Personally I think Marika did manage to have the Golden Order last much longer than a thousand years - because the world is trapped in stagnation. I think Marika succeeded at delaying the change of the age and it was awful for her and for everyone else - hence her attempt to shatter the Elden Ring, as she learned the agony of eternal life.
yeah she is called the eternal for a reason. i think she removed destined death for that. if death is necessary to build a divine gate, removing death would be like using a ladder and then kicking it down so nobody can get on your height.
At first, I thought Marika destroyed the Elden Ring because Godwyn was slain. But after hearing St. Trina say that Miquella's ascension to Godhood will be his prison. I guess Marika got tired of being held as a vessel for the Elden Ring. So yes, maybe she was tired of being eternal and thought, "ah my god, fuck this!" SLAM
09:23 when you put all the runes together like this it looks like the growth pattern of bacteria or fungi if you just put a single inoculation in the center of an agar plate. In the final Rune there is not enough nutrients left in the center of the plate to support life any longer leaving a dead circle while life continues to thrive at the edges where there is still plenty of nutrients. As life in the center dies, the nutrients left from the death of the original colony there may support the growth of new life, returning from the edges of the plate as descendants of the dead center. Damn this games got me seeing metaphors for the rise and fall of civilisations in every little detail they can't have thought of all this right? I must be crazy
@@G4meplus Placi was either two or five different dragons before becoming elden lord in my opinion, and if you ask why five? well they had five heads originally. Just like Marika fused with Radagon there's no reason to believe it's not the same with them.
Can’t remember whether it was zulie or zayf, but one of them looked at the fused stone bodies behind the gate of divinity, and they ALSO have gold showing thru just like the stone dragons of farum azula. It’s exactly the same. In light of that, i think your theory is definitely correct!
I see you are interested in re-exploring Farum azula. Then I recommend you watch the latest video by Occam’s onion on the eclipse and how it destroyed Farum azula. Btw amazing analysis as always.
Yeah i just watched that before this, and he was like that the nox happened before the hornsent, among many other things, while this video is like the nox happened after marika. It's a very tough question to anwser.
Doesn't seem an eclipse did it as the reason for Farum Azula's collapsing state is in the Ruins Greatsword description: "Originally rubble from a ruin which fell from the sky, this surviving fragment was honed into a weapon. One of the legendary armaments. The ruin it came from crumbled when struck by a meteorite, as such this weapon harbors its destructive power."
Great work! By the way, you mentioned the Law of Causation then the fact that history was only partly cyclical, allowing for variations within each cycle. If the Law of Causation is arguably karma viewed through a warped lens, the Law of Regression is samsara, which is the endless cycles bound by karma with variations each time.
I think the "Spirit Energy" beein runes in the game is probably true, it plays on the law of regression too, that one can absorb the energy of something else and become one with it. That being said, I think that theme of sacrifice is probably the represented way to say that something needs to go for you to get those runes. So I think that is why we dont see that with miquella or ranni when they become gods, they dont need to sacrifice and torture a bunch of people for their spirit or runes, they already sacrifice something with enough runes to ascend. With miquella we can assume he sacrifices himself and his great rune, with ranni I theorize that she sacrifices marika, since marika's body crumbles to dust in her ending, and we can see it desapear in golden dust. That would also explain why the lord of night never became a thing, they werent dropping enough runes for someone to pick up. The dragons just had a lot of spirit energy, runes, and were sacrificing themselves, and thats why they managed to do it. Just some fun brain activity I had watching the video.
Minor Erdtree incantation is found in Shaman Village where as 'Protection of the Erdtree' is found in Dominula village, not sure if theres a connection but was interesting to discover
Something that I found particularly interesting on a replay: Ensha is the name of the still-living ancient king whose remains are the Royal Remains set. An ancient king who lives in death, who the armor describes as a champion of the meek and the downtrodden, exactly as Godwyn is said to be now. I believe that Ensha is the ancient king of the Sun Realm as described on the stuff dropped by those who live in death and is the reason why deathroot is in Farum Azula. I believe the Godwyn situation is a repeat of something that already happened long ago
I would more readily buy that last part except that Godwyn’s spread is thematically shown to be a steady and inevitable spread of necrosis throughout the entirety of the world. Godwyn will persist as the Lord of Death across all coming ages; wielding the very same power of death itself, he can not be stopped. Also, could you direct me to the Those Who Live in Death item drop descriptions you referred to? That sounds interesting.
Not saying the divine gate *isn't* built by hornsent necessarily but I think it's clear that the fresh bodies are likely Marika's doing no? Or an unknown actor (GEQ?)and the bodies are hornsent? They don't appear to have willingly just walked into this idk maybe I'm wrong but the implied betrayal of Marika makes me think that Marika was supposed to become a god of the spiral tree in some other manner not this horrifying ritual
Hornsent built the Gate of Divinity from fresh bodies, most likely from those they imprisoned within gaols. Gaols have a purpose, harvesting flesh and bodies and mastering reincarnation. Jarsainthood experiment in gaols were essays in this craft of "ascending" , attempts of creating this divine gateway. So they likely discovered shamans were perfect mediums for this craft. And the Tower itself certainly seems to predate Marika. Because it is has been so long time since fresh bodies have been added to the Tower by the hornsent, the Tower is slowly crumbling away. My guess is that Hornsent built the Tower from piled up bodies in order to become closer to divinity, but Marika used it to ascend and then veiled it in shadow to prevent any rival Empyrean to manage the same feat. I wonder if hornsent Grandam is so angry at Marika, because originally she was supposed to ascend as their goddess. But Marika managed to seduce hornsent with her beauty.
@@saiga3 This could make more sense, my idea was that the Hornsent were seeking someone who could be a vessel for divinity whether they were Hornsent or not, Marika was a promising candidate so they used her but she used her new powers through her son to overthrow them. But perhaps they were building Enir-ilim with this death ritual but never harnessed the power, and Marika worked out how to so she did and that's the betrayal. Interesting.
The hornsent probably used the bodies of their "criminals" who were used the gaols in conjunction with other innocent people (some corpses don't have horns) Now was it Marika or the gloam eyed queen ? We don't know for sure but to me it seems like a well planned event with all parties participating.
Correct. The last transmutation step in the Magnum Opus is also symbolized with red, and I think it's no coincidence that the DLC story trailer shows a scene of absolute bloodbath. In fact, we see black clouds, a yellow sky, a white corpse, and a red Gate. These are all the colors associated with the Philosopher's Stone
@@johnleecooper8520 its probably not inspired from FMA, most things in FMA are from the old real world beliefs in alchemy like obtaining immortality or creating gold from inferior metals. Alchemy in general plays a huge part in elden ring. Like red radagon and golden marika are aldo alchemic enologies
Sound theory for the most part but doesn’t Placidusax being his own god kind of contradict the passage about his god being “fled” and him awaiting its return?
I like to think it was Marika herself before she abandoned/killed off her Gloam Eyed Queen part of her. If we entertain the idea she was the GEQ, that is. The day she abandoned/killed her was the day she passed through the gate. Gloam on one side, her new shining golden order behind the gate. Then placidusax went sleepy cause his wifey god left him RIP
@@FartsHaveATaste Omg i love this, feels like this is all coming together! Marika sealed away the rune of death as she cast off her old faith, much like we see Miquela do. The depiction of the young woman with the three wolves in farum azula could be young marika when she was embracing her old fate of GeQ?
@@FartsHaveATaste Do you think the age of Ancient Dragons coincided with the age of the Hornsent? This would also mean that the Gloam Eyed Queen’s god hunt occurred in that time period.
It seems like a lot of the civilizations were trying to recreate their own version of the crucible. The crucible is an amalgamation of all life and, in my opinion, most likely the one great that hyetta talks about. What better way to make a blending of all life than to literally blend blood and flesh together in piles. We see this blending of life in the spirit calculus item that looks like a terratoma of multiple kinds of animals and it is "suffused with spirituality" so much so that it is giving off an almost blinding amount of light. And we know that light is directly related to the gods and spirituality. It also seems that to become a god, or to be visited by an outer god, one must go through a great trauma to attract the gods attention (for example mohg, the bloodfiends, marika and the shaman). Sacrificing many people would cause a lot of torment and would get the attention of a god or the greater will (which is why I believe marika was chosen as the god of the next age).
Has anyone linked the betrayal to Malakath yet? Where does the animal companions fit into this dual body nature? Malakath is clearlty alive in some way while Sarosh seemed to have given up his body so he could seal Godfrey's power/rage, which I see as a Marika/Radagon type relationship, especially since Gofrey literally tears Sarosh apart to go back to Hoarah Loux (Miquella/St. Trina?).
I think you're both right and wrong at the same time. Godfrey's whole ordeal is that, upon becoming Elden Lord, he tries to start over: he gets a new name and calls upon a beast to keep his violent nature supressed. That can be paralled with Miquella divesting himself of everything to start over as a god. But that's kind of a stretch, that and the correlation with Marika/Radagon. About Serosh and Maliketh, they're both beasts, sure, but their purposes are entirely different. Hell, they might not even be from the same place.
Blaidd’s storyline seems to explain the betrayal. Marika shattered the ring and Maliketh was forced to impale her by the greater will. He is her shadow, so naturally the same rules should apply.
The 1000 years statement is a reference to Christian mythology. In Revelations, After the forces of evil are defeated by Christ, he is said to reign over Earth personally for 1000 years of peace. Afterwards, the world would be ended and the final judgement will occur. Interpretations vary between sects, but the 1000 year number doesn't vary.
Interestingly, GRRM said in an interview that he wrote a backstory that took place 6000 years ago, so Marika managed to freeze the progression and Golden Order stood for 6 cycles?
Saying that something lasts for a thousand years is also just a literary way to say that something will last for a very long time / forever. It’s not necessarily literal.
"A lord will usher in a god's return, and the lord's soul will require a vessel." I'm curious as to how you think Marika's ascension fits into this part of the rite. I don't think Godfrey has anything to do with this personally but what would that then imply about Radagon? Is he a combination of a fire giant corpse with a human soul? Was Marika a vessel for her own lord?
If we assume they are two people in one body, (perhaps through the process of sharing a jar?) then Marika and Radagon fit all the requirements to Ascend. Together they are God, Lord, and Vessel. I think this also fucked them in the end. It's versatile enough that she can change Lords to use Radagon elsewhere and therefore gain inside knowledge of the Carians, but she cannot fully escape the rings influence. While Radagon and her share a body and soul, clearly they split in ideals and philosophy at some point. Even Placidusax's own ascended God fled, leaving him and the Dragons behind. Marika doesn't have that luxury in the end. Marika becomes disillusioned with the Golden Order, where Radagon holds fast. Radagon opposed her destruction of the ring and keeps her prisoner in the Tree while attempting to mend it. Marika is supposed to be the one guiding Tarnished with Grace, but Radagon is there too and you can restore the Golden Order if you so choose which satisfies Radagon instead of Marika.
Smoughtown recently made a video that has this topic in it at one point. The scroll says there needs to be a god, a lord, and a vessel. With Miquella, he was the god, Radahn was the lord, and Mohg was Radahn's vessel. With Marika, she was all 3. Marika the god, Radagon the lord, and being the vessel of the elden ring. Thanks to the dlc we know that Messmer is heavily hinted to being the firstborn of Marika, and we know 100% that Messmer is the son of Marika and Radagon, therefore we know that Radagon was with Marika before they split off and Marika got with Godfrey, and then later Radagon got with Renalla, and then they later rejoined as one. Sorry that was a bit of a tangent, it's just some people seem to still not realize that Radagon and Marika were one from the beginning, or at least since Marika's ascension
If we accept Marika was the Gloam Eyed Queen, the divine gate makes sense being gloam on one side and golden on the other. It was showing her leaving the gloam Eyed Queen behind and Death, as she ended up creating a world free of death. And as Bayle and dragons are in the Shadow Realm; we can even assume that is also the same time the GEQ (Marika, a god) left Placidusax. Thus he is hibernating and awaiting her return.
Another wonderful video with great insights. There is a video out there positing that the dragon in letndell is actually alive just frozen in time. I forget her name but it's a great vid. So maybe same thing with Farum Azula. Those dragons mah just be frozen in time. Placidusax has time powers so it's possible. A wall of "living rock" is the dragonncrest talisman description. Also Melina's dagger the blade of calling has the ash of was Blade of Gold which produces the same golden flame as placidusax and elden beast.
Thanks a lot, glad you liked it ❤️ Granssax could've been frozen I can see that but, the dragons in the walls are clearly decomposing and revealing their inner golden flesh so they are dead. About the blade of calling it's more like a golden projectile not a fire, that's what i meant.
One thing about the bonny village bit, it's reminiscent of the village Marika grew up in, down to the celebrations and the braids. I think the reason why even the Golden Order had to respect it is because ultimately, that's what marika was trying to preserve, her culture. The skinning part and the godskin connection I feel correlates to the agreement Marika made with the primordial snake of death (the OG GEQ). The village represents the original contract and stipulations made required for The Golden Order to be established. All in all it would be bad PR for the Greater Will to not uphold it's contract. Just as it would be for Marika to not uphold hers and we see Marika's consequences very clearly
Someone analysed the Divine Gate in a UA-cam video and displayed 3 distinct layers of corpses that made up the Divine Gate. ProfOrProf - What is the Scadutree?? - Divine Gate chapter (It’s definitely worth a watch). The first, and only reachable layer, is the corpses of Hornsent, that still bleed and are comparatively “fresh”. There’s a second layer of large humanoid corpses with no horns found further up the tower. Towards the top, we find a new layer of corpses that have essentially fossilised into rock. None of the corpses on either layer seem to resemble each other. In my opinion, this serves as strong evidence to suggest that, at the least, the Divine Gate has been used in three separate rituals, the Hornsent serving as the latest. I personally believe Enir Ilim has seen multiple cultures take over, and the Hornsent were some of the last to settle the Tower.
I thinke Bayle attacked Placidusax the same way the Baleful Shadow intended to attack Ranni. Yes, he was a drake but I think it stems more from Mandrake (man dragon plant). Metyr looks like a mandrake root, humanoid but not human. Maybe it was she that seduced, betrayed and killed the giant Dragon god, his stolen seed used by her to birth Bayle. In fact, Metyr could have done the same with the Beast god, resulting in the Baleful Shadow. Every god has a shadow - maybe she is the mother of shadows/truth in general. Marika's essense could have been trying to run from the shadow for all eternity but catching up with her in every single incarnation. No one can outrun their shadow make a light bright enough to eradicate it permanently.
The Baleful Shadow was an assassin sent by the Two Fingers because Ranni betrayed them. Nowhere in the game it says Placidusax betrayed the fingers (or if he even served them I believe) so it doesn't make sense that Bayle attacked him for that reason. I think it makes more sense that it was just an attempt to overthrow power, or a battle for existence between two dragon races. And also, if Metyr is the mother of all fingers AND of, supposedly as you say, all drakes, wouldn't they look alike just a little bit?
You’re forgetting that of the five empyreans named, only 2 have shadows. We assumed Miquella and Melania would follow the same rules and that the dlc would give us more information on that but, despite the main focus being Miquella, we got nothing on shadows. At this point I’m wondering if shadows were a more recent tradition that was quickly discarded after Blaidd came along. Ranni calls Blaidd a “spectacular failure” on the part of the fingers. Makes sense that they wouldn’t try again, especially when Marika herself was doubting them. They were quickly losing their grip on the world.
10:03 that explains why the godskin hunt was conducted the way it was: in order for marika to ascend to godhood, she had to commit an atrocity of her own, and to amplify her atrocity she not only killed thousands of hornsent, but skinned them alive (as can be seen in the trailer). The gloam eyed queen, her own daughter melina, learned of this and sought to bring her recompence in the form of the godskin hunt, returning the pain in kind.
Great video. Love the idea that Farum Azula is potentially a huge dragon based divine gate. But I'm convinced that the focus that both Elden Ring and Berserk have on the "1000 years" or "millennium" is a reference to the Bible, in the book of Revelations 20:4-6 which speaks of the second coming of Christ, and the idea that he would reign for 1000 years with those who reject the Mark of the Beast. While it's possible that Miura and Miyazaki both chose 1000 years because it does sound like a long time, I believe it''s one of the ways they integrated Christian concepts into their lore surrounding the rebirth of a savior figure. It should be noted that in the original Greek, the term "Xilea etn" (chilea ete) is used, which translates to "a thousand years" but this term was also used to denote an impossibly long time, not necessarily a literal one thousand years. This has caused a few divergent beliefs such as Millennialism. For reference: Rev 20: (4) And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (5) But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (6) Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
The Rauh and the ancient dragons had a relationship. You can see in the farm azula reliefs the Rauh woman (with a hat) married a king. I'm curious if this kig was Placi in human form. My presumption is that those are Marikas parents
@G4meplus In particular the room after the godskin duo boss fight that just has a grace in it. There's nothing else here but the burial of seemingly important bodies and the reliefs on the walls. I read the reliefs from top to bottom, to me it looks like the king had many wives but one was special (Rauh woman) they end up together. The other wives are given to what look like less important figures similar to the king but without his staff.
I think you are reading too much into the Dragoncrest Talisman. The ancient dragons have stone scales (like the smithing stones, which are dragonscales), merely forming up would've made a 'wall of living rock'. Also notably the dragons in Farum Azula are dead, so they are not 'living rock'. What strikes me about the corpses is that they appear to be 'on' structures rather than the structures comprised 'of' them. They may be important as sacrifices but it may also be important where they are sacrificed. I personally think that the Divine Gate in Enir-Ilim may be the remnants of the Hornsent Greattree since it looks like two broken off treestumps underneath the corpses. The tower is a logical place for the center object of their worship to be and we know it was two entwined trees together because you find depictions of it in Belurat (for example at the small private altar site of grace). The ascension worked there because it involved the crucible/greattree/erdtree which is basically the foundation of the world's mythology.
Okay forget about the talisman, what about the dragon corpses in the wall, the tinge of gold covering Farum Azula and all the dead beastmen buried in the walls just like Enir-Elim ? Why is Rykard trying to gather enough power by eating heroes ? The same theme is present all over the game.
We are all thinking here together but, don't you think it's logical to analyse an ongoing theme present in almost every civilisation we come along and try to build it from there instead of assuming the hornsent divine gate was originally a Greattree despite the fact that the roots of the Erdtree is connected to the Greattree and this is very far away from the divine gate? Check root resin item description
@@G4meplus I agree with the overall theme, like I said, they are likely sacrifices. Whether they are voluntary or involuntary is up for interpretation but you have a valid theory there. I merely commented on what might have caused the other attempts to fail; that it may have been the location. The focal point of the mythology and divinity being trees, is also a consistent theme present in every civilization. This includes Farum Azula, it's Elden Ring has the same core shapes as the current Elden Ring. Myazaki has explicitly stated he made the shape to be reminiscent of a tree. I did read the description for root resin as you suggested, and it's a little vague for the purpose of reaching conclusions. The 'so they say' bit implies that the lore is rumor and not necessarily fact, but since we can't get anywhere without making some assumptions of truth let's assume it to be correct for the sake of discussion. As far as I know the Erdtree roots are extensive, spreading throughout much of the Lands Between. The Greattree isn't ever seen in the game, we only know that it predates the current Erdtree era. The only other fact we know is that whatever Marika did exactly with the Greattree or Erdtree, she split the world. We need not assume that the Greattree was ever part of the Lands Between after this split, merely because the Erdtree is there and their roots used to connect according to the resin description. You do however raise a valid point, if they were in truth connected by their roots, then atop Enir-Ilim is not a logical place for the Greattree to be.
For me the DLC really seemed to push the analogues between the Ancient Dragons and the Marika/the Golden Order. Your preliminary analysis of Farum Azula feels it's going in the right direction. I mean the shape of the city compared to Enir Ilim make the latter feel like an homage to the former. It really feels like the Ancient Dragons presided over an age of large creatures who mostly died off as new and smarter species arrived/developed, and I feel like the Divine Birds are the link between the age of Marika and the age of Placidusax. Side note, I love how the Bayle/Placidusax fight seems to mirror the Melania/Radahn fight, especially in how fans entrench themselves in one side vs the other.
I like the idea that Placidusax was his own God and Lord, and I think there's consistency to this. The Secret Rite Scroll was always a bit weird, we see a neat connection to Mogh as the vessel, Radahn as the Lord and Miquella as the God, but how does it work for Marika as a God and Radagon as a Lord? Who was the vessel there? The entire thing makes more sense as a 'three in one'. Why'd Radahn suddenly agree to be Miquella's Lord if he resisted this before, if it's his soul in Mogh's body that we're actually fighting? I think Marika was never an actual god, she was just the vessel. Enia even explicitly calls her such. Like with Miquella, the one truly in control is the God, which in her case is the Elden Beast. However the God being a spiritual being, it needs an agent in the form of the Lord to act on its behalf which are Radahn and Radagon respectively. In all cases there is just one body. The same could be true for Placidusax. The only reason that Mogh's body may be used is that Radahn's own flesh is corrupted by the Scarlet Rot, it's no longer a suitable host.
I think Marika/Radagon are an imperfect Rebus. So I agree with your assumption that she never became a God. I think she instead became the opposite of a God.
@@Based_investor This is the problem for me with the Secret Rite scroll, it states a Lord shall usher in a God's return and the Lord's Soul shall require a vessel. It'd have made a lot more sense if it had said the *god* requires a vessel but it explicitly states it's the lord which means the soul of the lord is also seperated from a physical form at the point of return. So Miquella didn't just need a vessel because Radahn was dead, he needed a vessel because that's what the scroll states. Also a question 'cause maybe I've missed this but what's the source for Radahn's body having been consumed (in part) by Alexander?
@@Melesniannon wording in Fromsoft games has to be taken with a grain of salt. They are translated from another language. And this one in particular is translated by an in-game character. Alexander's shard mentions having clumps of red hair in it, "relics of a red haired champion."
@@Based_investor Oh cool, thanks for the info. I looked up some stuff and the shard actually depics part of Radahn's Redmane Helm. Alexander's dialog also includes, if you fight and lose to him, a mention of 'joining the lads inside' so he does indeed consume parts of warriors he's defeated. He also mentions it if you talk to him after having defeated Starscourge Radahn, stating that he'll "squeeze this bunch down inside me" (referring to the bodies lying in the field).
Marika's rule actually lasted for much longer than a thousand years. A major theme in all souls games is the current ruling royals defying their inevitable end and fighting to keep their realm stagnant as long as it benefits them. They are worlds in need of drastic change, yet it's Lords and Kings refuse to obey time. Lord and God mean King and Queen respectively (queen comes with a heavy religious symbol), and it makes sense Placidusax could have been both, as he was both male and female. Outer Gods are just religions, with no intentions or purpose other than what it's clerics interpret.
It seems like the civilizations of the lands between are always trying to make their own version of the crucible which, in my opinion, is the one great that hyetta talks about. The reason I think this is because of the spirit calculus item looking like a terratoma of many different types of animal parts(a blending of attributes of life) and the fact that it is "suffused with spirituality" so much so that it is giving off an almost blinding light. And we know that light is directly connected to the gods It also seems that to become a god or to be visited by one, one must go through immense trauma (see mohg, the bloodfiends, marika and the shaman, etc.) This is why marika was chosen by the greater will to become the next God of the new age. She saw her entire village get slaughtered and the greater will took notice of her immense suffering. As for the nox, I believe the reason they could not create a god is because they were sacrificing artificial life to bring about their lord of night. The silver tears are not true life and therefore have no spiritual essence that can be extracted from them to fuel their god. So it failed. In terms of marikas age being 1000 years, I think that it was supposed to be 1000 years, but she attempted to prolong it by removing destined death so that she couldn't die. This is why the erdtree eventually stopped producing sap. Her reign was over and the erdtree knew, but she didn't want it to stop so she adjusted her faith into making the erdtree "more an object of faith" (blessed dew talisman) One last thing: I'm of the opinion that every single thing in the lands between is made of flesh...technically. especislly the continent we walk on. We see multiple examples of flesh being turned to stone with farum azula, the nox, and enir-ilim. We also find massive skeletons buried deep beneath the earth in called and mountaintops of the giants. A large theme of elden ring is recycling of matter into new matter, with the god of rot, putrescence, and all of the bodies we find looking like ashy stone (the dead fingers on the divine towers, all the random corpses, the corpses returning to the erdtree, etc). This is also why the albinaurics are hated. They have no grace, which is just spiritual light energy. Because of this, albinaurics cannot be recycled to create new life.
Hey G4meplus, was wondering what you thought of something, since I think your lore videos are really interesting and informative. Something's always bugged me about the ending of the DLC, young Miquella sitting in front of the throne, and when you started talking about the 'thousand year' reigns I was reminded of it. When you fight Morgott, who is guarding the current Golden Order under the Erdtree as king of Leyndell, you see six ghostly thrones, for Marika's children. He calls them, 'Willful traitors all'. Miquella's endscene takes place in front of a very similar throne and he talks 'our part of the vow'. I haven't seen much theory on what this vow is, or who was part of it but Miquella's statement implies multiple people. People seem to dismiss the ending cutscene easily as something poorly done and uninformative... but I wonder if that's too easy a dismissal. Might the 'vow' Miquella refers to, have been a pact amongst those six of Marika's offspring, perhaps to reinstate the cycle of the thousand year ages that Marika broke as 'the eternal queen'? That'd imply that every one of them was into it from the start, with the only deviant factor being Radahn who holds back the stars, blocking Ranni. We also know that Radahn felt fierce loyalty to his father and it may explain why Malenia attacked Caelid; she came to force him to fulfill his part of the bargain and release the stars but she failed. It also explains why Miquella later would plan for a Tarnished to fight his way to kill his demigod brothers; their original plan failed. I'm kinda spitballing here, I haven't checked this against all the lore since I'm not an expert but wondered if you found it interesting enough to consider it for future videos.
And you have forgotten the Inquisition, that made their headquarters the Tower of Convictions, countless people were tortured and die there, Miquella ritual may be have two inspirations apart of Griffith rebirth, there is also the Eclipse.
Something interesting that I noticed you never included in your comparisons is Ganeshigas man made behelit. Which I feel is what inspired the divine gates, mortals using human sacrifices in droves to create a portal to a divine plane of existence, to become an *apostle/god like being.
If Placidusax was the First Elden Lord, his God would be the one who was vessel to the Elden Ring- this means his god was either the Elden Beast itself (Also called "Nebula Dragon" in its files) or its God was Metyr, "the first star to fall to the lands between" carrying the Elden Beast with her, which was said to have had arrived to The Lands Between on a Golden Star. Metyr is certainly not golden or beautiful, but her Remembrance describes her as having once been "Brilliantly gleaming", so I suspect that Metyr used to look different to how she does when we find her.
So if death and corpses were a key component of bringing about a new god then I wonder if marika removed the rune of destined death in an effort to prevent a rival god coming about. Technically I don’t think this would stop it from happening because the dragons were immortal but that doesn’t mean death was impossible, bodily harm has a weird tendency of stopping heartbeats after all. But with death removed from the Elden ring it’s suddenly impossible even through great bodily harm, I mean look at midra… could you still sacrifice your body to help build a gate of divinity? Probably yea, but knowing there would be no relief in the release of death, constant agony is a great deterrent for anything especially massive groups of people sacrificing themselves in a ritual of godhood.
Excellent video on a subject dear to my heart. Thank you. Also I'd like to add: There are pillars in Rykard's boss room that are also made of spirals of corpses and may have even more secrets to reveal. Next, the Omens under the capital can also breathe gold fire though I have a hypothesis that Godwin actually added dragon genetics to the Golden Order line (hence Godrick saying 'thou art a trueborn heir' to the dragon corpse.) Lastly, I shamefully admit I had never considered Farum Azula to be a giant normalized crucible current, so thank you so much for making that absolutely solid connection. Can't wait for your coming content!
Could each 'gate' be summoning something of the Greater Will? Perhaps Farum Azula caused Metyr's summoning (along with all the 5 fingers development) then Enir Elim summoned the Elden Beast, which Marika could act as a vessel for as she is a shaman/shrine maiden.
Worth noting that the first NPC to mention the divine gate calls it "A" Divine Gate. Not "The" Divine gate. They seem to be a well known concept and not a singular instance.
that something could happen every 1000 years doesnt mean that it does that the people of nokron failed to succeed convinced me more that the golden order has been from when it began to its current moribund state of the start of the game, for around at least 5000 years
I been saying the attack on the hornsent and the tower was more to consolidate her power and prevent her children from stealing divinity from her, but keeping it in tact because it may be the only way she remains a god. So instead she seals it away, and has her most loyal child guard it to make sure nobody else becomes a god. The only reason miquella can get passed is because we kill messmer, and hes finally able to ascend with his pieces in hand. Marika sealing death was not out of some false idea that she was just a sad woman she knew if she wanted to rule eternal she needed to remove the one guaranteed threat to her rule. I still like the idea tha GeQ was the harbinger of the end of her age meant to replace marika but marika defied the laws of causality and prevented her from completing her task. Theres literally nothing that tells me marika was traumatized by the hornsent, considering she allowed them to exist until literally her marriage with radagon, when radahn was an adult. So she must have been okay enough with the hornsent to let them survive. It seems the big trigger was the arrival of the empyrean children in ranni miquella and malenia. We already know she disposed of Melina's physical body for whatever reason, she was probably empyrean too especially if shes meant to be the GeQ (i have my doubts but). Suddenly she has three threats to her golden order and her godhood. So she sends her child to get rid of the evidence of her ascension and seal away the tower so none of those empyreans can ascend like she did. Miquella gets so damn close marika literally guides us to slay him because there can only be one lord and one god. I dont know why people paint marika as this poor victim when everything that ever happened because of her, she doesnt even want to give up her power, the only endings where she ISNT the reigning god is age of stars (ranni releases her hold on the elden ring and sends it away) and the frenzied flame (where everything dies). Every ending sees her remain as the god, and us her new elden lord. I guess the only silver lining is we the tarnished get to create the order we want instead of marika, which does beg the question if she's even still conscious or not, but she must have been in order to guide us the entire game and dlc. The dung eaters ending is rather ironic if we use his rune considering marika did so much to revile the omens and treat them so horribly and that ending is like just desserts for marika, a twisted vengeance on her. Regardless, marika is not innocent, shes not a victim, shes a power hunger woman, who stepped on everyone to get where she is. HELL, she may have even been behind the fate of the shaman village. The hornsent love to take ideas why is it so hard to believe they hot the jarring idea from marika and the shamans considering the greatjar description tells us the shamans wore those jars when they practiced the jarring themselves as a religious rite. They literally performed the jarring first to create what might have been a god to them. Marika just took it a hundred steps further. They probably saw that and started harvesting the shamans not realizing they cant just stuff meat in jars and expect a god to come out. But they saw the shamans and marika successfully do it so why not replicate it. Anyways i have to wonder if rannis ending is what the nox wanted. I mean her age of stars is exactly what the nox wanted and that seems to mean our tarnished becomes the lord of night. Neat.
I agree with so much. I actually thought the same that Marika might have even betrayed her people for ascention. I dont care for the "Marika is mean cause they were mean to her" narrative. Altho the guidance of grace does lead us towards Ranni. So I wonder if when she got imprisoned and realized godhood basically means being a vessel for an outer god and that her actions to ensure no others rise to godhood basically made her an eternally crucified deity, she mustered her spiritual energy and guided the tarnished through the grace of gold towards releasing her or at least moving thongs along. She sent the tarnished away knowing when she did that they would die outside the lands between and come back. I really cant figure Marika out. Is she just a narcissistic parent like Logan Roy who doesn't want any of her children to succeed her?
Im not really sure why so many people give Marika credit for the guidance of grace when she's practically dead but its almost certainly the Greater Will guiding us to restore order because thats what it wants. Also not sure why you think Marika being an evil tyrant is somehow mutually exclusive with her being a victim of the Hornsent when there is explicit ingame proof that she mourned the loss of her people.
You would be right that is until you realize the grace becomes a standstill until after Miquella destroys his great rune. Marika is clearly guiding the grace because she actually doesn't want the Tarnished to kill Messmer or Miquella until they realize they have gone too far.
My belief is that the Nox failled because they took too many shortcuts with their use of false life. Not enough red blooded lives were used to succeed in their attempt and so none of their giant maidens were able to become a god. They failed, and they died.
I agree that Farum Azula was likely a Gate of Divinity, akin to Berserk's implications that Falconia is to be sacrificed like Gaiseric's kingdom was. However, I think that the dragons served Placidusax as living rock because they were his guards and made of stone. As building materials for the city, they'd be dead and not protecting him. Also, the meteorite impact could have lodged some dragons' bodies in the walls, whereas the beastmen would be the intended sacrifices to fuel Farum Azula as a city-wide Gate of Divinity. Another thing to consider might be the elevation of each culture's ritual area. Farum Azula is suspended by a tornado, and it was perhaps up there at the time of the meteorite impact rather than lifted by it. Enir-Ilim is a tall tower built upon Belurat, itself being a settlement on elevated ground. In contrast, the Nox's attempts at creating a god would have occurred underground due to their banishment. Also, while the Nox are said to await a "Lord of Night" for their goals, I think this figure would just be their Elden Lord. The Nox's rituals were probably to create a god figure, and the giants on the thrones might be intended as those homunculi Empyreans. As for Dominula's festival, I don't think Marika tolerates it due to some ritual importance. The celebrants seem to all be women living in a rural society on the edge of civilization, so this might remind Marika of her home and her people. As such, Marika doesn't want to purge something so similar to the only place and society she may have cared about, even if the similarity is superficial. Regarding why Marika's reign ended, that seems to have more to do with her goal of killing the Elden Beast. Marika appears unconcerned with someone succeeding her, and she even tells the demi-gods to become a lord or god. Marika likely repurposed her old order to Maliketh so as to orchestrate a situation where a demi-god or Tarnished would have to defeat all of the greatest warriors in the Lands Between and gain the strength and skill necessary to kill the Elden Beast. The Rune of Death only served as a means to burn through any seal that might be used to keep the Elden Ring and/or the Elden Beast hidden within the Erdtree. In light of what the DLC indicates is needed to turn an Empyrean into a god, I wonder what Ranni did to become capable of wielding the Elden Ring. We know that Ranni has plans for leaving to the night sky, per her ending. Perhaps Ranni went there before and was provided a sort of Gate of Divinity by the Dark Moon. Using that provided method might have been what caused Ranni's Great Rune to be discarded, as is implied with Miquella in the DLC. That would also explain why no one is seemingly searching for or in possession of Ranni's Great Rune -- it's so devastated as to not be worthwhile. The nature of using a Gate of Divinity in an unsealed land, let alone in space, might also spread out a Great Rune even more than Miquella's Great Rune, thus leaving no worthwhile coalesence of fragments. Thanks for this video! I've felt that Farum Azula looked brutal for years and a far cry from anything respectful to most of the beastmen lodged in the pillars and walls there, let alone the ones chained to posts. I felt that the Eternal Cities had massive Albinaurics, akin to Phillia, Latenna's sister, and the petrified people were all Albinaurics, hence the resemblance to the Albus-style Albinaurics and the figures' lack of legs. Curiously though, a few of these petrified people might actually be statues, as they have visible pedestal bases. Most appear to lack this detail though.
I need your help. Can you try to connect some of your theories with mesopotamian mythology? Elden ring lore is clearly based on mesopotamia. The people of Mesopotamia were astronomers who looked at the night sky for signs of “cycles” and the sun was divine. For them, an eclipse represented an “omen” which is a motif in elden ring. One of the statues in the eternal city of elden ring is holding a perfect copy of a real world map of babylon (the oldest world-map of the world) and babylon is located in mesopotamia. Also, mesopotamia was defined as a land between two rivers, just like in elden ring the underground ancient cities are all in between two rivers (the siofra and ainsel rivers) which are clearly inspired in the euphrates and tigris rivers that surround mesopotamia. The hornsent are probably inspired by the greeks, and there is a real world statue of moses where he has horns, and those horns were suppose to be “divine” which fits the ideology of the hornsent in elden ring. I also think that the rise of marika was inspired by the rise of christianity, which is pretty obvious when you consider the similarities between statues of marika and the statues of jesus christ. Sun realm = mesopotamia, hornsent = greeks, golden order = christianity I will add some more context. First, there is something I forgot to mention related to mesopotamia. Most people have heard of the story about the arc of noah, where he puts animals in a giant boat and saves himself in the apocalypse thanks to the advice of god. A lot of people don’t know that this tale is actually inspired by the mesopotamian tale called the “epic of gilgamesh” where the events are pretty much the same as the arc of noah. The reason why I bring this up is because in the dlc, there is a place (where st trina is found) filled with giants boats that look ancients, and near the cliff (where you have to jump from to begin the boss fight) there are a group of EVERY non-hostile animal from elden ring, they are just laying there with the giant boats, I think that this is a direct reference to the tale of gilgamesh where he saved one animal for every species in a giant boat. There is clearly something we are missing here and its definetely related to mesopotamia. Another thing that I think a lot of people are missing, is that there seems to be theme in elden ring that connects "water" with "death", if a great flood once ocurred in elden ring then it would make sense that the world of elden ring relates those two. The map of elden ring is filled boats in the seas, which could be a depiction of how people first arrived from the giants boats during the great flood, the mariners who represent those who live in death are always found in a pond of water riding a boat, the prince of death giant body grave seems to have a bunch of aquatic animals features, which makes sense if "water" is related to 'death" and lastly, the mesopotamians needed water for agriculture, and thus water represented "life" (which is similar to how marika's tree represents life) but at the same time they feared floods (flooding of water), because it would destroy their crops, I think that this could be interpreted as the duality of water representing both "life" and "death" which would explain the water connection with "those who live in death" and it would also explain why godwin's body is developing aquatic features since he is neither death or alive, but somewhere in between, I still have countless more connections that I would like to share, but for now, I hope somebody was able to develop a theory from this extra context.
your theory about the thousand years reign is wrong simply because George Martin already stated that there's 5000 years between the shattering and the game, so Marika was a god for AT LEAST 5000 years
G.R.R.M. might have just been exaggerating the time span in that interview. Also, IIRC, Miyazaki and From Software took over the writing from the point where the Shattering began, so the war might have resulted in no new order for a long time. While the thousand years may not be literally that precise, both Empyreans using that term is still peculiar, and perhaps denotes a planted thought by an outer god.
Its not just berserk. You literally become the lord of the elden ring. Lord of the rings. But you said the title is based on berserk. Nah. Jackisamimic posted a really good pic/thumbnail showing all the obvious influeces besides just berserk.
I think that to be a god in elden ring y must be lgbtq+ like, Marika is bigender and pansexual (while they was radagon, they married rennala, and while marika married godfrey and itself with radagon) then we have Ranni, wich can marry the tarnished being a man or a woman, making she bissexual, then we have Miquella, who is in a homossexual relationship with his older brother, and now placidussax has 2 genders too? another bigender. is Michael Zaki a secret ally?
No way, dragons have always been the oldest in Miyazaki's view, they represent power and immortality that fade over the ages and crumbles. Mentioning the crucible, the dragons actually represent the crucible much more than the hornsent. Wings, claws, horns and gold. No way the hornsent are older.
The cycle of life and death has been disrupted in the lands between. A mortal being that lives in the lands between has three things to give it the full consciousness of life. One is a body, the next is a soul or spirit, and the third is life energy. The three are required. If a mortal body only has a soul but there is no life energy present, then this would be considered an undead. It is life energy that beings in the world of Elden Ring want to absorb to give them more power. Celestial beings from beyond the lands between, in other words....outer gods, came to the lands and taught those living there how to disrupt the cycle of life and death. These celestial beings had a greater motivation. What they wanted was what dwells In the heart of the lands between. This is the black sun. All life energy comes from the black sun in the lands between. But these celestial beings could not access that black sun directly. The only way they could do it was through the two trees. Yes, there were two trees. One is the tree of life, that is represented by the erdtree. The other is the tree of knowledge or death. That would be the shadow tree. These celestial beings convinced the two old civilizations that existed in the lands between at the time they first arrived to build the divine towers. These two old civilizations the Uld and the Rauh. These six celestial beings deceived these two civilizations and the giats to build their device (the six divine towers) with the promise that this device would give the beings of the lands between eternal life. But their true purpose was to take the life energy from the Black Sun that dwells in the heart of that world. The device did not work as they intended, and a great upheaval occurred instead. The tree of knowledge along with all the lands around it that existed in the lands between in its central ocean, were transported to the shadow realm. The tree of knowledge was left corrupted and in ruin. This did remove death from the lands between, but it corrupted the cycle of life and death. Instead of giving everyone eternal life, it created a bunch of undead beings with what was left of the tree of life....having to perform the corrupted cycle of life and death in what was left of the upheavaled lands between. The six celestial beings lost their physical bodies and were also forced away from the lands between into pocket dimensions of their own. These are the outer gods. And all of the eons of time after the great upheaval, these outer gods vied for control of the lands between to try and reattain their bodies and escape their various dimensional prisons. It seems that the one celestial being known as the greater will have the most influence in the lands between. But as time went on, it became clear that these beings were not going to be successful and we're going to remain trapped with less and less influence in the lands between. The dragons forsaw this coming, but could not stop it from happening. The city of Farum Azula existed on the top of jagged peak, which of course existed in the lands between in the area around the bestial sanctum. The dragon's managed to keep their city from being transported into the shadow realm by the celestial being's device, but their city was essentially in ruin after that. The story of Marika and the golden order was completely secondary to the foundational story of the lands between. It happened much much later than the events surrounding the great upheaval. The lands between will never be restored. In fact, the tree of life has also been felled at some point. The golden part of the herd tree or the tree of life is an illusion. If you remove that, you would only have a trunk of what remains of the tree of life. Someone or something felled that tree in the distant past. It was probably the Titans, which are part of the race of giants. The six celestial beings who would now be known as outer gods are: 1.) Greater Will (represents order) 2.) Frenzied Flame (reoresents chaos) 3.) Formless Mother or Mother of Truth 4.) Fell god 5.) Rot god 6.) Lord of night In truth, these are not outer gods. These were just celestial beings that craved the power that exists in the heart of the lands between. Everything that has happened after that is as a result of the great upheaval caused by the mechanism that they built which is personified by the divine towers.
Personally I think Marika did manage to have the Golden Order last much longer than a thousand years - because the world is trapped in stagnation. I think Marika succeeded at delaying the change of the age and it was awful for her and for everyone else - hence her attempt to shatter the Elden Ring, as she learned the agony of eternal life.
yeah she is called the eternal for a reason. i think she removed destined death for that. if death is necessary to build a divine gate, removing death would be like using a ladder and then kicking it down so nobody can get on your height.
@@MitridatedCarbon great analogy w the ladder
At first, I thought Marika destroyed the Elden Ring because Godwyn was slain. But after hearing St. Trina say that Miquella's ascension to Godhood will be his prison. I guess Marika got tired of being held as a vessel for the Elden Ring. So yes, maybe she was tired of being eternal and thought, "ah my god, fuck this!" SLAM
09:23 when you put all the runes together like this it looks like the growth pattern of bacteria or fungi if you just put a single inoculation in the center of an agar plate. In the final Rune there is not enough nutrients left in the center of the plate to support life any longer leaving a dead circle while life continues to thrive at the edges where there is still plenty of nutrients. As life in the center dies, the nutrients left from the death of the original colony there may support the growth of new life, returning from the edges of the plate as descendants of the dead center. Damn this games got me seeing metaphors for the rise and fall of civilisations in every little detail they can't have thought of all this right? I must be crazy
Man I feel you lol.
@@G4meplus Placi was either two or five different dragons before becoming elden lord in my opinion, and if you ask why five? well they had five heads originally. Just like Marika fused with Radagon there's no reason to believe it's not the same with them.
Can’t remember whether it was zulie or zayf, but one of them looked at the fused stone bodies behind the gate of divinity, and they ALSO have gold showing thru just like the stone dragons of farum azula. It’s exactly the same. In light of that, i think your theory is definitely correct!
I see you are interested in re-exploring Farum azula. Then I recommend you watch the latest video by Occam’s onion on the eclipse and how it destroyed Farum azula.
Btw amazing analysis as always.
terrific video!
Thank you, I will watch it for sure.
Got this in home feed, watching, subbed 🖤
Yeah i just watched that before this, and he was like that the nox happened before the hornsent, among many other things, while this video is like the nox happened after marika. It's a very tough question to anwser.
Doesn't seem an eclipse did it as the reason for Farum Azula's collapsing state is in the Ruins Greatsword description:
"Originally rubble from a ruin which fell from the sky, this surviving fragment was honed into a weapon.
One of the legendary armaments.
The ruin it came from crumbled when struck by a meteorite, as such this weapon harbors its destructive power."
Great work!
By the way, you mentioned the Law of Causation then the fact that history was only partly cyclical, allowing for variations within each cycle. If the Law of Causation is arguably karma viewed through a warped lens, the Law of Regression is samsara, which is the endless cycles bound by karma with variations each time.
I think the "Spirit Energy" beein runes in the game is probably true, it plays on the law of regression too, that one can absorb the energy of something else and become one with it. That being said, I think that theme of sacrifice is probably the represented way to say that something needs to go for you to get those runes. So I think that is why we dont see that with miquella or ranni when they become gods, they dont need to sacrifice and torture a bunch of people for their spirit or runes, they already sacrifice something with enough runes to ascend. With miquella we can assume he sacrifices himself and his great rune, with ranni I theorize that she sacrifices marika, since marika's body crumbles to dust in her ending, and we can see it desapear in golden dust. That would also explain why the lord of night never became a thing, they werent dropping enough runes for someone to pick up. The dragons just had a lot of spirit energy, runes, and were sacrificing themselves, and thats why they managed to do it. Just some fun brain activity I had watching the video.
Minor Erdtree incantation is found in Shaman Village where as 'Protection of the Erdtree' is found in Dominula village, not sure if theres a connection but was interesting to discover
very interesting dig from Berserk, would love more from coming you regarding these lores
Something that I found particularly interesting on a replay: Ensha is the name of the still-living ancient king whose remains are the Royal Remains set. An ancient king who lives in death, who the armor describes as a champion of the meek and the downtrodden, exactly as Godwyn is said to be now. I believe that Ensha is the ancient king of the Sun Realm as described on the stuff dropped by those who live in death and is the reason why deathroot is in Farum Azula. I believe the Godwyn situation is a repeat of something that already happened long ago
I would more readily buy that last part except that Godwyn’s spread is thematically shown to be a steady and inevitable spread of necrosis throughout the entirety of the world. Godwyn will persist as the Lord of Death across all coming ages; wielding the very same power of death itself, he can not be stopped. Also, could you direct me to the Those Who Live in Death item drop descriptions you referred to? That sounds interesting.
Not saying the divine gate *isn't* built by hornsent necessarily but I think it's clear that the fresh bodies are likely Marika's doing no? Or an unknown actor (GEQ?)and the bodies are hornsent? They don't appear to have willingly just walked into this idk maybe I'm wrong but the implied betrayal of Marika makes me think that Marika was supposed to become a god of the spiral tree in some other manner not this horrifying ritual
But the horrifying ritual of the jar saint makes my eyes burn, divine gate.....
@@saiga3 ER fans always trying to sell head canon as facts lol
Hornsent built the Gate of Divinity from fresh bodies, most likely from those they imprisoned within gaols. Gaols have a purpose, harvesting flesh and bodies and mastering reincarnation. Jarsainthood experiment in gaols were essays in this craft of "ascending" , attempts of creating this divine gateway. So they likely discovered shamans were perfect mediums for this craft. And the Tower itself certainly seems to predate Marika.
Because it is has been so long time since fresh bodies have been added to the Tower by the hornsent, the Tower is slowly crumbling away.
My guess is that Hornsent built the Tower from piled up bodies in order to become closer to divinity, but Marika used it to ascend and then veiled it in shadow to prevent any rival Empyrean to manage the same feat.
I wonder if hornsent Grandam is so angry at Marika, because originally she was supposed to ascend as their goddess. But Marika managed to seduce hornsent with her beauty.
@@saiga3 This could make more sense, my idea was that the Hornsent were seeking someone who could be a vessel for divinity whether they were Hornsent or not, Marika was a promising candidate so they used her but she used her new powers through her son to overthrow them. But perhaps they were building Enir-ilim with this death ritual but never harnessed the power, and Marika worked out how to so she did and that's the betrayal. Interesting.
The hornsent probably used the bodies of their "criminals" who were used the gaols in conjunction with other innocent people (some corpses don't have horns)
Now was it Marika or the gloam eyed queen ? We don't know for sure but to me it seems like a well planned event with all parties participating.
You can draw parallels to Full Metal Alchemists’ Philosopher’s stone and how creating immortality by sacrificing lives
I WAS ABOUT TO COMMENT THIS.
Correct. The last transmutation step in the Magnum Opus is also symbolized with red, and I think it's no coincidence that the DLC story trailer shows a scene of absolute bloodbath. In fact, we see black clouds, a yellow sky, a white corpse, and a red Gate. These are all the colors associated with the Philosopher's Stone
i wonder if that was also an influence on the intersection of the divine towers around the land of shadow
@@johnleecooper8520 its probably not inspired from FMA, most things in FMA are from the old real world beliefs in alchemy like obtaining immortality or creating gold from inferior metals.
Alchemy in general plays a huge part in elden ring. Like red radagon and golden marika are aldo alchemic enologies
Sound theory for the most part but doesn’t Placidusax being his own god kind of contradict the passage about his god being “fled” and him awaiting its return?
I like to think it was Marika herself before she abandoned/killed off her Gloam Eyed Queen part of her. If we entertain the idea she was the GEQ, that is. The day she abandoned/killed her was the day she passed through the gate. Gloam on one side, her new shining golden order behind the gate. Then placidusax went sleepy cause his wifey god left him RIP
@@FartsHaveATaste Omg i love this, feels like this is all coming together! Marika sealed away the rune of death as she cast off her old faith, much like we see Miquela do. The depiction of the young woman with the three wolves in farum azula could be young marika when she was embracing her old fate of GeQ?
@@FartsHaveATaste Do you think the age of Ancient Dragons coincided with the age of the Hornsent? This would also mean that the Gloam Eyed Queen’s god hunt occurred in that time period.
It seems like a lot of the civilizations were trying to recreate their own version of the crucible. The crucible is an amalgamation of all life and, in my opinion, most likely the one great that hyetta talks about. What better way to make a blending of all life than to literally blend blood and flesh together in piles. We see this blending of life in the spirit calculus item that looks like a terratoma of multiple kinds of animals and it is "suffused with spirituality" so much so that it is giving off an almost blinding amount of light. And we know that light is directly related to the gods and spirituality.
It also seems that to become a god, or to be visited by an outer god, one must go through a great trauma to attract the gods attention (for example mohg, the bloodfiends, marika and the shaman). Sacrificing many people would cause a lot of torment and would get the attention of a god or the greater will (which is why I believe marika was chosen as the god of the next age).
Live sacrifices were common for ancient goddesses. This might be a poetic, yet literal, way of Fromsoft displaying a kingdom built on bloodshed.
Has anyone linked the betrayal to Malakath yet? Where does the animal companions fit into this dual body nature? Malakath is clearlty alive in some way while Sarosh seemed to have given up his body so he could seal Godfrey's power/rage, which I see as a Marika/Radagon type relationship, especially since Gofrey literally tears Sarosh apart to go back to Hoarah Loux (Miquella/St. Trina?).
Serosh is able to cross the plane into physical reality, as we see at the beginning of phase 2.
Jesus christ, its "Serosh" and "Maliketh", not "Sarosh" and "Malakath"
@@j.s.ospina9861 ok
I think you're both right and wrong at the same time. Godfrey's whole ordeal is that, upon becoming Elden Lord, he tries to start over: he gets a new name and calls upon a beast to keep his violent nature supressed. That can be paralled with Miquella divesting himself of everything to start over as a god. But that's kind of a stretch, that and the correlation with Marika/Radagon. About Serosh and Maliketh, they're both beasts, sure, but their purposes are entirely different. Hell, they might not even be from the same place.
Blaidd’s storyline seems to explain the betrayal. Marika shattered the ring and Maliketh was forced to impale her by the greater will. He is her shadow, so naturally the same rules should apply.
The 1000 years statement is a reference to Christian mythology. In Revelations, After the forces of evil are defeated by Christ, he is said to reign over Earth personally for 1000 years of peace. Afterwards, the world would be ended and the final judgement will occur. Interpretations vary between sects, but the 1000 year number doesn't vary.
Interestingly, GRRM said in an interview that he wrote a backstory that took place 6000 years ago, so Marika managed to freeze the progression and Golden Order stood for 6 cycles?
Saying that something lasts for a thousand years is also just a literary way to say that something will last for a very long time / forever. It’s not necessarily literal.
"A lord will usher in a god's return,
and the lord's soul will require a vessel."
I'm curious as to how you think Marika's ascension fits into this part of the rite. I don't think Godfrey has anything to do with this personally but what would that then imply about Radagon? Is he a combination of a fire giant corpse with a human soul? Was Marika a vessel for her own lord?
If we assume they are two people in one body, (perhaps through the process of sharing a jar?) then Marika and Radagon fit all the requirements to Ascend. Together they are God, Lord, and Vessel.
I think this also fucked them in the end. It's versatile enough that she can change Lords to use Radagon elsewhere and therefore gain inside knowledge of the Carians, but she cannot fully escape the rings influence. While Radagon and her share a body and soul, clearly they split in ideals and philosophy at some point. Even Placidusax's own ascended God fled, leaving him and the Dragons behind. Marika doesn't have that luxury in the end.
Marika becomes disillusioned with the Golden Order, where Radagon holds fast. Radagon opposed her destruction of the ring and keeps her prisoner in the Tree while attempting to mend it. Marika is supposed to be the one guiding Tarnished with Grace, but Radagon is there too and you can restore the Golden Order if you so choose which satisfies Radagon instead of Marika.
Smoughtown recently made a video that has this topic in it at one point. The scroll says there needs to be a god, a lord, and a vessel. With Miquella, he was the god, Radahn was the lord, and Mohg was Radahn's vessel. With Marika, she was all 3. Marika the god, Radagon the lord, and being the vessel of the elden ring. Thanks to the dlc we know that Messmer is heavily hinted to being the firstborn of Marika, and we know 100% that Messmer is the son of Marika and Radagon, therefore we know that Radagon was with Marika before they split off and Marika got with Godfrey, and then later Radagon got with Renalla, and then they later rejoined as one. Sorry that was a bit of a tangent, it's just some people seem to still not realize that Radagon and Marika were one from the beginning, or at least since Marika's ascension
Marika achieving godhood through a loophole cursed her bloodline
The vessel for Godfrey was Hoarah Loux.
If we accept Marika was the Gloam Eyed Queen, the divine gate makes sense being gloam on one side and golden on the other. It was showing her leaving the gloam Eyed Queen behind and Death, as she ended up creating a world free of death. And as Bayle and dragons are in the Shadow Realm; we can even assume that is also the same time the GEQ (Marika, a god) left Placidusax. Thus he is hibernating and awaiting her return.
Man, the Nox did not fail, they made BAAAAAAYLE
Another wonderful video with great insights. There is a video out there positing that the dragon in letndell is actually alive just frozen in time. I forget her name but it's a great vid. So maybe same thing with Farum Azula. Those dragons mah just be frozen in time. Placidusax has time powers so it's possible. A wall of "living rock" is the dragonncrest talisman description.
Also Melina's dagger the blade of calling has the ash of was Blade of Gold which produces the same golden flame as placidusax and elden beast.
Thanks a lot, glad you liked it ❤️
Granssax could've been frozen I can see that but, the dragons in the walls are clearly decomposing and revealing their inner golden flesh so they are dead.
About the blade of calling it's more like a golden projectile not a fire, that's what i meant.
You can find the lampreys in relief in Placidusax's arena
One thing about the bonny village bit, it's reminiscent of the village Marika grew up in, down to the celebrations and the braids. I think the reason why even the Golden Order had to respect it is because ultimately, that's what marika was trying to preserve, her culture.
The skinning part and the godskin connection I feel correlates to the agreement Marika made with the primordial snake of death (the OG GEQ). The village represents the original contract and stipulations made required for The Golden Order to be established.
All in all it would be bad PR for the Greater Will to not uphold it's contract. Just as it would be for Marika to not uphold hers and we see Marika's consequences very clearly
Someone analysed the Divine Gate in a UA-cam video and displayed 3 distinct layers of corpses that made up the Divine Gate. ProfOrProf - What is the Scadutree?? - Divine Gate chapter (It’s definitely worth a watch).
The first, and only reachable layer, is the corpses of Hornsent, that still bleed and are comparatively “fresh”. There’s a second layer of large humanoid corpses with no horns found further up the tower. Towards the top, we find a new layer of corpses that have essentially fossilised into rock. None of the corpses on either layer seem to resemble each other.
In my opinion, this serves as strong evidence to suggest that, at the least, the Divine Gate has been used in three separate rituals, the Hornsent serving as the latest. I personally believe Enir Ilim has seen multiple cultures take over, and the Hornsent were some of the last to settle the Tower.
Placidusax being his own god is v interesting. I don’t think it’s necessary for this theory to work, but it is a cool idea.
I think whats ironic is that Godwyn is probably the only one who obtained God-Hood in some strange manner. Though like his Mother, its imprisonment.
I thinke Bayle attacked Placidusax the same way the Baleful Shadow intended to attack Ranni. Yes, he was a drake but I think it stems more from Mandrake (man dragon plant). Metyr looks like a mandrake root, humanoid but not human. Maybe it was she that seduced, betrayed and killed the giant Dragon god, his stolen seed used by her to birth Bayle. In fact, Metyr could have done the same with the Beast god, resulting in the Baleful Shadow. Every god has a shadow - maybe she is the mother of shadows/truth in general. Marika's essense could have been trying to run from the shadow for all eternity but catching up with her in every single incarnation. No one can outrun their shadow make a light bright enough to eradicate it permanently.
The Baleful Shadow was an assassin sent by the Two Fingers because Ranni betrayed them. Nowhere in the game it says Placidusax betrayed the fingers (or if he even served them I believe) so it doesn't make sense that Bayle attacked him for that reason. I think it makes more sense that it was just an attempt to overthrow power, or a battle for existence between two dragon races. And also, if Metyr is the mother of all fingers AND of, supposedly as you say, all drakes, wouldn't they look alike just a little bit?
You’re forgetting that of the five empyreans named, only 2 have shadows. We assumed Miquella and Melania would follow the same rules and that the dlc would give us more information on that but, despite the main focus being Miquella, we got nothing on shadows.
At this point I’m wondering if shadows were a more recent tradition that was quickly discarded after Blaidd came along. Ranni calls Blaidd a “spectacular failure” on the part of the fingers. Makes sense that they wouldn’t try again, especially when Marika herself was doubting them. They were quickly losing their grip on the world.
10:03 that explains why the godskin hunt was conducted the way it was: in order for marika to ascend to godhood, she had to commit an atrocity of her own, and to amplify her atrocity she not only killed thousands of hornsent, but skinned them alive (as can be seen in the trailer). The gloam eyed queen, her own daughter melina, learned of this and sought to bring her recompence in the form of the godskin hunt, returning the pain in kind.
There may have been an even earlier divine gate: remember those enormous giants and grave stones embedded in the lands between?
Great video. Love the idea that Farum Azula is potentially a huge dragon based divine gate. But I'm convinced that the focus that both Elden Ring and Berserk have on the "1000 years" or "millennium" is a reference to the Bible, in the book of Revelations 20:4-6 which speaks of the second coming of Christ, and the idea that he would reign for 1000 years with those who reject the Mark of the Beast. While it's possible that Miura and Miyazaki both chose 1000 years because it does sound like a long time, I believe it''s one of the ways they integrated Christian concepts into their lore surrounding the rebirth of a savior figure. It should be noted that in the original Greek, the term "Xilea etn" (chilea ete) is used, which translates to "a thousand years" but this term was also used to denote an impossibly long time, not necessarily a literal one thousand years. This has caused a few divergent beliefs such as Millennialism.
For reference:
Rev 20: (4) And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (5) But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (6) Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.
The Rauh and the ancient dragons had a relationship. You can see in the farm azula reliefs the Rauh woman (with a hat) married a king. I'm curious if this kig was Placi in human form. My presumption is that those are Marikas parents
Nailed it, huge discovery tbh
That's really interesting, will give it a look.
@G4meplus In particular the room after the godskin duo boss fight that just has a grace in it. There's nothing else here but the burial of seemingly important bodies and the reliefs on the walls. I read the reliefs from top to bottom, to me it looks like the king had many wives but one was special (Rauh woman) they end up together. The other wives are given to what look like less important figures similar to the king but without his staff.
Not everyone has to be someones parents.
Gransax's parents?
This reminds me of full metal alchemist and the creation of a philosopher stone.
One thing not mentioned in the video is Mohgs staff. Its also made up of dead bodies and uses it to pierce the formless mother.
I think you are reading too much into the Dragoncrest Talisman. The ancient dragons have stone scales (like the smithing stones, which are dragonscales), merely forming up would've made a 'wall of living rock'. Also notably the dragons in Farum Azula are dead, so they are not 'living rock'.
What strikes me about the corpses is that they appear to be 'on' structures rather than the structures comprised 'of' them. They may be important as sacrifices but it may also be important where they are sacrificed. I personally think that the Divine Gate in Enir-Ilim may be the remnants of the Hornsent Greattree since it looks like two broken off treestumps underneath the corpses. The tower is a logical place for the center object of their worship to be and we know it was two entwined trees together because you find depictions of it in Belurat (for example at the small private altar site of grace). The ascension worked there because it involved the crucible/greattree/erdtree which is basically the foundation of the world's mythology.
Okay forget about the talisman, what about the dragon corpses in the wall, the tinge of gold covering Farum Azula and all the dead beastmen buried in the walls just like Enir-Elim ? Why is Rykard trying to gather enough power by eating heroes ? The same theme is present all over the game.
We are all thinking here together but, don't you think it's logical to analyse an ongoing theme present in almost every civilisation we come along and try to build it from there instead of assuming the hornsent divine gate was originally a Greattree despite the fact that the roots of the Erdtree is connected to the Greattree and this is very far away from the divine gate?
Check root resin item description
@@G4meplus I agree with the overall theme, like I said, they are likely sacrifices. Whether they are voluntary or involuntary is up for interpretation but you have a valid theory there. I merely commented on what might have caused the other attempts to fail; that it may have been the location.
The focal point of the mythology and divinity being trees, is also a consistent theme present in every civilization. This includes Farum Azula, it's Elden Ring has the same core shapes as the current Elden Ring. Myazaki has explicitly stated he made the shape to be reminiscent of a tree.
I did read the description for root resin as you suggested, and it's a little vague for the purpose of reaching conclusions. The 'so they say' bit implies that the lore is rumor and not necessarily fact, but since we can't get anywhere without making some assumptions of truth let's assume it to be correct for the sake of discussion.
As far as I know the Erdtree roots are extensive, spreading throughout much of the Lands Between. The Greattree isn't ever seen in the game, we only know that it predates the current Erdtree era. The only other fact we know is that whatever Marika did exactly with the Greattree or Erdtree, she split the world. We need not assume that the Greattree was ever part of the Lands Between after this split, merely because the Erdtree is there and their roots used to connect according to the resin description.
You do however raise a valid point, if they were in truth connected by their roots, then atop Enir-Ilim is not a logical place for the Greattree to be.
I don't necessarily see it as any one culture "copying" another as much as I see it as all cultures likely emerging from a common starting point.
For me the DLC really seemed to push the analogues between the Ancient Dragons and the Marika/the Golden Order. Your preliminary analysis of Farum Azula feels it's going in the right direction. I mean the shape of the city compared to Enir Ilim make the latter feel like an homage to the former. It really feels like the Ancient Dragons presided over an age of large creatures who mostly died off as new and smarter species arrived/developed, and I feel like the Divine Birds are the link between the age of Marika and the age of Placidusax. Side note, I love how the Bayle/Placidusax fight seems to mirror the Melania/Radahn fight, especially in how fans entrench themselves in one side vs the other.
I like the idea that Placidusax was his own God and Lord, and I think there's consistency to this. The Secret Rite Scroll was always a bit weird, we see a neat connection to Mogh as the vessel, Radahn as the Lord and Miquella as the God, but how does it work for Marika as a God and Radagon as a Lord? Who was the vessel there? The entire thing makes more sense as a 'three in one'. Why'd Radahn suddenly agree to be Miquella's Lord if he resisted this before, if it's his soul in Mogh's body that we're actually fighting?
I think Marika was never an actual god, she was just the vessel. Enia even explicitly calls her such. Like with Miquella, the one truly in control is the God, which in her case is the Elden Beast. However the God being a spiritual being, it needs an agent in the form of the Lord to act on its behalf which are Radahn and Radagon respectively. In all cases there is just one body. The same could be true for Placidusax. The only reason that Mogh's body may be used is that Radahn's own flesh is corrupted by the Scarlet Rot, it's no longer a suitable host.
I think Marika/Radagon are an imperfect Rebus. So I agree with your assumption that she never became a God. I think she instead became the opposite of a God.
Miquella just needed a vessel (a body in this case) because Radahn was dead and at least some of his body had been consumed by Alexander.
@@Based_investor This is the problem for me with the Secret Rite scroll, it states a Lord shall usher in a God's return and the Lord's Soul shall require a vessel.
It'd have made a lot more sense if it had said the *god* requires a vessel but it explicitly states it's the lord which means the soul of the lord is also seperated from a physical form at the point of return. So Miquella didn't just need a vessel because Radahn was dead, he needed a vessel because that's what the scroll states.
Also a question 'cause maybe I've missed this but what's the source for Radahn's body having been consumed (in part) by Alexander?
@@Melesniannon wording in Fromsoft games has to be taken with a grain of salt. They are translated from another language. And this one in particular is translated by an in-game character. Alexander's shard mentions having clumps of red hair in it, "relics of a red haired champion."
@@Based_investor Oh cool, thanks for the info. I looked up some stuff and the shard actually depics part of Radahn's Redmane Helm. Alexander's dialog also includes, if you fight and lose to him, a mention of 'joining the lads inside' so he does indeed consume parts of warriors he's defeated.
He also mentions it if you talk to him after having defeated Starscourge Radahn, stating that he'll "squeeze this bunch down inside me" (referring to the bodies lying in the field).
Marika's rule actually lasted for much longer than a thousand years. A major theme in all souls games is the current ruling royals defying their inevitable end and fighting to keep their realm stagnant as long as it benefits them. They are worlds in need of drastic change, yet it's Lords and Kings refuse to obey time.
Lord and God mean King and Queen respectively (queen comes with a heavy religious symbol), and it makes sense Placidusax could have been both, as he was both male and female.
Outer Gods are just religions, with no intentions or purpose other than what it's clerics interpret.
It seems like the civilizations of the lands between are always trying to make their own version of the crucible which, in my opinion, is the one great that hyetta talks about. The reason I think this is because of the spirit calculus item looking like a terratoma of many different types of animal parts(a blending of attributes of life) and the fact that it is "suffused with spirituality" so much so that it is giving off an almost blinding light. And we know that light is directly connected to the gods
It also seems that to become a god or to be visited by one, one must go through immense trauma (see mohg, the bloodfiends, marika and the shaman, etc.) This is why marika was chosen by the greater will to become the next God of the new age. She saw her entire village get slaughtered and the greater will took notice of her immense suffering.
As for the nox, I believe the reason they could not create a god is because they were sacrificing artificial life to bring about their lord of night. The silver tears are not true life and therefore have no spiritual essence that can be extracted from them to fuel their god. So it failed.
In terms of marikas age being 1000 years, I think that it was supposed to be 1000 years, but she attempted to prolong it by removing destined death so that she couldn't die. This is why the erdtree eventually stopped producing sap. Her reign was over and the erdtree knew, but she didn't want it to stop so she adjusted her faith into making the erdtree "more an object of faith" (blessed dew talisman)
One last thing: I'm of the opinion that every single thing in the lands between is made of flesh...technically. especislly the continent we walk on. We see multiple examples of flesh being turned to stone with farum azula, the nox, and enir-ilim. We also find massive skeletons buried deep beneath the earth in called and mountaintops of the giants.
A large theme of elden ring is recycling of matter into new matter, with the god of rot, putrescence, and all of the bodies we find looking like ashy stone (the dead fingers on the divine towers, all the random corpses, the corpses returning to the erdtree, etc). This is also why the albinaurics are hated. They have no grace, which is just spiritual light energy. Because of this, albinaurics cannot be recycled to create new life.
But I don’t WANT to fight The One Reborn and you can’t make me
🙏
Hey G4meplus, was wondering what you thought of something, since I think your lore videos are really interesting and informative. Something's always bugged me about the ending of the DLC, young Miquella sitting in front of the throne, and when you started talking about the 'thousand year' reigns I was reminded of it.
When you fight Morgott, who is guarding the current Golden Order under the Erdtree as king of Leyndell, you see six ghostly thrones, for Marika's children. He calls them, 'Willful traitors all'. Miquella's endscene takes place in front of a very similar throne and he talks 'our part of the vow'. I haven't seen much theory on what this vow is, or who was part of it but Miquella's statement implies multiple people. People seem to dismiss the ending cutscene easily as something poorly done and uninformative... but I wonder if that's too easy a dismissal.
Might the 'vow' Miquella refers to, have been a pact amongst those six of Marika's offspring, perhaps to reinstate the cycle of the thousand year ages that Marika broke as 'the eternal queen'? That'd imply that every one of them was into it from the start, with the only deviant factor being Radahn who holds back the stars, blocking Ranni. We also know that Radahn felt fierce loyalty to his father and it may explain why Malenia attacked Caelid; she came to force him to fulfill his part of the bargain and release the stars but she failed. It also explains why Miquella later would plan for a Tarnished to fight his way to kill his demigod brothers; their original plan failed.
I'm kinda spitballing here, I haven't checked this against all the lore since I'm not an expert but wondered if you found it interesting enough to consider it for future videos.
And you have forgotten the Inquisition, that made their headquarters the Tower of Convictions, countless people were tortured and die there, Miquella ritual may be have two inspirations apart of Griffith rebirth, there is also the Eclipse.
Something interesting that I noticed you never included in your comparisons is Ganeshigas man made behelit.
Which I feel is what inspired the divine gates, mortals using human sacrifices in droves to create a portal to a divine plane of existence, to become an *apostle/god like being.
If Placidusax was the First Elden Lord, his God would be the one who was vessel to the Elden Ring- this means his god was either the Elden Beast itself (Also called "Nebula Dragon" in its files) or its God was Metyr, "the first star to fall to the lands between" carrying the Elden Beast with her, which was said to have had arrived to The Lands Between on a Golden Star. Metyr is certainly not golden or beautiful, but her Remembrance describes her as having once been "Brilliantly gleaming", so I suspect that Metyr used to look different to how she does when we find her.
Would you be able to a video on the shed skin of Eiglay in Bonnie Village? Like why is it there! Also love the video!
More and more I am of the mind that Marika was the Geq. nigredo is the first step in alchemy....
Placidusax. Dragon lord, vessel of the crucible, God of all Dragons.
So if death and corpses were a key component of bringing about a new god then I wonder if marika removed the rune of destined death in an effort to prevent a rival god coming about.
Technically I don’t think this would stop it from happening because the dragons were immortal but that doesn’t mean death was impossible, bodily harm has a weird tendency of stopping heartbeats after all. But with death removed from the Elden ring it’s suddenly impossible even through great bodily harm, I mean look at midra… could you still sacrifice your body to help build a gate of divinity? Probably yea, but knowing there would be no relief in the release of death, constant agony is a great deterrent for anything especially massive groups of people sacrificing themselves in a ritual of godhood.
i think you are right. that was marikas sin. she like gwyn tried to extend her age. rani and melina were getting close to being a god themselves.
Excellent video on a subject dear to my heart. Thank you.
Also I'd like to add: There are pillars in Rykard's boss room that are also made of spirals of corpses and may have even more secrets to reveal.
Next, the Omens under the capital can also breathe gold fire though I have a hypothesis that Godwin actually added dragon genetics to the Golden Order line (hence Godrick saying 'thou art a trueborn heir' to the dragon corpse.)
Lastly, I shamefully admit I had never considered Farum Azula to be a giant normalized crucible current, so thank you so much for making that absolutely solid connection. Can't wait for your coming content!
Miyazaki always playing the long game
Could each 'gate' be summoning something of the Greater Will? Perhaps Farum Azula caused Metyr's summoning (along with all the 5 fingers development) then Enir Elim summoned the Elden Beast, which Marika could act as a vessel for as she is a shaman/shrine maiden.
Worth noting that the first NPC to mention the divine gate calls it "A" Divine Gate. Not "The" Divine gate. They seem to be a well known concept and not a singular instance.
that something could happen every 1000 years doesnt mean that it does
that the people of nokron failed to succeed convinced me more that the golden order has been from when it began to its current moribund state of the start of the game, for around at least 5000 years
I been saying the attack on the hornsent and the tower was more to consolidate her power and prevent her children from stealing divinity from her, but keeping it in tact because it may be the only way she remains a god. So instead she seals it away, and has her most loyal child guard it to make sure nobody else becomes a god. The only reason miquella can get passed is because we kill messmer, and hes finally able to ascend with his pieces in hand. Marika sealing death was not out of some false idea that she was just a sad woman she knew if she wanted to rule eternal she needed to remove the one guaranteed threat to her rule. I still like the idea tha GeQ was the harbinger of the end of her age meant to replace marika but marika defied the laws of causality and prevented her from completing her task. Theres literally nothing that tells me marika was traumatized by the hornsent, considering she allowed them to exist until literally her marriage with radagon, when radahn was an adult. So she must have been okay enough with the hornsent to let them survive. It seems the big trigger was the arrival of the empyrean children in ranni miquella and malenia. We already know she disposed of Melina's physical body for whatever reason, she was probably empyrean too especially if shes meant to be the GeQ (i have my doubts but). Suddenly she has three threats to her golden order and her godhood. So she sends her child to get rid of the evidence of her ascension and seal away the tower so none of those empyreans can ascend like she did. Miquella gets so damn close marika literally guides us to slay him because there can only be one lord and one god. I dont know why people paint marika as this poor victim when everything that ever happened because of her, she doesnt even want to give up her power, the only endings where she ISNT the reigning god is age of stars (ranni releases her hold on the elden ring and sends it away) and the frenzied flame (where everything dies). Every ending sees her remain as the god, and us her new elden lord. I guess the only silver lining is we the tarnished get to create the order we want instead of marika, which does beg the question if she's even still conscious or not, but she must have been in order to guide us the entire game and dlc. The dung eaters ending is rather ironic if we use his rune considering marika did so much to revile the omens and treat them so horribly and that ending is like just desserts for marika, a twisted vengeance on her.
Regardless, marika is not innocent, shes not a victim, shes a power hunger woman, who stepped on everyone to get where she is. HELL, she may have even been behind the fate of the shaman village. The hornsent love to take ideas why is it so hard to believe they hot the jarring idea from marika and the shamans considering the greatjar description tells us the shamans wore those jars when they practiced the jarring themselves as a religious rite. They literally performed the jarring first to create what might have been a god to them. Marika just took it a hundred steps further. They probably saw that and started harvesting the shamans not realizing they cant just stuff meat in jars and expect a god to come out. But they saw the shamans and marika successfully do it so why not replicate it.
Anyways i have to wonder if rannis ending is what the nox wanted. I mean her age of stars is exactly what the nox wanted and that seems to mean our tarnished becomes the lord of night. Neat.
I agree with so much. I actually thought the same that Marika might have even betrayed her people for ascention. I dont care for the "Marika is mean cause they were mean to her" narrative. Altho the guidance of grace does lead us towards Ranni. So I wonder if when she got imprisoned and realized godhood basically means being a vessel for an outer god and that her actions to ensure no others rise to godhood basically made her an eternally crucified deity, she mustered her spiritual energy and guided the tarnished through the grace of gold towards releasing her or at least moving thongs along. She sent the tarnished away knowing when she did that they would die outside the lands between and come back. I really cant figure Marika out. Is she just a narcissistic parent like Logan Roy who doesn't want any of her children to succeed her?
I think you will really like my next video.
Im not really sure why so many people give Marika credit for the guidance of grace when she's practically dead but its almost certainly the Greater Will guiding us to restore order because thats what it wants.
Also not sure why you think Marika being an evil tyrant is somehow mutually exclusive with her being a victim of the Hornsent when there is explicit ingame proof that she mourned the loss of her people.
You would be right that is until you realize the grace becomes a standstill until after Miquella destroys his great rune. Marika is clearly guiding the grace because she actually doesn't want the Tarnished to kill Messmer or Miquella until they realize they have gone too far.
My belief is that the Nox failled because they took too many shortcuts with their use of false life. Not enough red blooded lives were used to succeed in their attempt and so none of their giant maidens were able to become a god. They failed, and they died.
I agree that Farum Azula was likely a Gate of Divinity, akin to Berserk's implications that Falconia is to be sacrificed like Gaiseric's kingdom was. However, I think that the dragons served Placidusax as living rock because they were his guards and made of stone. As building materials for the city, they'd be dead and not protecting him. Also, the meteorite impact could have lodged some dragons' bodies in the walls, whereas the beastmen would be the intended sacrifices to fuel Farum Azula as a city-wide Gate of Divinity.
Another thing to consider might be the elevation of each culture's ritual area. Farum Azula is suspended by a tornado, and it was perhaps up there at the time of the meteorite impact rather than lifted by it. Enir-Ilim is a tall tower built upon Belurat, itself being a settlement on elevated ground. In contrast, the Nox's attempts at creating a god would have occurred underground due to their banishment. Also, while the Nox are said to await a "Lord of Night" for their goals, I think this figure would just be their Elden Lord. The Nox's rituals were probably to create a god figure, and the giants on the thrones might be intended as those homunculi Empyreans.
As for Dominula's festival, I don't think Marika tolerates it due to some ritual importance. The celebrants seem to all be women living in a rural society on the edge of civilization, so this might remind Marika of her home and her people. As such, Marika doesn't want to purge something so similar to the only place and society she may have cared about, even if the similarity is superficial.
Regarding why Marika's reign ended, that seems to have more to do with her goal of killing the Elden Beast. Marika appears unconcerned with someone succeeding her, and she even tells the demi-gods to become a lord or god. Marika likely repurposed her old order to Maliketh so as to orchestrate a situation where a demi-god or Tarnished would have to defeat all of the greatest warriors in the Lands Between and gain the strength and skill necessary to kill the Elden Beast. The Rune of Death only served as a means to burn through any seal that might be used to keep the Elden Ring and/or the Elden Beast hidden within the Erdtree.
In light of what the DLC indicates is needed to turn an Empyrean into a god, I wonder what Ranni did to become capable of wielding the Elden Ring. We know that Ranni has plans for leaving to the night sky, per her ending. Perhaps Ranni went there before and was provided a sort of Gate of Divinity by the Dark Moon. Using that provided method might have been what caused Ranni's Great Rune to be discarded, as is implied with Miquella in the DLC.
That would also explain why no one is seemingly searching for or in possession of Ranni's Great Rune -- it's so devastated as to not be worthwhile. The nature of using a Gate of Divinity in an unsealed land, let alone in space, might also spread out a Great Rune even more than Miquella's Great Rune, thus leaving no worthwhile coalesence of fragments.
Thanks for this video! I've felt that Farum Azula looked brutal for years and a far cry from anything respectful to most of the beastmen lodged in the pillars and walls there, let alone the ones chained to posts. I felt that the Eternal Cities had massive Albinaurics, akin to Phillia, Latenna's sister, and the petrified people were all Albinaurics, hence the resemblance to the Albus-style Albinaurics and the figures' lack of legs. Curiously though, a few of these petrified people might actually be statues, as they have visible pedestal bases. Most appear to lack this detail though.
👏👏👏👏👏
The eclipse happens every 216 years.
I was talking about the incarnation ceremony not the eclipse.
👍🔥🔥🔥 could you do a video about Babylon Mesopotamia religious and historic influence in elden ring
Tarnished Archeologist already did it
Good video.
Thank you.
I need your help. Can you try to connect some of your theories with mesopotamian mythology? Elden ring lore is clearly based on mesopotamia. The people of Mesopotamia were astronomers who looked at the night sky for signs of “cycles” and the sun was divine. For them, an eclipse represented an “omen” which is a motif in elden ring. One of the statues in the eternal city of elden ring is holding a perfect copy of a real world map of babylon (the oldest world-map of the world) and babylon is located in mesopotamia. Also, mesopotamia was defined as a land between two rivers, just like in elden ring the underground ancient cities are all in between two rivers (the siofra and ainsel rivers) which are clearly inspired in the euphrates and tigris rivers that surround mesopotamia. The hornsent are probably inspired by the greeks, and there is a real world statue of moses where he has horns, and those horns were suppose to be “divine” which fits the ideology of the hornsent in elden ring. I also think that the rise of marika was inspired by the rise of christianity, which is pretty obvious when you consider the similarities between statues of marika and the statues of jesus christ. Sun realm = mesopotamia, hornsent = greeks, golden order = christianity
I will add some more context. First, there is something I forgot to mention related to mesopotamia. Most people have heard of the story about the arc of noah, where he puts animals in a giant boat and saves himself in the apocalypse thanks to the advice of god. A lot of people don’t know that this tale is actually inspired by the mesopotamian tale called the “epic of gilgamesh” where the events are pretty much the same as the arc of noah. The reason why I bring this up is because in the dlc, there is a place (where st trina is found) filled with giants boats that look ancients, and near the cliff (where you have to jump from to begin the boss fight) there are a group of EVERY non-hostile animal from elden ring, they are just laying there with the giant boats, I think that this is a direct reference to the tale of gilgamesh where he saved one animal for every species in a giant boat. There is clearly something we are missing here and its definetely related to mesopotamia.
Another thing that I think a lot of people are missing, is that there seems to be theme in elden ring that connects "water" with "death", if a great flood once ocurred in elden ring then it would make sense that the world of elden ring relates those two. The map of elden ring is filled boats in the seas, which could be a depiction of how people first arrived from the giants boats during the great flood, the mariners who represent those who live in death are always found in a pond of water riding a boat, the prince of death giant body grave seems to have a bunch of aquatic animals features, which makes sense if "water" is related to 'death" and lastly, the mesopotamians needed water for agriculture, and thus water represented "life" (which is similar to how marika's tree represents life) but at the same time they feared floods (flooding of water), because it would destroy their crops, I think that this could be interpreted as the duality of water representing both "life" and "death" which would explain the water connection with "those who live in death" and it would also explain why godwin's body is developing aquatic features since he is neither death or alive, but somewhere in between, I still have countless more connections that I would like to share, but for now, I hope somebody was able to develop a theory from this extra context.
Great catch man. Thousand year voyage could possibly be a poor translation of millennium.
your theory about the thousand years reign is wrong simply because George Martin already stated that there's 5000 years between the shattering and the game, so Marika was a god for AT LEAST 5000 years
I don't believe anything GRRM says.
G.R.R.M. might have just been exaggerating the time span in that interview. Also, IIRC, Miyazaki and From Software took over the writing from the point where the Shattering began, so the war might have resulted in no new order for a long time. While the thousand years may not be literally that precise, both Empyreans using that term is still peculiar, and perhaps denotes a planted thought by an outer god.
@@killerking2346well he wrote the source material for the game to be made off so.
@@nightscout9979so confidently wrong.
@@braedenaldridge8452 you're annoying
Its not just berserk. You literally become the lord of the elden ring. Lord of the rings. But you said the title is based on berserk. Nah. Jackisamimic posted a really good pic/thumbnail showing all the obvious influeces besides just berserk.
I said the title of the DLC not the main game and yes Elden Ring is inspired by a lot of media not just berserk.
You say she looks worse but after we know the store and she was wronged, it's still worse? The memes my guy. Lol
michaelzaki should make a Berserk souls game. seriously man i wanna play as Guts with Casca on my back in the beast of darkness cloak!
they would never allow the lost children arc or wyald
I always loved how the original dragons dogma had a Guts character preset although I only played as huge barbarian women or huge men with bowl cuts
yeah, where a character named berserk will go berserk and start berserking all over the place, very interesting
It’s called Elden ring
Tbh I like the way he do it now, it's so much fun seeing that he took a certain event then discovering the twist he put on it.
I think that to be a god in elden ring y must be lgbtq+ like, Marika is bigender and pansexual (while they was radagon, they married rennala, and while marika married godfrey and itself with radagon) then we have Ranni, wich can marry the tarnished being a man or a woman, making she bissexual, then we have Miquella, who is in a homossexual relationship with his older brother, and now placidussax has 2 genders too? another bigender.
is Michael Zaki a secret ally?
PLACIDUSSAX IS TRANSEXUAL OMG
That “wall of living rock” line in the dragoncrest shield always confused me. Makes complete sense referring to the dragons in Farum azula’s stone
If anything Nokron came before Enir Elim
Naaah, dragons came after hornsent, First people of the crucible
No way, dragons have always been the oldest in Miyazaki's view, they represent power and immortality that fade over the ages and crumbles.
Mentioning the crucible, the dragons actually represent the crucible much more than the hornsent. Wings, claws, horns and gold.
No way the hornsent are older.
@@G4meplus no, You’re totally wrong. Literally the life, the world, start from the Crucible
The cycle of life and death has been disrupted in the lands between. A mortal being that lives in the lands between has three things to give it the full consciousness of life. One is a body, the next is a soul or spirit, and the third is life energy. The three are required. If a mortal body only has a soul but there is no life energy present, then this would be considered an undead. It is life energy that beings in the world of Elden Ring want to absorb to give them more power. Celestial beings from beyond the lands between, in other words....outer gods, came to the lands and taught those living there how to disrupt the cycle of life and death. These celestial beings had a greater motivation. What they wanted was what dwells In the heart of the lands between. This is the black sun. All life energy comes from the black sun in the lands between. But these celestial beings could not access that black sun directly. The only way they could do it was through the two trees. Yes, there were two trees. One is the tree of life, that is represented by the erdtree. The other is the tree of knowledge or death. That would be the shadow tree. These celestial beings convinced the two old civilizations that existed in the lands between at the time they first arrived to build the divine towers. These two old civilizations the Uld and the Rauh. These six celestial beings deceived these two civilizations and the giats to build their device (the six divine towers) with the promise that this device would give the beings of the lands between eternal life. But their true purpose was to take the life energy from the Black Sun that dwells in the heart of that world. The device did not work as they intended, and a great upheaval occurred instead. The tree of knowledge along with all the lands around it that existed in the lands between in its central ocean, were transported to the shadow realm. The tree of knowledge was left corrupted and in ruin. This did remove death from the lands between, but it corrupted the cycle of life and death. Instead of giving everyone eternal life, it created a bunch of undead beings with what was left of the tree of life....having to perform the corrupted cycle of life and death in what was left of the upheavaled lands between.
The six celestial beings lost their physical bodies and were also forced away from the lands between into pocket dimensions of their own. These are the outer gods. And all of the eons of time after the great upheaval, these outer gods vied for control of the lands between to try and reattain their bodies and escape their various dimensional prisons. It seems that the one celestial being known as the greater will have the most influence in the lands between. But as time went on, it became clear that these beings were not going to be successful and we're going to remain trapped with less and less influence in the lands between.
The dragons forsaw this coming, but could not stop it from happening. The city of Farum Azula existed on the top of jagged peak, which of course existed in the lands between in the area around the bestial sanctum. The dragon's managed to keep their city from being transported into the shadow realm by the celestial being's device, but their city was essentially in ruin after that.
The story of Marika and the golden order was completely secondary to the foundational story of the lands between. It happened much much later than the events surrounding the great upheaval. The lands between will never be restored. In fact, the tree of life has also been felled at some point. The golden part of the herd tree or the tree of life is an illusion. If you remove that, you would only have a trunk of what remains of the tree of life. Someone or something felled that tree in the distant past. It was probably the Titans, which are part of the race of giants.
The six celestial beings who would now be known as outer gods are:
1.) Greater Will (represents order)
2.) Frenzied Flame (reoresents chaos)
3.) Formless Mother or Mother of Truth
4.) Fell god
5.) Rot god
6.) Lord of night
In truth, these are not outer gods. These were just celestial beings that craved the power that exists in the heart of the lands between. Everything that has happened after that is as a result of the great upheaval caused by the mechanism that they built which is personified by the divine towers.