed from his corpse. His body continues to live, becoming a cancer to the lands. His soul is gone forever, not even resting.
When I first saw his corpse I thought nothing much of it. But my second playthrough, It gave me pause once I knew the story. Then it felt like I shouldnt be there, I was not welcomed.
I feel like Godwyn never met his omen brothers. I think that's why Marika sent Godfrey away. Seeing the horns from omens she destroyed centuries ago return scared her. So she sent him away and remarried hoping to stave off her sins of the past
What most people don't understand is the one thing Merika wants that finally breaks her is a perfect child. Godwyn was her only child not inflicted by a curse. A child that didn't carry her sin of who she was when she was mortal. She tried with her consort, then as Radagon, then finally with Radagon. He is literally the one pure thing in this world she created.....and boy did that get twisted. The death of her dream of a pure child had her set in motion events that would lead to someone finally ending her. The worst thing is almost all we know about Godwyn is he was perfect and he was murdered and it drove his mother mad.
I love how this video is told. To the point, comprehensible, interesting without over-dramaification. Really good
Your Final Fanatasy XVI video got me here, and I'm glad that I stayed for the long run. Very cool and well put-together videos, that fill the niche I never knew needed filling!
His God of War videos are also great
I feel so bad for Fortissax, man.
Fia is Fortissax... Dragons can turn into humans. (And vice versa thanks to Lancennax, Fortissax's sister)
Like. You go into Fia's dream and fight Fortissax. Why would she be dreaming of Fortissax?
Then you leave the dream and she's dead. And you get her rune.
Kill Fortissax, get Fia's runes. Die in a dream, die in real life.
We know Fortissax's sister Lancennax TURNED HUMAN to found the Dragon Cult. We know Godwyns soldiers were partakers of the Dragon Communion. Exile soldiers are only at Godwyns castles and Dragon Communion churches...
And we see and fight Lancennax AS A DRAGON OUTSIDE OF THE ONE MONUMENT TO GODWYN IN THE WHOLE GAME! (A monument which says he died by the way. "Fought to the last" means you got overrun.)
Not one person asked "so who is secretly a dragon"
Like come one people… Chekovs gun! You don't say "there are people who are secretly dragons" and then just NOT have a secret dragon somewhere... Of course it's the sister of the person confirmed to be a Dragon!
@@darkhobofirst of all, Fortissax is a male, so STFU
@@darkhoboUnlikely, Fia has a whole backstory as deathbed companion for nobles. And she was literally dead outside the lands between till she got revived by grace and chased away from her home to the lands between. And thanks to the DLC we now know how dragon-humans look too, Florissax' human form looks nothing like Fia.
Actually Marika might have been referring to Melinda in the comment to her demigod children. Melinda did not want to become a lord nor a god, she had wanted nothing. Hence, she became the sacrifice, burning the erdtree
Godwyn, Miquella and Malenia are probably the only characters I feel truly sorry for in Elden Ring. Their stories are connected in the most tragic way, and while Radahn may not have deserved to be afflicted with rot, nor Morgott to have lived in service to the golden order despite his cursed blood, but they lived and died doing what they believed with all their hearts was right. Godwyn was just family, and his death, and the subsequent shattering of the elden ring, left Malenia and Miquella without a rock, someone who is strong, but also deeply wise and kind, someone who wants to ease the suffering and confusion caused by the afflictions they were born with.
One thing I noticed is that in order to fully perfect Miquella's needle, the thing that would have finally cured Malenia, is only done so through the Dragonlord's power. Godwyn was the demigod closest to the dragons and he could have recreated the conditions necessary to perfect it however his death completely severed that option.
Malenia was dishonorable. She had never known defeat...sort of. But when she was getting her ass handed to her by Radahn, she bloomed and plagued an entire continent, including her half brother, just to cause a stalemate.
And when you finally put her on the back foot in your fight against her, she blooms agains to summon help from an outer god rather than her own skill.
Malenia decided it would be better to nuke her own troops, and damn an entire continent just so she didn’t lose to Radhan. I don’t feel sorry for her really. Great character, but I don’t think she deserves pity.
Her birth with rot was unfortunate, but that doesn’t give her any right to be a sore loser.
I am wondering if marika discovered that the elden ring was flawed during her research (perhaps something about the greater will) and felt guilty/regret and thus shattered the elden ring. Perhaps she even helped ranni on the night of the black knives. I wonder how much of our story she planned for
@@Ryanin2DI saw a new theory that melania tries to kill radahn no matter what because miquella is waiting for his promised consort. Meaning, he made a promise a long time ago, and probably revoked later. So, melania comes to kill him, miquella brainwashes mohg, promised he would be his consort but lied, we kill mohg and radahn due to melania failing. Miquella gets mohgs body, uses his body to bring back radahn (we know this because radahns new form has omen horns) and im assuming miquella charms new radahn and his goal is complete. It was a good video, with some very plausible ideas.
Man, I found your analyses on God of War a couple of months ago and I've just been suckin' down all of your videos like it's my job, since then.
You make an awesome video essay everytime, Mr. Brett. 👍
Man, I gotta say that these are some of the most entertaining Elden lore videos I have watched. Keep up the great work!
7:50 her request/expectations are extremely easy to live up to. She wanted the to do something, ANYTHING with their lives. If you as a demigod literally ended up doing nothing and just squandering that right then you don’t deserve to be one. That’s not cruel, that’s just life. If you end up squandering yoir godhood then why should you have it?
10:14 "He can turn friends into foes, " *_what??_*
There was a death knight in the trailer with a Godwyn corpse in the background of his arena. Perhaps we will get some highly valuable lore from him in the DLC.
Nope
GOD I WISH.
Turned out to be guarding his "surrogate" bodies. Interesting that they were twisted as well. So is the storm veil face just another surrogate? The strange thing on the face in the basement is the roots spreading off it do not have the flywings imbedded in them like all other death root, but the root that claims rogier does.
There is a statue of a long haired male embracing two children at the haligtree, this is presumably a representation of Godwyn with young Malenia and Miquella, as he had a close relation to the latter and he is the only one who fits the description
I saw a weird theory on Reddit about that statue. They said that Godwyn and Miquella may have been more than just friends. That maybe Godwyn was Miquella's first consort. The reason the poster said that is, when you look at that statue... there is one place on it that is sprouting death blight (the plant tied to Godwyn) Well, the plant looks like it was placed in that spot on purpose... the death blight is literally blooming out of Miquella's ass. I don't know if it was an accident or some game designer having fun or if it does mean something... it is kinda interesting.
@@andrewfornes5320 Bruh, take pause and think about what you just wrote.
@@Arcessitorlol
@@andrewfornes5320 While the thought of that last part is uh.... disturbing.... Godwyn being a potential consort of Miquella's might be true. Miquella had tried to resurrect Godwyn previously if the Castle Sol ghosts are to be believed. They make reference to failing to blot out the sun to try to bring back Miquella's comrade who remains soulless. The Mausoleum stuff references eclipses to restore souls to fallen demigods. In theory it could've been done to restore Godwyn's soul, but with Radahn holding all celestial bodies in check, it was impossible to do.
@@Arcessitor ill let it slide because it's pride month
Reminder that Godwyns fate is Rannis doing. She kills her half brother Godwyn and sends you and Blaiid to kill her other brother Radahn.
I mean killing radahn at this point is more of a mercy kill because the dude is basically a zombie
@@dylanchristie7259That and also she needed him to stop holding the stars and therefore keeping fate frozen in place and unable to be altered. Miquela also needed him to die as well for his path.
Miquella sent Malenia to kill Radahn first though. Also, Ranni may of killed Godwyn for kind of vague (maybe selfish?) reasons, but there was a lot of suffering and lies being caused by the golden order before this happened that was bubbling under the surface. Godwyn was said to be nice, but there’s still mass suffering happening under the golden order, and there is probably no taking out the golden order without going through him.
Personally, I went with Ranni’s ending not because I trust Ranni…but because it was the closest ending I could find to telling the gods to f*ck off and let people decide things for themselves in the lands between.
Ranni was cruel in killing Godwyn but she was not unfair. She destroyed her body too, in order to make a world for humans to have free will and be free from gods.
Seeing how Marika treated everyone and how the other Empyreans used their power, I'd say Ranni is among the most fair demigods.
How does her destroying her body make her fair? She literally only did it so she could get the Greater will off her back. I never went with her ending, but the clips showing more of her quest seem to show that even that wasn't enough. Because her fingers seemed to be brutally murdered as well. There is no guarantee in her ending that things are going to be okay.
Ranni’s dialogue makes it pretty clear that she wasn’t really “part” of the Black Knives plot. She helped them in order to further her own ambitions, which was ultimately to free herself from the Golden Order and the Two Fingers. As such, the plan _wasn’t_ to only kill Godwyn’s soul, the plan was to kill him entirely. But Ranni betrayed the Black Knives by using the other half of the curse rune to kill her own body while leaving her soul in tact. Because she did that, the Black Knife Assassins were unable to fully kill Godwyn as intended.
I full-heartedly believe it was Miquella's doing. They researched how to become a god together - him, Malenia and Ranni, as they were chosen as empyreans, and even received Marika's blessing. Miquella learned of the vessel prophecy and decided to steal Godwyn's healthy body for himself. That required a full death, so he came to Melina to seek help. Melina was around during the fall of the GEQ, so she knew of the rune's of death whereabouts. The girl disclosed its location and what it could do, and then promised to get it for him. But she couldn't do it alone, most likely because she went to the land of shadows with Mesmmer or was there already as a soul that died from fire (it's a pity we do not know how spectral life works, maybe Melina was just fine and was marching the Lands Between on Marika's orders and the two demigods' inquiries did not contradict her mother's plans). Alternatively, Miquella and Ranni could have collaborated to call for Melina using the knowledge of spectral beings. Although, they both were researching godhood, they were doing it for different reasons. Miquella wanted to become a god, whereas Ranni did not, so she saw a window of opportunity when Melina came. Ranni stole a fragment, and Miquella forged a set of daggers from it. Then he charmed a group of assassins and gave them an order. It is possible that Melina participated in the assassination directly, but most likely didn't. What he did not know was that Ranni decided to use his plan for her own advantage. With someone's help, she carved half of the rune on her back and then waited for the assassins to find Godwyn. Before they could finish the carving the ritual was already done, which they did not expect. To cover up her tracks, Ranni asked someone to burn her corpse once she collapses. When Miquella learned of this failure he was shocked but did not abandon on his plans. He made a vow to continue and switched to Radahn. Meantime, Marika was freaking out beyond measure. Previously she told her children that they could do whatever they wanted, aspire to achieve anything of their desire, even become a god. And this was the result. Her perfect son perished because someone desired to take her place. The Elden Ring was the cause of her child's death. She was planning to get rid of it, for some time now but it was too late. She did not finish convincing Radagon to shatter it, yet she was forced to proceed immediately before her other children follow Godwyn. There is even a more terrifying possibility. That Marika herself told Miquella and/or Ranni about the rune, not knowing what they were planning and when Godwyn died she realised the grim reality of her previous 'help'. In that case, Melina was never part of the picture and Ranni recognized the spectral steed because she saw Melina riding it frequently. This was the way Melina visited her brother in the land of shadows. In one of her monologues, she mentioned seeing someone crying, and that person was most likely Messmer. Apparently, Melina was the only one who did not abandon him. It seems that Miquella also knew about the spectral steed and borrowed it at least once to check the land of shadow himself. Or it was Miquella's ride all along and he gave it to Melina upon arrival to the land of shadow, allowing her to escape and go find a person to deliver Radahn.
The thing is the Black Knife assassin where controlled by Markia or where at least loyal to her and probably the golden order. Ranni definitely had something to do with the plot as she does state this but she doesn't say that she killed Godwyn. I'm 100% sure she knew it would happen but I don't think she was the main reason for it.
Also people forget that she was not alone in this, her brother, shadow, a giant and a soccer, where working along side her.
Fantasy Franz Ferdinand.
Really amazing video! However there's a VERY important correction that I'd like to make. You mention around 14:00 that it was after Godwyn's death that Marika shattered the elden ring. That is untrue and I'm surprised that many people consider that as the catalyst for the shattering because it was not. In the very opening cinematic the timeline that's established is that Marika shattered the ring, Radagon attempted to mend it, Marika was imprisoned and then all hell broke loose. Godwyn's death was a consequence of Marika's imprisonment and inability to defend her lineage, presenting Ranni with the perfect opportunity to enact her plan. It is my belief, that from the very beginning Ranni resented Marika and the golden Order because they stole from her her parents. Her mother was left broken and I do not think that Radagon was ever the same after he returned to Marika as evidenced by Hoarah Loux morphing into Godfrey after becoming Marika's consort. The fact that of ALL the demigods she chose Godwyn to be the lamb she would slaughter is a direct affront against the golden order he was so intrinsically associated with. His death was not JUST the death of a demigod, but of the idea of the golden order as well. In one fell swoop, she would rid herself of her link to the greater will and declare war to all that it stood for.
We do not know if Marikas words towards her children is her rule or a warning about the greater will.
She might at this point already doubt the greater will and know what would happen to those who literally "fall from grace".
Wouldn't make sense because she was the one who took the tarnished grace and banished them, she says as much in the Melina quotes.
@@alfalldoot6715She sent them away with the full intention for them to become stronger and eventually return. It makes sense to me.
I think she always hated secretly the Erdtree, because SPOILER FROM THE DLC
Behind the Shadow Keep lies a village that you can access only by doing an emote in front of a statue. A message reads something like "Feel sadness for the forgotten shamans". The village seems to be Marika's because there's the Minor Erdtree incantation at the center of it, description pretty much confirms it.
My guess is the Greater Will wanted Marika to rule the Lands Between, so it forced her to go to the Lands Between and either killed or took the other shamans. Marika planned a vengeance which could only be fulfilled by the Tarnished who came loooooong after.
@@florianchabaud8548 well it was my own fault for ignoring the spoiler warning... i haven`t played the DLC yet but im getting really impatient and just want play it but i can`t buy it yet.
@@florianchabaud8548 Didn't marika grow the erdtree herself? And in the trailer from the DLC she seems to be stealing the elden ring from a corpse of a previous god, perhaps her grandmother or some shaman. Idk, the info I have is not great
10:12 "But more than that, he is honorable and noble, he can turn friends into foes" - *Insert Ron Burgundy voice* That doesn't make sense.
16:35 there’s actually a statue of Godwyn holding Miquela and Malenia somewhere in the Haleg Tree, it was made by miquela to tell the world how much the siblings loved one another
Marika’s line of “should you fail to become anything at all, you will be forsaken” reminds me of Alexander the Great’s answer to who would be his heir.
“To the strongest.”
It’s a line of logic that makes sense on the surface, but leads to almost endless war and the inevitable civil war of multiple factions all vying for control. The only surprising thing about the Shattering is that there weren’t more upstarts from the golden lineage like a fourth cousin twice removed or something.
There are items or dialogue ingame that mention that the shattering of the elden ring and the night of black knives happened quite a large amount of time apart (if i remember correctly its Rogier who mentions it happening long before the shattering of the elden ring). I see people making this statement that godwyns death was the final straw that caused Marika to shatter the elden ring but that doesnt seem to be the case from the way it's talked about ingame.
16:24 it should be noted that death often has maritime imagery in the Lands Between, from the tibia mariners, to the board like tombs in the DLC, so perhaps Godwyn's fishy appearance is thematic.
Thank you for making this video. Glad you made special point that no matter Godwyn’s virtues as an individual, he was still very likely complicit in some terrible nastiness a
Something I love about the Shattering is that when you really get down to brass tacks, it’s a succession crisis. Marika had no clear designated heir and why would she? She’s an immortal god-Queen who literally sealed away the concept of death.
And even if she hasn’t designated an heir, Godwyn probably would have been everyone’s first choice. He’s the oldest known demigod, a known diplomat and most people speak of him fondly. In killing him, the Golden Order is thrown into disarray as anybody with a claim is suddenly scrambling. Genius move Ranni
I saw Marika's proclamation to her children as more of a warning than a threat, something along the lines of "If you fail to prove yourself worthy of the power you hold, someone else will by taking it from your corpse."
Since godwyn, is considered such a homie in the lore. I always imagine his boss fight will pretty much be: (turns around) oh, good day to you Tarnished. How about a sparring match to test your skill? No worries. I won't attack to kill."
If he kills you: "Oh no. My most humble apologies Tarnished. I got carried away there..."
If you beat him: "hahaha **cough** nicely done Tarnished, you may pass to speak to the king of leyndell. I'll be observing your progress with much intrest."
If he is a boss fight, I hope they make it so that he is only defeated at the end of the fight, not killed.
@@somersaultinggiraffe1901He isn't a boss fight and unfortunately never will be
Hey man these videos are awesome. I personally get just as pumped up for your videos as I do for Vaati's. Keep up the good work man!
10:16 "he can turn friends into foes"
I know some people like that. :p
"A corpse should be left well alone. Oh I know, how the secrets beckon so sweetly. Only an honest death will cure you now. Free you from your wild curiosity..."
The birth of healthy royal children is the sign that as a peasant your family isn't going to be put to the sword at some point in a war of succession.
What
Didn't help the Targs though..if anything, they had too much of a good thing.
16:35 There are statues in the Haligtree of three figures. A young child (Miquella), a one armed women (Malenia), and a third figure. Some believe the third is Godwyn.
What I think is important is to seperate Godwyn from the Prince Of Death. While one came from the other, it can be argued via the ship of Theseus analogy that that corpse is no longer Godwyn, given that his soul is long gone. There is no will left in that body. It is as if the entire body from one day until the next became an infection. Just like hair and nails continue to grow a little after death, but then with your entire body. It's just a thing that exists to grow with no other purpose or rationale. It is Fortisax going into him to fight death, Fia, his death knights and mausoleum nights that put him on the pedestal he's at. There is no god or demigod to speak of here, nothing that demands, wishes or needs to be worshipped. Just a thing that should have died, but didn't, yet everything that kept it in check did.
On the Golden lineage, I'd like to point out a parallel with Atlantis as described by Plato.
The extremely short version is that Atlantis was a place ruled over by direct discendants of Poseidon, a dinasty of 10 kings that ruled together (Hey there, Rykard. Nice to see you here) and whose first elements were pure and noble (Godwyn) and became progressively more "human", less divine and more flawed by intermingling with the human population up until the point they embraced debauchery and the city was destroyed (Godrick).
I believe godwyn was conceived before godfrey took serosh on his back. The grafting of a magical beast and the possible corruption of his blood would probably explain why the two other sons ended up as omen. It would also explain why marika got rid of her husband as he was unable to give her additional healthy children.
Radagon and marika were probably unable to conceive healthy children as they are doing some sort of inbreeding selfcest. Which would explain mikella’s youth, melina’s rot and whatever messmer has (assuming radagon is his father).
The union of renala and radagon created healthy demigods as they were not blood related and healthy.
Ranni destroys brother’s *soul* and causes untold scores of people to live on as miserable undead creatures
Ranni fans: nah it’s cool cause blue waifu
She helped make the weapon, didn’t orchestrate his death
Burn the Witch.
@@silveryo7678 She absolutely orchestrated his death. The only way she could kill her flesh was if she killed someone else's soul at the same time. She chose Godwyn, probably an easy target due to his apparent kindness. The night of the black knives was orchestrated by her, for her.
@@PapaProne she absolutely did not, we have no confirmation she ever orchestrated it, she only confirmed she made the murder weapon. That is not a legitimate motive, if anything, godwyn would’ve been one of the most difficult, being the Demi-god who defeated the dragons. To have orchestrated the night she would have needed control over the black knife assassins, there is no evidence that she had any control over them, in fact, the black knife assassins spend the entire game hunting her down to kill her and her “family”. If she was able to to orchestrate the night, why would her assassin group be attempting to kill her afterwards (it’s because she killed herself which wasn’t apart of the plan). The reality is the black knife assassins likely were created or lead by Marika who is a numen, as the black knife assassins are said to be numen woman who had close ties to Marika specifically. That alone is 100x more evidence that marika controlled the assassins than anything that implicates Ranni.
@@silveryo7678 she quite literally confirmed it during her quest lol, did you even play the game?
1:55 With the possible exception of Radahn, of course.
Marika: conquers lands between with a whole army and 6 demi god children. "So impressive!"
Me: conquers lands between and kills the entire family with a giant club and a loin cloth. "Now do it with a rockband drumset!"
All this FBC (FatBrett Content) got me bricked up. Thanks brotha.
It's really difficult to interpret a story you never get to read from characters you never get to see in a world that died hundreds of years ago, but I will always enjoy a good theory video about it.
Keep 'em coming!
10:14 man i must be a champion because im always turning friends into foes everytime i speak.
One of the most terrible things on my first playthrough was defeating Fia’s Champions and uh… Killing Fia… (look i was a faith player and she killed one of the like two faith-centric characters. Sometimes roleplaying calls). I remembered distinctly being disappointed wondering where this supposed Demigod turned Prince of Death was… only to discover it’s the terrifying gargantuan mermaid monster right in front of me
All those born from Marika are twins, symbolizing her and Radagon's duality. Mohg and Morgot. Malenia and Miquella. Godwyn on the other hand was born without a twin. Morgot represents the life above while Mohg embraces the sewers below. Malenia is the embodiment of the everchanging, too bloom or decay, while Miquella stagnates on her enternal youth. This brings us to the conclusion that Godwyn lost his twin. The antithesis to his perfect golden order... the tarnished who destroyed everything on his path and slaughtered every thing that moves and this was done without ushering a single word.
The part in Gransax’s Bolt’s description saying that Gransax’s assault on Leyndell was the only time in historical record that the city’s defenses had been penetrated makes me question if there was a time that wasn’t recorded. Perhaps Messmer might have assaulted the capital having felt dissatisfied with the tasks Marika gave him in the land of shadow he rebelled and broke through the walls.
I think I speak for many, when I say that You should make a video about Goldmask. Also good luck with SoT!
14:50 you take a job in customer service.
One thing I feeling like I'm missing from the lore about godwyn is: I've never seen anything saying he was an empyrean. Considering he was the perfect first child, why would other later, imperfect children be chosen over him? Ranni (not interested/not one of "Marrika's" children), Melania (cursed with scarlet rot) and Miquella (cursed with eternal youth) all seem like less worthy candidates for godhood than Marika's special boy. seems a little suspicious to me.
Both Malenia and Ranni are related to a an Outer God, this is why they are empyreans, they are meant to husher a new age of a new God
Miquella is the most fearsome Empyrean because he doesnt have an outer God attached to him, its his allure, intelligence what makes him an Empyrean
13:18 they attacked him while he was asleep I believe. So they knew they would stand a chance just fighting Godwyn. Really shows how strong he was.
The more i learn sbout the lore, the more i beed to dove in DEEPER
Honestly, Marika at 7:30 is just asian tiger mom xD
I remember mine saying about the same thing. Except "be whatever you want to be" had the caveat of "as long as it's a doctor or lawyer" attached
I can turn friends into foes too! 10:15
I know it was a small typo but “he was noble! He could turn friends into foes!” Made me chuckle
If you haven’t already, I hope you do a video on Goldmask, and the mending rune he discovered. Personally, of all the Elden Lord endings, the one that results from that is my favorite.
This answers why Godwyn and any resolve around his story is so absent in the DLC
10:15 "He can turn friends into foes" Uhh, I think that's the wrong way round lol.
One theory i had with Godwyn is that his body became a vessel for an outer god of death. The game continually shows us that bodies can be taken over by other entities, such as shabriri taking over the hunter, hyetta, and a few others. I assume a demigods body to be no exception.
This is why i hate Ranni. Godwyn is portrayed as a good, and noble individual. Who she murders for her own gain
Take it like this. Other than Godwyn, there is no such thing as a good character. As this DLC will show, even Miquella is concerning.
Welcome to From Software. No ones hands are clean😅
@@AbbeydoobieRight, but I think they were addressing the scores of people that believe ranni is a noble character on a noble path
Would you like to hear that in one of previous Miyazaki games main character destroyed a city of one hundred million people to send a message? And enough of players treat that as good and canon ending?
She could've chosen anyone else, there was no reason to kill him in particular. I guess she just hated what he represented by being a perfect child of the golden lineage
5:25 if you go to Loretta's arena in the Haligtree, you can see in the middle a statue that depicts what I assume to he Godwyn embracing/comforting Malenia and Miquella as children (both are young, so it could be around the time of their curse, idk)
I wonder if Godwyn ever knew about his Omen brothers at all. Perhaps they were long shunned by the time he came along. These ER videos are incredible, please continue the series! And thank you for your hard work and thought provoking content. 😊
Since it's Marika's family, i bet he was raised as perfect firstborn, surrounded only by perfection, order and glory. А perfect son, of a perfect mother in a perfect golden cage, that was hiding all the gross truth from him. Malenia and Miquella were just younger unlucky siblings who deserved only for pity and Omen brothers were way too disgusting to be even mentioned in the presense of our "perfect golden boy"
@@MsUndertaker99 We can't know that for sure. We know he at the very least had a close and warm relationship with Miquella and Malenia, based off of the in game statue of the three of them hugging, and the Golden Epitaph sword. So I'd say Godwyn was definitely exposed to more than his fair share of rough and uncomfortable situations, his siblings were all very varied and complex, many suffering from illnesses and misfortunes.
@@ChanceClubs everything can be. In my interpretation the whole family of Marika is extremely toxic and twisted, with Marika as the worst of them. That woman is literally the source and the attractor of all the problems in the world and i like her for that
13:38 I need not have been a bloody battle. If one of the black knives-who are totally invisible-got behind him, they’d be able to get in a backstab, which would break his poise and have him on his knees…. You know, they way he’s depicted being killed. After that, they grab his arms. Grab attacks are notoriously hard to escape, and you have no choice but to let the whole animation play out. If the keep him stunlocked by constantly hitting him with grab attacks…
That’s not even counting the fact they’re a gank squad. Goldwyn never stood a chance.
This is almost beat for beat the death of Arthur Dayne in GoT, a well loved and noble knight who dies mysteriously which then sets off a chain reaction of betrayals, magic, and a shit ton of murder
??? Is there another Arthur Dayne I'm missing? In book and show Arthur was slain by Eddard (and his raiding party) and it's common knowledge in the realm. What makes his death mysterious?
@@GabagoolGang The circumstances of his death are very mysterious and we know very little about it, why did Ned and Arthur fight when they wanted the same thing? Why was Arthur positioned there and not fighting with Rhaegar at the trident? How did Arthur lose to Ned despite Arthur being both older and the more experienced swordsman? There’s a lot about Arthur’s death we just don’t know, that’s why I drew this comparison
I’m late but I wanted to lyk that George R. R. Martin(writer of GoT) was also heavily involved in the writing of Elden Rings lore, that might explain it
@@X_xghixts Yeah- I’ll admit I’m not a big fan of rehashing plot points from other works, especially since the older games do the exact same thing with their stories with little variation between them
That line, "But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken." I wonder if it had a double meaning, Marika is said to have first mentioned 'be a lord or a god', suggesting she'd have incredibly high expectations, planting the idea of great ambitions, but that she'd also settle for her children at least not completely wasting their lives doing nothing, or falling to temptation. Just a random thought, really in hindsight, if she would have been fine with a child going off to some quiet place and caring for a patch of land, or raising a family.
10:15 “He can turn friends to foes..”😂
11:38 Ranni is Godwyn's Step-Sister through Radagon, not cousin.😅
16:41 Except at the Hailig Tree if you know where to look, there is one statue of him with Melania & Miqiella when they were younger.
Godwyn is, by far, my most favorite character in Elden Ring-. Thank you for this video! I'm truly sad there is not much to be found of him in the DLC - only that he actually spread into the Shadwrealm! This really made me gasp when I saw his visage in the dungeons.
Spoiler for the DLC endboss:
I'm still VERY surprised it was Radahn and not Godwyn who Miquella wanted to bring back?? I was very dissapointed by the fact, because I thought they both got along perfectly, as it was never mentioned whatsoever that Miquella is working together with Radahn
edit:typos
I'm pretty sure Marika's words were a warning to her children, not that she would forsake them, but that the order, the Great Will and all that it encompasses them would forsake and forget them. They use and throw away these people to pursue their own ends without any regard, even Marika.
I will continue to enjoy the idea that Fia is the lich dragon Fortissax, showing that Fortissax has always been a companion to death and Godwyn. Seeing as the Ancient Dragons were able to take humanoid shapes and interacted with certain humans quite often.
Goofy ass theory. Fia is female, Fortissax is male. Fia is a Tarnished, Fortissax is a ancient dragon. Fia is not plagued by deathblight, Fortissax is.
@somersaultinggiraffe1901 Actually that, Fortissax is never mentioned as a "he" in the game. Any mention of Fort is by their name.
As for being tarnished, it could be that other beings could be tarnished. Omen for example can become Tarnished, so who knows.
As for the death magic plague stuff and them being a lich dragon, likely from using death magic as when magic is used, it affects the user.
Godwyn's body is genuinely disturbing to me, and it took multiple breakdown videos for me to even start understanding wtf I was even LOOKING at. I feel like his corpse is almost a visually perfect idea of cosmic horror; it is grotesque and wrong, incomprehensible to the human mind. Something alive yet definitely not in the way we perceive aliveness. It's horrifying. Its perfect.
You keep calling Ranni his cousin, but she's his sister...
More like half sibling cousins
@@RampidWarthogStudios sister, half-sister.... but in no way cousins
@@callmejrob1 technically cousins still work. Marika and radagon are two different people.
This family Tree is a damn rubik cube😂
Bit of a nitpick imo
Her Demigod children were, ideed, forsaken and sacrificed. We killed all of them in our quest to become Lords. She wasn't wrong nor threatening, she was warning them. "If you don't do something, someone will come and kill your failure ass", which exactly what happens.
I always thought that Ranni's choice of Godwyn, as part of her ritual was a calculated as well as personal decision.
As an Emperian, if Ranni was chosen to be the god of a new order, she's going to have to have a Lord, or consort. There's a pretty good chance that it would have been Godwyn. By making him the target of her ritual, not only will it sew chaos among the Golden Order, but it serves as a final "middle finger" to the Two Fingers and the Greater Will.
As to Godrick's lineage, here's a crazy thought:
In the cutscene becore you fight Godrick he, speaking to the dragon corpse refers to it as his kindred "Lend me thy strength, o kindred. Deliver me unto greater heights".
After the defeat and new alliance with the dragons; Lansseax, the sister of Fortissax, is said to have taken the form of a human priestess in order to commune with the knights of the Ancient Dragon Cult.
Could the Golden Lineage have been started by Godwyn and Lansseax?
Bro, you deserve a million subscriber.