Marika's Horrific Past: The Tragedy of Shaman Village Elden Ring Lore Shadow of the Erdtree Theory
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- Опубліковано 2 жов 2024
- In this Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree DLC lore video, I invite you to join me, Zayf the Scholar, as I work towards unraveling Queen Marika the Eternal's tragic past. Between herself and Radagon, Marika is the parental root of the demigods. The origin point for Miquella, Malenia, Ranni, Radahn, Rykard, Mogue, Morgott, Messmer, Melina and the nameless demigods of the Walking Mausoleums. However, despite this centrality to the story, we until now haven't learned much about her past.
In this video I unravel the persecution she and her people faced at the hands of the Hornsent. We travel through the Belurat Gaol and Bonny Village to look for clues to piece it all together.
Why did Marika hide her history in the Land of Shadow?
Why did she remove death from the Lands Between and the Elden Ring?
Why did she send Messmer on a crusade to destroy the Towerfolk?
Is she just pure evil like we originally thought?
What was her prayer, her wish...her confession?
These questions and more in this DLC spoiler filled lore breakdown.
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Hey everybody, this was some of my favorite lore of the DLC so I wanted to get a video out about it ASAP. I have a feeling though, there will probably be things I missed since this is so early so drop a comment and let me know what you think!
Also, after rendering this video, I saw someone of Reddit point out that the melding ability of the Shaman might help explain our boy Godrick the grafted as well...
It was an amazing video! Also I wouldn’t worry about it dude, the fact there’s other people including myself have thought about Godricks connection to the Shamans melding just reinforces you’re point :)
@@theemeraldgecko310 Thank you kindly Gecko!
I think there's some pieces that do not fit just because translation is incorrect. For example, someone mentioned that in Japanese version shamans refered to as miko, which can be translated as shaman, or a as shrine maiden, or even as nun.
This might mean Marika wasn't born as a shaman, but rather was picked to be one. And in this case hornsents and Marika's kin might not be different peoples or folks. Numen and hornsent might be of the same kin, but belong to different class, or caste, or estate. This can also provide a different view on why potentate Diallos drops a numen's rune at the end of his quest, granting potentate's job is to butcher shamans/numens. And if it's true, this can lead to another grim conclusion: in the end Marika had to butcher her own people (aside from those who departed with her) to end hornsent's foul practice.
Also, this small detail brings back Romina's lore. She served in the church, although it is unclear who she was. A shrine maiden or a nun, perhaps? Or maybe a sacred victim? Her church was burnt to ashes, presumably by Messmer, and she was the only one left. She also managed to merge herself with a scorpion, a centipede, a butterfly and a flower - just like shamans merged with the flesh of others (and just like Marika's son Godrick merged himself with chopped off bodyparts). Perhaps, she was a numen and the last shaman of realm of Shadows, forsaken by Marika and Messmer.
There is a large plot hole in the story you presented here. Nothing explains how was Marika able to pull off all that bloodshed before ascending to godhood.
You attribute that to his son, Messmer, but I'm almost certain that the crusade started after Marika had already become a god. There are a few reasons for this:
1. Messmer carries Marika’s seal in his eye socket, so that he could have grace of gold (which came after the appearance of the Erdtree), and we know that Marika abandoned him. We also know that she never returned to the Shadow Realm, so Messmer had to receive the seal while still being on the Lands Between. Also, there are other factions (like the Carians and Commander Gaius) aiding him, who definitely came from the Lands Between. And if the crusade started later, Messmer cannot be responsible for the mountain of corpses on top of Enir-Ilim.
2. While Belurat is demolished, Enir-Ilim seems to be untouched by the destruction. The structures are intact, there are no corpses or wandering ghosts, and some of the strongest hornsent warriors are still there. Which leads me to believe that Messmer never set food in Enir-Ilim, thus he couldn’t have killed all those hornsent at the Divine Gate, and there’s another explanation (maybe not revealed at all) for all those corpses.
Had Marika (or the shaman folk) have the power to defeat the hornsent before becoming a god, she probably would have done so in order to protect her people. Something else had to play a role so she could get to the Divine Gate. You didn’t mention the fingers at all, which almost certainly were the catalyst of all that happened to Marika.
@@ZayftheScholar In answer to your question at the end about why Messmer was abandoned and not Melania, I think it's because snakes are (for whatever reason) seen as sinful, hence Rykard being referred to as "lord of blasphemy". Not sure why they're sinful other than the biblical reference, with Mohg and Morgott it makes sense that she'd exile them given that they'd remind her of her oppressors.
The flesh of shamans being valued by the hornsent may also explain grafting. Godrick is still a descendent of Marika, and he can seemingly stick a dragon to his arm and have it attach in moments. Harmonious indeed.
It may also explain why Godwyn looks like this. Just some clams and fishes melded together harmoniously.
Godricks dragon grafting still makes me laugh, maybe he’s of shaman blood and can meld harmoniously with the dragon, but there were no lungs connected to that dragon head to breath fire with
@@elilane8627 All the screaming and boasting that Godrick does, makes me think he has enough lung capacity for both heads
Also makes sense that Rykard could join the serpent, joining with his body.
@cesartocon3073 rykard was eaten though, he offered his body up to the serpent
Marika left Messmer there for 2 reasons:
1: She and Messmer agreed to tell the people of the Lands Between that the crusade was Messmer acting alone(as told in Messmer’s armor description) and this is also why the serpent is viewed as a traitor.
2: Even though she gave him the golden eye, she was still afraid of the serpent that dwelled within him.(as told in Messmer’s remembrance)
Comment should be pinned tbh
Pinned this damn comment
Yup, and Marika would be naturally afraid of his flame too. He’s cursed by the Fell God. He’s the only one of her children who could burn the Erdtree.
Marika would have divested herself from the love she had for Messmir as she became a god, just like Miquella.. 😢
@@FlyBird melena also had this power too, and I don't think it was the fell god, but the abyssal snake that also has the power of fire as well
I don’t think “The Grandma” in the trunk of the Shaman Village tree is a statue. I think it’s an elder Shaman woman, probably the ancient matriarch Shaman of Marika’s people, that had melded into the tree at one time.
I thought it was their God 😅 But I think your observation has merit.
An elder/ancestor is probably a better description of a figure like who I believe she represents
I think the grandma is just a mummy that was kept in the hollow of the tree tbh
we now know the shaman had malleable flesh, and looking closely at the "statue" i agree it doesn't look carved, it looks like a woman who melded with the tree
The big tree in the tower has so many women in its trunk. So I can see that
I had long suspected Marika was a kind of Dryad. Not quite like those in mythology. But she could become "one" with a host of things.
Only Miyazaki could make an item as mundane as a jar into a sinister object of horror.
Very very nasty story indeed man. Jeez
Ever see one guy one jar? Watch that video and jars will forever be horrific
Now play Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy...
Wait till you see what Junji Itto did with a spiral
@@kneeofjustice9619 He made me obsessed with spiral patterns...
Im in love that every character does not just do things just cause. Marika was very calculated, she started wars, ended her own war, and essentially planned her own end by bringing back the Tarnished.
Its painful to think that she also planned her own childrens end too
Elden Ring: No good endings
Marika expects the tarnished would kill her own children, only by getting great runes the tarnished one can become elden lord.
You're also assuming she was in complete control of everything she did...
@@elijahherstal776she definitely was in control of the beginning by shattering the Elden Ring after her son, Godwyn’s, death. But after that was completely up to the tarnished. She laid the foundation for the demise of the old order
@@Robin_hood27 One thing that's crossed my mind:
Ever noticed How Melina, Melania, Miquella, and Messmer are different? Not just because their 'parentage' is Marika/Radagon as one being, but look at how their personalities and actions differer from that of their half-siblings, and look at the way Marika viewed their half-siblings.
Radagan took Radahn, Rykard, and Ranni with him when he left Rennala, it's clear that Marika/Radagon cared about them. All born of M/R and a human being.
Godwyn very much seems like Marika's precious boy, and she even seems to have cared some degree about Mohg and Morgott- locking them away, but not killing them and subjecting them to mutilation. Perhaps quarantine until she could find a cure? But they too had a human parent.
But she doesn't seem to care the same way for Messmer, Miquella, and Melania... and remember how Melina was weirded out about motherly love when talking about Bok?
What if the four M-children of Marika/Radagon are something different? Something less human, and more of an artificial construct? Something made for a purpose, and not a normal child? Could explain why she cared less. Maybe they weren't' even 'sentient' in the same way- hence they all have some 'glitch' in their programming.
Kinda paints the shattering of the elden ring as an emotional act. The one child that was perfect, Godwyn, was KILLIED the one thing she wanted to avoid, so she destroyed the order that didnt fullfilled their part of the deal.
That's always how I had interpreted it, but where it gets weird is the two official accounts conflict with one another.
In the OG story trailer Ranni narrating says something to the effect of "Godwyn was slain and Marika was driven to the brink". That fits perfectly.
But if you listen to the narrator in the actual opening of the game he has the chronology reversed Marika shattered the ring, then Godwyn was slain in the knight of black knives.
This has always seriously bothered me lol
It is also implied as well though that marika was aware of the plot before it happened and that she had a hand in it, can't remember exactly where but i think it describes her as betraying maliketh; meaning she must have helped ranni steal part of the rune of death.
It is in malikeths rememberance: "Marikas sole need of her shadow was a vessel to lock away destined death. Even then, she betrayed him."
@@ZayftheScholar Rogier also reports that Godwyn was killed first, then the shattering happened. His dialogue comes up after you find Godwyn's surrogate corpse under stormveil and report it to him:
"It happened during the Golden Age of the Erdtree, long before the shattering of the Elden Ring. Someone stole a fragment of the Rune of Death from Maliketh, the Black Blade. And on a bitter night, murdered Godwyn the Golden.
That was the first recorded Death of a demigod in all history. And it became the catalyst. Soon, the Elden Ring was smashed, and thus sprang forth the war known as the Shattering."
@@ZayftheScholar id always understood it was the murder of godwyn that caused marika to shatter the elden ring.
Some item descriptions seem to suggest that despite people like the Hornsent being "unclean" in the eyes of the Erdtree, such a massacre as we saw in the Land of Shadows was not particularly popular among the adherents of the Golden Order. Marika may have been a god but she still had to play the role of politician to an extent to keep too many of her followers from turning against her. So while she ordered Messmer to carry out his invasion, publicly she had to denounce it and Messmer was initially happy to take one for the team and take the blame for it so Marika's hands would officially remain "clean". However, I get the sense that Messmer still had an expectation that he'd be allowed back home once the invasion was complete. Marika wanted her vengeance but I think she still felt a degree of shame over it so she locked Messmer and the rest away and erased them from history so she could have her vengeance while also maintaining a somewhat clean reputation.
I think besides that she is also scared of that abyssal tapeworm (ik it is a snake lol) on Messmer as it is linked to the idea of sickness, which is not what she wanted to spread under her reign.
@@yixuanlin4084 True though it does make me wonder why she waited so long to get rid of him. Various lore bits suggest that the invasion didn't begin until after Godfrey was banished.
@@lordtrinen2249 likely to use up the power while she can and once she’s done just abandoned them for good? :3 she is kind of notorious for that as we the tarnished are still being used for her plans even though we were once abandoned… a true politician
@@lordtrinen2249Maybe she doesn’t have the heart to actually dispose of Messmer since he is still her son, much like Morgott and Mohg still being alive even if they’re banished. Messmer also has her seal to protect him as long as it’s not broken and you can argue that Messmer being locked in the Lands of Shadow spares him from the war of the Shattering, which depends on how far ahead Marika has planned it to happen.
My understanding is that Marika doesn’t hate Messmer like what some people are thinking, but the fear of the cursed snake inside him probably might have started when Marika witnessed what he can do with it during the crusade
Thank you, that's a really great take
Before DLC: OMG, how can Messmer and Marika commit such atrocities? They are horrible people committing genocide. Those poor horned folk...
After DLC: Yo Messmer, you missed a few spots
Facts!
Plot behind plots🗿🗿🗿
Perfectly sums up my character arc this DLC
Ah yes genocide is justified. Why did this dlc bring out the facists
"where did I put my visage shield?"
Hold on, do we KNOW if Marika escaped the fate of getting stuffed into a jar? Or is she the result of a successful jar ritual? We never do see her or Radagon's forehead clearly. Are they one person because they were jar buddies?
If the Hornsent made Marika what she is, that would explain her rise in their society and why her actions were viewed as a betrayal.
"Are they one person because they were jar buddies?" Thanks I hate it 😂
@@ZayftheScholar That's the kind of reaction I was hoping for.
"Jar buddies" kind of makes sense come to think of it. I now wonder too. 😊
@ladooshka the problem then becomes how is miquella and st Trina the same?
@@Beefyjesus0 Trina was also a jar buddy but did not manifest and got passed down to Miquella instead?
Something interesting that people might have misses in the trailer, Marika seems to have scars from the Tooth Whip on her arm 1:53
I was seriously thinking the same thing while I was cutting footage. Thought it might be a reach but I'm glad you said it.
I know some people have brought this out, but it seems very difficult to verify and is most likely blood
@@onepiece666 you mean the part of her arm that has no blood on it and looks like it has a bulletwound scar?
@@CrzyLion Yes, ultimately while it would add to the story and make her even more of a victim to the atrocities committed by the Hornsent, I don't think its really the case here. Any really atrocious wound would be more obvious
Just some bloodstains, guys. Why do you always overcomplicate things?
I think Marika is a fascinating character honestly. At first when you learn about what she’d done to Mohg and Morgot, you think she’s being cruel and unloving. But learning about her history with the hornsent paints it in a very different light. It’s still a horrible thing to do, especially to her own children, but you understand it’s a result of her trauma.
Marika’s reasons for her actions make sense instead of her being just a power hungry jerk. What she did was as far as how she treated her omen twins and omens in general was messed up but now we know her reasons were basically on the extreme side of PTSD.
i also think that the omen twins became as such because of karma of slaughtering the Hornsent
@@brandinicole1372 all the omen in the in-between are infected with an omen/crucible curse. Malenia is infected with rot goddess, I think Miquella has something in him, he never opens his eyes. Messmer has a void snake.
I think of it like this, Shaman can merge perfectly; Marika as a god try to merge with everything and began casting away the greed/power hungry, nasty ones. Hence she 'betrayed' the hornsent ... no, she tried to adopt/help and you were nasty to her people despite it; death/banishment is your reward. She cast away as Radagon all the parts of herself she didn't care for as well.
That is what makes Marika special. She can not only meld perfectly with anything; she keeps control and can remove anything as well.
I believe there is so much more she has been doing for the thousands of years since and prior to the shattering; and is possibly still present in some context ;)
@@pugachan9928Not karma, no. Opening cinematic for the dlc mentions that "there was seduction, and then - betrayal". Hornesnt guy from Leda's bunch mentions betrayal too, but you can only betray someone who is trusting you.
Marika rose to power through bed, very R.R. Martin thing. Makes sense, you can't jump from a slave to a god, she has to become a woman of some stature first. Mohg and Morgot are obviously the result of that.
@@ragvald8835 Godfrey also has ties to Crucible, his forces are made of Crucible knights.
Did people forgot?
The serpent is viewed as something very bad with the golden order so I think Messmer was left there to hide the serpent inside of him
Not just that but she wanted to hide the atrocities she committed so she would be viewed favorably as a god.
You don't think, gasp, the serpent was considered bad in the golden order because of messmer? Perhaps to remove any knowledge of him
Think about it, she confined the serpent by using a scarseal. When he removed the eye, and destroyed the eye, her grace no longer had any influence on the serpent writhing inside his body. Hence why phase 2 happens.
i also heard from another video that certain serpents can devour the gods (like rykards god devouring serpent) and that messmers abyssal serpent is perhaps one of them.
@@frehnibabulno8870 personally I believe Rykard and Messmer were twins, but then that also wouldn’t make sense because Rykard is the son of Renalla and Messmer is Marika’s son. Both presumably children of Radagon tho
I'm fairly certain the reason Messmer was left in the Lands of Shadow was because of his flames. Golden Order was viciously condemning flames of all manner, I don't see why Messmer would be the exception. Fact that he was sealed away instead of being killed is probably Marika's twisted form of kindness, reminds me of how Mohg and Morgott were dealt with. And this being part of the plan, people sent along with Messmer were all either criminals to get rid of, or volunteers holding Messmer in high esteem.
I woudnt call it twisted kindness tbh, the fact is if she let Mesmer be around she would be an hipocrit cause she exterminated the giants for the same reason, so I think it’s more of the fact Marika was pained of the fact and didn’t want to have him die, sure u can argue what she has done to Mesmer mogh and morgot is horrible but when the other option was killing them we can see why she did what she did, also the fact Marika herself in the shattered her own order because she realized she was lied to by metyr pretending to be the greater will likely controlling the Elden beast so she regretted and shattered the Elden ring
You’re close, but that’s not really the reason. The reason is because Messmer was cursed. He had the abyssal serpent dwelling inside of him. Marika gave Messmer a soreseal (an eye with her symbol) in order to contain the serpent.
@@TheLsp2011 yeh the serpent was one big reason
Marika clearly loved him, she gave him her blessings (item), it says she made only a few for him. He probably gave them away since most of them are with Erdtree Sentinels or just abandoned near one of his knights. It seems Messmer didn't really feel loved, classic GRRM dysfunctional family.
He wasn't left there. He grew up with Radahn and even Rennalla sister ran away to be with Messmer and be his Blade. He left on a crusade, together with the knights he fought against Giants, and he did his job well. He even tried to help survivors in jars.
The shamans are most likely descendants of Numens that came long before Marika was born. Long before the Erdtree. And perhaps, long before Metyr came to the Lands Between.
Perhaps long before the Land of Shadows was hidden from the rest of the world by Marika, the Numens have thrived with some building great cities like Nokstella Nokron, and the unnamed city that became ruins in Deeproot Depths. I figured that the reason why Marika sealed away Messmer in the Land of Shadows alongside every other participant was to avoid the risk of having her crusade reavealed to the rest of the world.
I was wondering if all those ships on the Curulean Coast were leftover from the arrival of the Numen.
@@JoeGreen-t8qthose are stone coffins filled with the bodies of so called "tainted" bodies according to everything you find in the fissure.
Or perhaps she knew the power of Abyssal Serpent inside Messmer and wanted to keep him away from the light (notice how Messmer uses ‘Shorn of light’, which means the light was taken away from the Abyssal Serpent). Could it be because Marika knew the Abyssal Serpent would grow to its complete power outside the Land of Shadows?
@@JoeGreen-t8qi think they were part of Carian/Messmer invasion from the Lands Between
Numens coming before make sense indeed. Even though they are from Marika's race, she's an outsider to them, and her golden order and ascent to godhood totally shattered their own cosmology based on stars. Hence why they would send the black knife assassins and learn to kill fingers, in order to get rid of gods that trampled in their already established world.
I don't see how Ranni fits into all this. She's all for getting rids of gods and embracing stars as well, but the assassins eventually came for her too. They may have had a relation of partially converging interests, which she eventually turned to her own advantage.
Finding the Shamans village was right up there with the most impactful moments in the entire game for me, and I hope Miyazaki uses this kind of juxtaposition as a tool in the future because it made the rest of the game so much more powerful. We get so jaded to everything trying to attack us, and this peaceful spot breaks that up.
I’m figuring out that what marika did to morgott and mohg now was a direct result of her trauma about what happened in the shaman village. These characters are fascinating but most of them are so sad in their stories. It really just keeps you wanting to learn more about the game.
She's honestly probably the most complex and fascinating character.
It's rare that a female character is written to be so multifaceted.
Imagining the horror of having a child inexplicably born with the same horns of the people who tortured you and your people. It's not their fault at all but man, I almost sympathize with Marika, even if i think Morgott and Mohg didn't deserve what happened to them. It's almost like the world itself was mocking her and refusing to let her escape
@@windwaker407 right. This game is brutal sometimes
@@windwaker407She was cursed by the Grandam Empyrean.
What did marika do to them?
The more you explore it, the worse it gets. She has Tooth Whip marks on her hand in the story trailer. Hornsent Grandam calling her a strumpet. Caterpillar Mask said to "ward off thoughts of impurity and temptation". Potentates being naked except for the masks. All that points an even more horrific picture and explains how Marika escaped the pot and what her "seduction" was.
Marika is a SA survivor at the hands of hornsent butchers.
I see the Bloodborne themes have snuck into the dlc...
I don't think the 'seduction' was the gruesome ritual done by the hornsent. Although you can read it as SA, I feel like seduction could be less sexual in nature and more like temptation by the fingers, maybe even by Metyr, the mother of fingers herself.
Think about it she rose to sainthood and was seen as such by the hornsent. However, she still secretly hates them. She eventually comes across one of the two fingers born of Metyr, daughter of the greater will. The greater will promises a world without the death and suffering that Marika's people went through. This is the seduction, and she gives in to this promise and 'betrays' the hornsent. That's how I see it, at least.
@@poisoned81 I'm not sure how you would 'betray' someone flaying and and stuffing your family into jars, exactly.
@@Arcessitor'Betrayed' like a trusted slave turning on their master, seems right.
@Arcessitor Both 'seduction' and 'betrayal' are through the eyes of the hornsent. They likely told stories of Marika's crusade as such. Basically, Marika acted as a Saint in hornsent society, maybe similar to a high priest or even Pope figure, spreading the worship of the crucible. This would explain the statues of marika throughout the realm of shadow, but that could also just be Messmer's forces, which served the Golden order during the crusade.
The hornsent saw the pot ritual as sacred, not even viewing it as a crime towards the shamans but 'what they were born into.' So they would think Marika betrayed them for no conceivable reason despite the gravity of their actions.
Another painful reminder out of all places, Miquella cross isn't in shaman village. Make you think did he even know his mother past, possibly not because Hornsent feed him their story and lies. He possibly doesn't know what happen in bonny village too. Also hornsent once betrays us calls us lord of the ertree, lord of Marika. It wasn't the ertree that revived us, it was Marika.
She's the one who gifted the tarnished grace in a new game intro. She wants us to become lord cause her kids are off doing whatever the fuck it is their doing..
Miquella does know about Marika, and he takes the same path as her.
@@kevinfortsch Marika sends the tarnished on her quest because the conflict of the demigods has been going for far too long without any victor and she knew that someone, anyone, should rise to power, so the world can have order again.
@@kevinfortsch well her none children seem have managed to win and become elden lord (cant win a war without death dummies, god i love them all but the whole family tree seem to have the stupid gen running through them) as such someone else must come
@@Luiz-rt8eoJokes on Marika, she’s getting the Dung Eater ending. I’m pissed there’s no Miquella ending.
5:47 The Great Jar helmet description is mistranslated.
The JP text does not use the name of Marika's people (Miko aka "shrine maiden") when referring to shamans. "Shaman" here refers to hornsent priests.
Thank you kurogumo! I haven't done a playthrough yet in Japanese but I have been collecting those sorts of translation issues where I have seen them pop up on Reddit and such. Let me know if you find more. I'd like to make a video about that kind of thing.
That's why we should always rely on Japanese speakers for the lore. Thank you!
I think Messmers curse is a bit different from Miquella and Malenias, the serpent is the answer. The most base of them all, the abyssal serpent. They are shunned more than any other in this world and I don't think we yet understand why. But there is a connection between all this and serpents, why is there a snake skin next to Bonny Village? What role did they play? I think the serpent is the cause of Messmers abandonment, Marika herself was scared of it to some degree.
After playing the game I think I agree with the theory that the mysterious white flesh Marika pulls the golden threads from in the story trailer was a snake, a white snake in which she put her hand inside it's eye. Messmers serpent form is a giant white snake which is missing an eye.
In the lands between all the gods seem to be outer, from the cosmos, from far away. But the serpents like the God Devouring serpent of Rykard and Messmers abyssal snake are never likend to outer gods, no outer god is blamed for them or their abilities. I think thats because the serpents are inspired by real world serpent myths where they're "the most base of them all". The serpent is the earliest animal to gain religious importance relating to the nature of the world, a symbol of life and death of the earth reaching for the sky.
I think serpents are the original "gods" of the world of the Lands Between and everywhere else on this planet, shunned by all outer gods and their followers because of their cosmic influence over life and death, their ability to devour gods. Might they even be a threat to the Greater Will itself? Like Tiamat herself, Jormungandr, the Hydra, Orochi, the universal serpentine threat to gods.
I really like this theory! It makes a lot of sense looking back
Planet?
Pretty sure the game Elden Ring takes place on a different planet from Earth, which is actually kinda cool.
@@deathOfTheWinterMoon I'm not saying that it takes place on earth.
Yes. That's what i was tryna say :)
Lore wise, I think the answer to the Numen question is simple. The Numen were part of the path for the Nox to forge a Lord of Night, but when they succeeded and were cast down by The Greater Will, and their cities condemned or ruined- many Numen would leave. Some of these Numen who went to the surface would become the shamans.
Being part of the rebirth the Nox employed would explain why their flesh blends harmoniously, and why they were seemingly untouched by the crucible.
But marika first set foot on the shadowland
@@cardgameenjoyer7446 And the Lands of Shadow used to be part of the same landmass as the Lands Between, before Marika did a little trolling.
That doesn’t make any sense
@@WarMonger_the-One-and-Onlywhat? When? How and where it was specifically
@@cardgameenjoyer7446 To quote Miyazaki, "In terms of setting and themes, it technically occupies the same space as the Lands Between, the same universe. *But due to something story related* that we won't reveal today, this has *become physically disconnected,* and you'll travel to the Shadow of the Erdtree land as a separate place."
To quote the Suppressing Pillar, "The very *center of the Lands Between.* All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed."
If shamans bodies can "meld" with others, that would explain the whole marika/radagon thing.
No not really. The reason why radagon was formed is because marika is an empyrean. Ranni, Miquella and Malenia are the only empyreans next to marika we see ingame and all of them have a split personality or fractures of them that resemble some trait. Malenia never came to split into two forms of herself (Millicent and Co came to be from her blooming the scarlett aeonia) miquella split into st. Trina, ranni got rid of her great rune which freed her from the influence and control of the fingers and Marika split into Duty aka. Radagon who enforced what Marika was unable to do because she destroyed the elden ring out of her own decision (and caused radagon to impale her which means the fingers punished her for that betrayal by commanding radagon aka the duty of her to punish her)
St. Trina is miquellas love because he never had it in the first place. It was always st. Trina who held the grace and mercy for others hence why miquella didnt give a damn anymore to cure malenia and rather enforce his own voyage of compassion and force radahn and mogh into his sick plan
@@Kenji-117 possibly, but its still a maybe tho as nobody yet knows where radagon actually came from with certainty.
One thing for sure, Marika's "pure blood" children also inherited this trait. Melania has that rot thingy, Miquella has St Trina, Messer has serpent.
I think that may be a pureblood Numen/Shaman trait: That ability for their flesh to meld with others when wounded, or to sort of clone themselves. Marika, a Numen/Shaman, has split herself in two Marika/Radagon. Her children who are directly pureblood descendants of... well... her, can also split themselves into multiple parts: Miquella splits himself into St. Trina/Miquella. Malenia splits herself into apparently Milicent and her "sisters"/ Malenia.
As far as I know, Malenia and Miquella are the only two direct children of Marika alone (or Marika/Radagon), and they both inherited Marika's ability to sort of clone themselves. None of her other children do this. So I think the cloning feature is a pureblood Numen/Shamen trait. Just my 2 cents.
@@2DFightergaming the thing is she didn't split.. sort of? Or at least we can see how she transforms into Radagon during the last boss fight, but she doesn't split. Which kinda contradicts the lore in a lot of ways.
One thing of note nearby the “O Mother” gesture is that we can find what looks to be Eiglay’s skin. There is actually some incredibly strong evidence that Rykard visited the Shadow Realm. We can find his Iron Virgins near the Fort of Reprimand, he seems to have bred an army of his own Finger Creepers, and, perhaps most intriguingly of all, the Dancer of Ranah boss shares over 90% of her face data with Tanith
Rykard may have been attemping to build his own meat gate, like marika did... But Via Giant Snek.
Come to think of it... If marika/radagon are shamans with flesh the melds with other things harmoniously... Is that why Rykard was able to merge with Eiglay to begin with?
@@CM-hx5dp imagine if Rykard's intent was to make Eiglay eat his body so he could ascend to godhood the same way Ranni/Miquella did it, but instead he merged with the snake, because mommy didn't tell him some crucial details.
I assumed that Rykard handed over some Iron Virgins as support for Messmer’s Crusade.
Rykard thought the snake in Gelmir was an actual God and wanted to fuse with it and potentially overcome it. Sadly the snake seems to just be immortal
the music that plays in shaman village hits different when you realize there's no enemies there
dude there's 2 fkin tree sentinels just down the road lol
@@navnishag7701Yeah but the village music doesn’t play there
About the question why did Marika abandon Messmer in the realm of shadows. You can find a consumable item called "Blessing of Marika". The item states that it was created by Marika, with the explicit prupose to help Mesmer. After that she never created this Item again. Here is the theory. Marika in the item description is named as "Goodqueen of the Erdtree." We also know trough healing incantations, that the Erdtree could heal people. There is also another Item in the realm of shadows, that states. That in the beginning the Erdtree produced some kind of substance, but the substance soon ran out.
So my theory is, Marika didn´t want to abandon Messmer. She was just unable to heal him, and the ran out of medication to do so as a whole. So she locked him away so that he couldn´t pose a threat to anyone else. It would also imply that her "Shame", is maybe her inability to heal Messmer. She was so fixated of creating this world of life, and to keep everyone in her family immortal. But her oldest son she couldn´t safe.
Wonderful video as always. I really love how the DLC did a complete 180 on people perception of both Marika and Miquella.
Thank you Sax!
I dont think anyone was suprised to learn that they hard evil intentions but it was nice to get some background information
Do not exaggerate.
We knew that Miquella was not clean wheat, what we did not know was to what point of delusion he had reached.
With Marika we knew that everything she did was done for a reason, we simply didn't know the reason.
Both are examples of the saying: power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
@@brago900I’m a more casual fan but I thought miquella was a gifted child who loved his sister and brother, and marika seemed cruel for casting out her children to the sewers
@@billfox847in the dlc miquella sheds all of his body to become a god and repeats marikas steps, and loses everything he is in becoming a god just as marika did which clearly corrupted her as her intentions were alot more pure than miquella’s and marika was honestly just defending her people and miquella just wants to start an age of compassion whatever that means
St. Trina made it a point that godhood is a cage and changes you. Miquella was portrayed as someone benevolent and kind despite what means he had decided to take for his end. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that this sympathetic side of Marika, as the DLC depicts, may have changed in her ascension to godhood. It could likely explain why her personality somewhat hardened after the ascension and how we see her in the base game.
Sounds more like an excuse for Trina to kill Miquella without feeling guilty
I personally theorize that Marika was going to have Messmer return, but the events of the Night of Black Knives and the shattering of the Elden Ring occured and prevented her from doing so.
That tree sentinel is carrying a sentry's torch, if I'm not mistaken.
Edit: I'm saying this because of that item's significance regarding the black knife assassins and it really makes me wonder about Marika's relationship with them.
So it just goes to show, everyone in Elden Ring is literally a product of tragedy and an extremely fucked up past
just like the real world for the most part 🙃
Thanks for your generic comment you you never cease to keep me uninterested
They could never make me hate you Marika🙏🏽
Except for abandoning my boi Mesmer
@@iadvrt9353 This is the part that bothers me more than you can imagine lol
This is maximum Delulu no matter what happened Marika is such a terrible person 😭😭😭
@@ZayftheScholar she was imprisoned in the erdtree afterwards, I don’t think she had much of a choice lol. Tragic story all around
@@ZayftheScholarI mean depends in a way, she could have left him there not knowing cause she knew the shattering would happen and didn’t call him cause she knew Mesmer would have rushed back to try to fight, u can interpret it many ways cause of the fact we don’t exacly know when this happened and there are still holes, also the fact the metyr was manipulating Marika by faking to be the greater will
I think she couldn't take Messmer back to lands in between because when Messmer was done with genociding hornsent, Marika was already trapped inside the erdtree.
Unanswered questions I still have:
How did Marika become a God? How do the Gates of Divinity work?
What was the seduction and the betrayal?
I assume that by attempting to meld together so many hornsent bodies, which were seen as sacred due to the crucible, they were able to essentially use the hunks of sacred biomatter as a catalyst for communicating with an outer god. Maybe she was pulling the rune arc out of the gloam eyed queen and so it had enough power to kickstart the divine gate and she communicated with the Greater Will and it sent down an envoy to bestow her with the abilities of an empyrean.
I think the Seduction was Marika being seduced by the Greater Will and the Betrayal was her shattering the elden ring.
Here is how I read the story: Marika entered a contract with the Greater Will in order to enact revenge on the Hornsent, and to create, in form of the Erdtree and the Golden Order, an environment where she and hers could live in safety. Eventually she realized she had become the monster she set out to fight, and then she destroyed her own order, revoked her contract with the Greater Will, and delegated the task of creating a new order to the Tarnished. I really love how the personal stories of Marika and her kin mix with ideas about a world order. I think FromSoftware has created modern mythology with this game, and like often in mythology, no one is just saint or fiend.
This reminds me of Kratos’ origin.
in order to protect his people from the barbarians, he pledged his allegiance to Ares. But this eventually escalated to the point where he killed his folk and family, causing him to seek revenge after Ares and resulted in Kratos killing him
yes 100% she pland godfrey to come back one day, get hewgs god slaying weapon and remove the gods, but ranni fumbled by killing her favorite son.
which was the only child whitout a curse (and a rather fiendly guy), thowing her into sadmad mom mode destroying the elden ring.
The greater will was never in contact with marika only Metyr and her fingers.
This is pretty up Grrm's alley
@@FrenchThottyAmelia We do not know that since we do not know what happened on the other side of the Divine Gate.
First of all, congratulations on the content, this is one of the best videos I've seen about DLC lore.
It's amazing how Miyazaki and the FromSoftware team can create such a deep, layered, and meaningful lore.
Marika's biography and actions now have an explanation. When I learned about the horntsents, I felt bad for Marika. What kind of brutalities did she suffer to try to justify her acts with such disgusting revenge?
But this is nihilism: “if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you”
I’m Brazilian, and one of the most prominent academics recognized all around the world is Paulo Freire (he is often a target for the far right here) and He said: “when education is not liberating, the dream of the oppressed is to become the oppressor”
Much like Marika.
Thank you Rodolpho! Your Friere quote particularly makes sense when you consider that the ones educating Marika on the path forward (the fingers) are said to be fundamentally flawed according to Count Ymir.
"My spirit will rise from the grave and the world will know I was right."
-Mommy Marika
She also wrote a book in prison. The most misunderstood historic figure in history.
She did nothing wrong
The hornsent wanted to make a saint out of the shamans, but instead created a very, very vengeful god.
Also, I'm very curious what you and the rest of the From Software lore community will make of the shed snake skin north of Bonny Village.
When you think about it, it makes a twisted amount of sense as to there seems to be so many spirits of people and creatures in the Land of Shadow and why Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring; Aside from preventing more of those she cares about from dying and removing a threat to her power, it could also be to prevent anyone in the Land of Shadow from dying and thus, Messmer's crusade never ends. Marika hated the Hornsent so much that she didn't simply want them to die, she wanted them to suffer for all eternity, turning the Land of Shadow, their own homeland, into hell where the crusaders can brutalize, scorch and impale its denizens even when they've long passed into nothing but spirits, all the while Messmer's Shadow Keep looms over the land like Barad-dûr from Lord of the Rings and the Scadutree stands tall and mighty as the Erdtree's shadow, a constant reminder that the Hornsent are condemned to an eternity of brutality under Messmer's rule without even the benefit of an afterlife. Since every hell needs a devil, Marika chose her son Messmer to fulfill that role.
On a related note, the design of the furnace golems seems to be a sort of twisted karmic retribution towards the Hornsent approved by Messmer and Marika. The shamans were mutilated, then stuffed into jars to become saints by the Hornsent so in response, Marika orders her son Messmer to wage a brutal, genocidal war against the Land of Shadow with his most prominent war machine being the massive furnace golems where Hornsent themselves are stuffed inside to serve as fuel for the machine as it marches over the land as an instrument of terror, destruction and mockery with its horned mask of the fell god of fire the Hornsent so feared.
There's a time gap between Marika ascending to godhood and the Crusade. Gap big enough for Marika to defeat the giants, for Godwyn, Mogh, Morgott and all Rennala's children to be born.
And in that time Hornsent have been sending the Omen Curse at Marika and her lands.
@@arturkushukov1815 Yeah, it feels like the crusade may actually be a retaliation for that.
I see you, too, are a Fatbrett enjoyer
my guess about Messmer comes from the descriptions of the black knight spirit summons Andreas and Huw, and the fire knight Hilde; it mentions that Messmer ‘fled’ from the erdtree at one point, and Andreas left his service when his serpentine nature was revealed. I think something unknown about the snake being the traitor to the erdtree must have happened, probably after the beginning of the crusade, where Messmer was told not to return to the lands between, (maybe the mythical first burning of the erdtree). I wonder if Marika also needed Messmer out of the picture to secure her marriage to Godfrey
Cannot find it on the Twitter atm, but someone pointed out that according to Japanese descriptions, shamans mentioned in Greatjar head-piece are not the same group as Marika people, who are refered to as "Miko", like a shrine-maidens, which is not the case with Greatjar description.
Shaman is just a direct translation of the Japanese term, but it's missing naunce of the fact shrine maiden is more accurate.
Is it possible that the shaman's ability to merge with others is part of why Godwyn mutated so badly following the death of his soul?
As a child of Marika he could have inherited that Shaman ability, and then being the first of her demigod children to 'die' he started to fuse and spread with the erd tree roots, and incidently spreading the death root? Possibly from his body taking on the death cursemark?
That makes a lot of sense, actually.
Yup, his body went through extreme stress after death - the same thing that happens to Shaman when they are flailed and stuffed inside jars. It also explains Godrick easily grafting stuff and using the parts like they were his own. It’s just a theory tho.
also rykard mergeing with the damn snake by being eaten
and ranni merging with the doll
This does make sense.
This story reminds me of the phrase: “hurt people, hurt people”
The idea that she removed death, started a Jihad against the hornsent, abandoned one of her children, shattered the Elden Ring, brought nothing but negativity to the lands between and is still a tragic character speaks volumes to how well she was written. Personally I don’t like her and Miquella showed me why. If he was following in his mother’s foot steps no wonder everything once again got fucked up. He’s a “child” though so we can chalk it up to being naive, but Marika doesn’t get that pass
Is he a child? Still unclear about that. He has the body of a child, yes, but he is Malenia's twin so he'd be the same age as her. Does this mean his mentality is stuck permanently to be childlike as well?
Everyone starts out naive. We don't know how much of the future we are in was the direct result of Marika's planning and foresight. For all we know she could have been just as naive as Miquella in some regards, and likewise, Miquella could just become just as harmful. This could just be a repeat of history, except this time you stop Miquella before he can become another Marika. Not to mention the added layer that Miquella was always a demigod, but apparently Marika used to be human. Is an adult human inherently more or less naive than a young demigod? There are a lot of layers to what happened and why it happened the way it did
Marika still created best civilization in Elden Ring universe to inhabit.
Only one interested in healing common people and pioneering healing arts and physicks and so on.
Carians, for example, are not interested about healing people, while Marika seems to have shared her blessings everywhere and taught medicine to others, her civilization giving birth to perfumers, etc...
That portrait of Marika in the Roundtable Hold. Not the one in Fia's room, but what looks like a sitting. You can see it at 0:18. That picture always fascinated me because its tone was so different than the depictions we see of her in her eternal glory. I could never put my finger on it, but now I know: That is a deeply troubled woman who has the weight of the world on her.
Important thing to note is that Messmer knows what a Tarnished is and so couldn't have participated in whatever was behind the Divine Gate as that takes place long before Godfrey and co get turned into the first Tarnished. Gaius' remembrance also implies he and Messmer were like elder brothers to Radahn(he's the only one who fits the young lion reference). The Gate was also built by the Hornsent themselves, just like the tower(or at least the supporting columns given the broken ones have bodies in them). Both combined using a mountain of corpses as building materials. So I think it more likely that the Hornsent are responsible for all the dead in the arena and Gate, with Marika tricking them into letting her ascend(likely with the help of the Fingers). Then she left and turned on them.
The timeline is hard to grasp indeed, but I think it might help to remember two things: the Shadow Lands weren't always hidden and we're only assuming Marika made the separation when she ascended to Godhood and birthed the Erdtree in the Lands Between. If Messmer knows Gaius and Radahn, that's not how it went.
And second, Marika and Radagon were one and the same (maybe from the start or due to some successful Jar ritual?), so he might have been her first partner and Messmer and Melina their first children. Then Marika married Godfrey to rule and wage the war to establish her seat; sent him away when his purpose was done; went back to Radagon, to birth three Empyrean children with her holy partner, all able to ascend to Godhood like she did
The biggest Question is how we convince From Software to make more Add ons like SotE so that all OUR Lore Questions are answered. All of them...., pretty Please !!
Unfortunately, or fortunately for some people, that is what we call the “Miyazaki Curse” lol
@@HeevaEgo Yeah, for every little bit we find Out or Put some clues together...baam left with even more Questions
You don't get all your lore questions answered. Welcome to fromsoft. But trust me, the possible answers you come up with and the conversations and arguments you have about them are better than anything they could put into the game directly. When the answer is given to you, you don't get to debate about who has the right interpretation 😊
@@calibanreborn4866 Truly the way of Miazaki. You think you want your question answered until the implications lead to 10 other questions you didn't even know you had 😂
@@colemix1852 True
13:38 holy moly a thought popped into my head when you said this. What if Ranni has the same charming ability that Miquella has? That would explain why the Black Knives turned on Marika. I mean, Blaidd and Iji could be charmed as well. A piece of evidence being the ending you get with Ranni, she promises us a thousand year voyage and our Tarnished also kneels like we do with Miquella. What if Ranni had charmed us, the player?
Entirely possible...especially given how evil and selfish Ranni actually is when you get past the whole "Oh she's a cute, sassy blue girl" thing. She murders Godwyn (her own brother) for her own selfish desire to topple the Golden Order and usher in her edgy Age of Stars. She blatantly sacrifices her followers to achieve her goals and I find it odd that Alecto (the black knife ringleader) is in an evergaol close to Ranni's crib. Why imprison her when they helped you? Plus after seeing all the Fallingstar creatures, I find it unsettling to trust Ranni's intentions are as pure as they seem. Some argue that she wants to remove gods from the equation and "be free", but that seems impossible given the nature of this universe and it ultimately just comes down to trading one outer god regime for another. If we really get to the meat and potatoes, it's just an edgy demigod girlboss who wanted to burn down her mother's kingdom because she didn't like being told what to do.
PLus, who's to say this "Dark Moon" is any less evil than the Greater Will is? Not to mention, Ranni is completely indifferent about having Radahn (her full blood brother) killed. Most people overlook all of this because she's their waifu who they can marry, but I think Ranni is playing us. All of the empyreans (Ranni, Miquella, and Malenia) were terrible people.
Nit so sure about Malenia. She maybe was charmed by Miquella.
When she loses to you she have nothing but admiration of your strength, but when she was close to lose to Radahm she goes desperate and nuke Caelid. Its probably because she was following Miquella orders.
Marika abandoned Messmer for two reasons: one, Messmer also had the aspect of the Crucible. The hornsent confirms this in his dialogue, calling Messmer's serpentine form excuisite and wondering how he could denounce them while also being "touched by divinity". If Marika was willing to persecute Omens and Misbegotten for being living reminders of the hornsent regime, then she probably wouldn't feel comfortable having Messmer around her either. And two, he was set up to take all the blame for the eradication of the hornsent. Marika would then be free to say "I neither ordered nor endorsed what Messmer did" and denounce him, satisfying any of her followers who might have though that this war went "too far".
Where does the hornsent say this about Messmer?
@@cwill14 You have to summon him for Messmer's boss fight and beat it without Hornsent dying. After that he will appear in the boss's arena. Talk to him and he has a line about Messmer's serpentine nature.
@nikolaosboukouvalas449 I remember that event. He just didn't use the word divine, he said Messmer was the most base of all, which maybe could still tie into what you're saying since they called the hornsent base as well.
@@cwill14You are right. I checked again and they didn't use the term "divine", that was my mistake. But "base" is associated with the Crucible and the Hornsent view manifestations of the Crucible as divine. That's why he called Messmer's snake-infested body "sublime" I guess.
"Those stripped of the Grace of Gold shall all meet death. In the embrace of Messmer's flame."
I wonder if Messmer lost his purpose, once Marika started welcoming Tarnished back to The Lands Between.
I wonder if he even knows what had happened in the lands between. He seems to think that the tarnished doesn't have the "grace of gold" even when the erdtree/marika returned grace too them. He also asks marika for forgiveness when removing his eye and shattering the seal of grace, which is similar (although a lesser extent) to marika shattering the elden ring. He wouldn't need to ask marikas forgiveness as she herself has renounced the golden order.
I think Marika abandoned Messmer because his curse was more omen/crucible like than Miquella and Malenia's curses. Plus with the way he has been described by other people, his curse came with an effect on his person as well, since the snake writhing in him was described as malevolent. Maybe Marika saw in him a use to fight her war of eradication, but had no place for him in her new empire.
It's amazing how the lesson of the overall story of elden ring seems to be "Don't let vengeance or others' transgressions against you cloud your judgment and ruin everything you love"
Twitter users could take a hint
Re the questions at the end:
Marika may have needed to step through the divine gate to become a god, thus requiring she abandon the RoS. Maybe she could have taken Messmer with her (a possibility I'm sure he wonders about a lot), but it seems her vengeance was too great and she needed him to remain so that he could carry out the genocide.
I think the implication is that the shamans are pre-numen. Upon being granted godhood, Marika might have tapped the power of the astrologers to summon the Elden Beast? These sanctified astrologers could have been the advent of the numen people. Info is definitely very sparse on this still so I could be way off.
The Black Knives definitely seem more closely aligned with the Age of the Stars than with the shamans, and so they could embody the idea that the numen were used by Marika and betrayed when she chose one star to the detriment of all others.
This is probably the most lore we've gotten out of a DLC ever, even more than The Old Hunters
In the Shaman Village, we also find the Minor Erdtree Incantation that Melina uses when summoned
On top of that, one of Messmer's items states that he has a younger sister
More confirmation after the speculations the base game brought that Melina IS Marika's daughter, and Messmer sister it seems
So many questions still remain but man this DLC gave us a lot to think about
Saw this comment somewhere else and lol'd
"All I know is...Melina is walking around with at least 70 faith" 😂
Since serpents are counted as enemies of the erdtree (probably from some speculating that the gloam eye queen was or had connections to a serpent) or due to rykards betrayal - then she probably sent messmer to endlessly purge the hornsent not only for her revenge but to keep her son safe.
Which messmer took this protection as negligence from his mother, most likely intrusively assuming it was due to his deformity by his curse. Yet he still researched if their was a way to undo pot sainthood in his fortress.
Last night I had an argument with a kid who commented "ThE dLC iS sO EmPTy." Dude knows nothing about the lore, history, and also the 'dark' vibe of Elden Ring. If you're arguing with an idiot, you'll only be taken down to their level.
It is empty. The lore was few and far between but you'll just eat the scraps like a good boy and smile as Miyazaki pats your head.
@@Arcessitor Source: trust me bro.
I think messmer might have been left in the shadowlands to take him and his army out of play during the coming shattering marika was probably planning. She probably figured messmer would win and become elden lord and didn’t want him as a consort. Or radagon is the one who sealed the land away because we know he doesn’t want anyone to be elden lord and his flames could burn the path blocking the tree.
The symbols on the foreheads of the pot folk strike me as looking kinda like Marika's rune, the Rune of Death, and the sign of the Spiraltree Seal all stacked on top of each other
I believe there was two groups on Neuman. Those who settled in Noxstella. Those who went to the lands of the hornsent.
Messmer has the flame of the Fell god. The horn sent fear the fell god. This is why he was chosen. She also feared the Abyssal Serpant. We dont know what ties it has to the Fell God, tho. Messmers' entire being was a problem for Marika. He was the perfect pawn to do the crusade. His sinful appearance wouldn't be missed by many.
I feel like because Messmer did those atrocities (as well as potentially being called forth to help out with the Giants) and the fact that he has serpents growing out of him, Marika had to keep in the land of Shadow as snakes are seen as Traitors to the Erdtree. (i could be wrong however with this last bit)
My own personal theory was that if Rykard had ever met Messmer if Marika didn't keep in the realm of Shadow maybe Messmer and Rykard could've teamed up together somehow, though I feel like with both they're a bit of a strength. Again just some personal thoughts and theories behind it.
Thanks for the video Zayf! Was waiting for this one! 😁
Pretty sure Messmer and Rykard knew each other. There are Iron Virgins in the shadow realm stationed by a fort of Messmer soldiers. These automatons were creations of Rykard.
Mesmer was loyal to Marika despite everything and did his best to resist his Serpent curse. Rykard actively sought out the Serpent to walk the path of Blasphemy. They would be enemies
The melding ability also might explain Marika melding with Radagon and Miquella with Radhan.
Marika's reasonings for doing messed up things are just things that can happen when suffering from so much trauma. she definitely did a lot of fckd up things but her trauma is no excuse. I believe when Godwyn was killed she realized the error of her ways and maybe realized that the Greater will / Fingers played a manipulating role in everything thus destroying the elden ring
The thing is, none Hear the Greater Will at this Time. They hear the Fingers, and we are told Metyr, the Mother of The Fingers is Broken and Insane. Thus, their Orders create Broken and Insane things.
Metyr mother of fingers already stopped receiving orders of greater will, it started during Placidusax era when unknown god of Placidusax fled.
Probably why it sent the Elden beast once again but it stopped hearing it's commands too.
@@rafsandomierz5313 Yes. They are literally "making crap up".
@@Fragmentsinfractals488??
@@rafsandomierz5313 The Fingers are Speaking for the Greater Will , but translating Thousand Year old decree into the modern Age , while also being Decayed and Broken. So, They are making stuff up.
Messmer has aspects of the crucible and “draconic” aspects as well such as fire and winged snakes often represented as lesser dragons. similar to Morgott and Mohg, he was shunned for that but was also useful in committing terror upon the realm of shadow, those who committed atrocities upon the shamans
I think Mesmer's flame was too huge of a risk for Marika and the Erdtree. The only safe option was to lock him away and throw away the key.
I saw on reddit someone's theory about Messmer being a sickly child and the abyssal serpent promised to heal him only to take over his body thus Marika abandons him because she was tricked by the serpent or something along like that. I wish I could find the post again as it definitely seemed plausible that this would be the case.
sounds interesting and somewhat biblical! Serpents and deception
@@ZayftheScholar iirc that is what they were going for.
I think Marika discarded all her children at the Shattering. Her dream didn't pan out, her children became ambitious AND the she probably realized the Fingers were lying to her.
So she decided the best thing to do would be tear it all down and start over.
The depth of this lore evokes tears. I feel like the Souls series is to video games as Tool is to music.
Miquella's basically a 2nd Marika that's why I think it's a good thing we put a stop to him in the Dlc he's honestly way more dangerous than Marika since he can charm things and control people freely to do his bidding whereas Marika achieved this by using War as her form of dominion and control much more of a struggle and challenge compared to what miquella can easily do. Still even with the new backstory of Marika that we have in the Dlc it still dosen't justify all she's done. It did a good job on humanizing her just to show she wasn't alyways this power hungry ruler but ironically enough she ends up doing even worse than the people who wronged her in the Future as the saying goes you either die a hero or live long enough to become the Villain........
She really didn't, Intentionally turning people into tortured meat blobs is something marika never did. She really was kinder than the hornsent.
@@CM-hx5dp ahem Fire giants she basically exterminated everyone and left only one survivor same thing the hornsent did to her she became just the very thing she destroyed
Great video!
I'll comment on a couple of things and i might be a bit rambly...also English is not my first language so i apologize in advance.
Marika hid away Messmer because she was afraid of the dark serpent within him (another outer god ?). That's why she carved out his eye and replaced it with a "talisman" of grace, to hold his darkness at bay. This being the "eye" Messmer breaks before his second phase begins. You can see Marikas rune/symbol on the eye for a second before he pulls it out.
Marika has fought the fire giants and the Fell God (outer god) at this point, whom she could not defeat completely. Thats why we still have the sun in Elden Ring, who is the Fell god i believe (look at dung eaters armor description and the ingredients that the fire golems drop). Also, the fell god is depicted as a sun every time.
She knows how difficult that Whole ordeal was, so she has a reason to fear other outer gods. Malenia and Miquella makes this theory wabble though.
But ultimately this talisman/glass eye thing did not make her fear of him go away, so she locked him and his hatred away in the land of shadow with the "great sin" (genocide) slongside them.
This is explained in Messmers rememberance i believe.
I also think she hid all this away so she could have a clean slate to keep building the golden order upon, and be the dominating presence in the Lands Between without the influence of the hornsent culture (second biggest culture at that point i guess).
Regarding the timeline, Messmer is stated in Gaius rememberance as being a big brother to the "Lion", meaning Radahn. Gaius was a close friend to Messmer and like a big brother to Radahn as well, and Gaius also studied in Sellia with Radahn under the Alabaster lord's tutolage. I think Radahn and Gaius riding their trusty steeds are connecting as well. Gaius was an albanauric though, as stated in his leg pieces of his armor set. There is also an albanauric next to the hut where you find them.
The lands between and Messmer where hidden away at some time before Radagon left Rennala, but still after Radahn was already a young man, since Rennala gave a black braid to Rellana when Rellana left with Messmer to go to war, in order to give her blessing so to speak. After Radagon left Rennala she would not have done this, since she was heartbroken and kind of lost her mind from grief.
Messmer also knows of the tarnished, so he knew about Godfreys banishment, which happened after/very close to when Radagon left poor Rennala.
I don't think Messmer knew about the shattering or the state of the lands between though, since he seems surprised that a tarnished comes to fight him and sees it as an insult from Marika. He was sent to burn everything that does not have the grace of gold (his line that he states as his purpose before he attacks us), and cursing her for the insult of sending us and everything else she has done to him before dying.
I find Messmer to be a very tragic character and abviously the black sheep of Marikas children. Melena is his sister as stated in his flames descriprion.
Also...Mogh, i'm sorry and Ansbach is the goat.
Mommy Marika really doesn't deserve this...
After all the horrible things she has been through, she should have her only happy ending as well...
She doesn't deserve it. Stop simping.
Cringe
get off the computer, Messmer
@@greenbird2672 “Those stripped of the grace of gold…”
Good or bad we can’t deny that she is (was) the main character in this whole universe. The whole world center around her even though we never saw her in person
obviously because of serpent curse messmer was chosen and abandoned. just like how morgott, and mohg were abandoned because of the horns. messmer having golden eye of grace to conceal the serpent is a dead giveaway that Marika dispised it. don't forget rykard was called blasphemous because of his serpent transformation. additionally messmer wasn't an empyrian.
someone give this poor woman a hug. Now we understand why she got mad in the end, and the reason why Ranni doesn't want the two fingers was because of Auntie's teacher
The crucible is literally defined in more than one instance as "the primordial form of the erdtree". And the very existence of the order of crucible knights is clearly demonstrating that Marika didn't chose to eradicate the very idea of crucible in the mind of people. That being said it's obvious that Marika did have a role in the transformation of the crucible into the current erdtree, but the fact that even in the prime of her power the Omen curse was still potent proves that the crucible is not completely shut down nor assimilated by the erdtree.
The thing about Hornsent finding Messmer's serpentine traits beautiful makes me think the unknown father has to be one of the Hornsent, and it might explain Marika's resentment of a bastard child she had with someone she hated. They might have named him after the traits too, they would find the snake "Messmerizing"
I wonder if because Marika is a shaman, that explains why they are also Radagon? Flesh being molded easily.
Also the remembrance for this fight explains why she left him
" A malevolent snake writhed within Messmer, and so his very mother plucked out his eye and put in its place a seal of grace. Yet, having done so, her fear compelled her to secret away her child within the realm of shadow. Hidden away-keeping company with the original sin, and a hatred that would not be confined."
The questions at the end, along with the progression of Godwyn's undeath, makes me hope dearly that From Software will make a second DLC to tie up more of these loose ends.
Since we know Mesmer had a younger sister most likely Melina who herself is a kindling maiden capable of harming the erdtree, it’s not a far shoot to assume that Mesmer(whose kindling is capable of destroying the shadow tree blocking our path into Enir Ilim) could destroy the erdtree. And thats why Marika wanted to lock her son away.
Also the timeline is interesting since the purge of the shadow lands had to have happened well after the banishment of Godfrey and the creation of the tarnished.
I still do not think Marika abandoned Messmer and his army in the land of shadows, but many people seem to forget Marika was trapped inside the erdtree and could not do anything about it until we the player went in. Again there is no timeline that we can use for as when Messmer won the war. If it was before or after Marika was trapped.
None of this justifies responding with genocide.
Oh no it doesnt
But i wouldnt mind if Messmer was a little harsher on the Hornsent.
So the hornesnt were trying to create divinity by stacking shaman corpses together, so Marika went out and stacked hornsent corpses together and actually created divinity that is the Erdtree. Truly a poetic justice (and a savage move).
The shamans were invaders from another land. And the hornsent found a way to both defend their territories and make use of their enemy for their gain. Marika was not justified in her revenge. There was no justice, only bloody conquest.
Great video! I have way too many thoughts in response but I'll keep it to a few ideas! It's interesting to see the varied reactions across the community to learning more about Marika and Messmer's backstory/motivations. A few themes I see pop up again in the base game + DLC are the cyclical nature of things. In ER, there are historical cycles of violence plus how religious ideology drives, defines and complicates that same history. It's no wonder that the spiral is a recurring symbol in the game! Of course part of it represents the Crucible, but can definitely apply to more themes in the game. It also reminds me of FFX and the religion of Yevon: "Spira's spiral of death"
On a different topic, it is a form of cosmic comeuppance for Marika that her era was doomed to be cursed from the jump. The roots of her kingdom and its immense success indeed were rotten and only possible because of unimaginable periods of war, persecution, genocide, cultural annihilation and assimilation. It is hard to reconcile all of that with her understandably harrowing origins. Ultimately I don't feel a lot of sympathy for her or Messmer because the Golden Order racked up a huge karmic bill and had to "pay the piper" one day. Yes, what the horsent did to the shamans was unbelievably fucked up and its understandable why Marika had an axe to grind with them. By that same reasoning however, Marika's response and continued patterns of cruelty in and beyond the Lands of Shadow is even worse. Messmer sucks too, but also was used as a means to an end because his Mom cared more about the optics of the "Crusade" than her own son! Oof!
Before DLC: "Geze Marika. That was harsh."
Before Messmer but after Shaman village: "Hold up, I've got some insects to smash"
Marika being a shaman also explains how she and Radagon were one entity! She either completely melded with a separate man named Radagon, or could change herself back and forth from the beginning, personality included.
I can understand why she did what she did. But her abandoning her kid and pushing all the bad things on him so that she could be the kind loving Marika.
Is just messed up especially if she's been through all of that. She should be loving her Son unconditionally and not sending him to war for her.
I'll come with my best answers for why Marika used Messmer for eradicating the hornsent. First of all, we know that the crusade happened after Godfrey's banishment, and likely before Radagon ascension to Elden Lord. Personally I think Marika couldn't use Godfrey due to his ties to the Crucible and likely the hornsent, making him unwilling to genocide them. In some description it is also mentioned that Marika feared Messmer, likely due to previous experience with the abyssal snake. We know the serpent at some point betrayed the Erdtree.
I think Marika is very good, actually. The shamans are like the Yankees of the Lands Between, or the Land of the Reeds. The odyssey to the Land of Shadow taught us some things about Marika, but yes, Miquella is the real villain. 😊
Marika Is a monster
@@Lansone31 indeed, but sometimes monsters are required to create a better world...
The reason why Marika abandoned Messmer is front and center: Messmer's flame. Fire is antithetical to the Erdtree (until much later during the siege of Leyndell when the Golden Order incorporated fire as a tool of war for the very first time). It's not just a curse, it's THE curse. It has the potential to destroy the Erdtree and therefore also Marika's godhood.
I feel the reason Marika abandoned Messmer due to her self-awareness of the atrocities he committed in her image. His revenge tour in her name may have been too much for her to handle, so she cast aside him aside, a tool of destruction that proves she's just as atrocious as the hornsend.
If the name Numen is a reference to Numenoreans then it would make sense if the Numen came to the lands between, developed an advanced civilization that eventually became corrupted and had pockets of still faithful people being persecuted by the mostly evil majority. Their civilization was destroyed and scattered, with the evil ones remaining underground clinging to their evil ways and becoming the nox, and the faithful moving on to rebuild. "Shaman" could just be what this group of numen call themselves or are called by the hornsent. What I'm wondering is if their flesh being the way it is has anything to do with the mimic tear technology of the nox. In fact the whole jar process seems to have a similar end goal. Also what kind of implication does this have for her relation to radagon? What if he's just some other dude that was melded into her. What if marika herself is the product of a jar? What if she's the "saint" they were hoping to create and there's no one left in her village because she basically IS her village. Why does all of this remind me so much of the monster from the The Thing?
The jars of original game are not necessarily different. The fact that they (some of them) are pleasant to interact with, doesn't mean they do not have tragic pasts. Alexander talks about scooping up corpses of fallen heroes to regain strength after the Radahn fight - same concept of absorbing flesh.
The jars themselves I don’t blame. Alexander is a bro, and the body stuffing is basically how they eat. The hornsent? Let’s just say that I’m happy to finish what Marika and Messmer started
I think Radahn was Miquellas second choice only after Godwyn was killed. Miquella did try to revive him first.
Miquella is the best option for the Lands Between. Formsoft characters are never 100% moral, nor innocent, nor perfect. But Miquella is the closest thing to a good ruler that has ever been offered to the Lands Between. His methods are the most reasonable compared to the wrath, hatred, prejudice, and blood lust of all other rulers. Including us, the tarnished, we are the bad guys in this war too, our path would destroy the Lands' only hope for lasting compassionate peace.
Miquella's great rune charm is an overall positive power. The charm helps people let go of the evil within; if someone wanted revenge they can now settle for forgiveness, if someone was prejudice they can now tolerate others, and if someone had lust for blood shed they can now seek love. Miquella brought out the best version of each person, gave them love, and gave them hope.
During our fight we had the power to resist Miquella's charm and so do many other characters like Messmer. There still is a choice to reject Miquella but 99% of people will be more attracted to what he offers than what they currently have, most people will agree with Miquella, because what he offers is valuable to them. Haters try to simply this process to simple brainwashing but it is not that crude nor sinister.
Mohg wanted Miquella to bring the mother of blood dynasty, Miquella offered him something better. To assume that Mohg is innocent of kidnapping Miquella is a not necessarily. Two things can be true, at the same time, with these complex characters. Mohg was all about blood sacrifices so it's possible that he is ok with helping Miquella in this way, to be the vessel of Radahn's spirit, this is not a tragic end.
Radahn was a proud and powerful warrior. By his standards he could not simply die, he had to die in glorious battle. Miquella tried to satisfy this honor by asking Malenia to go to war with Radahn, they were both too powerful for each other, so stalemate persisted until the tarnished rose.
Miquella then sent Melina to persuade a tarnished to help in his plans. Most of the work had been done my Malenia and we come to finish off Radahn in honorable battle.
Long ago Radahn promised to be lord and consort to Miquella. The reign of Miquella has all the good aspects of the Golden Order but with out the shunning of the graceless. Miquella extends grace and blessing to all in the Lands. Radahn would find it easy to support Miquella's Order because it is just a better version of the Golden Order. His loyalty would remain. consistent.
Haters of Miquella will see these events in a sinister filter, this is unreasonable because there is a more honorable way to except what Miquella planned. Each one of these characters have good reasons to give Miquella a chance, the Charm helps but it's a positive help, not sinister.
When Miquella divulged his love, it was specifically his love of self that died. He is still clearly able to love Radahn and showing compassion to an entire kingdom clearly communicates love. Saint Trina seeks to protect Miquella from the bondage of being a deity, that is self-love. Miquella had to let go of what was good for himself to obtain the power to serve everyone in his kingdom. Clearly he has sacrificed just as much as his flowers sacrificed to obtain compassion, leading by example.
I fundamentally disagree that Miquella is the best option, he fully strips the will from a person and forces them to love him. Slavery with golden chains is still slavery. Regardless of what acts of goodness he may be pushing people towards, the fact remains that to him, your will *does not matter.* He will ask you, and if you refuse, he will make you.
It's clear in the dialogue of his followers as well that they were not following him of their own will. Specifically Ansbach. Ansbach tried to free Mohg from Miquella's spell, but failed and was charmed himself. And when Miquella shatters his great rune, *he goes back to opposing Miquella.* This is not "Oh, he had a good point so I joined his side," he was literally brainwashed into working for Miquella's sake.
It is also much clearer in the original Japanese text of Radahn's remembrance that he did not want to be Miquella's consort. As a man who celebrated war in all it's forms, why would he want an age of peace?
Regardless of his vision of a gentler, kinder world, he wants to obtain it by stripping everyone of their free will. That is *not* goodness.
I guess you can read the story this way, but why then, is Miquella's envisioned order the only one explicitly denied by the story? Why isn't *his* vision aesthetically coded as the good one rather than Ranni's? I think the crux is indeed that Miquella can compel love, and even if that compulsion can be resisted now, how will he use it in the future, and what is the likely outcome in a world where no one is a saint? I think there are strong hints in the story that there is something sinister about Miquella's and his powers. Perhaps not intentionally sinister, but well-intentioned extremists are still dangerous.
How about a world with no gods at all? A natural world that can evolve on its own. Never trust a god.
@@ericsalsbery4363 First off, the charm, is not "fully", and there is no reason to assume it is forever. It can be a temporary means to an end. A means with less blood shed. He could lift the charm after establishing his reign. My point is we don't know what he'll do, but most Miquella haters assume only negative things will happen and don't leave room for good/better possibilities.
Also, a few characters have rejected Miquella [Ranni, Mesmer, Frenzy] but most have little reason to reject his peace in this hellish realm. Those with his charm are not mindless zombies, they retain there core personalities. We don't know what will come of them but I would take that chance over the other options.
Screw Ansbach and Mohg, if others are Miquella haters, I'm definitely a Mohg hater. His entire personality is wicked blood lust. Never liked him and I don't believe he beat the allegations, two things can be true at the same time. When Ansbach failed to win back Mohg he should have killed himself but he chose to live under Miquella, I see that as merce for that nasty devil.
@@Asankeket Not sure why the story does not fully allow us to see Miquella's ending, but honestly most of the endings are vague or just simple, also I can see Formsoft having a hard time telling a happy ending, they leave many things to our imagination. There never is a good ending, never was.
Ranni is offering democracy as opposed to a monarchy. Sounds great but it's not that certain to help. Typically democracy lends way to capitalism and you have the survival of the fitest. Ranni would not create comparison, more likely an age of corporations like we have IRL. For some people that is the most realistic illusion of "good".
I could fear Miquella or assume some sinister intent, or failed execution that leads to tragedy, that is how our world typicly works, it's more realistic, but I don't need to. We are encourage to use our imagination to round off these endings, based on the evidence we have now, I can still support Miquella without regret.
I just realised that both jarburg and the shaman village have (of course) ties to the jars, but they also have flowers all over the ground
I got a wild theory that can explain why the knife assassins betrayed Marika:
Marika is like Griffith. She went to the hornsent, and exposed the properties of the shaman body, thus showing the path to godhood. From the story trailer, "The seduction" was Marika presenting herself as the one who will bring a god to them. "The betrayal" was her building the two divine towers out of numen corpses on top of Enir-ilim, summoning the Golden Order from outer space this way (when 2 fingers commune with Greater will, they straighten up forming 2 antennae, just like those 2 pile of corpses). She sacrificed her kin to become a god, just like Griffith did. No wonder the numen that survived and witnessed "The Betrayal" sent assassins against her family.
I believe that shamans were losing in the war against hornsent. They were doomed even without Marika's betrayal, she simply found a way to give their death a purpose. She still hated the omen, so she sent Messmer to deal with them.
Just speculation, but all of Marika’s children were cursed but one. Mesmer, morgott, mohg, malenia, miquella, and melina all had curses easy to see, but the game, to my knowledge, didn’t state godwyn was cursed at all and he even looked the most like marika apart from miquella. However, none of Radagon’s children were cursed. I think this would make marika insecure about her bloodline. Once godwyn died, she probably broke down because her only child capable of replacing her as god died. Thus, she destroyed the elden ring and bade the tarnished return since all of her attempts to have a child that could replace her failed. It makes sense that she would not want to be god anymore since she achieved the only thing that made her want godhood in the first place. Her not wanting a cursed child as a successor checks out with her being embarrassed of messmer enough to banish him to the shadow realm under the guise of the holy war. I think there has to be some significant reason we havent been told as to why marika’s offspring are all cursed but Radagon s were perfectly fine. Radagon having perfect children as well as wanting the elden ring repaired and fighting for the greater will at the end must be very significant too once the differences in their children are put together. I wonder if ranni even targetted godwyn specifically because he was the only uncursed child of marika. Marika, becoming god for the reason she did and even going as far as to get rid of death, must have been mortified at what happened to godwyn. I can only imagine her anger. If being god isnt enough to protect your family, what’s the point of being god at all especially when it is as restrictive as Trina says it will be for miquella?
As much as I love all these speculative videos, I really wish Miyazaki would just drop a giant book or a series of giant books explaining everything. The Lands Between before all the godly madness; did people live normally? Is everyone a weird, humanoid? Did the cities and castles have markets? What's the timeline? Is the story in Elden Ring told from millions of years ago? Thousands? Ten?
There's so much to love from these games I just want to learn about it all.
About Messmer being abandoned, it’s implied that even Marika feared him after removing his eye and placing a seal.
His fire was all too similar to Giants flame; literally being an “out of this world” burn that can quickly demolish everything left uncontrolled. A risk to her Golden Order. But a risk well worth taking when left in a land hated.
Her abandoning of Messmer specifically had something to do with this Abyssal Serpent that was tied to him. It's clear enough she valued him, she gave him the eye to hold it at bay, but beyond that I dont know.
This is a very minor nitpick that Injust feel like pointing out 😋: I think the shamans where whipped until their backs opened up and ulcerated, where forced into the jars *alive* and then body parts of criminals where added to the jars. When the jars innards come out, we can see the full shaman body with a bloated ulcerated back and they have that grab attack that is basically a ton of body parts linked together coming from inside them... Also, the spirit tells the shaman to get into the pot. You don't talk like that to a pile of minced meat, so, no, I don't think the shamans where butchered before being stuffed in the pots, they where horribly tortured and then kept in there alive while dead bodies were added to them. For the hornsent, this was an attempt of rebirth, using an alive long-lived shaman that would incorporate aspects of the dead with them and, hopefully, become saints.
About the Shaman, Numen and Nox, I believe it's possible that they all started being one people that diverged: some had a greater connection to the celestial bodies, while others where more inclined towards the spirits. The Eternal Cities, populated by those universe-admiring numen, where cast underground and, with time, became the Nox. Those other Numen who had a kinship with spirits lived among the hornsent and became the Shamans.
Numen, in Latin means "divinity" or "divine will", which could be a reference to their longevity and their arrival to the lands between from "another world" (whatever that means), the Nox ('night') too have a name in Latin, which I think serves as a link. A shaman is someone able to commune with spirits, but it isn't a Latin word, so that connection isn't there. We know, tho, that Marika was both a Numen and a Shaman, and through Hugh we know she had a knack for spirit tuning since he compares Roderika's skill to that of another unknown woman that must be Marika, since she's the only other character he talks about and he has a history with her. All the Shamans we seem to be female, just like the rest of Numen and Nox we meet. The scions of the Eternal City might have been Marika's kin in the sense thatnthey were all Numen, but not necessarily Shamans.
Elden ring: Things are bleak
DLC: things are actualy worse, way worse