Radagon is a Mimic of Marika | Elden Ring Lore 

Holy shit same...I am actually stunned

Well, it probably didn't cross your mind because Radagon never exhibits any visible signs of being a mimic. Zero. So, this is all make believe.

Probably the best theory on Radagon I've come across so far.

@@BadBob18his arms are degenerating in the same way Albinaurics arms and legs degenerate, his skin is also gray like a mimic tear

i think she actually made it out. Radagon was imprisoned in her stead, and Marika cast away her body similar to Ranni and became Melina.

yeah i have a theory that melina is maybe a mimic or a some manifestation of marika. she born from the erdtree, calls marika her mother like broc calls her mother, born bodyless, and fear the 3 fingers because its the only one that can destroy the erdtree. i dont know maybe im crazy :D

@@JamesBond-jj9oc She could simply be her child, like Malenia and Miquella are. She fits the naming scheme, her hair has a pink tinge (pink is red mixed with white, the hair colours of her parents and siblings), and her birth curse would be being born bodyless, just as malenia is always decaying and miquella is always young.

@@SophiaLilithUwU its just dont fit it on my brain honestly and i have reasons ! Marika-Melina, margit-morgott, renna-ranni, is something there... In my humble opinion, i think marika create another herself to be a maiden for some tarnished that have a destiny of becoming the elden lord and Change the world. On our Journey she actualy tell us the land between is on bad shape, that someone need to do something . Sophia try thinking about that

@@JamesBond-jj9oc i do think melina was created by marika to affekt change in the world while she was stuck in the erdtree. Melina does say her mother put her on the path to changing the lands between and her internal file name is DaughterOfMarika, i think that pretty much a given. Now, the real question is weather or not she is also the daughter of radagon, or if she was a creation of marika alone, which could make her simply an extension of markia's will.

@@SophiaLilithUwU well, we hope DLC will answer all our theorys 😁

that's some excellent insight as usual

Agreed about the connection between stars and more traditional tree amber. The whole thing echoes the central twist of Demon Souls, everything ties back to The Old One. Both miracles (incantations) and magic (sorceries) draw power from the same thing. It is all The Greater Will.

amber is the blood of trees and red glintstone is made with the blood of living sacrifices, if blue glintstone is the blood of stars then what what made the stars bleed?

If this is all true, and the hair in the amber egg is supposed to be there, then that implies that the Fire Giants were the original ancient life of the lands between. Giants gave way to beastmen, and then men, who eventually tried to eradicate the giants and claim divinity. If so, then it's highly probably that Marika either found or created the egg to create Radagon. Perhaps she thought that introducing Fire Giant blood into her lineage would increase their power/divine status? Or if she just found the amber egg, then maybe she just didn't know it was there when she used it to create Radagon. That might explain why he is so ashamed of his red hair: from his perspective he wanted to be a perfect male copy, but ended up "imperfect" with red hair instead of blonde.

Very good points, i tend to agree with everything you brought up.

The hair in the egg is a leftover of the egg containing lots of those scholars in it. The hair is actually black, but looks red when reflecting the amber.

I think Marika was cursed by the giant's fell god, giving her red hair. I think she made radagon to transfer that curse to another. That other being the mimic tear radagon

I even tried to get a hold of Vaati like a few weeks after the game came out without success.

Maybe it would be revealed that we, the Tarnished are a/the mimic? I can see that as well given how fluid and changeable character build can be over the course of gameplay, not to mention how we alone are able to harness and use the power of the demigods where others had failed. We basically become the culmination of all the demigods, and in turn accomplish what we (may have) been created for. Hard to say.

Iirc Radagon's rune actually originates from Caria (sorry if that's spelled wrong). I remember watching a video that showed evidence of the cross hatch pattern being used by the acadamy/sorcerer before Radagon showed up

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thank you, that is very encouraging!

Not anything. The sword is part of the original Elden ring in Farum Azula. The gloam-eyed queen had a very similar godslayer sword. but that looked more like spiral than waves. we shouldn't forget it's not just Radagon, but also Marika that turns into a sword.

Radagon was created right after the fell god of giants cursed Marika and turned her hair red. She cast the red hair on Radagon.

I'm not sure I agree with that at all... Are there any items or dialogue refering to any of that? Nothing refers to Marika's hair turning red, or her casting it on Radagon, after being cursed by the God of the giants.

@@gwenori7656 I see your point. 1. I personally don't trust dialog. I have a long list of dialogs that are deceptive or straight-up lies. especially all the dialogs in trailers, cutscenes, and NPCs in the beginning. my evidence is gameplay experience. 2. Even paintings are unreliable. One of them draws Radahn smaller than Margit. The other draws him larger than Malenia. 3. Even video clips like Malenia's fight with Radahn is just a myth. It shows calid in red scarlet rot BEFORE malenia blooms! 4. You'd think gameplay experience could be reliable. but what about the fights with Renala or Elden beast? how did the eternal cities wind-up underground? Where is the Roundtable hold? why can I visit Godrick and the Elden beast under the Erdtree? Why is there a meteor impact below Radahn's castle? 5. As for item descriptions, I no longer trust them either. Example: There is an item in the game calling Godfrey "the first Elden Lord", while a remembrance calls Placedusax the first Elden Lord.

​@@gwenori7656 In this post, I'll try to answer your question in three sections: ==Introduction== There are many videos with extremely careful analysis on this topic. example: y2u.be/WBCutl_C6XE Radagon is not mentioned before the Liurnian wars, but he is suddenly mentioned as a "champion" of the golded order. When did he become a champion? how did he achieve leadership in the war? the above video explains in length that 1. Radagon's hair color is identical to that of the giants 2. Radagon's thorn spells is similar to that of the trolls 3. Radagon's followers in Liurnia and mountaintop fire monks use the same spells. 4. The war with giants was before the Liurnian war From this, people conclude: Radagon existed before the Liurnian war. he either participated in the war with giants, or learned the thorn skills that killed giants from the trolls or knights in that war, then rose through the ranks to become a champion in the first Liurnian wars. ==Two problems== The 1st problem: Rulers of the golden order like Marika, Godfrey, Godwin, even Godrick are white haired, but were blessed with golden hair by the amber grace of the Erdtree. A sign of blessing by the greater will. Even Melina has that. But in the frenzied flame ending, she loses the golden right-eye color and is left with white eyes. But radagon's hair is identical to fire giants' hair. that's the color of the giants and the fell god. the great threat vs and enemy of the Erdtree. Every giant is red of hair, and Radagon was said to have despised his own red locks. Perhaps that was a curse of their kind." -- gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/265987-elden-ring/79998509?page=2 the 2nd problem: One eyed shield item description says: "...one-eyed god ... once worshiped by the giants is believed to have been slain by queen Marika." Again not true. We fight the one-eyed god. another item description says Marika cursed a giant to tend to the flames for eternity. problem is that the one-eyed god is on the cursed giant's chest and wakes up in the second phase of the fight People have suspected if Marika is able to curse the one-eyed god for eternity, then why did the one eyed god did not curse her back?? ==One solution== "It is implied his hair color is the result of a curse by the fire giants, all of whom possess red hair, and might have cursed Radagon after Marika waged war against them." -- eldenring.fandom.com/wiki/Radagon From there people have concluded that if Marika didn't kill the one-eyed god and cursed the last giant, the one-eyed god might have also cursed Marika. As you said: "Nothing refers to Marika's hair turning red". But the game explicitly says "Radagon is Marika".

@@armandaneshjoo Alright... If you don't trust ANYTHING the game is showing you or telling you then I don't understand how you can even begin to form conclusions on any topic whatsoever. Your evidence is "gameplay experience" yet you're clearing saying you don't trust gameplay elements either? I agree that there are still a LOT of questions unanswered, and some things don't make much sense yet (which is usually the case in any fromsoft lore), but you can't just disgard things you don't understand (or don't fit a certain narrative) and deem them false or untrustworthy? Figuring out the lore of the game is all about making sense of what the game has given us: dialogue, items, gameplay, ingame objects/paintings/architecture etc. and constructing theories out of those elements. The moment you're disregarding what the game literally shows you or tells you, then you're just constructing an imaginary idea, that might be fun or good in its own right, but is probably very far from what the game's lore is.

hit me with the tarnished is a mimic.

​@@Kosmos_er This is fairly "vibe" based but I'll give you what I have. There are some early hints that lead up to this. Namely, we do start off waking up on a stone platform before entering the Lands Between proper. If you recall, Marika and Radagon are both found on a Stone Platform within the Erdtree. This is me speculating but given how we are a "newborn" in the Lands Between, it is somewhat fitting that we see clusters of Nascent Butterflies should we manage to defeat the Grafted Scion at the Chapel of Anticipation. This is thematically amazing to me because the Grafted Scions are extremely distant offshoots of Marika's lineage. And here we have two descendants of Marika duking it out from the very start. Then there's the character creation menu. We get origins like "Numen" and "Nightfolk" and potentially even Warrior if you wanna go further and say you're a bastard of the Golden Lineage. All that alone is an explicit clue in favor of contextualizing gameplay features as parts of the world (which the game does a lot honestly) but as you can see with the Mimic Tears at Night's Sacred Ground, a Mimic Tear doesn't necessarily copy precisely, some retain individual traits unique to them. Given Radagon is likely a Mimic Tear, that adds up with why he's a touch different looking than Marika. We could be doing the very same thing at the start of the game too. Irregardless, the character creation menu is more akin to a hint to you being a mimic given how you can change appearances all the time really: You're functionally mimicking your starting class just like the Mimic Tears in Night's Sacred Ground do, you just don't have the pigmentation. Rennala's dialogue is the most explicit with these hints, calling us fair (an old way of saying "pale" in ye ol' times) and even refers to the Larval Tears as such when you use them during a rebirth. This is to say nothing in regards of how Silver Tears are often said to be reborn eternally as they shed their husks. We essentially do the same upon Death and using the Amber Egg. If you notice, a ton of Radagon's story parallels the our Tarnished's story as we play: We start out as a mere Champion born from Marika, yet are beckoned by Marika to become Elden Lord after doing her work (Stop Rennala, stop the Greater Will, etc). This even ends up becoming extremely cyclical (and off-putting) when you realize Ranni's marriage to us mirrors Radagon and Marika's far too uncomfortably given how we might also be a Mimic related to Marika. Speaking of the Amber Egg, it is curious how we can change our appearance just like a Mimic can seemingly at well. I first discounted this as just a gameplay feature with no lore behind it, but Rennala's Amber Egg allowing for cosmetic changes is such an odd detail to put that it seems more akin. She calls us a "sweeting" just like the Juvenile Scholars (heavily hinted to be underdeveloped Demigods since they're linked to the Amber Egg explicitly, even being born from it). And then there's the various hints that allude to double-meanings if you take us being a Mimic to heart: Namely the Silver Tear Mask Its description has a completely different meaning in regards to "imitating the imitator" when you consider us to be the Mimic: The Mimic Tear boss we fight in Nokron is copying us, the original "copycat" in that light. Then there's the subtle clue in the Silver Tear Husk that says one day, the Silver Tear will be reborn a Lord. Now, this is once again a nod to Radagon but as said before, his story parallels ours disturbingly so if you choose Ranni's ending. Very Game of Thrones of them, tbh. We also have Gideon's dialogue being a clue to what we may potentially be. He says a mere Tarnished cannot become Elden Lord and that a man cannot kill a god. Clearly, we do just that. So what gives? Why even have him say that in the first place? Well, to me it reads as an indicator that we are more than just a Tarnished, but a child of Marika. By rights, we would be a demigod, we even gather Great Runes after all, same as any other Demigod. The game does this often, where it doesn't explicitly tell you the implications of what you're doing even have in the context of the world's background. To add another allusion if we are a Mimic Tear, it makes us parallel the Albinauric Archers in Consecrated Snowfields who rely on their wolf mounts to get around. It'd be an exceptionally different (and less enjoyable) game if we did not have Torrent to help us in the Lands Between, we simply would not get around the same without him, paralleling the Albinaurics who cannot travel without their wolves, their "other halves" so to speak. Torrent would be our "wolf" by that respect. Then there's Enia's dialogue when she recounts the Two Fingers. Given how Radagon is literally "joined" with Marika by the end of the game, her saying "become consort and join Queen Marika" is given a far different meaning in that regard too. Again, a ton of dialogue and descriptions potentially reveal a fair amount of insight when you go in with the idea that your Tarnished is a Mimic Tear.

I don’t like how right you are. It made me go “great…. So we’re just a blob after all.” I wish you were wrong. I don’t like being all ‘blobby.’

@@jesseguertin1158 think of it this way: you have limitless potential as a blob. To expand on how "permeable" people are in the game, you got corpse wax and claymen out and about. You can shape yourself as you see fit. Even Marika herself agrees: "Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices..." Gee, thanks mom!

@@BlueMagicite You made me feel less self-conscious about my blobbiness. Marika should have held back though 😆

thank you and sorry for the repost!

the lock are just red but the game lighting and the camera inside the egg make for weird effect. You can check it yourself in game to get a better view with freecam (there is also a lot more hair towards the bottom of the egg )

Doesn't it say somewhere that it was only after Radagon married Marika that his children *became* demigod step-children? I feel like being a demigod is more of a title than something to do with your genetics. Like in Dark Souls how Gwyn's first born son was stripped of his name and divinity i.e. the title of God was taken from him, but he's still related to Gwyn.

love that ost

Haha sadly that video isn't out yet. I started a video series about my emancipation theory, you can watch the first part about marika. I'll try to release 2 more parts before the DLC, the answer will be in the last video of the series

@@Kosmos_er Haha thanks man. At least I know it’s coming. I was going through your other videos last night trying to see which one was the follow-up to this. Glad to know it’s coming though. I’ll check out the emancipation series until then.

I had this very thought. The Giant's hair whip weapon says that all giants have red hair, and that color ran strong through Radagon and his kids.

she cursed then to guard the flame so maybe they cursed her to guard the tree

You onto me

I just made a video about it :p

@@Kosmos_er Now that's what I call service!

The issue with marika being the mimic is that she is tool old and who would she be a mimic off. It's important to remember that radagon is marika and not the other way around. The reason the eternal city would need to craft a lord (a man) is simple because gender in elden ring is specifically associated with some roles. This goes back to the alchemical principle of uniting opposites and how some material are feminine or masculine. The gods in elden ring are female (to the point where miquella who is born a boy is transforming into a women as he matures in his adult form ) and the elden lords are male. The eternal city wanted to craft a lord not a god (because marika is already a god) and so they would craft a male. As for radagon, him being a laborer in stormveil doesn't stop him from bein a mimic, infact it lines up perfectly with my own theory about the echo of marika in the grand lift of dectus: "The Erdtree governs all. The choice is thine. Become one with the order. Or divest thyself of it." This echo is marika adressing radagon after his "birth"

@@Kosmos_er It really doesn't line up though. Why would Marika create Radagon and then simply send him off to live as a random peasant? Your own example of Miquella also disproves your argument that it couldn't be Marika because the Nox wanted a Lord. If there is precedent for a male Lord becoming a female God, then the same is possible of Marika. That would also tie perfectly into the cyclical nature of the world. Marika could have been made as a Lord (whether it be by the Nox or not) only to take advantage of her liquid form to transform to become a woman. EDIT: Maybe Marika transformed in a way related to the growth of The Erdtree, just as Miquella did with The Haligtree. Again, I also think you are skirting around the clear connection from the Asimi item description: "An intelligent silver sludge; asimi infect the body of tarnished, granting the host power." Asimi grant the host power, NOT the other way around. Marika specifically tells Radagon that he will be granted HER godhood when they become one. Radagon is Marika. Like the Asimi, Marika's essence influences Radagon, while his qualities being absorbed isn't mentioned. Marika could be a mimic of any number of people, such as The Gloam Eyed Queen, Renna, or literally any important figure from the Uhl or Ancient Dragon society (both of which likely worshiped numen). Another thing to consider is the recurring theme of SILVER specifically being associated with inferiority and mimicry. The Nox try their hardest time and time again to recreate the superior technology of The Ancient Dragons, but they are consistently held back by their lack of gold. While the SILVER Tears may require an actual lifeform to mimic, a similar being made with gold might not require an essence to leech off of, the gold already being life essence itself. That would also fit perfectly with the alchemical themes since femininity / silver are associated with formlessness and requiring the influence of masculinity / gold. I speculated the Nox could have created Marika in The Nameless City because, being near The Crucible/The Erdtree, we can assume the inhabitants of such a city would take advantage of the plentiful magical sap and amber. However, an alternative theory is that Mimic Tears themselves are simply cheap silver copies of a superior yet very similar ancient technology.

@@davidgomez5032 i do have answers for many of the things you bring up and i'll eventually put them in video format. But can you explain to mee how you fit the fact that radagon is marika in your interpretation if radagon is just a radom person

@@Kosmos_er As for further more speculative evidence, we need to do some quick history, assuming you don't already know all of this. Since the planet Venus can not be seen during certain times of the year, many ancient cultures did not recognize Venus as a single entity, and instead believed that the discontinuous sightings of Venus were separate objects. Worship of the seemingly several objects led to several gods being developed in the name of Venus, those beings often being of different genders. Radagon's rune, seen on his sore/scarseal as well as throughout the world, is clearly based off of one of the many symbols associated with worship of Venus, specifically the cross-hatch symbol for copper. Another of Venus' symbols is more strongly associated with femininity, that being the symbol we still use to this day to designate female. Marika's rune doesn't have such an obvious inspiration, but if one were to add an arc above that previously mentioned still used Venus symbol, they would get the symbol for Mercury. So while Marika's rune may not directly resemble the symbol for Mercury, both Marika's rune and the symbol for Mercury are actually depictions of a woman being crucified. There is more evidence for the connections, but with it established that Marika is associated with Mercury while Radagon is associated with copper, we can interpret their fusing as being directly analogous to the alchemical processes of combining copper and mercury. In such a combination (as well as in general), the mercury is in the form of a liquid while the copper is a solid, serving as further evidence that Marika could be somehow formless in a way like Asimi or the Silver Tears. In fact, copper and mercury are attracted to one another due to copper's electric charge, so they can fuse in soil (or maybe even in trees...) even without human intervention. Copper IS malleable, lending credence to the idea that Radagon could be a liquid being, but Mercury is obviously much more strongly associated with liquid formlessness. Mercury is also strongly associated with The Eternal Cities (see the mushrooms found there with a silvery oil-like substance) just as Marika is. The connections make themselves once you bring in alchemical symbolism.

@@Kosmos_er He wasn't a random person, he was a descendant of powerful giants and served as a blacksmith in Stormveil. He led a revolt and then later became a champion of war. As for why Marika would choose him, we know she has a propensity for ambitious men. The enemies of The Erdtree defeated, grace faded from Godfrey's eyes, but Radagon still had much to prove as "mere champion", on top of "aspiring to be complete" in a more spiritual intrapersonal way. I believe it is a sort of Moslow's Hierarchy of Needs situation. Once Marika had satisfied the more material need to secure The Erdtree by defeating its enemies, she turned to education and spirituality, choosing a more well-rounded mate. The concept of The Divine Hermaphrodite does refer to an ideal singular being, but that being is itself a sort of commentary on the ideal marriage, partners metaphorically becoming one through the union of marriage. Or, as speculated in another comment, the independent worship of various Venus gods synthesizing into one being after technological and scientific innovation led to the conclusive discovery of Venus. The theory is far from complete, as clearly Radagon also has some kind of relationship with The Fire Giants, The Crucible and The Misbegotten, but those connections are very vague and many items or descriptions related to those connections were cut / changed. The themes of things fracturing only to come together again do suggest that maybe Radagon was once part of Marika, so maybe you are right and these theories are not incompatible. I think a far simpler explanation is that she simply had him as a bastard son with a Fire Giant, but using the amber egg as a sort of surrogate womb is a possible explanation for how Marika could hide that she was pregnant with him and hide his red hair at birth. Personally, I would keep the amber egg and rebirth connection while scrapping the mimic angle in relation to Radagon. Marika could be a mimic and the ultimate product of The Nox (or a more ancient society that The Nox are simply imitating), while Radagon can be a reborn abomination, Marika's DNA being fused with a giant's DNA as the source of his Y chromosome. Critically, reborn creatures are NOT mimics, so I don't see how Radagon being a product of rebirth would suggest that he is a mimic to begin with. Rebirth requires the larval tear of a mimic, but reborn creatures are still distinct entities. Neither Rennala's reborn cripples or Boc transform in a puff of smoke as the mimics throughout the world do, nor do they actively infect or transform in a liquid state as Silver Tears do.

1-To me the asimi cut questline is illustrative at best. The theory doesn't really rely on it if you ask me. 2-i am not implying the hair color comes from the egg, rather that I speculated that radagon was made with the egg, and the red hair inside was the hint fromsoft left us. I have no hard opinion on why radagons hair is red, it could be because he was infused with giants essence during his creation as other comments have proposed, or it simply shows how close he is to primordial gold/how strong his grace is.

Radagon trying to repair the elden ring seems odd if he's supposed to be a tool of the eternal cities, but maybe we are supposed to interpret him as going rogue by doing so, which would have been mirrored by the cut content mimic tear quest. It seems undeniable that Radagon is against whatever Marika's plan is, but in the game we got at release, Radagon being a mimic doesn't really answer why that is.