You mentioned how Marika has no problem sacrificing her children for her goals.. I have been watching a number of lore videos lately and have noticed that Marika gets around. She may have been popping out babies for the sole purpose of sacrificing the divines. Even changing herself into Radagon to conceive with Renala.. If this was all intentionally to serve an elaborate purpose, perhaps she needed a more chimeric bloodline to ascend and oppose the Greater Will? Cross referencing this video with the one that had a translated Japanese theory of our tarnished being a demigod

If the gloam eyed queen was the previous god… could “Elden John” be placidusax in human form ? And her Elden Lord? Presiding over the crucible? We know from Lansseax that the ancient dragons could take human form 🤔

An example of how her plans were fated and prophesied which NO ONE has spoken about: all of the statues of Marika are in the pose she ended up in: crucified on the remains of the Elden ring. Why would they have made all the statues in this pose? Long before it happened? With no one really knowing this happened to her?

Interesting, but you still have to explain how your theory is better than the other main one (Radagon is an alter ego of Marika) by showing any contradiction.

I've always found the "Ranni and Marika were co-conspirators" theory hard to believe, because Marika and Ranni were so fundamentally opposed. Marika (as Radagon) destroyed Ranni's mother and her kingdom. Seeing how violently protective Ranni is of Rennala, I can't ever see her working with the person who ruined her life. Ranni and Marika co-conspiring with each other would only make sense if Marika changed her mind about the GW at some point between the Liurnian Wars and the Shattering (and even then, that'd be a big stretch). But more importantly, if Marika really was a closet moon pagan the whole time, why wouldn't she have teamed up with Liurnia in its prime against the Greater Will? That seems like a much smarter plan than the whole shattering thing. Rennala's Liurnia was the ultimate shrine to the moon outer god, and Marika destroyed it. I think that's the biggest hole in your theory.

My thought that it is not Marika but her elder sister, the Gloam-Eyed Queen who founded and ruled the Nox civilization and was the god of the previous Age and she did not follow the Greater Will but another Outer God. Marika envied her sister's power but feared her sisters command of Death. The Greater Will saw an opportunity to usurp power through Marika and empowered and instructed her to overthrow her sister the GEQ with the help of her Greater Will provided shadow, Maliketh who eliminated the GEQ's power by sealing the rune of Death away. Once Marika assumed godhood she discovered she was a puppet of an uncaring god of strict order who she grew to hate them. This is the theme of seduction and betrayal around Marika that the Shadow of the Elden Tree trailer refers to. The seduction of Marika by the Greater Will, the betrayal of the GEQ by her sister Marika, the betrayal of Marika by the Greater Will, the betrayal of the Greater Will by Marika shattering the Elden Ring. This would make the Age of Stars the preferred ending by Marika as it ends her suffering and gives the Greater Will the middle finger. That it involves killing her family and the suffering of million is of no importance to her as she is already a kinslayer, tyrant, and monster when she hatched the plan.

As the Shadow of the Elden Tree DLC approaches, I'm staking my bet on the Gloam-Eyed Queen's identity. She is Marika's older sister and Melenia's mother. The GEQ is like Marika, a former god who fell from the Greater Will's grace and like Marika is imprisoned in the Elden Tree...except it's the Elden Tree within the Shadowlands, not Marika's. Thus that allows Melenia's statement about her being born within the Elden Tree and given a task by her mother correct, except the task her mother the GEQ gives Melenia is destroy Marika's Elden Tree out of revenge. But what about Ranni's similarities? If Marika and the GEQ were sisters, that means they shared a mother that likely gave the gloam eye to the GEQ. Thus Ranni's possession of similar traits is from inheritance from her grandmother.

Ranni explicitly says in the trailer that Marika shattered the ring out of grief for Godwyn. So it's not just a fan theory.

Marika also seduced many, that is why it is terrifying miquella also possesses this

Very well done. I’m shocked this isn’t appreciated more by players. You backup everything you mention with actual evidence and insight. Can you point me to your video you mention at the end of this one, where you go over your guesses at to why Merika created Radagon despite their differences?

The Muslim GOLDen age comparison was honestly impressive. The analysis of one of Marika's echoes and your interpretation of it as being Radagon's instead is also very impressive. I enjoyed this video from start to finish, excellent work my guy.

I’m probably reaching but does that one lady in the trailer sitting on a throne kinda look like queen of midland from berserk

Crazy how you seem to miss that the god isn't Marika, it's the alien meteor parasite in her and the thing that sent it. The thing the finger antennas talk to. Hewg is not really talking about killing Marika, he's talking about killing the alien. Marika wasnt being childish, she was waking up to the reality that the elden beast is a parasitic curse rather than a blessing for both her and the planet and reacting appropriately

Maybe we'll need weapon upgrade materials tied to that Darkness effect, like maybe that's how we'll be leveling appropriately for the DLC. We need some kind of weapon imbuing to damage the enemies here. Miquella could do that for us, they are supposed to be a master craftsman/woman after all.

Got some amusing elden ring shorts in my feed. Wanted to look up the lore and catch up real quick. Apparently quick isnt a possibility. *Makes Elder Scrolls lore seem simple

I'm sad that I'm only just finding this video. Great perspective.

Once you disregard the direct admission of the very word of the god you seek to criticize to have lost to its power.

Gloam Eyed Queen = Marika, that's why Maliketh is guarding her the little girl statue in Maliketh arena is Marika with her red wolf of Radagon Marika wields black flames

This might be your best video

@kosmos This video from Zullie shows that Melina's closed eye is the same color as her open one throughout the game, at least in her character model. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-c2yYt42u_eo.htmlsi=uCWf27LyVbsLc-o1 IF the same-color closed eye in Melina's model was intentional, and not just a developer shortcut (i.e. not bothering to change it since they knew it wouldn't be visible in-game), that detail would strongly support your conclusion that Melina's open left eye changed at the end of the game because the player released Destined Death.

Look, I think what is messing everybody up is the assumption that the Gloam Eyed Queen and Marika were not one in the same person. Think about it, how can the GEQ go against Marika wielding Destined Death if it could simply be sealed by Marika? Willing to bet Maleketh was known as "Death of the Demigods" because he was Marika's right hand during the Godhunt, and when Malaketh defeated the GEQ and her Godskins he actually defeated Marika for transgression against the Two Fingers because she burned the Erdtree, and that is why Malaketh has the stone right eye that is a gloam eye, because it is Marika's eye, because he took it from her as GEQ. His job as shadowbound beast to Marika is to turn on Marika should she piss off the Two Fingers. I think as GEQ she actually burned the first tree. She committed the first cardinal sin. That got not only her power sealed but a watchdog, Radagon, who could monitor her actions, become the perfect empyrean making counterpart, and serve as a perfect punishment to Marika by becoming all of he opposites in hopes of making a perfect Rebis capable of making a perfect being, and this was the beginning of the Golden order, the punishment of Marika to become the vessel. Radagon, as a person however, always sought perfection, not the Golden Order. I think the Elden Beast was trying to perfect itself and that is why this particular punishment was given, to make Marika the vessel. I think this is why Ranni is so willing to go to any length to shed her empyrean flesh, because of what happened to Marika. I think ever since Marika became Radagon, Radagon has slowly been taking over her over time, and that's why Radagon seems to become more active as Marika becomes less active thru the timeline of the game, and I think this seeking of perfection by the Elden Ring, thru Radagon, is actually what starts the transition to Golden Order Fundamentalism the more Radagon takes hold. I think Marika was punished twice, first as GEQ for burning the Erdtree via Malaketh and Radagon, 2nd by imprisonment in the Erdtree for shattering the Elden Ring, and this is why she mocks Radagon, saying "thou have yet to become me, thou have yet to become a god." Because at the end of the day she is the vessel not him, which is why she wins out and shatters the Elden Ring. In fact it may be the reason she is upset about Godwyn and that's the reason for it, it may be because Godwyn seems to be her only non-Omen child she didn't have with Radagon. If so, that may make him able to be the one Empyrean she could have truly outside of Two Fingers influence. If she was the GEQ, plotting against the two fingers the whole time, this would make more sense than any other reason I have heard. Of course, we could be about to find out that Melina was a child Marika had with Messmer, and that is why she is the kindling maiden. I think Messmer may have helped Marika burn the Erdtree as GEQ. But why have children with Radagon tho? It may be as a Nox, she thought Radagon could become the perfect substitute for a Silver Tear Albinuric in the making of a true Lord of Night, but after having Miquella Malenia, and Melina, maybe she realized the Two Fingers would control/influence her children as well, and gave the only one who didn't have a body for the Two Fingers to control, Melina, a very special mission only she could do. Return Destined Death to the world, either by burning, or by becoming. IDK.....I think everything just makes a lot more sense this way.

How would this theory incorporate Radagon as descending from the Giants?

Don’t forget Rykard is an inquisitor. Messmer’s original seat was likely mount gelmir. If I had to guess at the plot, Messmer helped defeat the glome eyed queen’s forces. Likely held power of the rune of death and possibly giants fire. After defeating one queen may have went about betraying his mother and trying to take the throne. Which leads to the crucible knights defeating him. The confessors likely were sniffing out traitors to the golden order which is why you see that armor. Sometime later Rykard becomes the chief confessor but ends up becoming the thing he was to fight against.

Yeah, the glaring issue with this is that the game allows for too many different endings. If the tarnished were a part of her plans to usher in the age of the stars, Melina would steer the player towards that. Instead she steers them to any outcome except for the frenzied flame.. so no.

I wonder how Geoffrey Died to get back to the lands between.

I wasn’t actually expecting to learn anything new when you said that at the beginning of the video. I was just watching to hear you thoughts and see what you think. But you never know man, I did learn a bunch of new stuff I never even considered before. Great analysis.

i dont think those are claw marks they spiral and in areas that are even more damage the castle looks as if it was changing texture entirely as if it were turning into deathroots itself those gashes are almost organic looking almost like the gashes that are the eyes on the godwyn corpse under the castle i think the castle is growing godwyn's eyes.

Best video insights of the dlc trailer 👌

Kosmos, I'm a bit late on watching your videos, but I heard about you from Tarnished Archeologist. I think you're correct about most of what you say in your videos, but this Theory is by far the most unique and coolest I've heard. To go another step further: The theories in this video makes me think that the Nox/Numen weren't just trying to create an Artificial-Lord, I now think the "All-Women" people of Nox experienced some sort of Calamity that caused all of their Men to go extinct (that's probably what all the petrified bodies in their Cities are). I think they were desperately trying to create an Artificial-Lord specifically to sire a new generation of natural-birth Humans. The Latenna side-quest, where she drops the "seed" off at the giant "sleeping" woman near Miquella's Tree, is never really explained at all AFAIK. Maybe only the larger "Albinuaric"/Noxian/Numen women are true "First-Gen" Humans, and hence they are the only ones capable of properly reproducing. Maybe "Numen" is an even more literal term than we think, and they were called that because the All-Female culture had set off to new lands in search of "New Men", who could help keep their culture from going extinct.

dude the gloam eye that guerraq gives you is literally the gloam eyed queen's eye

Firstly, this is a great video! But I disagree with some of your assumptions, and to be fair, you didn't know about Messmer. I think the burning butterflies represent Messmer, not Melina, and I think Melina is the Gloam-Eyed Queen's daughter, but she does not remember this, which explains why she's asking about Boc's behavior, she just doesn't remember. That neatly explains her eye and also the mark on it that she shares with Ranni, although they are not exactly the same. Ranni and Melina are both spirits. The only other spirits in game are called from the Bell which has the same design on the handle as the the Godslayer Greatsword. I think that GEQ's spirit survived her defeat by Maliketh and she helped Ranni obtain the rune and sever her flesh and then become a spirit as well. This was all for revenge against Marika, which Ranni also wanted because of what happened to her mother. Miquella wanted the Erd Tree gone as well and the wolves around Miquella in the statue depicted are as they were before they were spirits. They were Miquella's living wolves just as Torrent was Miquella's living steed. They are spirits now thanks to GEQ, who made sure you had all this spirit help to end Marika and the age of the Erd Tree. Just my theory.

*Promo sm* 🤗

Its st trina

If Marika really did originate from the Eternal Cities and always planned to hijake and destroy the Greater Will's order, than his real mistake was not killing all the Numen instead of imprisoning them underground. Come to think of it, it's a surprisingly tame and merciful punishment for dealing with troublemakers that threaten his order, since he really just gave the Numen a different realm to inhabite and rule over. Marika sure loved to resort to violence for solving her problems though, and her hatred of the Greater Will is probably the reason why the Omen and Misbegotten were mistreated. She's definitely evil for the mistreatment part to be real.

Maybe, but I don't think the castle is the end goal. It looks like behind the castle is the path to the Shadow Tree.

"Perhaps the most striking thing they have in common is their closed left eye" I really have no clue how you can make a statement like this while showing a picture that clearly shows Ranni having her right eye closed while Melina has her left eye closed.

I know a French accent when I meet one, excellente video l’ami penses tu en faire en français ?

One of more mysteries about Miquella, and the first enigmatic about Malenia is that we know FROM Ranni that Empyryans were bestowed a shadow as a companion, in the whole game we see BLAIDD Ranni's shadow, WHERE IS THE SHADOW OF MIQUELLA AND MALENIA in the whole game of they were truly EMPYREAN?

When dlc dropped, a poem was uploaded at the official page of the game. In it's last verse we read "It was to this land that Miquella departed. Divesting himself of his flesh, his strength, his lineage. Of all things Golden. And now Miquella awaits the return of his promised Lord" Divest =left behind, get rid of. That gives us the info that in order for Miquella to set foot at the land of shadow Miquella has to LEFT BEHIND HIM OR GET RID OF his flesh as Ranni did, HIS LINEAGE AS EMPYREAN AND CHOSEN TO ASCEND GODHOOD, his strength that means no more unalloyed gold and the power of dreams, AND ALL THINGS GOLDEN that means that Miquella OPPOSES THE GOLDEN ORDER TO ITS VERY CORE IN MANY WAYS.

Нет, всё-таки это тоже ложный путь. Этому противоречит линия Мелины. Мелина если и не аватар Марики, то как минимум разделяет её идеалы. И она категорически против уничтожения даже того жалкого мира, что остался после разрушения кольца. Марика тоже не стала бы жертвовать всем, и собой в том числе, ради абстракции. Причины должны быть куда серьёзнее.

Two things here that still drive me nuts.. where’s the Stormveil face’s eyes is the first thing. The Forge of the Giants is the second thing. The damage along the inner walls, what caused that? What are those two huge cracks about. Why does the glowy fire looking stuff resemble the false leaves of the Erdtree. I say false because the specific things I’m talking about look like they are above the Erdtree and have a weird sort of flowing motion. What is up with the massive hole in the bottom of the forge and the now solidified substance that leaked out? Aghhhhhhh!!!

the only hole that I can poke through this theory is that we don't really know WHEN the Nox were banished into living underground. if it's after or during the time of the crucible, then it must have been by Marika herself. which doesn't make much sense, I do believe that Marika isn't really motivated by faith or agenda but by power. the golden order's founding took out destined death from the Elden ring, the Elden ring that theoretically should be the desire of the greater will, making Marika defying the greater will the very founding point of the order. getting rid of death and the shadow that will punish her for it in one fell swoop. but I don't think that would implicate her getting rid of Godwyn, only Ranni has something to gain from killing him, as an empyrean (the only eligible one since Mikella is permanently prepubescent and Malenia is the vessel for another outer God that shown it's capability to infect the great runes of the elden ring) she would become the new vessel for the elden beast needing a consort, and that role's perfect candidate was Godwyn, adding to that Ranni and Godwyn being the only characters ever reffered to as prince or princess and that Godwyn is called the "Golden Bough" as in the next in line. also if Marika wanted to start some might makes right ritual between her children it wouldn't really make sense to kill THE GUY THAT DEFENDED LEYNDELL FROM GRANSAX, FORTISSAX AND LANSSEAX. so I do think that Godwyn's death wasn't planned by her since she seemed to have all her eggs in that basket, Gideon also peered into the will of Marika and recognized she feels grief. now, wether it's marika, radagon or the elden beast we really don't know since that distinction is not made by any characters other than Goldmask. And I do believe it's intentional having Marika's actions be kind of contradictory when she's constantly wrestling control from Radagon who locked her up in the tree and the elden beast who had her crucified and her belly pierced by spear.

I definitely liked your perpective on things! Really unique, New Sub!

Numenor had their home destroyed and escaped to middle earth.This seems the same in a sense.

It is the sign of the cross for his rune.No longer golden it is brilliant white hot like clean metal with no impurities.

Dude in the portrait and with the rune shoved up the butt is the key to what has happened.He looked pretty worried in the portrait,and the woman having her face covered is sinister.That guy was punished or he did it to himself for some reason.Did the woman do it or Messmer?Or Marika?He is also that same guy with the crucible and growing a tree from it,look close his face is burned,every statue I see across the land of him shows burned face texture.

interesting idea. i don't think literal interpretations really get at what is going on with marika and radagon but hey, it's fun anyway.

good video