FromSoft games are brilliant. Beautiful. They enchant us to the point of obsession.
Behind the Goldmask: At first, I dusted off my degree in Religious Studies to try and understand what is going on with Elden Ring’s insanely intricate lore. Determined to keep feeding the fire, I've gone lore hunting across the Dark Souls trilogy and Armored Core 6. I also have plans to explore Bloodborne and Sekiro, though Shadow of the Erdtree is going to keep me busy for a while.
While I'm mainly focused on FromSoft games at the moment, I also dabble in girthy video essays.
So if you also enjoy learning about history, mythology, art, and philosophy, with a few memes and some unhinged speculation thrown in, you've come to the right place!
For any potential collabs, invites, or sponsorships, please feel free to reach out: garrulous.goldmask@gmail.com
If you ask me Goldmask is that one guy who actually decides to fix the fucked up buggy spaghetti code instead of destroying it and switching to a new engine.
Fun details, the npc ghost in the weeping peninsula, in japenese details the wondering mausoleoms contain "your illegitimate child" In the games beginning, when your tarnished is receiving his grace and coming to life..the sounds in the background, stomping, a beasts cry and a bell ringing..match the noises of a wondering mausoleoms. Which leads me to believe the player charecter is a demigod child of Marika..and what did she tell her children? Make yourself a lord, make yourself a god..or be sacrificed...what does our player tarnished do? Just that Now my head cannon, the eclipse from castle sol was to resurrect the tarnished charecter we play but that's neither here nor there
How would removing the influence of gods take away people’s free will? With the greater will around no one really has free will at all hence we see iji wearing the mirrored helm to block out its influence
This is going to be a long one sorry. Im soo over this debate/discussion/argument of lgbt in media, look no one has a problem with lgbt in media, character or actor, storyline or whatever, one big example i can think of is barney from how i met your mother, very popular character, loved by alot of people.....but hold on isnt Neil Patrick Harris a gay man playing a straight man who is a complete womaniser......ohh yea no one cared cause he was a good character and most of all we weren't preached to "omg look we have a gay man in our show". What about brokeback mountain, very well made movie, no one was preaching and the movie did very well, lets go with Arron from the walking dead, personally one of my favourite characters and guess what, he just so happens to be gay and it doesnt take over his whole character, umm i could keep going with "lgbt" characters but I'll stop there. We dont have a problem with gay characters, we have a problem with lgbt characters and theres a big difference. Gay characters just happen to be gay but have a complete story arc with multiple defining personal traits that dont impede the flow and story of the film/game they are in and if the product gets a less than favourable review, they just accept it, move on and work harder next time......in contrast, lgbt characters are literally cardboard cutouts with just one personality type, which is i am lgbt. It is plastered all over the product, marketing, interviews, pannels, media blah blah almost like it takes priority over the more important things like writing, story, plot, continuity, gameplay ect and when they get less than favourable reviews what happens, "omg you racist/sexist/bigot/homophobe/transphobe, how dare you not like this perfect piece of art we have created, the only reason you dont like it is because women, lgbt blah blah". Funny how people are quick to defend these big companies who preach to be this inclusive yet these companies would abandon you if they were to go bankrupt, with just a small example, disney claims to be this huge bastion of diversity and equality yet, it has just been found out that the acolyte, the biggest lgbt show (as advertised) cant even pay their women equally, they shrunk finns face down on the force awakens movie poster for china, and also removed the lesbian kiss scene in rise of Skywalker, which mind you was about 5 seconds of screentime, for overseas markets, just showing they are willing to throw you under the buss if it hurts their bottom dollar. Elden Ring did the correct thing, they just made a good game, never preached about it in interviews or called the fans toxic. They focused on creating an in-depth story and lore with such well written characters, boss fights, fun and unique weapons and soooo much more and you know what was never pushed on us, "ohhhhh looooook we have insert minority group". So this whole "subject is gay" needs to be adressed, that statement makes it an absolute which also makes it easier for people to use it to fit their agenda. This is what happens when people dont fully read into a story. Now im just gunna use some evidence from the game that can also contradict that radahn is gay and maybe radahn isnt doing this of his own free will but like ALL fromsoft games theres alot left open to interpretation so also you could be right. Now spoilers, we learn that miquella has major power, not physical but the power to compel. We also learn that all of miquellas loyal followers were bewitched as during the game miquellas great rune breaks and the followers start coming back to their former selves. Plus we can summarise from miquellas plan he wanted radahn dead so he could return radahns soul to mohgs body to be his "Promised" consort, possibly explaining why melania was in calid. Now one thing people have noticed is during the the entire fight, radahn never utters a word and during the end cutscene we never hear redahns answer, plus radahn going against the erdtree seems alittle off character seeming that he idolised godrey and his father was radagon, so what happened, seems it could also be that miquella has bewitched radahn just as he did with mohg. Just because something has gay elements in it like a character or storyline doesnt make the whole product gay or as lgbt would say, "an Ally". Lets not also forget that this game also features incest, pedophilia and other horrific stuff, doesnt make it that, but on the opposite end you have the acolyte with it fully saying it is "the gayest star wars ever" cmon its pretty obvious the difference in quality in the two projects and why. This was a long rant but fuck who really cares if someone has different skin, sexual preferences or gender, its not the most important part of a character.
Do you wanna know something crazy You couldn’t find any rule 34 of before for the first week of the DLC that’s some serious restraint Artists really decided not to chime in on this one for like two years straight there, he was like 1-3 pictures because of the implications and sensitivity of the situation but after about a week into the DLC in people found out the truth about him now there’s doesn’t like savage dogs, a tore Miquella apart 😂 I have never seen this type of behavior from artist first they’re like “hold on guys he’s a child and a victim. Let’s not do anything.” (some of them didn’t care.) but afterwards everyone collectively was like “fuck this guy💀”
i’m hoping and praying and crying the dlc gets the same treatment as the base game, the dlc was amazing and i love it but i want to know more and feel like a lot of topics related to miquella were glossed over
Miquella is the first confirmed gay character in a fromsoft game. He decided to make radahn his consort despite malenia having more aligned views with him than radahn, already being close with him, and being stronger than radahn. It’s because miquella wanted to marry his hunk of a brother instead of his sister. This is also supported by the fact that miquellas alter ego is female, he wears female clothing, and he has extremely long hair. I think it’s a great plot twist making it to where mohg is being brainwashed by miquella so he could steal his body and give it to radahn.
I think the fact that Goldmask is directly criticizing the gods and questioning the Greater Will (Which is seen as an active of heresy) suggests that he eventually came to the conclusion that the Gods truly are the issue, and they should be stripped of power so as to prevent harm to the Lands Between. I guess the question is if the Greater Will qualifies as one of these Gods or if Goldmask's reform would maintain the Greater Will's oppressive influence over the world. Considering his rejection of "Absolute evil" something that the Greater Will believes to exist in the form of other Outer Gods, followers of whom they will and have attempted to genocide, it does seem unlikely that this new ideology would bestow power upon the Greater Will.
