#through the ashes dlc

[daisymeade]

Boyfriends who just don't know it yet. 💚

[gwengoodrich]

With Shadow of the Erdtree out, the question must be asked:

Feel free to elaborate in the tags!

[rinriya]

i want to romance him so bad

[sinecosinewheel]

just found the ash lake in ds1 for the first time. god damn.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

OHH MY GODAKDJAODOFNWJDHWJ

[ustalav]

my enjoyment of playing cowards is not conducive to my desire to play video games

[loregoddess]

not to be jumping back to Octopath again, but I came across an actual explanation of temenos in the sense of how it was used originally as related to ancient Greek religion and the term suggests the use as a name is a bit more complicated than my "oh they basically named this dude Churchyard" handwaving of the writers' choice of names, but now I'm just sitting here with Thoughts and Feelings again

[vaugarde]

torn between being like “wow i hope project mew is resolved in gen 9 at least if they wont do it here” and also being like “dear god project mew is so boring please dont let that be the entire show”

[freshcut-chetney]

ngl I'm so glad I didn't finish wotr when it first came out, rediscovering it this month and finding out the final DLC that will be released in a few days is the commander hanging out/fighting evil with their companions has been the best

[bowl-of-fruit-loops]

I need to play fire emblem three houses again

[nuadha-airgeadlamh]

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."

[daisymeade]

Rekarth: "Oh, we're in for it now! See the fancy armor that corpse is wearing?" Rekarth points at the tarnished swords adorning the cadaver's imposing breastplate. "That's the local celebrity, one of the great generals of yore. Something's telling me he didn't rise from the grave to give us a tour of his favorite taverns. Our goose is cooked."

"It is done. Rest in peace, you valiant carcass."

Bringing this back since I finished replaying Through the Ashes today and love this bit in the graveyard. Rekarth is so funny.

[xxtc-96xx]

What are your Pokémon hot takes? (If this question hasn't been asked before)

I think charizard is over-hated instead of overrated

I think Diamond and Pearl are the real overrated generation games and BDSP made people mad because they don’t want to acknowledge that through nostalgia goggles and should have been demanding a platinum remake if they wanted it so badly

Gen Fivers are becoming the new “genwunners” with how much they claim it’s the best games despite hating them when they came out. Kalos needed the attention more because it only had two games getting shoved out the door while Black and White had four games and the ScVi second DLC being in Unova. I’ve also never seen an actual “genwunner” in the wild and only see people bitch about them lol

I like Pokemon Horizons and the new protagonists, I’m glad Ash was retired because they were running dry on ideas with him. Pokemon fans are never satisfied with how much they complained about Ash being around for 20 years but the moment he leaves they cry and whine about wanting Ash back

[wearepaladin]

I would like a second opinion on something, to get an internal gauge on my own biases from other people familiar with Soulsborne material. I kind of went on a tangent about this, so feel free to skip.

With the release of Shadow of the Erdtree, people have been comparing their favorite villains of the series and I’ve found myself looking in askance at people who call Marika Elden Ring’s villain. She’s certainly the most influential character in the story whose actions lead to the events our Tarnished find themselves in, and a legacy that created many of the enemies we face across the story, but also in turn has given us the means to be here and fight for how we decide the next step. We also never fight her directly, unless you count Radagon, but given that her other half is at cross purposes with her by strong implication, taking the form to combat us at the conclusion of the story. Given that I have no doubt Marika was equal or stronger than Radagon in matters of divine power or combat (the weapon he uses is explicitly her hammer after all), Radagon taking form after Marika being imprisoned/crucified says either Radagon was in agreement with The Elden Beast, The Beast chose the vessel of Radagon to do battle, or Marika, a deity with a history of war and at least one god (the fell god of the giants) bested personally just made her husbandsona fight us just because?

Don’t get me wrong, Marika can be attributed with many actions that would make her a villain in any story, genocide, oppression, conquest, etc. I just don’t see her as the villain/antagonist of our story, given that with both the guidance of grace and Melina, Marika’s daughter, is willing to go above and beyond to help us. The fact that we can continue to see grace even when Melina can choose to part ways with us permanently, and that we have so much freedom to do largely as we please, indicates that Marika might even be desperate enough to have us as her means of ensure death as her only means of release since either the destruction of her being (Ranni/Friendzied Flame) or the simple restoration of her fractured shell are the only consistent result across the endings.

I digress into the lore speculation: my point is that unlike the other prominent Soulsborne antagonists, Marika doesn’t invoke the same role as a villain in the story to me. Compared to a few prominent examples:

King Allant: Allant fulfills the category of villain and antagonist to us, given that he directly triggered the Demon Crisis of the story for out of nihilistic desire for mutual destruction, and we even face him twice, both as a demonic avatar and the corrupted remains of his physical being after we have nearly completely foiled his plans.

Lord Gwyn/Soul of Cinder: Probably the antagonist I have the strongest negative association for, since we’ve been dealing with the consequences of his actions throughout the trilogy and faced him in combat twice. And for me, as the story went from chapter to chapter, I tried to sympathize Gwyn, given that his physical portrayal is very paladinial and on the surface, trying to preserve the First Flame and all it represents. In our first battle with him, we even see the cost this has taken from him as he is essentially a hollow shell, a cinder of the former Lord of Sunlight. But as we progress through the series and learn more of the extent of his actions, Aldia’s description of him as the First Sinner, and the Ringed City dlc unveiling that the dark sign that forces humanity into undeath was his own creation, a literal brand upon our being, and that he still exists as the Soul of Cinder, his continued existence withering the world down to ash, burns away any desire to see him more than a villain.

Nashandra: Nashandra is a somewhat more traditional villain than many in this list as her motivations and methodology are something you could find in many stories, including Macbeth: The Wife of a powerful figure manipulates their partner into a position to either improve their power at the expense of others or to weaken them so their marital partner can betray and ascend at their expense, and Nashandra does both. Unlike other villains in this list, there is no grand metaphysical debate on the reason for her actions: she’s villain who wants power and utilized several methods to achieve it.

Aldia: Aldia is the other possible final boss of Dark Souls 2 and he’s certainly the more esoteric of the pair. In fact, like many things about Dark Souls 2, I consider him something of a prototype of concepts and characters we would later see in Elden Ring. Taking on the likeness of a bonfire and living in some undefinable state between life and death, Aldia made the plot of DS2 possible, given that he created the Emeral Herald who summoned us into the plot and his experiments and studies in the nature of the universe made the unique bubble of events and circumstances that Dark Souls 2 represents in the timeline, and largely I think if he did it intentionally it was so he could have someone to talk to about it. His role in the plot of the story reminds me of Marika, given that he’s doing much to help you achieve an ideal state, up to including other life forms to make it possible.

The Moon Presence: The most eldritch creature on this list, but hedges closer to Marika in their role on the plot given that its their influence that makes your success in the game possible, providing you with the Hunter’s Dream and the many benefits it provides, but like Marika we cannot ask it why it has done this, but unlike Marika we can choose to face it in combat by taking the correct path. In the more cosmic horror genre Bloodborne leans on, it’s less an antagonist and its existence is more along the lines of opening to a door to realize the eldritch truth you’ve accumulated is still the tip of the iceberg, and step through the door is be changed permanently and once more being rendered the least among creatures in the greater cosmos.

Laurence and Willem: Laurence is often brought up as the villain of Bloodborne, given a lot of what we face is due to him meddling with affairs man what was not meant to know, but he is not a ruling dominant force as a result, but trapped in microsm of the horror of the Bloodborne universe, being forced into a mindless burning husk of a monstrosity that only has enough awareness to be aware of what it has lost. His instructor Willem likewise has become a largely inert lump of flesh, his attempts at ascension turning him into a blind husk with eldritch growths. Both men had their own philosophy on how to achieve the Eldritch Truth, only to cause mass suffering and be rendered into husks of their former humanity, all their achievements to understand what should have never been disturbed making them ideal antagonists in a cosmic horror story because they are that horror turned upon humanity personified.

In other words, compared to these other characters and antagonists, Marika doesn’t fill the proper niche for me, and I worry that my own biases might be leading me to fail to see her as antagonist or villain. What do you think?

[silverselfshippingchaos]

oh my.

[foone]

one thing I like about Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye is how it relates to (some) player's perception of the main game's ending. (spoilers)

So the ending of the main game is about the end of all things. You can't stop the end coming, but you can help make what comes next. It's about accepting that the end is inevitable, and that fighting against that end is pointless. The player goes through the whole game hoping they'll find a way to save Timber Hearth, to save themselves and all their friends, and slowly realizes that it's not possible. The end cannot be stopped: I'm sorry, but the universe is winding down. All that's left is to let the next world grow from the ashes of this one.

Naturally, not everyone was happy with that concept. They wanted some way to save the world, to have a "good ending", to not have to deal with the sadness of the ending. They were upset with the game.

And then Echoes of the Eye comes along, and maybe some of those gamers thought this was like the DLCs for Mass Effect 3 and Fallout 3: Maybe this'll retcon the ending, and let us finally win, and let the Hearthians live?

And then... nope. The DLC is about a race who came to the solar system and the eye told them "THE UNIVERSE IS ABOUT TO DIE: LET'S CLOSE IT DOWN AND BUILD A NEW ONE!". And they were terrified and pissed. They shut off the message the eye was sending, they tried their best to forget that that was ever the situation they were in. They retreated into a fantasy world, ignoring the world burning around them. They nearly destroyed the multiverse by preventing the next big bang, because they didn't want their story to end.

It's only because of The Prisoner and The Hatchling's combined efforts that the Nomai came searching for The Eye, and The Hatchling was able to enter The Eye, and restart the universe.

The inhabitants of The Stranger had buried their heads in the sand up until the end of the universe, trying to ignore the reality of the coming end. The game makes it clear how foolish they were, and how close they came to destroying everything in their futile attempt to save themselves.

The DLC feels like it's in dialogue with those players who hated the main game's ending, and how there was no way to stop it. The DLC shows them a bunch of monsters in the dark, terrified of the first new thing to happen in 300,000 years, about to die as their spaceship falls apart under the strain as it attempts to avoid the supernova. They could have been the ones to usher in the new world, in their image. Instead they hid, and pretended nothing was happening. One of them tried to right this wrong by letting their story come to its natural conclusion, and they trapped that individual in a casket at the bottom of a lake, immortal but trapped in solitary confinement. They were just that scared of the story ending.

You meet The Prisoner and tell them of all that happened since their confinement. You tell them that their actions are the only reason you're there, why the Nomai came and tried to find The Eye, why you will be able to find The Eye. You bring that memory of The Prisoner into The Eye, and even as a memory they must apologize for their whole race, no matter how this turned out in the end. You reassure them that they did the right thing, and you step together into a new dawn.

The story of the DLC just feels like they had those who didn't like the main game's ending in mind when it was written.