radabeast

[radabeast]

godhood and the nature of the world

For me some of the most interesting dialogue delivered in the DLC comes from Ymir when you ask him about the nature of the world:

"I fear that you have borne witness to the whole of it. The conceits – the hypocrisy – of the world built upon the Erdtree. The follies of men. Their bitter suffering. Is there no hope for redemption? The answer, sadly, is clear. There never was any hope. They were each of them defective. Unhinged, from the start. Marika herself. And the fingers that guided her. And this is what troubles me. No matter our efforts, if the roots are rotten, …then we have little recourse."

Immediately upon hearing this dialogue I thought of the item description for the Mending Rune of Perfect Order:

"The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment."

I think Ymir and Goldmask are essentially stating the same fundamental ideas here, and that these ideas hit upon a key theme of the entire game: human beings should not become gods.

Marika's traumatic origins are laid bare at the Bonny and Shaman Villages. The extermination of her people through such disturbing means no doubt left her horribly scarred. The spirit in the Whipping Hut spells out how the Potentates treated the Shaman:

"For pity's sake, your place is in the jar. Nigh-sainthood itself awaits your within. For shamans like you, this is your lot. Life were you accorded for this alone."

And the Minor Erdtree incantation demonstrates her bereavement:

Marika bathed the village of her home in gold, knowing full well that there was no one to heal.

We know, too, from Ymir that the Fingers were just as broken as Marika, the children of an abandoned mother.

"Do you recall what I said? That Marika, and the fingers that guided her, were unsound from the start. Well, the truth lies deeper still. It is their mother who is damaged and unhinged. The fingers are but unripe children. Victims in their own right. We all need a mother, do we not? A new mother, a true mother, who will not give birth to further malady."

And the Staff of the Great Beyond gives us further context behind this:

The Mother received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm. Despite being broken and abandoned, she kept waiting for another message to come.

Marika's ascension to godhood placed a traumatized person in a position of ultimate power. Yes, the Hornsent did terrible, unspeakable things to the Shaman people and employed a truly brutal inquisition, but there is no excuse for what Marika did to them through her Crusade. There is no excuse for what she did to the Hornsent, or to the Fire Giants, or to any of the victims of the Golden Order's colonizing mission. The game makes this abundantly clear. Did Hornsent's wife and child deserve to die by Messmer's flames? Does the Hornsent Grandam deserve to remain alone and abandoned, her home crumbling around her? What about the Dried Bouquet, a talisman you find in Belurat:

A quaint bouquet of dried flowers, offered to a small grave.

Raises attack power when a spirit you have summoned dies.

The sorrow that flows from the untimely demise of a loved one is a tenderness shared by all, regardless of birthplace.

The game even draws parallels between the Hornsent Inquisition and the Golden Order's torture methods in the description of the Ash of War: Golden Crux on the Greatsword of Damnation:

Leap up and skewer foe from overhead. If successful, the weapon's barbs unfold to excruciate from within; else, additional input releases barbs in the area. There is something of the Golden Order in the sight of those fixed upon this crux.

After dark, does Limgrave not fill with the screams of the crucified? There is no perfect society— there is no society whose crimes warrant absolute extermination. By giving her the capacity for limitless violence, godhood has made Marika into the perpetrator of some of the greatest crimes in the Lands Between.

We see this effect happening in real time through Miquella's story. While his ideology may initially seem admirable — redemption for those oppressed by the Golden Order, redemption for the Hornsent — on his road to godhood, he abandons everything that matters. The path to godhood is an inherently dehumanizing process and requires of Miquella for him to cast aside everything that makes him him.

Ymir says about Miquella that:

"Ever-young Miquella saw things for what they were. He knew that his bloodline was tainted. His roots mired in madness. A tragedy if ever there was one. That he would feel compelled to renounce everything. When the blame…lay squarely with the mother."

What I believe Ymir is articulating here is that Miquella seeks to atone for his mother's crimes and remove the corrupt order by usurping her position as god, even though he personally is not to blame for these deeds. Hornsent states similar ideas:

"Miquella has said as much himself – he wishes now to throw it all away. He says the act – though undoubtedly painful – will sear clean the Erdtree’s wanton sin. The truth of his claim can be found at each cross. Tis evidence enough to earn my belief."

"Uphold his covenant Miquella shall, and in godhood redeem our rueful clan. Then Marika, and vilest Erdtree both, will at last be from divinity wrench’d."

But in order to replace Marika, Miquella must also commit terrible crimes: he abandons his other half, he beguiles even those who would oppose him into being his very own blind followers. He charmed Mohg and violated his corpse, and Radahn's consent in this whole matter is dubious. In trying to make up for Marika's atrocities by becoming god of a new, kinder age, Miquella leaves behind a whole host of his own sins.

I believe that "the conceits – the hypocrisy – of the world built upon the Erdtree" and "the fickleness of the gods no better than men" are addressing this same idea. Miquella and Marika are no more special or inherently better than anyone else; they become fickle gods and establish hypocritical orders because no human being is perfect enough to wield absolute power with an even hand. Even Ymir himself falls prey to this thinking: he believes he can be a better mother than the ones before him, but he is just as broken as he rightfully points out they were.

This theme goes hand-in-hand with the story's emphasis on the Tarnished as the new inheritors of the Lands Between. From the very beginning, it establishes that it is the Tarnished who are chosen to succeed Radagon as Elden Lord, not the demigods. The intro cinematic announces this:

"Arise now, ye Tarnished. Ye dead, who yet live. The call of long-lost grace speaks to us all. Hoarah Loux, chieftan of the badlands. The ever-brilliant Goldmask. Fia, the Deathbed Companion. The loathsome Dung Eater. And Sir Gideon Ofnir, the All-knowing. And one other. Whom grace would again bless. A Tarnished of no renown. Cross the fog, to the Lands Between. To stand before the Elden Ring. And become the Elden Lord."

Enia translates for the Fingers that the Greater Will itself has abandoned the demigods:

"The Greater Will has long renounced the demigods. Tarnished, show no mercy. Have their heads. Take all they have left."

We the "Tarnished of no renown" enter the story at a major crossroads. The time of fickle Marika and her warring demigods is over: by the time we defeat Radagon and the Elden Beast, she is only an empty husk. We are ushering in a new age in which gods are no longer the primary overlords of the Lands Between, in which the power is vested in ordinary people.

I think the array of endings offered up to us further demonstrates this point. Every unique ending, save one, is based around the ideology of a Tarnished, whether it be Goldmask, Fia, Dungeater, or you as the Lord of Frenzied Flame. The only ending themed around a demigod is Ranni's. I've seen people complain before about how you can't side with the demigods and bring about the worlds they envision —Mohg's Age of Blood, Miquella's Age of Compassion, Rykard's destruction of the very gods themselves— but I think this goes against the primary themes of Elden Ring's story. The time of Marika and her demigods is over: now rises the age of the Tarnished. This is why Ranni succeeds where her siblings fail: she wants no power for herself because she, too, recognizes that nothing good can come of a human becoming a god. She explains as much:

"_Mine will be an order not of gold, but the stars and moon of the chill night. I would keep them far from the earth beneath our feet. As it is now, life, and souls, and order are bound tightly together, but I would have them at great remove. And have the certainties of sight, emotion, faith, and touch… All become impossibilities."

Ranni does not wish to become the god of the Greater Will and the worshipped figurehead of the Golden Order. She wishes to set herself apart so that she cannot interfere in the affairs of the Lands Between, unlike Marika and her regime. Ranni's ending reinforces the agency of the Tarnished, while Mohg and Miquella and Rykard's endings still focus around themselves.

Godhood is a dehumanizing force that turns individuals into the most corrupt versions of themselves; the main story sees us supplanting the old, rotten order of the gods as an exiled nobody.

And I think there's no better summation of these themes than Ansbach's dying words:

"Righteous Tarnished. Become our new lord. A lord not for gods, but for men."

[radabeast]

i don't think about melina that often but ever since the dlc confirmed she's a demigod i started enjoying her part in elden ring's story much more. or specifically how her part is completely different from what you'd expect from a demigod!

elden ring's story is heavily built around the presence of marika's family who are portrayed as these legendary, larger than life figures, warriors of myth praised in song who compete for their ambition to change the lands between. their reputations precede them, before you meet each demigod you will likely hear at least one person talk about them and most of them even have an area specifically dedicated to their characterization or the presentation of their influence. even their physical size communicates importance, they're all physically huge because their legacies and ambitions and ideas are huge. it sets a precedent as to what it means to be a demigod.

meanwhile melina contradicts almost everything i just said. no great rune, no title, no followers, no military force, no part in the shattering, no interaction with other demigods, no fanfare at all (and she's tarnished-sized). barely anyone acknowledges her existence, much less her lineage. she's never listed among marika's children and never even explicitly stated to be a demigod. melina does mention her mother a lot but never outright confirms that she means queen marika, only that "[She] was born at the foot of the Erdtree, where [her] mother gave [her] [her] purpose." and while it's probably clear to the everyone that she means marika (...i didn't get it at first teehee), melina's wording makes it sound as though it's irrelevant who her mother was exactly.

and isn't that just so fascinating? she's not secretive of who her mother is per se - who else could deliver a child at the foot of the erdtree - but at the same time being a demigod is kind of a huge deal, so there must be a reason behind why she doesn't mention her mother's name and doesn't revel in being a demigod. we see a few demigods reject their connection to marika but nonetheless utilize the potential and influence of their birthright, all assuming some kind of position of power, meanwhile melina seems completely withdrawn from that line of thinking. to be a child of marika is to be born special. melina doesn't exactly reject that part of herself - she is dedicated to her special purpose of burning the erdtree and has an ambition to change the world - but doesn't concern herself with being a figurehead or being associated with marika. she assumes the role of a quiet observer and doesn't engage when her siblings are writing history. and because there's a certain way to be a demigod, perhaps she feels it's unwarranted to include herself among them by saying her mother is marika? or maybe there's a different reason for why she's withdrawn and doesn't call her mother by her name.

so the question is why??? i can't help but think of these words spoken by marika:

melina is neither a lord nor a god. if we assume her and the gloam-eyed queen are one and the same (or maybe a st. trina type situation?) we could say she tried to be both a lord and a god but ultimately failed. whatever the case may be, at the time the story takes placs melina is presumably no longer playing that role anyway, seemingly only coming back to it when faced with the threat of frenzy. so if we also consider how melina has not made a name for herself in the lands between (at least not melina the demigod daughter of marika because melina the gloam-eyed queen did), in marika's eyes, melina really has "failed to become aught at all". moreover the very purpose melina keeps mentioning aka being the kindling maiden is quite literally a form of sacrifice. so her circumstances play exactly into marika's speech! and in my personal reading, melina is keenly aware of that. i always found melina's tone to be quite somber, it would make sense for her to carry such sadness in her voice if she understands that marika considers her a failure.

and i wonder which came first - is melina's current unaffiliation with marika a result of failing to become a lord/god as the gloam-eyed queen and being forskaen by marika OR was melina always reluctant to identify with her demigod birthright and marika forsook her because of it? ORRR even better in my opinion: melina's vital purpose, appointed by marika at birth, inseparably ties her to her mother's designs and never gives her a chance to find a calling of her own, which leads her to solemnly wait for the moment her purpose can be fulfilled. the speech is not directed at her because she never had the choice to become anything other than what marika chose for her. in this interpretation her withdrawal from demigod drama reads more like an understanding that there is nothing more for her than what marika decided so it's better to fade into the background than fruitlessly try to rebel - maybe her gloam-eyed queen activity was one such act of fruitless rebellion that changed her attitude? i spent a lot of time pondering but unfortunately i don't have a solid conclusion to this reading yet. of course i don't claim this is 100% canon but it's fun to speculate!

i'll finish with two things that i still can't quite get to click, both of which trace back to this:

1. if we assume the role of kindling maiden bestowed upon melina is the reason for her withdrawal from the rest of the demigods and that it's generally a burden, then why does she still want to carry out this duty even after admitting she doesn't care about what marika intended for her? did something happen specifically? maybe she just realized that she can use this power for her own vision and not just marika's? either way happy for you girl

2. i still can't come up with a satisfying explanation as to why she doesn't call marika by her name. what i mentioned before about melina not exactly fitting the demigod label does not seem like reason enough for her, i don't think she'd gaf about comparing herself to others. maybe im reading into it too much, maybe since you can deduct that it's marika from the context she just doesn't say it outright because there's no need to, this sort of mutual understanding between melina and the tarnished is also a charming reading!

[radabeast]

I've had some old gods and Fell God thoughts again

(Reference by Moonlight Ruin ( x ), note that giant skulls can vary in sizes and be like 55m too)

I addressed the arrowhead description at some point before, but again; seeing how there are colossal skulls found across the Lands Between, there were 'old gods' who weren't Outer Gods and the greatsword is a tip of an arrow from their arsenal, they were REALLY big in size! Yet, also humanoid in build

I am not sure what they needed weapons for though. Who were they battling? When there are many colossal skulls, I question if that wasn't a war between their own that didn't leave survivors? Or they've lost whatever that war was? Could they have battled against Ancient Dragons, who also must have used to be bigger and stronger back then, for ownership of Elden Ring? Or it were Drakes that they were fighting, back when they were as big as the one found at Altar of Dragon Communion?

And, yeah, Fell God is never referred to as an Outer God unlike the three others, so what if he just wasn't one? Needless to mention that he is depicted as a humanoid, just cyclopic when old gods otherwise had regular two eyes! Outer Gods are just not humanoid; they're a scorpion-like creature (Scorpion's Stinger is a part of God of Rot), formless being and.. one not shown, but associated with birds!

Hornsent on the other hand envisioned him with two eyes and covered in horns, but it feels more like just an interpretation I think? Since mark of Fell God on Giants that worshipped him is still a cyclopic face with a beard, I guess this look is truer one.. just not that Hornsent would know about that!

Also could Fell God's fire be the source of fire that animates Golems and was used for forges in the Lands Between? A lot of Golems are found in Mountaintops, and they originate from Rauh too; cave where you fight Makar and cave where you fight a Golem as a boss (and find Blue Dancer charm) have Rauh architecture!

Even the Giants' forge itself has Rauh architecture! And.... well, it is forge. Can be used to create weapons. And there is fire in there. And Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword is found in the forge connected to Rauh as well! It is also a meteoric ore, the arrowheads of old gods weapons were made of rock from space. And you remember how Fire Giants and Astrologers were allied? A sentiment specified in Sword of Night and Flame stored in Caria, and also Japanese description of Rellana's swords saying "after all Moon and Fire were always together"! And also some Golems using magic too I guess:

Since Makar is a Magma Wyrm, so a person consuming too much Dragon Hearts (a practice of hunting Drakes), and Fire Giants were at war with Ice Drakes, maybe it really were Drakes that old gods were battling with? They were way more big and impressive in ancient history, like the dead guy on the Altar! Heck, maybe Bayle and Placidusax just shrunk in size over having lived for way too long?

Though I wonder whether Fell God was always 'Fell', or he undergone some sort of corruption? Maybe he "came back wrong" after being injured or killed at some point before Marika did it again much later in history? After all Fire Giants but one were dead, Marika realized that the fire of ruin could never be put down! That's why she cursed the last survivor to tend to it!

Basically? Maybe same thing applied to old gods; all of them died except for Fell God? He simply could not, for some reason? He could lose body, but his nature is within the fire of the forge itself...? Feels like something one would do to themselves rather than a natural thing, and he cursed himself with becoming element to lend others flame and weapons for whatever reason needed? Cursed himself with immortality to make world something else, ironically just like Marika did! Though I still love the idea that he is 'evil' because for people the use of his flame was primarily for warfare.. The flame can make rock statues into life, let alone warmth and guidance, but all everyone wanted from it was weapons and destructive power, so it rubbed onto him....

But, yeah, he is a really unusual entity, and really super ancient. As for why potential hostility of his kind towards dragons or drakes, that survived for generations? The idea of "cleaning" the landscape from dragons to build upon freed territory is something ever since Dark Souls trilogy! Elden Ring adops a bit too much from those, might as well :p

____________

P.S.: Nox were super ancient too, not far from ancient civilization and Rauh, and are progenitors of Astrologers and following sorcerers who originally were hostile to the Erdtree same as Flame of Ruin.. Nox also had the Black Moon, and also Night/Moon and Flame are "allies" in this lore, also Fire and Moonlight being allies is also a big DS thing.... if turns out Lord of Night and Fell God were allied and similar entities in nature I am going to have the biggest brain explosion yet. Literally no other ship would beat a yaoi like this

[radabeast]

wait Nito? as in gravelord nito? he has a wife?

A little correction: he HAD a wife! :>

Just look at this empty coffin next to him! XD

In fact, something even more interesting: not only he had a wife, but they also had a child who was so significant for the family that it is always addressed in the symbolism connected to Nito's family!

Notice how not only Nito's acolytes all wear the three masks of Father, Mother and Child, but also how there is a secret third small coffin next to the larger two!

It is slightly easy to skip on because people assume the masks refer to Pinwheel since the description says they belong to him, but it is a description logic Fromsoft already uses often! For example, Gold-Hemmed Set is not unique to Quelaana but description says it is her clothes, Saint's Set is not unique to Licia but description says it is her clothes, etc. Here, a similar logic is used and we already meet acolytes before Nito's arena who are definitely not Pinwheel nor even his created fake copies as they are fought like normal enemies and drop either of these masks! Besides, imagery of the masks is placed across the catacombs like architecture:

I think Nito's wife was a goddess of water because Mask of Mother literally has watery motif, as well as the area before Nito's arena has a body of water where baby skeletons are endlessly born!

And I think their child was Caitha, Goddess of Tears! She is explicitly connected with death and grief, but also with water and the Deep. Heck, Deacons of the Deep took the cathedral that formerly belonged to her, and Aldrich uses the exact replica of Nito's blade but only purple instead of orange! Sealers of New Londo also used to be healers, used water to seal the city, and Yulva's sorcery (Remedy) is almost identical to the miracle of Morne, follower of Caitha (Caressing Tears) + these and Ingward's sorcery all use blue splash-like particles! Though @val-of-the-north explained it better ( x )

Whereas Caitha left to travel across the lands searching for people that might need her help, support and maybe healing, Nito's wife's whereabouts are up to speculation XD

UPDATE: Caitha is not only death and water, but also:

アクア - word 'aqua'

クァト - Quato, Caitha's name in Japanese original

ニト - Nito

Yeeeeeah, Caitha's name is a fusion of Nito's name and some name that had 'aqua' in it fdjhhfsd This shit writes itself

[radabeast]

made a ranni ref sheet, mayhap this could come in handy for people <3

[radabeast]

The Everlasting Dragon In Ash Lake Was Once A Human Being

Yes, really.

Look, there are a LOT of theories about pretty much every character in the original Dark Souls, as was the intention of this game, but in my humble opinion one of the most mysterious and compelling characters of all is the Everlasting Dragon of Ash Lake. The last survivor of the war against the archdragons, hidden away in a small pocket of how the world once was and recruiting undead to evolve into dragons themselves. A very compelling creature to be sure!

However, the more I've looked into both the design and odd quirks of this dragon, the more I've come to the conclusion that this beast is not a "descendant" of the Ancients in the traditional sense...

First, let's take a look at the model and compare it to the few good shots we get of the archdragons in the intro cutscene. Screenshots of Everlasting Dragon close-ups & unused animations were taken from this video by youtuber Crest:

That is quite an odd look compared to those of the ones that came before it! Its eyes are pitch black and appear more forward facing (if the archdragons even have eyes to compare it to, I can't see them at all in these shots!). More notable, however, is that its body is coated in a thick layer of fur that the archdragons notably lack. The two pairs of wings are definitely an exact match, but there are already enough differences to at least raise an eyebrow.

But I expected many of you have already guessed this isn't an actual archdragon. The description of the dragon greatsword you get from cutting off its tail plainly states that it is a "descendant of the ancient dragons," NOT the last of its kind. Seath, Kalameet, and the Gaping Dragon are close descendants too and they also look radically different from the Ancients. What point am I making with this observation?

Here's my point. Study the model again, especially its legs:

And now check out at one of its unused poses:

This dragon isn't sitting down like any tetrapod animal would; its hind legs are crossed in a meditating position. The unused pose goes even further in showing off how unnaturally human-like the dragon appears, but that's not all! My next piece of evidence lies in its claws, or should I say, "hands."

Those are four fingers and a thumb, all in the EXACT shape of a human hand!

To better show just how bizarre this is for a dragon to have, let's compare this to Seath and Kalameet's own hands/paws:

Just like all the wyverns, these closest descendants of the Ancients are tetradactyl. They lack the fifth digit that the everlasting dragon has, showing even more just how unnatural this is for a dragon to possess. This design detail remains consistent within the entire series, as the two other major descendants we see in the sequels, Sinh and Midir, also possess only four-digit toes.

I should note that the Gaping Dragon is also unique in that it possesses five digits on its two hind legs and six digits on its front paws, but those lack the human fingers & toes resemblance and instead appear much more like lizard feet.

And all of this isn't even the CRUX of my theory!

I want you all to remember when you first encountered the dragon at the very end of Ash Lake. Wasn't it a bit strange that the bonfire in front of it was already lit and filled your estus flask up to ten?

The only other bonfires in the world which are already kindled by the time you reach them are ones tended to by firekeepers, and all firekeepers are tied closely to humanity (yes, even the Fair Lady, since demons have also been shown to possess humanity + she too has a firekeeper's soul).

Now the picture is complete! At some point in the past a human, specifically a firekeeper, had found her way into the depths of Ash Lake and by means still unknown to us managed to transcend her human form and become the (near) perfect image of an Everlasting Dragon!

It makes sense why this dragon isn't hostile to us, but it more so explains why the Dragon Covenant even exists in the first place. The Undead, like the archdragons and their closest descendants, are functionally immortal beings in their cursed state. It's the very reason why Seath the Scaleless became so obsessed with studying them. The way I see it, the Everlasting One and the dragon apostles who discovered her/it see their undead state not as a "curse," but instead as a means of evolving into a superior form free of all pain and suffering.

The dragon being a firekeeper also makes sense thematically with how its covenant works. Much like how we give the souls of deceased firekeepers to a living one in order to strengthen our estus flask, the Everlasting Dragon needs us to bring dragon scales taken from deceased dragons and/or dragon relatives in order to strengthen our form as a dragonoid. In a sense, the dragon head and torso stones given to us are as much the soul of the once-human firekeeper as estus.

In conclusion, never underestimate a scalie's determination! 🐲

[radabeast]

Denizens of Heaven

Part 2, trying to take stock of the various gods of Elden Ring. All lore essays -> #Treesandbeasts

Elden Ring uses the word "god" (much like giant, dragon or even human) in a non-specific way. Still, I don't think it is controversial to say that The Scarlet Rot and Marika are not equivalent entities.

On one hand, you could argue for a political definition of godhood - "anything worshipped as a god is one to it's followers". This can be true, but within ER, gods seem to come in at least 2 distinct types - the Outer Gods (distant, abstract, unknowable) and the "Worldly Gods" (deified mortals that walk the earth).

1.1 Celestial Powers

For the Outer Gods (incl. The Greater Will for simplicity sake, though its debatable), you can say the following about how these entities are characterized.

They are not limited by physical space - think about how the influence of Scarlet Rot and Formless Mother can manifest in both the Land of Shadow and The Lands Between, the veil does nothing to stop them. There is also nothing to suggest that Outer God influence needs to be spread in a physical manner. Rather it seems that Outer Gods are omnipresent but are only encounterable by people in great suffering - Romina simply discovers the Scarlet Rot after being immolated, likewise for the Bloodfiends and their tutelary.

They are unknowable - there is nothing that we can point to in-game as being the spoken words of an Outer God, nor is there any known/definable goal for these entities. When there is a claimed connection (eg. Greater Will), contact has filters (fingers + priestesses), is not in real time; and the reality of said connection is spurious anyway (as per. Metyr).

They have envoys - every cosmic god seems to have mortal representatives that manifest it's power on the worldly scale. Mohg with The Formless Mother, The Twinbird with it's unknown god etc.

Whatever they are, these are not personified gods. Which then leads to the question: are Outer Gods even sentient? Sure, the Scarlet Rot consumes and spreads, but so does any fungal colony. The Formless Mother is the only one that seems to have wants or a relationship with its followers. But even then, this is a simple give-and-take affair, is it any more complex than the relationship between cultivator and crop?

You offer blood to the Formless Mother so you can cut it's body for blood. You offer water to a tree so you can cut it's body for wood.

I stress this because the "Outer Gods are simply forces of nature" line of thinking has become very compelling to me. There's really nothing to suggest they behave on a level more complex than a bacterial one. Perhaps they are forces seen as being particularly dangerous, but still simply forces nonetheless. Note that the known Outer Gods are rot, blood and death (The Twinbird's God) respectively.

All these aspects require the existence of life. Since The Greater Will is the originator of life, the known Outer Gods could be thought of as being dependent (even parasitic) on said creation.

Rot in a controlled form is fermentation (as per. Verdigris and Forager Brood items). Something can be both useful but also highly destructive. Think about the relationship between early agricultural societies and rivers, floods or storms.

This is to say; theories that talk about how the Outer Gods have plans, or describe them as personified gods (in either an Abrahamic or Pagan sense) are very unfounded and don't follow how these entities are characterized.

1.2 Celestial Bodies

While the known Outer Gods are never described with a physical form, The Greater Will absolutely has one. Specifically, it appears to be a region of space (The "distant starry expanse" as per. Comet Azur), if not the entirety of the observable cosmos itself (if you read anything into the Microcosm). Thus, there is a very interesting idea that the "cosmic gods" as a whole are celestial objects in the most literal sense.

The Outer Gods are thus "Outer" in the sense that they are outside the golden ring of the microcosm (ie. outside Order). If so, then maybe The Greater Will is categorically something else - or perhaps the "Outerness" is only something of concern to us mortals.

The cultural obsession with astrology becomes self evident, its about tracking the movement of divine celestial objects. Which I guess is also a very literal interpretation of IRL astrological belief that celestial bodies influence life on earth.

If so, then moons are probably also Outer Gods. And the sun? go figure who that is.

2.1 The Worldly Gods

Beginning this section with the following statement - By virtue of their birth, every demigod is already an immortal being with supernatural abilities. Yet, Ranni and Miquella must strive to achieve godhood; it is something that they do not innately have, but can ultimately gain.

The game is quite is explicit about how godhood is a status an empyrean gains through personal ritual journey. The "empyrean path" is very formal, there's an institution (fingers) that selects candidates (empyreans) and even grants a personal magical guard (shadow). From there, the journey as empyrean (as with both Miq/Ranni) only needs a handful of loyal followers and can be done hidden from the public eye.

In all (non FF) endings, the ring either stays in Marika's body or is taken by another ascended empyrean (Ranni). If godhood is simply due to no-one being able to wrest the Elden Ring from Marika, why is there no ending where the player simply takes it and runs? This is to say, Empyrean Flesh has real magic, its not just a title for royal heirs.

As per. Enia, Marika remains a god, vessel of the vision despite her imprisonment. She continues to be god regardless if she actively rules in any capacity.

Message "God Slain" is used for the only 2 people known to have undergone a Divine Gate ritual. Neither Goddess of Rot nor the Gelmir Serpent return this message despite being worshipped as a god by some.

What about Tutelary Deities? the sparse lore on them also implies that it is a state attained by ritual means. (Will write more about them next entry).

The point here is that the essence of godhood does not come from monopolizing power - eliminating all your rivals and getting the world to worship you. Rather it seems to be the opposite. Marika became a god and enough people believed in her vision of the Erdtree age to make it reality, exterminating the Fire Giants and waging wars of expansionism to make her the de-facto power.

Gods are not made by powerful people declaring themselves as such. Instead, people becoming gods makes them powerful.

~ Thanks for reading

[radabeast]

Leda’s dialogue about Miquella being “the true golden child” lives rent free in my head because as much as Miquella wants to divest himself of everything regarding his roots, his most devote follower still seeks pride in his prestige as the best of Marika’s bloodline.

Also that dialogue kinda pitches the golden son of Godfrey >< the golden son of Radagon.

Even though I do believe those boys love and respect each other as brothers, their respective endgame goals do get into each other’s way, isn’t it?

Godwyn’s Duskborn Age will still have Marika as the one true God. Meanwhile Miquella’s prayers + rituals at Sol, if you think about it, will prevent Godwyn from becoming Lord of Death, thus getting in the way of said Age.

Interestingly enough, the weapon skill of Golden Epitaph - which will grant the same effect as Sacred Order and deal extra damage to TWLiD, instead of showing Radagon’s crest, it shows Miquella’s.

If we consider all those details with this one interpretation of Light of Miquella description, I feel like it explains why there are no Omens, no Frenzy Flame merchants, and no TWLiD at the Haligtree.

Those who already serve a different Lord, even if they might accept Miquella as a new God (debatable), will for sure never accept his chosen Lord (Radahn).

I used to think it made more sense for Godwyn to be the DLC final boss as there were more indication of his bond with Miquella, but now that I step back and really analyze everything under the lenses that Godwyn has been devote to his Mother all this time, it makes way more sense that he is never going to be the final boss to begin with.

[radabeast]

ok so I watched Vaati’s new video on Rykard, really liked it overall but I wanted to go into more detail about what I liked and what I disagreed with. 

Gonna start with a list of the things I loved/found super interesting:

The way he laid out the evidence for Rykard’s inquisition having been on behalf of Leyndell was really really well laid out!!! 

I laughed at the “FAMILEEE” soundbyte 

His discussion about the origins of “hexes” was super cool 

I had never heard of the cut item description linking the Serpent Arrows to Shaded Castle! 

The idea that poison was involved in Rykard’s desecration of the Minor Erdtree… he didn’t mention this, but this idea could explain why there’s sickly greenish growths at its base?  

(Gelmir Minor Erdtree vs. Consecrated Snowfield Minor Erdtree)

Talked about the idea that the Great Serpent grew because of the sacrifices it was fed, then was killed, then came back as a normal-sized snake, that Rykard fed himself to and then grew large due to once again devouring sacrifices

Pointed out that the snakes inside the Abductor Virgins look like metal!!! I thought I was crazy for thinking this

1.0 Daedicar mentioned ‼️

His overall characterization of Rykard and his motivations is really good. he gets it

Now here’s some arguments he made that I disagree with:

Early in the video, Vaati makes the argument that the blue-robed Officials originate from House Marais because the blue robes are a part of Maleigh Marais’s garb as head of the House, because Inquisitor Ghiza wears bandages, suggesting that he’s “sickly born” like the rest of the Marais family, and because the unnamed guy in the Volcano Manor portrait also wears a metal mask like Maleigh Marais. He argues that House Marais were assimilated into Erdtree society, and presumably that the Official’s blue robes were a precursor to the other robes associated with the nobility (the Ruler’s robe, the Upper Class attire, and the Consort’s robe). 

There are several reasons why I disagree with this theory:

Masks aren’t unique to the Marais family: the Ruler’s set comes with a Ruler’s mask, said to be “customary dress among lords,” and Tanith also wears a mask with her Consort’s robe. I speculated that masks are simply part of the noble fashion alongside the particular style of robe. 

I don’t think it makes a ton of sense for pompous noblemen to have adapted their style of dress from a robe associated with a family of executioners carrying out “the darkest duties of mankind”

The Volcano Manor portrait guy does not have bandages under his mask like Maleigh does.

Maleigh and Ghiza don't really look alike at all:

Also, a different explanation for Ghiza’s bandages could be that he’s a remnant of the 1.0 version of Daedicar, a torturer in Rykard’s inquisition: “he would test new methods of torture first upon himself."

Overall I think a better explanation for the Marais attire is that, since their ancestral duty was serving as executioners on behalf of the Erdtree's justice system, they simply incorporated the Official's attire (worn by magisterial officials carrying out "surveillance, executions, gruesome rituals") into the garb of the head of their house.

I absolutely think House Marais is connected to Volcano Manor though; I've suggested that as executioners they serve as a branch of the Erdtree justice system working in tandem with Rykard's inquisition.

2. Later in the video, Vaati makes the argument that the Abductor Virgins were made after Rykard snakeified himself. I personally think that they were made before the snakening, but I can see the evidence for the contrary and I definitely think it’s possible. However, Vaati later says that the Abductors were used to transport people to the Underground Inquisition Chamber to be interrogated, which contradicts his argument that they were made after Rykard’s snakening… if Rykard is now a serpent, no longer a Praetor, what use is there for interrogation? And who is doing the interrogating, if Tanith was the only human left loyal to Rykard, and his inquisitors have long abandoned him? If the Abductors were made after Rykard became the serpent, the victims are probably just being fed to him. 

3. Towards the end of the video, Vaati says that the serpent displayed in the Temple of Eiglay is the flayed skin of the Great Serpent, and that might explain the Godskin’s presence there. But it’s not the flayed skin of a snake, it’s a snake shed:

It’s a pale, milky, almost translucent color, with some ragged edges and holes. Snakes shed their skin as they grow, and we know the Great Serpent “devours, grows, and lives eternally.” Rykard even has some shed skin stuck to his body and tail:

4. Lastly, I’ve beat this horse to death but you can’t say with 100% certainty that Rykard was born with red hair because he has pale hair in the present day. I will die on this hill

[radabeast]

…..hornsent and the greater potentate both had gold eyes. they were graced….. shut up about potentate!hornsentnpc for a second. shush. shush. listen to me

grace is bestowed to Her People… post-her godhood transformation anyway. people under her rule, minus the blue of the carians i think. anyway

marika made her citizens immortal, so unless theyre outright killed, they dont die. and when they die, they just get reincarnated. this is the justification for a lot of the enemy respawning, yeah? and this is also present within the lands of shadow, yeah? i guess that place could essentially be a time capsule, sure, but otherwise. isnt it weird that all of those people there haven’t DIED died yet

also we, as tarnished, and all of her citizens are known as “marika’s progeny”, presumably noting that we come from her lineage in some form or way or distance. and even if not literal in that description— where the fuck did all of the citizens in the land between COME from? her entire village was decimated!! so many other villages lost to the saint jars!

anyway here’s my totally crackpot theory: the hornsent were REINCARNATED into becoming her citizens, lost of their original markers. its fucking. eugenics. that’s how she got her people, with only a very specific and direct subset of progeny becoming true demigods. and this is also WHY omens are born among her new people— it’s the law of regression at work !!!

this is also why it took marika so long to actually start exacting her revenge, she needed to build her own ranks. its why the hornsent said she betrayed them, having graced them in the first place. it is a TRANSFORMATION of the hornsent into something else. and also, my god, its a direct parallel of real-world eugenics and genocide

[radabeast]

Anyways today i replayed castle morne and i want to brainvomit a bit about it because i genuinely think its brilliant in both buildup and execution of themes, and especially as a way to denounce the supposed righteousness and the imperialism of the Golden Order so early in the game

(Putting a cut because holy moly its long. Also i apologize in advance for the run along sentences)

You first reach the weeping peninsula and the first npc you speak to is Irina. She is standing alone, without any weapon and blind, in the middle of a bunch of her family's garrison's corpses (and i think that the fact that the models used are the models of soldiers of godrick, whom thanks to Kenneth Height we know are particularly cruel to demihumans and the likes, is significant). As she herself says, she is being hunted down: her family's servants have rebelled and her father corageously stayed there to keep the postation and the home's ancestral sword, while she had been ambushed and her garrison died to save her.

And this is the perfect set up for people who are less genre savy and expect a more linear story, where the young girl and the kind father have been kicked out by the intrinsically evil, inhuman creatures that don't look human and don't seem to be very intelligent, and where the kind knight helps them to defeat the big bad leader of those creatures to take their castle back. Good ending!

Alas, it isn't like that. If you have already finished Kenneth's questline before, the whole setup feels weird. With the injustice that had been inflicted on the demihumans by the common soldiers, we already have the seed of doubt regarding the whole righteousness of the situation. As deformed and weird they might look like, demihumans, and therefore misbegottens too, are also people with thoughts and social structures and that maybe using them as mindless workforce is wrong.

Upon reaching the castle's walls, you are faced with a sword memorial, and if you read it you are smacked in the face with another revelation: the castle hasn't been built by irina's family and didn't actually belong to them, but instead has been taken by force by Godfrey's forces after he had slaughtered the previous clan that had it and even its last survivor who had made a desperate last stand in vengeance. Irina's whole narrative suddenly becomes even more shady.

Anyways, you finally enter Castle Morne, and the first sight you stumble upon is an horrific one: hundreds of corpses set in a pile on which several misbegottens are standing triumphantly. On the rampartarts household soldiers and other misbegotten are still fighting. Of course, again, if you take the whole narrative at face value, without reflecting on the sword memorial and Kenneth's questline, you might be still thinking that the whole situation was still black and white. However there are two, definitive moments that shatter that illusion, one more overt, the other less, but still as powerful

The first moment is finding Irina's father, Edgar, the castellan. One would think that, at least, you'd find him surrounded by corpses (i don't say in battle for obvious npc logistic reasons). And yet no. He is alone, sitting in a secluded place of the ramparts, with no signs of battle around.

Then he speaks: we learn respectively three things

-His main goal is to keep the castle (however he doesn't seem like he's done much fighting and only takes action once we go to kill the rebel leader ourselves. Fittingly enough, even fighting him as an invasor is extremely easy), but not because of any strategic importance or sentimental value. No. The reason why he's protecting it is to not permit that the heirloom of the caslte, the grafted blade greatsword, whom was forged by the Hero of Castle Morne as a tool of vengeance and has likely been kept around as a symbol of Godfrey's mightiness for having defeated him. The whole thing comes less as something about honor and more as something about simple vanity, or, better, about keeping intact the superiority of the Golden Order towards his opposers, something that cannot fall in the hands of such things as misbegotten (proof of that is also the ghost of the noble begging to not be eaten by them as he's nobility and doesnt want to get sullied by their lowlyness)

And

-That he is a Godrick loyalist and has been placed in the castle by him (therefore the idea that the family has been living there for long is rendered moot), and 3) that he is sickeningly racist towards misbegotten.

These two last points, now, have made your alarm bells ringing non stop. Maybe if this is the guy who is allied with a man who is known for his cruelty and maybe if he's so hostile against misbegotten, perhaps they had a good reason to rebel like that.

This brings us to the second moment:

After speaking with Edgar, you go in the back of the castle and reach the gaol section of the structure. As we can see, they are dirty, tight, and cramped. But most importantly, we find there a whip, which was specifically built as a way to torture and punish servants for their slightest disobedience. This is the final piece of the puzzle of *what* caused the misbegotten to rebel: not envy or any intrinsical evil, just the hellish condition that they were put in. One really can't blame them for organizing and revolting against their slavers.

You can see the leader of the revolt from afar, sitting in the grave of the hero's clan, having him too become the hero, for he in the name of vengeance for his species treatment started a rebellion.

But in the end, he'll have the same destiny as the Hero Of Morne.

You reach the Leonine Misbegotten and you kill him (perhaps even with the help of his slaveowner!) but the mood after the fight isn't triumphant. You stand alone, light rain is falling, the music is somber, in a massive graveyard dedicated to the one who lost his entire family to the golden order's imperialism, after killing his spiritual successor, perhaps even his descendant. You successfully put down a slave revolt for nothing, as the reason you did all of this, Irina, unbeknownst to you, has already been long dead by the time you take the castle back, killed by the same species whom her family exploited (The name of the site of grace of the graveyard, the Gravemoaning of Morne, really is fitting).

Her death prompts Edgar, the father, the lord of Castle Morne, the slave master, to start his own futile journey of revenge, becoming in the meanwhile too the Hero, bringing the story full circle

[radabeast]

Elden Ring Accents

Something came over me. I've put together a spreadsheet of all ER characters with voice lines and figured out where each accent is from in the hope it could provide insight on the characters, storytelling and worldbuilding choices that went into the game.

It could also be a good resource for creatives in the community that want to get into the worldbuilding aspect of their stories/art and be more accurate with accents and regions.

I've put a little introduction in to give some info and context, as well as some conclusions I came to while putting it together. There's also a map to help visualise :)

Feel free to contact me with any suggestions/corrections, and it's fine to share the link. I hope you find it useful!

[radabeast]

I don't know if this has been talked about elsewhere but while writing Field of Reeds, I've found there's a very interesting amount of mythology and symbolism that ties in between Malenia, Miquella, and ancient Egyptian mythology. I think the concept of different soul parts (ba, ka, akh) is particularly insightful into a potential way to interpret how bodies and souls are referenced in Elden Ring.

One reason I think this may have served as at least some of the inspiration is the relationship between Elden Ring lore and real life mythology, specifically the Golden Order ties to Roman (and greek, irish, norse) mythology but also how those were influenced by ancient egyptian mythology. Miquella's character in particular seems to reflect on the past state of the world pre-Golden Order for inspiration on how to move forward in the future, similar to how the romans looked to ancient egypt in the past.

List of topics:

The Lotus | Trina & Miquella Lilies

Scorpions and Selket | Malenia, Goddess of Rot

Waterfowl, Nekhbet, and the Bennu Bird | Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Shed, Protective Child God | Miquella the Unalloyed

Death and the Soul | Godwyn, Trina, Dreams, and Spirits

The Acacia Tree | The Erdtree & Haligtree

Horus | Miquella the Kind

Hathor | Marika the Eternal

A few disclaimers: There is a vast amount of information on the mythology and there are a lot of contradictions and hotly debated topics within it and I'm no expert, so these will be mostly very surface level comparisons I think may have been used for inspiration, this is not intended to be a declarative comparison. I'll try to keep my sourcing consistent and most references will link back to a single source which compiled a lot of the references together. I did cross-reference these with other sources and will try to call out these additional sources as well as any contradicting opinions where applicable for additional perspective/context.

The Lotus | Trina & Miquella Lilies

Contrary to the name, the flowers referred to as "lotus" are actually two variations of water lilies, a blue and a white variant: Blue Egyptian Water Lily (Nymphaea caerulea) & White Egyptian Water Lily (Nymphaea lotus).

As you can imagine, this immediately caught my interest considering we have two variations of lilies in Elden Ring, Trina's lily (blue/purple) and Miquella's lily (unalloyed gold).

Unalloyed gold is representative of a pure gold and white is often the symbol of purity and that's no different here; additionally, at times white was even used interchangeably with yellow. Meanwhile for blue, you have the common themes of water and rebirth it's associated with but it was also commonly used in funerals. We know that water and this particular blue/purple hue in the game is associated with both dreams and death.

The lotus was also associated with alcoholic intoxication, and it was used as a recreational drug when soaked in wine; the roots and blossoms contain narcotic substances which are soluble in alcohol. It was also used in medicine (the juice has a mild sedative effect).

This last point is interesting in the context specifically of Trina's lilies and works well with my own interpretation of Trina's lilies being used as a sedative which I actually wrote even before stumbling across this fact.

The lotus was a symbol for life: at the very beginning of creation a lotus flower containing the god Ra was the first thing to emerge from the primordial waters. The lotus was strongly associated with the sun, as the flower retreats beneath the water at night and rises again each day at dawn like the sun-god.

As with many symbols of fertility, the lotus was also symbolic of rebirth after death. This again ties in well with the original concept of Miquella/Malenia being Abundance/Decay representing the cycle of death and rebirth.

The Egyptians looked forward to their souls coming to life "like a lotus reopening," and the Book of the Dead has a spell to allow the deceased to transform into one of these flowers. Faience models of lotus buds were sometimes placed in tombs. In many tomb scenes, the deceased is shown with a lotus flower held to his nose in order to breathe in the divine perfume.

Lotus Sources [x][x][x]

Scorpions and Selket | Malenia, Goddess of Rot

Like the lotus/lilies there were two common types of scorpions: a venomous land scorpion and a harmless water scorpion. As such, the scorpion had a dual purpose and could be seen as either friend or foe depending on the context much like how we see the scarlet rot both harms and strengthens Malenia. We also know the Rot God under the lake is at least in part scorpion in nature and thus this is best represented in Selket, the Scorpion Goddess, who is seen as benevolent and is often represented by the harmless water scorpion.

[Continued under the read more]

Scorpions were greatly feared and scorpion stings were one of the main hazards of everyday Egyptian life. Scorpions were described as “A very small thing, a sister of the snake, a sister of Apophis*, sitting at a crossroads, lying in wait for someone who goes in the night . . .”

I believe the scorpion sting serves as an apt representation of the way scarlet rot manifests and which I suspect is clearly intended with the blade crafted from the scorpion stinger of the Rot God sealed beneath the lake of rot.

[* I think there's an interesting parallel between Apophis and the God Devouring Serpent and Rykard but this is already too long, so here's a link about Apophis [x]]

Meaning of Selket: “She Who Causes to Breathe.” Selket's name refers to her power over scorpions, as those who have been stung tend to breathe too fast and too shallow because of the venom.

Another great description which ties in with the Scarlet Rot as it's shown in Elden Ring, specifically through the state of Millicent when we first come across her: slumped against a wall and breathing shallowly because in her words, "My flesh writhes with scarlet rot."

Selket was depicted with a scorpion above her head, as a scorpion, or as a scorpion with a woman's torso. She often had green skin, a reference to her help with regeneration in the Duat. 

The last note here caught my attention knowing that Malenia's Great Rune which is covered in Scarlet Rot is what grants her the ability of regeneration. The specific callout of "in the Duat" is also of interest since the Duat is the underworld, meaning she regenerates in death (decay).

Historically, the scorpion was regarded as a symbol of motherhood in many areas, as female scorpions carry their young on their backs. The protective goddess Selket, who guarded the coffin of the deceased, was often pictured as a scorpion. An ancient Egyptian proverb states: “I love the scorpion, yet I know its venomous sting.”

This last passage I find summarizes Malenia's relationship with Rot and Decay fairly succinctly and ties in well with how I've always interpreted rot as the force of decay seeking to reestablish the proper life cycle into the Lands Between which had been forced into a state of stagnation from the removal of Destined Death. But because of the rejection of this rot and decay aspect, Malenia suffers the consequences, the venomous sting of the scorpion rather than the benevolence of it. This cascades down to her "children" as well where rather than accepting the rot and motherhood, she rejects both it and her "children" alike. This is actually very well contrasted by Romina in the DLC who finds strength when she embraces the rot and accepts the role of motherhood to those rejected by Malenia.

And, lastly, the visual of Selket guarding the coffin of the deceased is a striking visual comparison with Malenia in the roots of the Haligtree guarding Miquella's cocoon (his coffin) before it had been taken.

Scorpion and Selket Sources [x][x]

Waterfowl, Nekhbet, and the Bennu Bird | Malenia, Blade of Miquella

Another common concept seen in many religions is the association of birds as either representations of spirits passing or guiding them to the afterlife. While Malenia's title of Valkyrie is obviously a clear call to the norse mythology, there are once again roots of this concept that can be found in the Waterfowl, specifically the Heron and the phoenix variation of the Heron, the Bennu Bird. There's also the Vulture Goddess, Nekhbet, who serves as a protector of the dead/underworld.

A passage from the Book of Ani says that the first gate of the Duat was guarded by the Vulture Goddess, whose “tearing beak” could admit the dead to the place whence they rose again. Amulets of vultures were buried with the dead, especially royalty. Egypt’s oldest oracle was the shrine of Nekhbet at Nekhen (modern Al-Kab), the original “necropolis” or city of the dead. [...] Nekhbet was described as “she whose wings are open, whose breasts are pendulous.” She was usually depicted as a vulture hovering with her wings spread, clutching an ankh or the Shen Ring in her talons. When pictured as a vulture, Nekhbet's colors are rarely true-to-life - instead she is symbolically red, blue, green, black, and white, the colors of life, the sky, regeneration, and holiness.

I've always found the reference of Malenia as a Valkyrie interesting because purely in the base game, she doesn't have any role actively acting as a guide of the dead. Rather, her role is as a protector, an undefeated champion and Miquella's blade - a role she obtains after studying with the mentor who led her to learn the "waterfowl dance" and gave her "wings of unparalleled strength". The main relation she has to death is to those she defeated in battle or inflicted with the Scarlet Rot, and her place in the roots of the Haligtree next to Miquella's cocoon.

The Bennu bird was the mythological phoenix of ancient Egypt. It was associated with the rising of the Nile, resurrection, and the sun. The sacred Bennu bird was thought to be a heron, and [...] were thought to lead the spirits of the dead through the dangers of the Duat.

The context is more interesting, in my opinion, when considering her as trying to be a guide through the underworld - specifically for Miquella. She knows her brother's plan to divest himself of his body and be resurrected (regardless of if you're considering base game lore or SotE lore) as she states clearly she "awaited his return". It's also clear that those who served Miquella knew he had also "died" in some capacity, killing themselves in flashes of light in the hopes to "guide his return". Personally, I think this was a missed opportunity to have her take on this role in Miquella's plot directly but that's neither here nor there.

The Hymn of the Bennu says: “I am a blue heron, pure as bone. I know the stirrings of the Nile, the source where water rises overlapped by trees, where ibises dip and wade, where the fish are plentiful. I fly beneath an arch of trees straight into the eye of heaven. I make a long journey amid mud houses, singing. I know the cool mind of the sky and the hot mysteries of earth. I am a blue heron, the messenger, a reborn and dying god. By day I exist because I exist. By night I sail above the river, a single star wise in the darkness.”

Likely incidental but another fun coincidence is that it is specifically a blue heron and Malenia has the association with the blue dancer charm and her mentor's blue robes. There's also obviously the water imagery, flowing water never rotting, but also water again being representative of death and rebirth, specifically associated with the phoenix in this case. We know for Malenia to reach her state as the Goddess of Rot, she has to die and bloom three times.

The Hymn of the Phoenix says: “I flew straight out of heaven, a mad bird full of secrets. I came into being as I came into being. I grew as I grew. I changed as I changed. My mind is fire, my soul is fire. I am the seed of every god, beautiful as evening, hard as light. I am the last four days of yesterday, four screams from the edges of the earth – beauty, terror, truth, madness – the phoenix on his pyre. I will live forever in the fire spun from my own wings. I destroy and create myself like the sun that rises burning from the East and dies burning in the West. To know the fire, I become the fire. I am power. I am light. I am forever. This is my deliverance. I am the fire that burns you, that burns in you. To live is to die a thousand deaths, but there is only one fire, one eternity.”

I don't really have anything profound here other than I love the visuals of this passage in relation to how they might reflect on Malenia's character. Malenia upon blooming in the scarlet aeonia is strikingly reminiscent of a phoenix being reborn from the flames, but there's also the interesting role fire plays in regards to rot, supposedly being able to burn it away to hold it at bay. In a sense by rejecting rot and embracing it only when the situation is desperate enough, she is continually welcoming her own repeated decay and rebirth. But perhaps this duality is intentional, if we consider the following passage:

Trapping waterfowl in a net is a common tomb scene since the Old Kingdom, although the representation of bird-trapping in a hexagonal net occurs already on an item found in a 1st Dynasty tomb. The scene is said to entail two aspects: one positive, related to the duck as a symbol of fertility linked to rebirth, and one negative, the birds as enemies of the dead, necessitating their being trapped to re-establish order in the cosmos. The birds, as a collective sign, refer to two contrary meanings by condensation.

I think where I ultimately fall in tying these three concepts together is Malenia's own fractured sense of purpose. I think her rot affliction and influence of the Rot God can be seen in some aspects of the Bennu Bird, her desire to be helpful and to achieve a better world can be represented by the Waterfowl/Heron, but the role she ultimately serves is as a protector of the dead (Miquella's cocoon) and represented in Nekhbet.

Heron, Nekhbet, and Bennu Bird Sources [x][x][x][x]

Shed, Protective Child God | Miquella the Unalloyed

Which deity better to compare to Miquella the Unalloyed than Shed, the child god, a deity who also has ties to the god Horus which I'll be discussing below in relation to Miquella the Kind.

Shed was pictured as a young man with a child’s Sidelock of Youth, wearing a kilt and an aegis, with a quiver of arrows across his back, riding in a chariot pulled by griffins. 

We can largely see this exact imagery in the picture above and I found these interesting for a few notable reasons. The foremost is in his hunt of creatures, specifically snakes and scorpions as depicted above. We know from the earlier analysis there's the connection between Malenia's rot and the scorpion form of the Rot God - a nice parallel to Miquella fighting against her rot. There's also the bow and arrow, since it's strongly implied that Miquella invented both the pulley bow and crossbow, this also ties in well. But most curiously was the reference to griffins, given the only place in the entire game I can recall seeing griffin motifs is in the Haligtree. (Feel free to correct me if there's more elsewhere!)

Sure that may just be a Berserk reference, but that's so boring in comparison.

A protective god, Shed was pictured on many plaques and pendants. He was believed to guard against illnesses and wild beasts, and made sacred weapons of war. 

Unlike the strong implication that Miquella made the pulley bow, we do know for a fact that he made the Hand of Malenia, which is inscribed with an incantation of Unalloyed Gold to make it resistant to rot, aka a sacred weapon of war.

Shed was often shown grasping serpents and other dangerous animals, and standing on the back of one or more crocodiles, to indicate that he had power over them. In some instances Shed was pictured as a mongoose.

Despite being a child god, Shed is clearly depicted as having power over the most dangerous creatures, not unlike how Miquella is referred to as the "most powerful" and "fearsome" Empyrean, and we can see this power through his charm ability and how he makes docile those who would otherwise prove to be a threat.

Over time, Shed was absorbed into the god Horus, as “Horus the Child.”

As we know, Miquella the Unalloyed eventually becomes Miquella the Kind which I'll get to soon, but first let's talk about the body, death, and souls.

Shed Sources [x]

Death and the Soul | Godwyn, Trina, Dreams, and Spirits

Rather than the concept of a single body and a single soul like much theology that came after, there's different facets of the soul that ultimately came to represent a person and each plays a different role in a person's life both while they are alive and after death. Understanding the nuance of each I think helps shed an interesting perspective on the Trina and Miquella situation in particular.

There are 5 main parts I will be focusing on: Khat (Khet), Ka, Ba, Akh, and Ab (Ib)

Khat (Khet) - The Body

Also called Khet, Khat was the physical body of the deceased, or mummy. On the day of a funeral, special prayers were recited over the mummy to aid in its transformation into a spiritual body, Akh, that could rise to heaven to dwell with the gods. The outer coffin often had a pair of eyes and a false door. This was so that deceased could "see" out, and their Ka (another part of the soul) could come and go.*

The physical body is the easiest, but we can also see in the description related to the coffin that the body still has a role to play in relation to the other parts of the soul, specifically the Ka. This is something to keep in mind when thinking about specifically Miquella's cocoon husk, Ranni's dead body, and Godwyn's soulless body.

[* Note: There is a heated debate in the community with regards to the specific role of the ka being able to return to the body and which resides in the Field of Reeds]

Ka - The Life Force

The hieroglyph for the Ka is two arms raised as if mirroring each other. The Ka is perhaps one of the most difficult concepts to describe, for there is no modern translation for this word. Essentially it appears to mean "double" as well as "vital force" and is a clear reference to a part of the individual that transcends the death of the physical body. Egyptologist Richard Wilkinson explains that "in all periods it is used as a term for the creative and sustaining power of life."

This concept of the Ka representing the part of the soul linked to the body I believe ties in well with the concept of multiple deaths that characters in Elden Ring can experience. Now we know when any of the Remembrance bosses die, they're hewn into the Erdtree, taking their shape.

The Ka was something handed down from one's parents, grandparents, and ancestors, like spiritual DNA, traceable in the very remote past to a creator god by way of lesser deities. The Ka was not only one's double but also a guide and protector, imbued with the spark of the divine. According to pictures drawn during the 18th Dynasty, the Ka came into being when a person was born, often depicted as a twin or double, but, unlike the body it belonged to, it was immortal provided it received nourishment.

We see here that it is also believed that under certain circumstances a Ka can be potentially immortal.

The gods themselves were felt to possess a Ka. Egyptologist Dimitri Meeks explains that the vital force that the ancients ascribed to the Ka acts in such a way as to give each deity the ability to take creative form infinitely. Because of this ability, it was this essence, the energy of the deity's Ka, which was felt to temporally inhabit statues and other magical images during ritual, or sacred animals.

In essence, a Ka can vary in shape (when associated with a deity) and is closely bound to the body. It is also able to be imbued in statues or other images - think puppets, or dolls in Ranni's case. Essentially as long as there is something in the realm of the living for Ka to inherit, it can continue to exist in some regard.

The Ka of the pharaoh was thought to be the collective life force of all his subjects - crucial to their well-being, indeed to their very existence. The term "By the Ka of the pharaoh" meant "by the good grace of the pharaoh."

This gives and interesting twist to the concept of the Erdtree which we know is used to facilitate life and rebirth in the Lands Between by returning the bodies of those who perished to it, as well as giving a unique perspective on the concept of grace since only those granted grace by Marika technically "belong" in the Lands Between.

Dying was referred to as "going to one's Ka." Upon the body's demise the Ka rejoined its divine origin, but always remained in close proximity of the body.

One way to potentially conceptualize the Ka is any manifestation of the soul or spirit of the deceased that remains in the land of living rather than the underworld: Spirit Ashes, Puppets, Ranni's Doll(s), Sellen's Primal Glintstone, etc. In Godwyn's case, this implies that his body (Khat) may live, this part of his soul (Ka) was killed and Ranni's was the inverse which is how she's able to continue living.

Ba - The Ego

The personality or alter ego of the deceased. The Ba was said to be able to fly from place to place during the day and is often shown hovering over the mummy or resting on a shrine. Migratory birds were regarded as nations of the Ba, flying freely between tomb and underworld. Supposedly the Ba could assume any form it chose, and the Book of the Dead has many spells to assist the Ba in its transformation. Some of the most common transformations of the Ba were into rams, a lotus, and other birds such as swallows.

Now of course, I read this and immediately thought of Trina, and while I don't think the concept of the Ba in how it functions here is a one to one for the manifestation of Trina, I believe it provides a very unique framework for how to conceptualize her existence. SotE made it abundantly clear that there is a very clear overlap between sleep/dreams and death and if we take the freedom of movement the Ba has literally this makes sense. In the context of Miquella and Trina, this makes Trina an aspect of Miquella that is able to traverse the underworld, able to walk death.

Though the Ba seems to have been essentially nonphysical, it nevertheless could be viewed as a separate physical mode of existence for its owner, even prior to death. Hence, the sun was the Ba of Ra, the wind was the Ba of Shu, water was the Ba of Nun, and crocodiles were the Bas of Sobek. Deities often had multiple Bas - Ra was thought to have seven Bas, and it was claimed that Amun had ten Bas.

It's the line "even prior to death" that caught my attention and I think this mostly applies to Miquella and Trina but could also be applied to Marika and Radagon - though I believe the alchemy concept suits them better. If a Ba is a form of the soul that can exist prior to death and manifest in some way, traversing to the underworld, well that sure does sound like Trina doesn't it?

Every evening the Ba returned to the body, reuniting with it and thus ensuring the body's continued existence in Sehet Aaru (the Field of Reeds). The body had to be recognizable to the Ba, hence the careful mummification and elaborate mummy masks.

Revisiting the concept of Godwyn again, we know without his soul and with the Rune of Death corrupting his body, it begins to mutate and transform. It provides an interesting explanation for why the eclipse ritual may not have worked even if the eclipse did come to pass: his body in its mutated state, spread far and wide across the lands between is no longer recognizable. He cannot come back to life because of how his body was desecrated. It also provides an explanation for why Ranni was able to continue living: we find her body, still reflecting her form, at the top of her Divine Tower.

The ram was the animal symbolic of the Ba, a major aspect of the Egyptian notion of the soul; the Egyptian word for “ram” was “ba.”

Now this is purely a parallel I purely enjoyed thinking about when considering the Ancestor Spirits and specifically the concept of Torrent being a juvenile Ancestor Spirit.

Calling Back the Ba of Osiris says: “My Ba is a restless bird that leaves to seek itself. For the falcon who breaks the confines of the shell, even the sky it not enough eternity. He may be tossed by storms of whirling sand or ride a hot wind above dunes. Far from here his voice may ring though the forests from the branches of a fruit tree. By the Nile he may wait silent among the reeds, fish spawning as he sleeps, his head tucked in his wing. Burn saffron; remember my prayers. The smoke of incense will bring him home. Though far and sailing, my Ba comes back to me. In his copper beak he carries my thoughts. On his back my starry dreams fly over mountains, over seas, over villages. Above the grape arbor it is I sailing with the falcon, triumphant. Perhaps now he hovers near, flurry of dark wings beating the door; or he follows the rivers and canals of gods, leading them through mountains; or he binds the souls to the rags of mummies, filling dry hands with perfume. Old ones grasp their scepters and rise barefoot in the burning sand. Perhaps he twitters above boats with their cargoes of amethyst, sailing home. Ah, my Ba's a restless bird. On dark wings he flies from yesterday, love in his throat, the warmth of light among his feathers, the risen sun in his hard, amber eye. If you see him, send him home to me. The heart is uncertain country."

Nothing profound here, again, I just really love the way this passage presents the concept of the Ba.

Akh - The Enlightened Spirit

The Akh was the immortal, transformed self, which was a magical union of the Ba and Ka. Strudwick writes, "once the Akh had been created by this union, it survived as an 'enlightened spirit,' enduring and unchanged for eternity." [...] The Akh could return to earth, however, and it was an aspect of the Akh which would come back as a ghost to haunt the living if some wrong had been done, or would return in dreams to help someone they cared for. Letters and offerings were left at the deceased's tomb in hopes that the Akh would watch over those still on earth.

No image for this one, but I believe the Akh represents the process of ascension well, though in Miquella's case it would imply he has achieved a bastardized form of ascension given that rather than joining his Ka and Ba, he discarded (at least one) of his Ba: Trina. Perhaps some form of it was achieved through the chopping and mashing up of the souls of his family, especially if we think back to the concept of a Pharaoh's Ka encompassing all it's subjects - in this case, all of Marika's childen could be considered part of her Ka.

The Egyptians thought the Akh was a radiant light, something like a star. The Pyramid Texts tell us that when a man dies, his Akh goes to the stars to dwell with the gods - "the Akh belongs to heaven, the corpse to earth."

I love the idea of a version of godhood or ascension being represented by the stars given we know in Elden Ring, the stars are also represent primordial life just like the Crucible.

Ab (Ib) - The Heart

The most important part of the Egyptian soul was thought to be the Ab, or heart. The Ab was believed to be a drop from the heart of the mother of the child at conception. The heart was thought to be the source of good and evil within a person, the moral awareness and center of thought that could leave the body at will. [...] To the ancient Egyptians, it was the heart and not the brain that was the seat of emotion and thought, and was the key to the afterlife. To lose one's heart was a terrible fate, and to prevent such a calamity no less than seven chapters of the Book of the Dead were dedicated to help prevent this from happening.

This summarizes the tragedy of Miquella's ascension through discarding his love in the form of Trina better than I could. I'll leave you with one final passage I adore when thinking about the tragedy of the heart:

A spell called Giving the Heart to Osiris says: “My heart sleeps. My heart dreams. Give me a mouth. I want to talk. Give me my legs and I'll rise. Give me my hands and arms and I'll fight. I'll crush the skull of the snake. Open my blind eyes, straighten my bent feet. I know my heart. It stirs within me. It throbs in my right hand. Blood quickens beneath my skin. Give me my heart. Let it pump again life's power in me, infuse my hands and feet with spirit. Give me my heart. Let me rise and walk. I am quickened. No more sleep. No more dreams. No more death."

Death and Soul Sources [x][x][x]

The Acacia Tree | The Erdtree & Haligtree

Another botanical reference that is common to a lot of religions is the concept of a Tree of Life, in ancient Egypt this is referenced by the Acacia Tree.

Sometimes called the "Tree of Life" in Egyptian mythology, the first gods were said to have been born under the sacred acacia tree of the goddess Hathor, and Horus was also said to have emerged from it.

I think there's some very interesting parallels as well between Hathor and Marika as well as Horus and ascended!Miquella which I'll get into below.

According to myths, the acacia protected the body of Osiris, and the acacia was known as Nht Hnmt Ntr ("The Tree That Encloses the God.")

Again, another interesting parallel to the function of both the Erdtree and Haligtree in how they are presented in Elden Ring. The Erdtree houses the form of Marika/Radagon while the Haligtree - designed to be a replacement to the Erdtree - which housed Miquella's cocoon at one point and is actively where Malenia is when she ascends to her "Goddess of Rot" form.

Acacia Sources [x][x]

Horus | Miquella the Kind

While not a perfect parallel, I think in relation to Shed who later becomes the precursor to Horus as "Horus the Child", looking at the deity Horus in relation to specifically ascended Miquella can provide a unique perspective.

Egyptian texts paint a dazzling picture of Horus: "when he opens his eyes he fills the universe with light, but when he shuts them darkness comes into being." When the Osiris myth became popular, Horus became the patron of young men and was often described as the perfect example of the dutiful son who grows up to become a just man. Weak as a child, Horus was nurtured by his mother Isis and grew into manhood. Mythologically, the sun and the moon represented the two eyes of Horus. 

Perhaps not the most insightful, but interesting with the knowledge that Miquella's eyes hold eclipses in them, representative of his goal to bring the state of Godwyn to one where he could provide him a true death.

Early hospitals at Alexandria were under the protection of Horus - Horus was thought to have become a doctor on account of the many illnesses he suffered as a child. Consequently, the Eye of Horus amulet was thought to have healing powers, and to ward off the evil eye and protect against all sorts of illnesses.

We know that Miquella cast so much aside in his effort to heal Malenia, and I still firmly believe was one of his primary goals and reasons for seeking ascension. So while not his own illnesses he suffered as a child, it would thematically still fit.

Lastly, here's two other interesting passages:

The Speech of Horus says: “I am Horus, the Great Falcon. My flight has reached the horizon. I have passed by the gods of Nut. I have gone further than the gods of old. Even the most ancient bird could not equal my very first flight. There is no god who has achieved what I have achieved. I am Horus, whom Isis bore and whose protection was made inside the egg. I am Horus, Son of Osiris.”

The Hymn of Horus says: "I come to the room where the sun rose. A falcon flies in and settles on my wrist. In his mouth hangs the skin of a snake. ‘I am Horus,’ he cries. ‘From the land of kings I come, riding through the hot winds on the back of a jackal. Where priests murmured in crumbling temples, I flew through their sacred fires dropping feathers. I come to shout the wisdom of air. I’ve come with a sycamore seed in my beak. By the river we’ll sow it and watch it grow through the years. You will die there, Osiris; and I will sit nine thousand years in the tree’s white branches, one eye on each horizon, waiting for your return. I am life rushing on, born from the egg of the world, born from the belly of a magic woman, born of my father’s dreams. I am the screech of wind, the rush of falcon wings, talons sharp as knives. I came after you. I stand before you. I am with you always. I am the power that dispels darkness. The seed laid into the void must grow. The candle’s only purpose is to shine in the darkness. Bread is meant to be ground to pulp in the teeth. The function of life is to have something to offer death. A man forgets, but his heart remembers – the love and the terror, the weeping, the beating of wings.'”

Horus Sources [x]

Hathor | Marika the Eternal

While I think Isis can be an interesting deity to consider for pre-God Marika, I find Hathor slightly more fitting for her ascended godhood.

Hathor is understood to be the deity who welcomes the worthy dead, offers them refreshments of food and drink, and leads the way into the blessed beyond. One of the desires of the deceased was to be in the following of Hathor - "I tread the stars and climb the sunbeams in the retinue of Hathor, I rise to the sky."

Despite the Land of Shadows canonically existing, I believe that's just another realm where death manifests while the Lands Between represents another, and in a sense could be considered something like "the blessed beyond" for those granted her grace. It also explains how those like the Tarnished could be cast out and only permitted back once she returned the vision of grace to them.

Hathor's attributes as a mother goddess were exalted - it was she who gave birth to gods, shaped animals and people, and brought greenery into existence. Hathor repelled the shadows and illuminated all creatures with her light. The inundation of the Nile happened on her command, and the winds drew near on her orders.

Quite a literal parallel to both her removal of Destined Death and sealing away of the Land of Shadow, also bringing light to the land in the form of the golden shine of the Erdtree.

In one Egyptian tale, Hathor was charged by Ra to punish humankind. So great was the slaughter that Ra feared people would be wiped out, and ordered the goddess to halt. But blood-mad, she ignored him. These two aspects of Hathor - violent and dangerous versus beautiful and joyful - reflected the Egyptian belief that women, as the Egyptologist Carolyn Graves-Brown puts it, "encompassed both extreme passions of fury and love."

I hadn't expected to find something like this when first reading about Hathor but obviously this is reminiscent to how Marika lead her genocidal wars.

Hathor Sources [x]

Conclusion

This is all I plan to cover but there's a lot more I could have such as Apophis; gold, silver, and ivory; hair, braids, knots, and power; and so much more. But this is already super long so I encourage anyone interested to take a stab at looking into it yourself if you're curious. If you made it to the end, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts!

[radabeast]

Before people say anything about bloodborne not having anything to do with women in the slightest I'm going to need them to an intense read up on medical history and then read Simone du Beauvoir's 'The Second Sex' and then like. everything else by Beauvoir, if you have not already, as a MINIMAL baseline. very, very bare bones reading, but it should be enough if you actually want to engage with discussions regarding the treatment of women in medical instituitions and the supposed ideal of the 'perfect, true female body' in actual good faith. (please take note... this is working off of the understanding that gender is not ontological and is not grounded in anything real. there is no reality to the idealised woman under the patriarchy, and there is no worth in defending it because it can only harm and makes no fucking sense. thank you)

Even if you do not think the subtext was intentional (which it very much is, i don't typically like stating 'if you want to understand the story watch this youtuber!' but charred thermos on yt delves into the inspirations behind hemwick charnel lane and that is proof enough that the writers did give a shit about the unique position of women in the world of medicine and religion. also he has multitudes more knowledge on 18th century european medicine as told in art than i do), that does not deny the fact that it can still be read in that lens and it makes bloodborne much more rounded out and meaningful in our current social climate. it is impossible to make a complete work of art about medical and religious institutions and the abuse they have enacted for years without engaging in discussions about how oppressed groups were treated by these institutions.

there is implicit reference to the treatment of 'foreigners' in these medical systems. notice how the patients in maria's lab, those who are not put in 'better conditions' (e.g. adeline) speak in a distinctly different accent/cadence than most other characters you find. you are explicitly hit with xenophobia by the first few doors you knock on aside from gilbert's. this game is not 'vague', it is very, very allegorical and referential.

there are very good references to the idealisation of the 'woman', and how this construct works in reality, that i cannot think of it being anything but a discussion of this very concept and showing the truth behind it. a confusing part of sexism can be the utter difference between the treatment towards pregnancy versus the treatment towards women. it is, in truth, not a 'mistake' in the system, but rather an intentional facet. the woman is not substantial but a concept to be maintained for the sake of other ideologies like purity, heritage, and legacy (which is why the concept of 'womanhood' is so heavily disputed and even denied to those who you think should fit into it by these rules. it is simply plain bullshit). in the patriarchy the concept of the woman is divine, but the 'substantial' woman is believed to be dirtied by the nature of her existence. this is why we can abuse women's bodies while at the same time worship pregnancy; pregnancy is her saving grace in the system's eyes. this is what happens to queen yharnam, to arianna, and to get the point across even further so unbelievably clearly, this is what happens to kos. once a living god, an extraterrastial being that is the root of worship still now. in stark contrast to the immense pedestal she is placed upon, her physical body was discarded, maimed and brutalised for the sake of cutting her apart and taking out what was inside of her; her stillborn.

this is where we see the contrast between the worship of the conceptual woman versus. the treatment of the 'real' woman who has had this concept forced on her and what has been determined to be her physical body. the physical body of the determined woman will never meet the standard of the conceptual woman, because that is what it is; a false truth, an idealisation, and something to control, to detain. kos is trampled in death, her body is a tool, despite the passionate worship she received then and receives now. she is revered as a 'mother' yet at the same time it is this status and its claimed actualisation that allowed for them to dismantle and abandon her corpse. you hear her name praised and called upon for knowledge, yet when you find her, she is a pitiable corpse, blending in with the grey sand beneath her. the worship done in the name of the divine, holy, mythological 'female body' is not done in spite of the treatment of the supposed real woman. it is done in tandem.

[radabeast]

Why Aren't The Hornsent NPCs Named? An Essay On The Challenge for Compassion

So easy answer. Neither our pal in the Miquella Brigade nor the Grandam actually tell their names to us. Case closed!

No no no but more like, why didn't the DEVELOPERS choose to let us know them by name? A whole chunk of The Point is that the hornsent are people too, right? So why would we not even get to know our two (mostly just one, even, as you're not likely to even find grandam) hornsent ambassadors' actual names?

Fromsoft did something similar to this in Armored Core 6 just recently. That game is PLAINLY all about the horrors of capitalism, colonization and war, albeit almost all of your time is spent not with the resistance, but with the companies trying to tear the planet apart for fuel. Your protag's motivations aside, the RLF, Rubicon Liberation Front, are hardly given any narrative ambassadors to you at all; your Rubiconian partner pleads with your on some occasions, but otherwise the emphasis is elsewhere. Their liaison with their organization isn't even named. You don't even get to MEET most of their ranks until the secret third route, and even then, half the time that's just when you're fighting against said individuals as opponents. So...

Fromsoft is unique in that they often don't spoon-feed you "this is right" and "this is wrong". By no means do they ever seem to say colonization and slaughter is correct, and in fact the very crux of the plot is in grappling with the justifications. BUT, you are placed directly in the role of the oppressors' side. All around you are people you will grow to respect, and fight alongside, and they will also help you tear down this planet if you choose that route. You do, very much so, have to FIGHT and CHOOSE to aid the people of Rubicon, even if it hurts. Even if it means fighting, abandoning and even killing the people who have been by your side. And I think that's much more realistic to many real-life experiences than just "starting out on the right side".

Back to Elden RIng and the hornsent, though. Grandam is found only under very specific circumstances, within a single location, and within a small time window of the game. You step out of that window? You lose her completely, including the lore she had, and the means with which to understand better the hornsent. Why? Why would Fromsoft even implement her, if it's that hard to even reach her words?

And again, I think it's... realistic. You, the Tarnished, are a human along Marika's progeny, barring your own personal character lore. You are a human and you are part of the race that had slaughtered the hornsent. Of COURSE the hornsent themselves aren't going to trust you, spoonfeed you WHY you should care about them. Shouldn't you care already about the pain and suffering of others? Why WOULDN'T you? If it's that hard to come to grips with the horrors Your Kind caused, then maybe you're no better.

And I think. The story wants to challenge you like that, past gameplay, past feeding you their intent directly. You have to SEEK OUT the answers and THINK. Is it truly justified to slaughter a whole race? Was this truly right? Should I think of these individuals as people, or as monsters?

Hornsent (NPC) is also a very interesting choice. Not only is he the only hornsent you're actually likely to find and speak with, but he actively hates your guts. Soon as the charm is off, even, he's back on his path of vengeance. He says time and time again, he's nothing more than this mission to Get Back on those responsible. Wouldn't the devs want to make you weep for someone far more pitiable, far more palatable?

Well, if you bother paying attention to him enough, and aid the man in his questline, you'll understand then that he's someone who lost his whole family to Messmer's crusades. Mother, wife, child, in addition of course to the innumerable others slaughtered. Is that not enough to want all-consuming vengeance? Wouldn't YOU want people dead because of that? Regardless, even, of whether or not he was even a perpetrator of the original jar slaughters (and I've seen enough feasible evidence against that)... Is he not pitiable enough for that alone?

To you, he is just a Hornsent. To he himself, the man is a Hornsent, likely a title he wears both in defiance, as well as the only scrap of identity he has left. His people were killed because they were Hornsent. His family was killed because they were Hornsent. Would you even ever see him as anything else? Would it matter, even, if he HIMSELF has nothing else?

And, clearly, if you've been seeing anything anywhere in the fan discussions: this challenge to Think is lost on many people. Some people, somewhat understandably, take these aspects as Fromsoft caring little about the hornsent at all, and claiming them as The Original Evils within their own story. Others don't even bother to take anything not fed to them, and claim that the slaughter of hornsent was duly justified, and that this is undeniably supported within the game. But even barring the consistent themes of dichotomies, dualities, and the cycles of abuse ever-present throughout the game-- yeah, I'd say a good deal of reflection could and should be found in the self, first. Who are YOU when challenged for this compassion, first?

[radabeast]

Miquella and Trina; A Tragedy

Hey Tumblr. I have a lot of thoughts about Shadow of the Erdtree, and these ones... let's just say I don't think they'd do well on Reddit. It's not often that I feel particularly impacted by a particular fictional character. Usually I connect more with narrative arcs and themes, which is why I think I'm so drawn to the ephemeral, vibes based storytelling of Fromsoft's games. Playing through SOTE, though, I found Miquella (and St Trina) to be extremely emotionally compelling and relatable, and I wasn't sure exactly why. I think I've put my finger on it now though. First of all, know that I am writing from the perspective that Miquella is a sympathetic character. I know that it's not uncommon to read him as a manipulative Machiavellian villain, but I think that's both a misreading of the text as well as just plain boring. Like, he's not a Griffith clone you guys, give From some credit. Anyway, here we go.

"You have no understanding. Of Miquella the Kind. Of St. Trina's Love.

Content Warning: I'll be discussing themes of depression, and the implication of suicidal ideation.

So, a classic Fromsoftware theme is despair, and the ways we cope with a world full of it. It shows up twice in Shadow of the Erdtree; with Midra and the Frenzied Flame, where despair leads to a selfish nihilism that asks us to burn everything down, and with Thiollier and St Trina, who offer sleep as a comfort to the weary. Running a small errand for Thiollier has him say the following.

"If you find yourself… weary of the weight of this life, then just give me the word. Sleep is a balm, and eternal sleep… is an elixir."

Drinking the elixir he offers will, of course, result in an instant death. This is our first encounter with the idea of "Eternal Sleep," a more potent form of the sleep status effect that only appears here in the Shadowlands, after St Trina has been abandoned. The Velvet Sword of St. Trina tells us as much: "Silver sword of St. Trina, now stained the color of velvet. Inflicts eternal sleep. When St. Trina was abandoned, the faint, light-purple mists coalesced into an intoxicating deep-purple cloud." In order to ascend to godhood, Miquella abandons first his physical body, and then the more abstract aspects of himself. As we begin to descend down the fissure where we'll find Trina, a cross marks the spot as the place where Miquella abandoned his love. This connects Trina, "the discarded half" as Thiollier puts it, with Miquella's love. Leda confirms this in her own dialogue:

"St. Trina's love for Kind Miquella is boundless. She is, after all, his other half. Or perhaps her feelings go beyond even that. Even if she was left behind, I doubt her heart would waver."

Keep that in mind, it'll be relevant later.

Near the cross, a spirit offers up some of the most heartbreaking dialogue I've come across so far. The spirit gives us a bigger picture of Miquella's goals:

"Kindly Miquella... I see you've thrown away... something you should not have. Under any circumstances. How will you salvation offer... to those who cannot be saved? When you could not even save your other self?"

I teared up at this. The emotional impacted was aided by the fact that I ran into the spirit right after telling Moore to put his past behind him, leading him to rededicate himself to Miquella. He says:

"Hm. Maybe that’s Kindly Miquella’s love. Love for all the unloved. Love, to banish the pain."

Note here that Moore suggest Miquella's love will "banish the pain." This is also essentially what Trina's sleep does. It's a comfort to those in need. Anyway, between these two instances, we end up with a pretty good picture of the sort of god Miquella wants to become. He was already sympathetic to the outcasts of The Lands Between in the basegame, where he built Elphael and the Haligtree as a haven for those rejected by the Golden Order, such as the Albinaurics and Misbegotten we find there. In the Shadowlands, he has gone a step further. Hornsent tells us that he has committed himself, in essence, to righting Marika's wrongs.

"Miquella has said as much himself – he wishes now to throw it all away. He says the act – though undoubtedly painful – will sear clean the Erdtree’s wanton sin. The truth of his claim can be found at each cross. 'Tis evidence enough to earn my belief."

Of all of Marika's children, Miquella is the only one to see the serious flaws in her empire. Ymir points this out to us as well.

"No matter our efforts, if the roots are rotten, then we have little recourse. Ever-Young Miquella saw things for what they were. He knew his bloodline was tainted, his roots mired in madness. A tragedy if there ever was one. That he would feel compelled to renounce everything when the blame lay squarely with the mother."

My thinking here is aligned with Mother Ymir. You really have to feel for Miquella; he has essentially taken on, alone, the responsibility of making up for centuries of Golden Order imperialism. That's a massive burden to bear, especially for Miquella, cursed with eternal childhood.

(It's easy to miss, but Miquella actually ages up significantly when we see him in god-form. Until he steps back through the Divine Gate, he would have looked and sounded like he does in the introductory art and in ending memory scene. Compare those with how he appears in the boss fight, and it's clear godhood at least helped him reach puberty lol) So we've established that Miquella is the child of Imperial Rome on Steroids, is cursed with eternal childhood, and is an empathetic prodigy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Surely his mental state is perfectly healthy, right? Right??

Final warning, this is where things get quite sad. Here is where I will try to tie Miquella's arc together with Thiollier and St Trina, and the comforting oblivion and relief from despair that sleep represents for them.

As we search for St Trina, we descend down into the Stone Coffin Fissure. This is a place of death, with massive coffins built into the fissure walls, and Gravebirds, Bloodfiends and Putrescent enemies everywhere. St Trina is found at the deepest possible pit of this fissure, in a swamp of putrescence that has since blossomed into a garden of deep velvet lilies because of her influence. Trina offers us nectar of "eternal sleep," as Thiollier did previously, and as established then, "eternal sleep" is essentially nothing more than a peaceful death. Trina seems to fit in quite well in this place of ancient dead things, with some of the ancient remains even being compelled to fight for her in exchange for eternal rest, becoming the Putrescent Knight.

(Side note for levity because we're about to get sad again; I love this guy. It's a knight made out of the skeleton of a horse, riding on that same horse's decaying flesh goop body. Like, ugh. Beautiful. Plus, it may even have taken that shape because of Trina sharing Miquella's memories of Radahn, who was never far from his horse Leonard...)

We meet St Trina in her garden, and when we imbibe her nectar, we eventually begin to hear her voice in our death-dreams. She seems to pity him. Mourn for him, almost.

"Make Miquella stop... Don't turn the poor thing into a god..."

Trina appears to be in a bad state after her fall. She can only manage to get a few words across to us at once. Just as Leda predicted, her heart hasn't wavered. She is only concerned with Miquella's well-being.

"Godhood would be Miquella's prison. A caged divinity... is beyond saving."

Trina's most pressing concern is that godhood will be a prison for Miquella. Now, this could in theory be because gods are subject to manipulation from the Fingers and the Greater Will or a similar reason, but given that she calls him a "poor thing," I think there is likely a more emotional reason behind Trina's plea. I think that Trina is speaking as the embodiment of Miquella's love, but especially his ability to love and care for himself...

"You must kill Miquella... Grant him forgiveness."

...and she asks us to kill him.

In excising Trina from his being, I think Miquella also expelled the part of himself that was able to recognize how miserable divinity would be for him, and how miserable he was. The part of him that was tired of carrying the responsibilities that his compassion demanded of him. The part of him that was exhausted, despairing and desperate from having failed to cure Malenia, failed to save Godwyn, failed to perfect the Haligtree. St Trina is the part of Miquella that wanted to be stopped, to rest, to sleep, to die. In abandoning her as he does, Miquella is essentially repressing those thoughts and feelings, replacing them with more "selfless" ones; self-sacrifice, suffering on behalf of others, his martyrdom and apotheosis. I don't want to forget about "grant him forgiveness" either. She might mean forgiveness for failing to become a god, for not being good enough to succeed Marika and right her wrings. Maybe forgiveness for failing Malenia and Godwyn, or for leaving the Haligtree behind. Maybe even for abandoning her. But on the road to godhood, Miquella can't afford to indulge in this sort of self-pity. A child craves forgiveness and approval, a god must cast these things out.

"I'm feeling rather lost. Haunted by memories. Of St. Trina. Her visage. Her scent. The lure of velvety sleep. Would Kindly Miquella chasten me? For falling for St. Trina, while knowing that she was the discarded half? The problem is… I simply cannot help it. I would sacrifice everything, just to gaze upon her, one last time."

I want to mention Thiollier one more time here too. His primary visual motif is the long white braids that he wears on his clothes, reminiscent of Miquella and Trina's own signature braids (remember, she looked like an older feminine Miquella before her fall and injury). Thiollier is obsessed with Trina, pursuing her to hear her voice and fade into the comfort of her velvet sleep, though this doesn't kill him like it does us. I don't think Thiollier is connected to Miquella in any textual way, but I think he does serve as a reflection of the sorts of thoughts Miquella may have been surpressing. The self-pity, the need for approval and love, the feelings of weakness and uselessness. These are the things that lead Thiollier to pursue endless slumber.

Thiollier doesn't give in to that despair, however. Though he initially takes St. Trina's words... poorly, he eventually realizes what must be done, and dedicates himself to his new purpose: carrying out her final wish.

"I am here to serve St. Trina evermore. I am deeply sorry. For doubting you. I am here only to grant St. Trina's singular wish. I will stop Miquella the kind. He will never become a god."

This post is already quite long, but I also want to mention the obvious gender stuff going on here. There are a number of moments that make it seem as though St. Trina might actually be more than just "half" of Miquella. Firstly, as she is shown falling in the story trailer, Leda is describing how Miquella abandoned his fate, as if Trina had a vital role to play in Miquella's future. It also seems as though Trina isn't cursed in the same way that Miquella is; her voice and size indicate that she is at least more substantial than his "infant form," and she is depicted in "adult form, somewhat unnervingly" on the Torch of St. Trina. Furthermore, her "adult form" has a third eye in the middle of her forehead. The third eye is a symbol of enlightenment in both Hinduism and Buddhism; it seems that Trina has achieved some level of wholeness in this depiction. Meanwhile, when Miquella achieves godhood, his eyes remain permanently shut. He also appears to have only one physical arm. He holds Radahn with two incorporeal arms while casting with his real right arm, but his left arm appears to fade away to nothing before the elbow, as if unfinished. Miquella's blindness and asymmetry here, I think, reflect how unbalanced and incomplete his divinity is without Trina.

One more hint towards St Trina being a part of Miquella's future lies way back at the Haligtree. In Malenia's bossroom, just above where Miquella's cocoon was once embedded into the tree, the branches and roots appear to form a silhouette. This could be Miquella, Trina, or both, but I do see a certain resemblance to Trina's depiction on the torch in the way the "hair" covers the eyes. Given that Miquella's body appears to have grown a decent amount inside of the cocoon when we see in at Mohg's palace, it's possible that the cocoon situation was his original attempt to cure himself of his own curse, or perhaps become a part of the Haligtree itself. In the Shaman Village, Marika's home, there is a similar scene. A woman's body that resembles Marika seemingly mummified within the hollow of a tree. I honestly have no idea what to make of that just yet, but I thought it worth a mention.

So, with all that in mind, abandoning Trina seems to be even more significant. Not only has Miquella divested himself of his love and his fate, but maybe even his future, too. Being eternally nascent, he is always in a state of potential, after all. Am I suggesting that Miquella is a transfeminine character? That he was meant to grow up to become a goddess in the aspect of St. Trina, or maybe even more like Marika than he already is? Well, maybe. If you find it compelling, then absolutely. Fromsoftware's storytelling is always ambiguous, and is always design to leave us some room to read and interpret, to really play in the space we are given. Personally, I do find it compelling in a horribly tragic sort of way, fitting for the setting. It's also entirely possible that I have rather self-indulgently projected some of my own angst onto these character. I likely have, to be perfectly honest. It's rare that I really connect with a set of characters or a story like I have with this lot, and I hope that maybe some of you reading this will feel similarly. If you have read this far, thanks <3

[radabeast]

My Analysis on Count Ymir and Metyr

This is my personal analysis on the lore and plot as a whole, Carians vs other sorcerers, an Ymir character study, a Metyr study, and my take on it in regards to gender and deeper themes and motifs. (From a positive lens)

I've made a post on sorcerers and their downfalls prior to this and it is still extremely important to look at the differences between sorcerers who go too far like Sellen, Azur, Lusat, and graven masses as a whole vs Ymir. Because Ymir is most closely related to Rennala, literally and narratively. They are both Carians and experience "corruption" via a similar outlet.

Sellen, and the others who looked into the primeval current, only craved knowledge. They were far more detached from the beauty and divinity of everything around them and aimed to know too much. Graven masses are students who go too far. Even Thopps somehow dies from studying too hard. This happens because of their own actions. We don't kill or fight them.

There's one thing that is consistent with all Carians. Their downfall is their hearts. Ranni makes this so clear with her poorly veiled attempts at avoiding attachment with our tarnished. She tells us to tell Blaidd and Iji how much she loves them. She is detached because she knows she must be but she is terrible at hiding that she still has a heart. Rennala was consumed with grief and loss after the golden order presumably caused her and Marika (Radagon) to miscarry as well as forcing the love of her life away from her. She also loses all of her children to their own ambitions (they move out and do their own thing) Regardless, she is a husk because of love. Rellana abandoned her home to chase after love which was likely unrequited and still she forged swords of matrimony that she wields alone until her death, ever loyal to protecting the man she fell for. Rennala understood Relanna was chasing what her heart desired and sanctioned it. This is just a known fact about Carians. They get it. Their downfall is not knowledge but succumbing to love.

We know that prior to his involvement with finger sorceries Ymir was far more of a romantic than other sorcerers. Beloved Stardust's description is from a recitation he gave as a teacher to the Carians and it states that "One need only envision the romance of the stars above with adoration for stardust in one's heart to become a greater sorcerer. Do so, and you will know love."

He tells us it's only natural to want power and the truth but to no extent is this like Sellen's quest. He is not asking us to enable him like she is. Yes, he moved on from his studying of the moon, but it was not the same way she did. She wants to unravel it all and lay it bare, pick it apart. She is also driven to understand the elden ring which is very golden order centric. (want to be clear. I love Sellen)

She wants to dissect the life in the stars. Ymir wants to appreciate it's beauty. It is a clear clinical vs whimsical, both to negative extent. Sellian vs Carian.

We have no way of knowing his history in the lands between. He looks extremely similar to the figure on the Carian inverted statue and also has ties to Miriam, but that's all we can know for a fact. We also know for a fact that there are fingercreepers in both the gardens of Caria Manor and the flipped elevator of the Carian Study Hall.

I saw someone suggest recently that these were here as original assassins of the greater will to thwart Ranni back when the Greater Will still spoke to Metyr. I do like this. I believe the fingers were there for a very long time trying to accomplish something. Further I would suggest this is where Ymir first began to question them as he was no doubt in at least one of these Carian locations pre move to the Lands of Shadow.

We also don't know his early history in the lands of shadow aside from him teaching Rellana which he likely also did in the Lands Between. It seems clear Rellana brought a few Carians with her (the handful of white robed sorcerers, Moonthryll, and her teacher Ymir)

But we can come to two possible ideas from Manus Metyr and both give us a similar end point.

A. he had his own family and a child named Yuri who died very young and was buried in the graveyard, perhaps the only family he brought with him when he left everything and moved there.

B. Yuri was always just the fingercreeper and the fact that we can read the grave pre-quest is an error. (odd but still completely possible) Edit: OR this implies he has been continuously trying to birth the same fingercreeper over and over. The original fingercreeper child that he came to love dearly that never lived long being the main grave and the others all potentially being the additional failed attempts

Later on, during his research into the fingercreepers/two fingers he learns everything he knows in present day Elden Ring, becoming a high priest of Metyr and learning many of her spells. It is also during this time that he seems to beg Metyr/The Greater Will, to allow himself to birth fingers of his own.

This can be interpreted two ways as well. And we'll go in order from our last A and Bs.

A. He loses his only child in the land of shadow and is aware of Metyrs abilities. The GW (Or Metyr?) takes pity on him and shares power with him, allowing him to birth the fingercreeper Yuri. It is up for interpretation whether Yuri actually has the soul of his lost child in it or if Ymir is just so thankful for this new child that he projects his dead son onto him. I don't think there's any emotional distinction here.

B. He wishes to become the new envoy of the greater will from the start and is given one singular child, again, likely out of desire for connection, pity, or perhaps pettiness of Metyr. (i'll come back to this). Through this he inevitably comes to love Yuri because obviously he is going to love his first child more than life itself.

As i said, the end point is the same. He is a Carian. He loves too fiercely. His original goals are pushed aside by the love he has for Yuri. In private he only talks about Yuri. He doesn't muse on and on about clinical knowledge or his desire to replace a god. He does not speak with any hint of madness, just utter devotion that I could see being seen as unhealthy. (i don't interpret it this way at this point but i get it. Just remember he is someone who is nearly completely alone in the land of shadow who has potentially experienced loss of severe magnitude before)

I also think that what we overhear at Yuri's grave sounds completely normal for grief. He wishes to be left alone and when he talks to Yuri he talks about only wanting to be his mother. He laments failing and promises to try again for him. This also lends to the idea that he believes there is a singular soul being moved around.

He only talks about Yuri. He isn't talking about replacing Metry and these are his most private thoughts.

I have seen theories that suggest he did not birth Yuri himself and perhaps stole him. His dialogue in private heavily implies he birthed him himself. As well as his unaltered robes which say they conceal an abundance of squirming beneath. So he had those fingers under there the whole time, definitely not as large and efficient as the ones during his boss fight, but they were there... and they were functioning.

I also don't think he ever comes off as this delusional? that might just be me but everything he says and everything Jolán says about him contradicts this. If there's any delusion it's the denial that comes with grief where he could believe his child's soul is in the baby fingercreeper.

But back to his quest- when we meet him he knows that the fingers that told Marika what to do were corrupt because Metyr is corrupt. He is exclusively blaming Metyr for this source of sickness. (this is an instance of him being a not fully educated narrator. He is slightly right, but needs to go further, a further we only learn from item descriptions where we learn the GW no longer wants a finger mother* i'll get back to this. But also THIS IS SO IMPORTANT WE LITERALLY LEARN THAT THE LANDS BETWEEN LOST THE PLOT AND THE FINGERS AND ANY ENDING THAT FOLLOWS THEM IS WRONG)

I believe at this point he thinks he birthed Yuri through the powers of the greater will and himself exclusively. I don't think he believes Metyr was involved because he knows Metyr is sick. He thinks the GW still wants a finger mother to send new messages.

We do his quest, we bind ourselves to our fate in the stars and of course that fate leads us to slay another remembrance boss. We need to clean up all the failed ideas of the GW so they aren't sticking around and causing trouble. Classic tarnished shit. iykyk.

So why is Ymir hurt by this? Irreparably? (1 and 2 can exist together still. they are not exclusively one or the other)

He had pushed aside this loftier goal and was still grieving for Yuri and only wanted to be his mother. The mother of one child. (To me that feels like it isn't taking it far enough. I do think he firmly believes he can do it better still. He hasn't realized the full truth. I just don't think this is at the forefront of his mind at this moment)

He did not know that the GW had no need for Metyr any longer and that she had been broken and abandoned. He merely thought she was corrupted. So when he is possessed BY Metyr this is awful. He wanted to be a new mother. Not the same one.

Okay now it's time for me to talk about Metyr in greater detail

The Staff of the Great Beyond says Metyr was broken and abandoned but still kept waiting for messages. This is also what the spell fleeting microcosm says which is likely referring to both Ymir and Metyr at this point since it is a spell that can be purchased from him as well as one Metyr uses, going on to say "The broken and discarded are fully willing to cling to fleeting simulacra, earning them some modicum of sympathy" He is a clearly broken person who thought he was grasping the GW's truth but wasn't and Metyr was clinging to her old life hoping for it to come back and for her to have purpose again despite being abandoned by her own mother. Metyr is unique and incredibly complicated which is interesting because her closest equivalent is the Elden Beast and other falling stars. Her items make it clear she had complex feelings- anger, grief, loneliness, resentment, loyalty. She WAS the magnificent gleaming daughter of the Greater Will. She was once loved and she knows that. Her other remembrance weapon is called Gazing Finger, but it's the name of its move that tells us the most about her. Kowtower's Resentment. She showed unwavering respect to the GW but she grew to resent it. We learn so much about her that only further ties into the overall themes of motherhood in Elden Ring. Imagine how Metyr must feel. Aside from the brewing hate inside her caused by the GW directly TOO her she is also forced to watch her children either grow increasingly more and more corrupt over time or slain. She knows her children aren't going into the world to be loved any longer. She knows she's sending them off to a terrible fate and still she must do it. Her children are purposeless. When we tie our fate to the stars- the great cosmic will- the new plan, it brings us there and it prompts us to kill Metyr and clean up its loose ends. But instead of letting herself be killed outright or leaving the lands between/shadow, she goes somewhere else because she is angry. She wants to be loved and needed. She is desperate to receive messages again. She wants to prove herself. We can say for certain that it is Metyr that possess Ymir in our fight because the GW has no desire to make a new mother of fingers and Metyr had already been lending him her power. There is only one and we clearly don't kill all of her at first. Is this her last effort to best the GW or merely her defiance to continue on living? Waiting to be of use again? Alas, we kill Ymir as well. ALSO- just mentioned Metyr to my wife and she said "Yeah Metyr is so similar to Messmer" and I literally said OH FUCK. YEAH! So let's touch on that: Both of them are abandoned by their mother, trapped somewhere, enacting her original design, spreading her original message all while never hearing from her ever again and still remaining fiercely loyal to the end.

Now back to Ymir and Metyr

Was Metyr sharing her powers with him out of loneliness or spite or simply curiosity?

It's definitely something that's up for personal interpretation.

Did she long to be understood? To share what she was going through with someone else? Was she trying to show him that it wasn't her that was broken?

Did she resent him for blaming her? Or did she herself think she was to blame? Did she share her grief with him out of spite? Making him too experience loss via Yuri?

Or did she also have a bit of hope that maybe through a new vessel she would be seen again by the GW? Maybe her children wouldn't be cursed.

She certainly shared quite a lot with Ymir for it to be out of spite and their items and spells mimicking each other in descriptions really makes it feel like she wanted him to understand her. Both of their staffs show a microcosm but receive no answer

On to Ymir boss fight speculation/ theory

We have our ideas on why Ymir was hurt and upset by us fighting Metyr. Him taking on her corruption and learning GW truths as well as his own grief already being too forefront. But I wonder if when Metyr possessed Ymir he took on her grief and loneliness as well. Would he be able to cope with her literal cosmic scale of loss and heartache? Being misunderstood? Being abandoned by her own mother? I think it's a really interesting foil to have Sellen and co. destroyed and driven to insanity by knowledge and Ymir driven to insanity by grief and love. It makes the tear streaked makeup on his boss model hit a lot harder that way and feel far more intentional as tears which is what the dripping black really evokes (despite is being part of the tattoo category of character creation which is definitely just character creator limitation)

When we fight Ymir he also has a really effective voice inflection change as well. Props to his voice actor for almost making him sound completely different and just gone.

But yeah it feels clear that his fight is the built up madness of both him and Metyr's greatest desires manifested. They're consumed by loss and anger and a desire to be wanted and seen in the eyes of the greater will. They both want to receive messages and be The Mother.

Then we get his normal voice when we kill him where all he can think of is Yuri again and wanting to be his mother. He isn't thinking about being THE mother. Literally just Yuri. What is most important to him. The true Ymir. And of course, it's similar to Rennala's true voice coming through when we beat her, speaking about her beloved daughter, just HER daughter, not the sweetings.

I truly don't think he was as insane or gone as people think he was in nearly the entirety of his quest. and I honestly just think people default to saying "oh he's insane and delusional and freaky" because he is a "man" who is a mother.

okay thank god i can finally get into the gender of all this.

What do we know about Ymir in regards to gender?

Names are intentionally chosen in fromsoft games. Ymir was a norse giant who, though using masculine pronouns, was considered neither male nor female because he could birth children of his own.

He is named after an agender mythological figure who also has a moon named after him.

So we can read into Ymir being agender. He uses masculine pronouns, wears headwear that is strictly feminine, very neutral royal attire (we don't know enough about Carian clothing to have an opinion on the robe, gloves, or pants), a little makeup, and has no hang ups on being able to be a mother.

I, as someone who is nonbinary, have my own unique connection to him as a character that makes me really like this about him. In my brain gender means nothing which separates me from my trans wife where gender and expression mean everything. I have never had a mental connection to gender. I have presented many ways in my life since coming out. My outward appearance does not dictate my relationship to gender nor what I can do. In fact I think about gender very little.

Motherhood not being synonymous with female pronouns here is cool to me as well. it is nice gender non-essentialism.

But if we get into Elden Ring as being about women and the feminine divine as a whole, we can also read into him differently.

I've seen many people tag him as being trans to them! And I like that just as much.

He studies the fingers which are exclusively ruled by women. Metyr is their mother, finger readers are all women, then of course finger maidens. Even further, Metyr is a daughter of the GW. He says we ALL are her children. The GW is the original mother of all things. The creator of all life because she created stardust and to study the stars is to study the life in all things. Nearly all societies in ER are led by women. There is an innate power in womanhood in ER.

He gazed into the stars with adoration in his heart and knew true love. He felt loved amidst that divinity and sought to follow that path for himself. He embraced something that meant everything to him body and soul. He underwent true physical change for it. And with Yuri he was happy.

And of course, as all soulsborne games, it has to be tragic for us to see beauty in it, so he, just like nearly everyone else we know, faces a terrible end because of the fate of our tarnished and the GW's goal. He isn't a villain because he has a unique relationship with gender and it is kinda wild i've seen someone say that.

My additional thought on this is that it feels unnecessarily detailed for his robe description to talk about the ruff that "sparkles like a flower wet with dew" We really only get two other characters specifically connected to flowers and that's Malenia and St.Trina. Both are related to feminine identity, divinity, and true self. Malenia becoming the Scarlet Aeonia, her true form as a goddess, and St. Trina literally being the woman Miquella was meant to become. A literal transition could have saved her narrative.

So yes, I can absolutely see people interpreting Ymir through a trans woman lens as well. I love that different people can identify with this character differently and see parts of themself here and if other people have different takes on this character's gender identity and it making them feel represented, that's great! I just can only talk on my personal take and the discussion i had about him with my wife.

Can I see why people wouldn't like him? Yeah, so long as it isn't based on a lack of knowledge of the plot, items, and dialogue, or based on extreme pre-existing biases. Because I have seen a bad take or two that boil down to this kind of misinformation which is really frustrating.

There is no evidence in the text that he is a bad person. Jolán respects and cares for him immensely. She doesn't reveal to us any actual feelings about Anna and this is all very vague. Yes Anna is a puppet but Nox are the only people we know of that did willingly become puppets. She is also a recusant which is interesting as well. Most invaders are just invaders. Recusants specifically are invaders with a job (recusant fingers only come from Rykard but are snake scaled so potentially also Eiglay? Base Serpent? She may have just served another master). There may also be a reason for this due to game function alone or there may be the narrative reason. We really can't know much about them as they are side, side characters. But them being Nox i think is telling. He was also clearly a very respected Carian sorcerer and was a teacher to Rellana. Textually, he is never portrayed negatively by others nor in his items.

Here are some final add-ons

that i don't want to complicate my earlier jumble with that whether important or not, are worth seeing. I just didn't know where to add them. Also I do not have a final interpretation of these things in the greater context:

An item I would like to touch on as well as an item that goes hand in hand with it (pun intended) is the spell Cherishing Fingers as well as Fingercreeper Ashes. Cherishing Fingers says "The dear fingers look after their mother, or perhaps that is merely what the mother wishes to believe." but Fingercreeper ashes says " They are ever so fond of their mothers at this tender age"

These two items kind of contradict each other, implying the fingers DO care about their mother. But the intentional doubt is interesting. Fingercreeper ashes, as well as Yuri being in his arms really makes it feel like they do care, but perhaps as they grow older they don't? Or this can help drive a "delusional" narrative. But fingercreeper ashes really make it seem like it goes both ways.

Also, Why are the ruins (Miyr) beneath Manus Metyr just an anagram for Ymir? Did he name them that? Did he name himself Ymir? Is it a cool coincidence that he pogged at when he found out? Is it just a random world building choice? This I literally cannot interpret.

I thought of the name change thing and that lead me to investigate every single rise on both maps to see if one could have been his but nothing seems likely. but on to Rabbath's rise

Anna's puppet body is there. Rabbath is a known sorcerer who was a spellmachinist. Being a machinist is very anti everything Ymir does and is into. Is Rabbath the person who designed the marionettes? That is a loose end we don't know the answer to and being a machinist is telling but this is extreme speculation. I saw someone suggest he and Ymir may have been either friends or rivals- both could give potential case for Ymir's puppet being there. Again. JUST speculative interpretations of this because we also do not know enough about Anna either. Rabbath also, like many other Rise owners, doesn't appear to be dead. Some Rises have a gravenmass in them which feels clear was the original owner. But Rabbaths is empty and something different about Rabbath's rise in comparison to most others is that all the candles in his rise are out. I don't know what this means. Why is Anna in a part of his rise that is only accessible from Shaman village? (would like to clarify that getting to shaman village isn't part of Ymir's quest. just a coincidence. The gesture for the area is in Bonny village- something important to Marika's story, not Ymir

OKAY ANYWAYS THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK!! If anyone stuck around for the whole thing I will be truly baffled but thank you if you did! Love Ymir with all my heart! if there are any typos or repetition please understand i really just kept going train of thought style here and its a lot to reread 4 times over to keep double checking as every time i got sidetracked.

i think if i ever come to new conclusions or discover new things i will reblog this with it added below. I would like this to be my definitive Ymir post