#weve got to put our high school english classes to work somehow ok

[formerly-wraith-caller]

Rogier is a character that we meet early on in game, and probably one many of us think on fondly as he is perhaps the first NPC to help us out with one of our toughest battles. His pleasant and friendly demeanor left many players with the impression of a cheerful ray of sunshine in an otherwise melancholic, dreary, duplicitous, or outright hostile cast of characters.

This post seeks to disabuse you of that notion. "Wraith, you dumb bitch," I hear the doubters and the critics say, "not everything needs to be miserable and secretly tragic." And to you I say, welcome to FromSoftware, where yes, everyone dies and it hurts the whole time they're doing it.

🚨Spoilers Ahead🚨

I. A quick recap

The first place you can encounter Rogier is at a summons sign just outside Margit's boss fight. From there, you will meet him again in Stormveil at a church where he is one of a few NPCs that can't be killed. There is cut dialog of him reacting to a player attack, but in game, he's untouchable for some reason. I can only guess at why - perhaps since he is part of two different major storylines, the devs wanted you to be sure to hear what he has to say. After this meeting, you'll see him again at the Roundtable Hold. If you interact with him, he'll urge you to seek out Ranni, he'll tell you a bit about himself and why he's seeking her cursemark, a bit about D, and expound on some history of the Lands Between's most fateful night. Additionally, interacting with a specific bloodstain near the corpse will show you Rogier being deathblighted. Soon after entering Ranni's service, he will die.

II. Detachment and its implications Throughout his questline, Rogier maintains a mostly approachable demeanor. I say mostly, because the initial meeting is a little more standoffish and cautious, which is to be expected when infiltrating the castle of a Tarnished-butchering madman. In fact, Rogier takes a pretty sarcastic tone with us when he says

This place is bristling with Tarnished hunters, you know. They sacrifice our kind, for grafting. Not exactly a place I'd stroll into without a purpose in mind...

and a bit pessimistic/negative when he says

You can see it then, I take it? The guidance of grace. Well, enjoy it while you can.

This is primarily relevant as a counter to the assumption that he is a perfectly cheerful and perpetually friendly guy. Now, all this is not to say Rogier isn't friendly. He is, very much so. But I am of the mind that this isn’t due to any genuine, innate warmth. I do think Rogier is kind-hearted and compassionate, that he does want for friendship, that he is not secretly scheming against us. Instead I think that he is something of a people-pleaser, a liar, a bit of a manipulator, and that this is not done maliciously but as a sort of trauma response to his past.

"Dear god wraith," I hear you say, "not everyone is secretly traumatized." And I agree! But Rogier almost certainly is, and here's why. From his set:

Rogier spent his entire life behaving with utter detachment. No one noticed the anger, grief, regret, or fear that existed along with it.

Get very familiar with that description, because it's gonna be doing a lot of the heavy lifting in this post. So let's figure this out first: what is detachment and what does that have to do with trauma?

Emotional detachment refers to being disconnected or disengaged from the feelings of other people.

This can involve an inability or an unwillingness to get involved in the emotional lives of other people.

Emotional detachment can sometimes occur as a coping mechanism when people are faced with stressful or difficult situations. In other cases, it can be a symptom of a mental health condition.

Some things which may cause emotional detachment are abuse, neglect, trauma, mental illness, or certain medications. We can probably scratch out that last one, but the rest are all potential explanations. Given that Rogier's set specifies he has lived with this detachment “his entire life", I am inclined to believe that whatever adverse situation he was faced with, it began/occurred in childhood. It could have been abusive/neglectful parenting, some sort of violent/traumatic event he witnessed or was involved in as a kid, or the death of a close loved one such as a sibling or parent. Whatever it was, it was something formative that shaped who he is. How does this "utter detachment" manifest in Rogier's behavior throughout the game? After all, he seems perfectly friendly, and stays upbeat even as he's inching his way towards death! But that's just further evidence of his issues. At no point does he express any of this “anger, grief, regret, or fear” mentioned in his set, even as he’s dying in front of us. If anything, he brushes it off. You'd think someone who is slowly watching their body succumb to what the game itself refers to as a “gruesome fate” would have a bit of a stronger reaction. But no, in fact, he apologizes to us, a person he barely knows, about not being able to stand to greet us, saying:

I apologize for any offence given by my bearing, but I'm quite unable to move, you see. So. What do you need?

There’s also cut content which seems to be part of an encounter at Godwyn’s corpse wherein we meet a freshly injured Rogier. And here he has the same apologetic behavior in spite of his injuries, saying:

Well, this is a bit embarrassing, but things did not go quite as expected.

Not only does he give this astounding underreaction to having been impaled and blighted by deathroot, he doesn’t ask for any help, and is sooner moved to shame than terror over his deadly predicament. He deflects immediately to talk of his research, and informs us of how he’ll be returning to the Roundtable Hold. This is where we begin to see not just his lack of an emotional response to his own problems, but also a degree of people-pleasing behavior. It isn't enough for him to apologize for this imagined offense he's committed, he quickly turns the conversation away from himself. He doesn't doesn't seek out help, or even a little companionship in spite of the absolute horror he's been afflicted with. No, he instead asks after our needs, and continues to offer us lessons in sorcery and history.

The lack of reaction to whatever miseries befall him is seen throughout the rest of our interactions with him. The closest he gets to lamenting his fate is to warn us of Godwyn's corpse:

And...that thing is to blame for the shape I'm in now... I urge the utmost caution. Don't disturb the corpse more than necessary...

And that’s not what he starts off with when we ask him about the corpse, which you would think someone would do when having been injected with death by it. No, he delves into a history lecture instead, once again redirecting from the personal/emotional to the abstract/intellectual. His dialog is almost entirely comprised of his scholarly endeavors, which he has no issues discussing with us. We learn precious, precious little about Rogier himself, but those little bits which slip through paint a less than happy picture.

Take for instance the line, “I once wished to become a scholar.” He mentions spending hours in the archives doing research. What makes him think he isn’t one already? What made him give up on that goal, or stood between him and achieving it when he has shown such tenacity in the pursuit of answers? Remember the cut dialog mentioned in the recap, which would have played if he were slain by the Tarnished? He says on his death:

This is unfortunate. Couldn’t change a thing…

A bit of a reserved response to being murdered if you ask me! Instead of threats or rage, he laments his own inability to change anything, betraying a sense of dissatisfaction with himself. Then of course there is his split with D, who refers to him as “piteous”, and Fia’s mentioning of Rogier weeping when in bed with her. I wish I could say more on this, but essentially everything else Rogier says is about his research, not himself.

These things come together to form a picture of a person who may think very little of themselves. I’d even go so far as to call it self-loathing. We have the anger, grief, regret, and fear mentioned by his set, his disinterest in his own emotional state, his readiness to be of service to others, his desire to be pleasing rather than himself(he’d rather lie to D than upset him). We have his detachment, a coping mechanism indicative of some early trauma. And we have one of a few instances of naked emotion from him in his reaction to being killed by the player. It is not of anger at being betrayed by one of his own kind, it’s not fear or sadness for his own end. It’s frustration, it’s agitation, it’s disappointment, and it is directed entirely at himself for being unable to make a difference. Even if we don’t want to call it self-loathing, these are hardly the signs of a well-adjusted person. Those are hard to come by in The Lands Between, after all.

III. Speculation on the past

So what made Rogier this way? We’re unlikely to ever know, but I’ll throw out my two cents. Let’s look at Rogier’s gear. It’s described as being “graced with an intricate, aristocratic decoration”. His rapier bears a similar description, stating it is “of superior quality, featuring intricate ornamentation”. Taken together, we can reasonably assume that Rogier doesn’t come from an impoverished background. He wears fine clothes, wields a fancy sword, and does not appear to have the backing of any particular faction to finance or supply this. It’s likely Rogier comes from either an aristocratic, or even noble, background. The desire to pursue scholarship, rather than any mention of a life of menial labor, also points in this direction, as does his well-spoken and polite behavior, and his decorum even in the face of his own death.

Which group in the game is comprised of aristocratic sorcerers? The Carians. How does the game commonly indicate associations with certain clans among characters? By use of the first initial in a character’s name. All of Marika’s and Godfrey’s descendants begin with the letters ‘M’ or ‘G’. And Rennala’s with the letter ‘R’. We see this with other NPCs we meet, like Gostoc, Millicent, and Rya, who are related to Godrick, Malenia, and Rykard. This is not to say I think Rogier is directly related to Rennala or her children, considering he's Tarnished and these other 3 NPCs aren't. More that, it is not wholly unfounded to think he is in some way connected with Carians. There are further connections of note, such as his use of Carian sorcery. The only NPCs to employ this class of sorceries are all affiliated with the group somehow – Seluvis and Miriel can both sell us Carian spells by default, while Thops and Sellen only sell glintstone sorceries(thanks to elden_things for pointing this out to me!!). And the most mysterious connection is that of the timing of his slumber and subsequent death, which align closely with Ranni’s own slumber and the defeat of Radahn. The fate of Carians is linked to the stars, and with Radahn’s hold over them surrendered, their fates can no longer be forestalled.

Of course, he makes no mention of any such affiliations, but he mentions very little about himself at all. What we know is that he holds regrets and anger about something, that he is likely of an aristocratic background from a people who practice sorcery, and that he wields a thrusting sword requiring dexterity to wield. Why’s that last thing suddenly relevant? Because all of these together sound similar to the description of the prisoner starting class.

A prisoner bound in an iron mask. Studied in glintstone sorcery, having lived among the elite prior to sentencing.

Some things very suddenly begin to make more sense to me. Maybe Rogier holds regrets over a crime he’s committed, or even one he did not commit but was accused and sentenced for all the same, the consequences of some powerplay among the elite looking to eliminate him from the playing field for whatever reason. Maybe he’s angry over this humiliation, maybe he grieves this loss of his freedom. And if it is a Carian society that did this to him, maybe he’d hold a resentment towards them, a resentment shared by a sect of Raya Lucarian knights symbolized in the form of a feather. Sort of like the one Rogier wears in his hat. Beyond this, he uses the Scholar’s Armament ash of war, an art taught to Cuckoo Knights. “Our enemy is none other than Caria itself,” says the Cuckoo Greatshield item description. Maybe there is room for the argument that Rogier would agree with them. But again, this is all admittedly speculation on my part.

Let’s take a further look at Rogier’s design while we’re on the subject, because it too relates back to the prisoner association in some ways.

(thanks again to elden_things for these images)

On first glance, we’re bedazzled with glintstone and golden hues, the colors so bright and vibrant, especially in comparison with so many other more sedate color palettes seen on many NPCs. But taken as a whole, both color and form, I can’t help but think of the phrase “bird in a gilded cage”. The thing that jumps out to me about his design is the theme of restraint. His costume is full of straps, ropes, chains, items which evoke notions of bondage and imprisonment. He is wrapped from head to toe in clothing, not even his hair left free, cuffed by gold at the ankles, cuffed by frills at the wrist, neck tangled in chains(the long end of the necklace down his back is even reminiscent of a leash), arms lined with glintstone-studded straps, the opulence of nobility becoming symbolic of confinement. It’s noteworthy to me that Rogier aligns so very well with the prisoner class while also sporting clothing that easily reminds us of all the ways a person can be bound.

The color gold in game is very much tied in with the Order, with Marika and the Greater Will. While Rogier is often characterized as someone who opposes the Golden Order due to his split with Darian, his dialog would betray otherwise, something I delve into in this post. In short, he recognizes the flaws and defects of the Order, but actually expresses admiration for its ability to adapt to resolve them. This ability to adapt is in direct contrast to Rennala’s inability to do so – when met with abrupt and devastating change, she breaks, and doesn’t recover. This is another point in favor of Rogier possibly holding some frustrations with Carians. The Order is changeable, can alter itself to meet the needs of the times they live in. Caria simply wilts.

Seeing a glintstone sorcerer, one wearing the hat of a heretic no less, bear the colors of the Order is more than a little interesting in a game where people’s allegiances are generally pretty clear cut. The delightfully detailed Elden Ring colory theory video by hawkshaw speaks of blue as the color of intellect and mind, gold as faith and order. Rogier sports both, reminding me again of Caria, specifically the joining of the Moon and the Erdtree, Rennala and Radagon’s union. Of course, if we hold to the belief that Rogier is related to Carians, there’s another way in which he may remind us of this union between the Order and the Moon, and that is in his time spent with D, Hunter of the Dead.

IV. D and Rogier – “Opposites attract.”

Aside from his history lessons on Ranni and Godwyn, Rogier doesn’t really have a lot to say about anyone else, even himself. In spite of his interactions and shared interests with Fia, the only other person we hear him talk about is D. An old friend, Rogier says with a sort of fondness or melancholy. As with Fia, Rogier bonded with D over an interest in death, and for some unspecified length of time in the past, the two traveled the lands together. Eventually, Rogier’s desire to save Those Who Live in Death became too much of an issue for D, and the pair split.

Theirs is an interesting relationship, whether you want it platonic or otherwise. They’re opposites in a lot of ways. Impulse vs control, pity vs scorn, heretic vs devotee, warm vs cool, elegance vs brutality, mind vs faith, the list kind of goes on, but you see the point. Even after their falling out, the two can get along without acrimony. D tells Rogier about seeing the sign of the centipede in Summonwater. He helps us defeat the Black Knife Assassin in the Death-touched Catacombs, thus making it possible for Rogier to study the knifeprint. Rogier doesn’t speak of D with resentment, or anger, or even much distaste (his tone strays towards sarcasm again when mentioning D’s opinions on TWLID, “these defiled fiends”, but that’s about it). Rogier’s lines about D are generally his most emotional and most personal, and given how very little we get to know about Rogier otherwise, we can assume that the friendship meant a great deal to him.

Between the pair, he’s clearly the more composed about the split. While D freely expresses his disappointments in Rogier, Rogier is more wistful and collected, and does a lot less mudslinging than D. He is the less emotional of the two, however, that’s just par for the course for him. He’s used to keeping things close to the chest, as this is basically what emotional detachment does to you. Emotions aren’t easily expressed or handled, and it becomes simpler to separate oneself from them rather than experience them. And any falling out, whether between friends or lovers, is bound to be emotionally challenging even for someone without such issues.

V. Fia and Rogier – “Birds of a feather...”

There is someone Rogier eventually became comfortable expressing emotions around, even if it’s curious he never mentions her. Fia and Rogier may have a lot in common. Most obvious being their interest in Those Who Live in Death and the history of the night that gave rise to them. But there could be other things, too. Fia's room is full of books, and we know Rogier is a scholar at heart. The two could both be avid readers. If we accept the notion of Rogier as prisoner, he and Fia could bond over what it means to be without freedom and choice. Fia is hounded from her home, and it would seem she may have at some point resented the fact that she would not be allowed to decide which noble she’d be reviving.

Whatever the case, it’s clear Fia and Rogier became close at some point before his death as she tells us how he speaks of the Night of Black Knives while in bed with her, and that this discussion even moved him to tears. This strong reaction from him is especially noteworthy given his lack of emotional response in other, more appropriate areas, such as the knowledge of his own impending death. Is it sadness for Godwyn that has him in tears? Grief for how the Shattering ruined so much for so many? Could it be that in discussing these things with Fia he is also thinking of everything he won’t be able to achieve? Or could it be that he is in some sense overwhelmed not by his grim fate but by her affection, her friendship and care? People with emotional detachment issues can often have immense difficulties making or keeping friends, but here is Fia, whose entire schtick is to offer the utmost selfless care and comfort for others. Wouldn’t that be a little overwhelming to someone unused to that, someone whose life was apparently full of anger and regret, marked by some lasting trauma that’s followed him his whole life and caused him to hold others at arms' length?

Or it could be that he knows all too well another way in which Fia’s just like him, and the misery of knowing her warmth might be false just cut a little deeper than he could handle in a moment so vulnerable as this.

VI. Deceit as defense

It’s odd to me that this is a point of contention among Elden Ring fans, but Fia is, well, kind of a liar by omission. Manipulative, even. And I think Rogier is too. Well, I don’t think, I know. I’ve referenced it multiple times, but his exact words are

I can tell a good lie when I need to.

The context is him desiring to avoid angering D. I’ve mentioned before Rogier coming off as a people-pleaser, this being one of the reasons, as well as the apologetic tone he often takes when speaking with us. Others involve the assumption that he is of aristocratic origins. Politics are a game of rhetoric, and Rogier would’ve been taught to play it. That means being comfortable with lies and knowing how to tell them, or being able to spin the truth to sell your own desires to people who may not share in them. Beyond this, there is his detachment, in which he does his utmost to keep his emotional state to himself. This requires lying, or rather, concealing. Something I’d like to clarify about lies and liars is that we have a tendency to assume this is a malicious trait. I don’t think Rogier acts with malicious intentions at all. I think it is habit, a survival mechanism necessitated by whatever traumatic past he has experienced and/or required for navigating the aristocracy. For the latter especially, the ability to lie and manipulate others would be an endlessly useful tool.

Again, I want to stress that when I speak of Rogier as liar and manipulator, I don’t think it’s something he does to be cruel. He wants something of us, but given his personal issues, he may realize he’s not the best at making friends with others. He may also be hesitant to be indebted to another. Some of his cut dreambrew quest dialog hints at some intense pride on his part. If we were to offer him the dreambrew after he was blighted, he responds with:

No thank you, I don’t need your pity. ...Sorry. You were only trying to be nice. It would be my pleasure to take it.

The immediate adjustment of his tone is an interesting one. From resentful and irritated to perfectly gracious and friendly at the drop of a hat. For someone who can show compassion to some of the most wretched creatures in the Lands Between, who is happy to befriend someone seen as reviled and accursed, to lay with a woman some think of as vulgar, he sure isn’t comfortable with the idea of someone showing that compassion to him. If he gets this irritated by being offered a drink after a (near?)death experience, how would he really handle someone offering to put their life on the line for him?

So he manipulates, because this is far easier for someone(who may be) coming from a background where this is par for the course in how you connect with others. Now we aren’t simply doing him a favor, we’ve been convinced his goal is ours, too. He starts by asking for our help. But notice how each time we go back to Rogier with a little more info, he couches each new and more dangerous request in praise and compliments? We’re superb fighters, we’re trustworthy, we're capable, we’re the only ones who can do this. Rogier knows what he’s asking us to do is risky, and says as much. But he also knows how to flatter, how to shape the conversation to his needs. This isn’t just his quest anymore, it’s ours. This isn’t some favor done out of pity for a dying man, no. He’s convinced you that you want to do this too! Maybe it’s not just us he’s manipulating, but himself, too.

This isn’t to say that Rogier doesn’t care about us, that he’s callous or heartless or doesn’t want to be our friend. I think, at this point, above all else his sights are on his goal. He knows his time is running out, and he may realize he won’t be able to see this through to the end no matter how badly he wishes it were otherwise. I think Fia speaks truly when she says Rogier seemed elated by us helping him. But he also knows how near his death is, and that no matter what he or the player do, there is no future for him.

I know the manipulation angle is a hard sell. “An NPC asking you to help him isn’t manipulation,” I’ve seen people say, and I get it. But in the greater context of Rogier’s character, I think there is plenty of reason to believe he could be inclined towards such behavior, that he is someone far more focused on his goal than building friendships in a life reaching its end, and, knowing well how near he is to death, is desperate to see it through. Plenty of NPCs ask things of me, and I wouldn’t consider them manipulative. But none of them tell me point blank they’re fine with lying to others, either. :)

VII. Conclusion

We don’t get a lot of backstory on the NPCs of Elden Ring. There are breadcrumbs and tiny clues, but so often these little tidbits are implications rather than direct statements. They are open-ended, preserving a sense of intrigue and mystery that invites us to look deeper and do a little puzzle solving. That being said, it’s hard to make any definitive statements about who any of these characters are and what they’re really like. Characters like Rogier make our investigations all the more challenging when they give us reason to believe that they’re practiced in concealment and lies. When do we know what to take what they say at face value? When do we know to take it with a grain of salt? But that’s also part of what makes him so interesting to me. There’s so much potential in his story, and such a variety of possible interpretations. Mine is only one of them, and if you’ve gotten to the end of this, I’d be thrilled to hear yours too!