Ranni the Witch's Full Story Explained (Elden Ring Theory) 

Do you think Ranni the Witch and Melina your Finger Maiden are connected in some way?

So apparently Rannis ending got mistranslated to an insane degree rather than making touch sight sense impossible to determine, it was exposed to be that she would take the greater will and disentangle it’s influence from the world and take it past the stars and moon, so that it could not rob a person of these things on a whim for its own purposes (like what it did to Blaidd)

The concept of the Empyreans having Shadows is so cool. I didn’t understand it at first, but they exist due to the Greater Will’s fear of its own creations. The Shadows are a fail-safe, a kill switch for Empyreans that step out of line. They’re loyal and sometimes amazing friends that are unable to defy the will of the Two Fingers no matter how hard they try. It’s freaky and downright depraved. Poor Blaidd, man.

Its mentioned that Godwyn the Golden was the favorite child of Marika. I feel like not many people have thought about that line, but I kept thinking that it must be important somehow. Then I came to the conclusion of this following theory, which I'm very confident is correct: Godwyn wasn't an Empyrean, and thus could not succeed Marika, but she would obviouly still want her favorite child to have great power. So, she plans to marry him to the primary candidate successor, Ranni. Marika wanted Godwyn to be Ranni's Elden Lord. So, to truly free herself from the machinations of both the Two Fingers and Marika, it was necessary for Ranni to have Godwyn killed.

I freaking loved the moment when you choose the age of stars ending and ranni is doing her monolgue and at the end she turns to you, reaches for your hand and just says:“well then, shall we?“ damn what a way to end the story! Its just to bad that you dont actually see what happens next and what the age of stars looks like 😕

In Ranni's quest you're missing the dialogue before entering into service, in which you gain knowledge from Rogier about the rune of death and Ranni and have a different set of dialogue with her

My theory of Melina is based on the theory that Ranni is the child/creation of Radagon and Radagon only. So If Radagon was able to create a child all by himself, why shouldn't Marika be able to do the same. So in that case creating Melina. Not only a child that mirrors Ranni in visuals and origin but also stats (int/faith) and plan (leading to an ending). While Ranni is planning to start of a new age, Melina is following what most people asume to be Marikas great plan, to get rid of the beast and the controll of the greater will. My guess is that Marika created Melina after she found out that kids with herself (Radagon) would be cursed, while Ranni (as a child of Radagon only) was not. So she did the same with Melina, not to take her place as a vessel but to take her place in Marikas great plan while Marika herself would be bound with Radagon inside the erdtree.

I don’t think Malenia and Miquella’s afflictions are a product of “incest” as some people have suggested. By that logic, all of the Empyreans should have afflictions. I think their conditions are actually connected to the fire giants. The description of the Giant’s Red Braid explains that Radagon hated his red hair and suggests that it was a “curse of their kind.” By “their kind”, I can only assume it’s referring to the fire giants. Perhaps in the wake of Radagon’s war with the fire giants, Radagon was afflicted with some sort of ailment or “curse” that changed his hair color. Perhaps Melenia’s scarlet rot and Miquella’s eternal infancy are a part of Radagon’s “curse” as well.

Please do General Radahn next, i would love to know his story.

I just started NG+ and had a thought; in the starting room of the game there is a dead maiden in front of the message "Though the path be broken and uncertain, claim your place as Elden Lord!" What if she was meant to be your maiden from the beginning, but was slain by Melina to ensure she (Melina) became your maiden instead? After all, the maidens pool of blood looks rather fresh.

15:42- I can't help but think that the line "the cold bothered him anyway" is an intentional Frozen joke by the localizers. Especially since a Snow Witch is involved.

I read this in fextralife´s Ranni wiki page. Dont know if its true, but it´s interesting and made me pick her ending: "One incredibly important thing to note about her dialogue relating to the age of stars ending is entirely mistranslated. In the english script, Ranni states that her age will be that of the chill night, and that she wishes to make the certainties of sight, touch, faith and emotion become impossibilities. However in the Japanese script, Ranni states that she wishes to take the chill night away, she doesn't say that she wishes to take away emotions and sensations, but that she wants to take the order away with her into space. She believes that the world is better off if the order that people live within is not something physical and tangible that can be seen, touched and believed in, so she will leave the world with it, making her order and herself things that can not be seen and worshipped, essentially swearing to not intervene in the Lands Between as its god like Marika did."

Rannis story is so touching yet so heart breaking. This game has been out for so long now and I’m still finding more and more lore I never knew before

There's been some talk on how Ranni's final pieces of dialogue (in the tower as her miniature self + end game) were so badly mistranslated that it completely changed what Miyazaki intended for her ending to be. Something like how the chill night is something that will be of little concern to the people of the lands between, instead of bringing the chill night to the lands between. Might be worth checking out and making an addendum to the video!

Fun fact blaiid will constantly respawn at the ruins where you first meet him in limgrave saying what harm can come to a shadow.

I'd be interested to see you talk about the lore of the Black Knife Assassins in more detail, they're said to be Numen but there are other item descriptions that say they're from the Eternal Cities, and you can find Numen runes underground. It makes a lot of sense that the people of the Eternal Cities would support Ranni, they seem to have strong connections to the stars and the night sky.

I wanna see you talk about the cursed duo malenia and Miquella. I think there story together could be really interesting especially with how much malenia talks about being miquellas knight.

Ranni's story and questline are absolutely insane. I loved it and am glad I did her ending, it's just sad that Blaidd had to die, he was a good friend.

It seems to be implied that Ranni and Melina are two independent halves of the same being or that Melina is created by Ranni. They both have the same goal of ending the golden order though with different missions with Melina repeatedly saying her mission to burn the tree was given to her by her mother. They both speak in a similar manner with a very similar voice and Ranni's closed eye and spectral face line up with Melina's closed eye and face perfectly. (Spoilers) The biggest clue being the ending Opposite to Ranni's in which you burn the world with the frenzied flame resulting in Melina swearing to hunt you down and kill you before opening her eye and revealing Ranni's blue eye.

I agree that the alternate suggestion for the meaning of Empyrean is not correct, for much the reason you state. To read it otherwise is to break the rules of English. Unless it is a very bad translation, I think we know Empyreans are from one god. Mothers can be mothers without giving birth. Lots of mothers and daughters exist without biological relationships and that's an accepted meaning. Ranni doesn't need to be related to Renalla to call her mother. I think it's far more likely that Ranni isn't a biological daughter of Renalla and Radogan than for us to have misunderstood the meaning of Empyrean.

The reason you missed the dialog from Melina is because she doesn't just appear out of no where and start talking you when you rest at a Church of Marika. When you rest at a Church of Marika for the first time a option to "talk to Melina" will appear along with your usual options like flasks, memorize spells, so on. Its easy to miss that another option just appeared in the usual list of options. Same option to talk appears at various points during Ranni's questline as well.

Minor note: The "gravestones" comment from Rennala might refer to how anybody reborn by her will die soonafter without the Rune of the Unborn, rather than her using dead bodies. Have a gander at the description. "Great Rune of unborn demigods. Perfects those who have been born anew. Children born anew by Rennala are all frail and short-lived. Imperfect beings, each and all" If you've got the rune and you wanna get reborn, you're gucci. If you don't have the rune and you get reborn you die since your body is the equivalent of a multicolored misshapen lump of play-doh. That's my interpretation at least.

hey, just thought i'd point out but theres actually several crutial mistranslations in some of ranni's dialogue that completely change the goal of her mission. the youtuber Ziostorm actually did a video on it in case you want to include it as an addendum in your next video

Bandit, this is by far the best and most comprehensive lore vid for Ranni currently man and the theories are full of context and well thought out. Amazing video and script.

Thanks for this breakdown. Just a little point is that What Ranni says at the grace in her tower and in her ending are mistranslations that make it sound like she is going to destroy peoples emotions. In truth she actually wanted to remove their power from the world so that it could not be influenced by peoples emotions, so that they could rule separately and so that an event like the shattering could never happen againn.

I think want most people forget about is that the game takes place possible hundreds of years after the shattering. Absolutely, longer than single life time. Because the way the world is fallen apart.

I just found the video about Queen Marika and I was really happy to find out the second part was already uploaded. Stellar work.

I like your excitement and energy with your lore descriptions. Detailed, and entertaining, but still balanced to stay on track and not let that humor go too loose. Subbbbbbed

I think you should look into the original Japanese descriptions. Remember that this game was localized and translated. IIRC the guy behind translating souls games has said that he has a hard time doing it because things in Japanese can be vague and have different meanings without proper context.

I definitely think Ranni and Melina are connected, since Melina also disagrees with the golden order, and allows you access to the elden ring.

These are amazing thank you much for shedding light onto this story. Please keep it up

you're absolutely crushing this, man. I love fromsoft games, and I even appreciate the fact that they never just spoonfeed the plots of their games, but the only way to gain a solid understanding of them is by reading just about every item description in the game and i know i'm never going to do that shit. That being said, you're breaking it down in a clear, easy to understand way, and i thank you for putting in the work i'm just not willing to do.

Based on the way multiple characters talk about Ranni casting off her great rune and killing her body in a very similar way, its probably safe to say she is either born of the rune or was made around the rune itself.

Here’s a list of places from my own collection where you can talk to Melina -Church of Elleh -Third Church of Marika -Church of Pilgrimage -Grand Life of Decius -Minor Erdtree Church -Outer Wall Battleground Edit: You first can talk to her at Church of Elleh,Gatefront, or Stormhill Shack right after talk to Ranni and getting the bell for summoning they all have the same dialogue. The 2nd time can be down on the same three grace point but instead of Church of Elleh this time it will be Agheel Lake North

I enjoy all these lore dump videos and the way you describe things

Okay so I’ve watched a ton of videos trying to understand the lore of this game and you are the ONLY person that explained it in a way that was understandable. THANK YOU!! Makes so much more sense now

It could also be that empyrians are true, ‘full-blooded’ gods, meaning they didn’t have a parent who is a mortal, like the demigods. This would make sense with the item description aswell because being of one god would imply that there was no mortal parent. Just another way to read the text that may not have come to mind

The gloam eyed queen was stated as being an Empyrean *chosen* by the Fingers, so I think being chosen is the only real requirement. Miquella and Malenia being born of a single god would make them special and thus probably worthy of being chosen, but being born of a single god is most likely not the only possible qualification.

This is such a good series of videos. Great job man

Dude, I've been in the Zelda community for over a decade, writing for old defunct zelda news websites, and watching all of the theorists since youtube began. I've always loved this amazing community, and I also fell in love with dark souls many years ago. So to see these two universes that I love come together so well from content creators in my favorite online community, is really something special!

You are missing the curious detail that Rykard was somehow involved in Ranni's conspiracy to steal death (and maybe kill Godwyn). A fragment of Maliketh's sword is awarded to Rykard from Ranni for his part in the plot. The fragment was also a falesafe to aid Rykard in fighting Maliketh in case Maliketh found out who stole death and came after the ploters.

There's another mysterious bit of lore with the egg. The great rune of the Unborn almost certainly belongs to a twin of Malenia. It is complementary to Malenia's rune. We see the same kind of similarity between Mohg & Morgott's rune. Also, if Ranni is their sibling, what is her affliction?

This is a great series! Nice script and voice over and very informative

Thank you for making this questline very clear. Keep it up!

"Miquella and Malenia are both the children of a single god. As such they are both Empyreans, but suffered afflictions from birth" The sentence structure is clear. The "children of a single god" statement ends the sentence. The "As such" indicates that the following sentence is related to the previous sentence and "are both Empyreans" and "but suffered afflictions from birth" are separated by a comma, which is done when both pieces of information are connected, otherwise you'd use a period. If the afflictions were not related to being born of a single god, the sentence might read; "Miquella and Malenia are both the children of a single god. As such they are both Empyreans. However they suffered afflictions from birth" We know that Marika wasn't afflicted by any such rot, or disease, and in fact was well loved and essentially seen as perfect. We know that the half-mortal children she had were essentially God-like humans, and it's only when her inbred children were born and rot entered the world, that powerful ones like Radahn who was noble, fell to madness. Marika had _two_ god parents, whereas all the non-Empyrean demi-gods we see are the children of a god and a mortal. Now, this all of course ties in with one of the questions raised in the video, how does one become a god in Elden Ring? If even Ragadon, who was himself literally just the god Marika, was not a god at first, then we know that there's more to it than simply divine heritage.

I think Ranni knows about the two fingers extending grace to the tarnished and therefore takes advantage of your guidance to become Elden Lord as a means to open the Erdtree for herself, since Ranni of all ppl knows how the greater will control your fate. It makes it a little endearing how she gives you the bell in the church of elleh and says “I doubt we’ll meet again” and how “surprised” she seems when you arrive at Ranni’s rise. I think it’s pretty interesting how this makes it seem Ranni is the main character of the story, not you.

from all the channels you help me understand the most bless you and thank you :D

I love your Elden Ring videos! I don't play Elden Ring but they make me want to start a game and reference your videos.

So I've been doing a lot of digging for Elden Ring lore content but you are unequivocally the best I've been able to find. After watching your breakdowns it's physically painful to listen to others, and I'm not saying this a some long time superfan I found you 3 or 4 days ago so I'm not even sure if you have any good content besides these 2 videos but they are by far the best I've been able to find so I'm subscribed now and looking forward to your spectacular work.

At Iji's dead body, you can see there were assassins too, similar to those around blaidd. So if assassins were serving Ranni, why would they kill Iji?

Articulate and presented beautifully, thank you. I’m subscribed now and will fully enjoy every more video you create. This game is beautiful, watching people try to piece together the lore of souls game is almost my favourite thing about these games lol

great job dude, i enjoyed your video so much!

Cool theory! I enjoy this wide variety of game content you’re doing! 😊

Cool theory! This game seems really complex, so it's nice to have someone collect all the info. To everyone else, do check out monster maze, great channel.

Great explanation! Love your videos! Looking forward to the next 🤟

Bro your channel is amazing! Great work! (Subbed)

"Renna" says you never see her again and maybe you never do. There is ranni's rise and renna's rise at three sisters. Maybe they are two different people. Also Melina has the same mark on her eye as ranni, and when you fight morgott and summon her to help she has the same move set and knife as the black knife assassins but hers is of the Golden order/erdtree magic. She also has reddish hair

Personally, I think ranni is the main character of the entire story. Everything starts with her, half of the game revolves around her questline, I even think her ending is the true ending

Thanks for explaining this. I played through the events but really wasn’t sure what was happening.

Wow! This video is motivating me to complete Ranni's questline. I originally started it because I wanted Blaidd's armor, but this is turning into a whole adventure.

I had a thought only women can be Empyreans as they will have to inherit Marika's seat as Queen, which would also need a consort to become one. Which both Ranni and Malenia fulfill. Now what about Miquella? Probably, he is an Empyrean only because he was 'developed' at the same time as Malenia (seeing how they are twins). I came to this thought because there are only 3 Empyrean, 2 of which are female while the male other is a twin of an Empyrean. Also, Mogh's plan of becoming Miquella's consort would connect to this conclusion.

I think the quote about the single god thing is kinda misunderstood. Marika is an Empyrean, and Radagon is Marika. So them having children means that their offspring being Empyrean is set in stone. Its not that they HAVE to be from a single god, its just that this scenario means that there's no way Malenia and Miquella WONT be Empyreans. Its an important distinction. Empyrean seems to be a trait sorta like DNA, so Ranni, being a child of Radagon and Renalla, despite Radahn not inheriting the Empyrean trait, Ranni herself could've. I'd love to have a discussion about this if you still disagree tho.

Easily the most detailed and in-depth video on the game so far.

Your lore videos are so good dude

Frenzied Flame seems more and more like a happy ending. No bullshit witches, moons, greater wills, manipulations. Just cleansing flame.

They did Godwyn dirty.

Thanks for the Ranni video chief! Cheers

Best explanation of Elden Ring lore so far on youtube. Support.

HI bandit, I love the knew name!

"Introduces herself as Renna for some reason" Renna is the name of her mentor, the Snow Witch. That's why the tower next to Ranni's Rise is Renna's Rise. Also, "born of a single god" doesn't have to mean a virgin birth. Ranni could have been born of a single god, Radagon, and someone else who is not a god, Rennala. Though I suppose that would make Radahn and Rykard Empyreans as well. I'm probably wrong, just putting it out there.

My first non Zelda video from you because I love this game.

I’m happy you are branching out. Seems like you’re liking it and I can’t speak for everyone but I really like it

If you alter some armor you get different text. You might find other lore in there

For the Empyrean talk. “They are both children of a single King. As such, they are both Princes, but suffered afflictions from birth.” It is possible for the sentence to say Empyreans are the children of TWO Gods. And these two Empyreans are born with afflictions because both those Gods are the same God. Empyreans seem to be beings with the potential to become a God. Miquella in his Cocoon as Mohgwyn attempts to turn him into a God. Milena said to be about to ascend into Godhood if her Rot flower blooms a third time (presumably second phase of the fight). One God, one mortal = Demigod. Two Gods = Empyrean One God = Empyrean with affliction.

So glad I found your channel.

Great content! Please keep them coming 🙏 ❤

For the empyrean debate, has anyone looked at any foreign language translations to see how it’s worded?

I have a question. When we become the elden lord by forging the elden ring ourselves, what happens to Merika?? Is she alive or dead?

I am so glad on my first playthrough, I managed to successfully stumble through her story.

The golden mask dudes quest goes over all this that you talked about in the beginning.

so she started the third impact

Alluding to the part 2 of merikas lore, could it be possible her and radagon were twins? Maybe even conjoined at some point making them "one being", especially since we see twins alot tho8ghout the game especially when it comes to the gods

Bro you NEVER miss! I'm LUVIN the Elden lore

Love this! I would be interested in learning more about Sellen

Can you do Mohg and Morgott next, i really don't understand what the omens are, if they are feared or despised, and how could one of them become a king of leyndell

The theory about ranni finding out about runes and plotting with a faction that are not possibly related to her is weird. If you join both runes they allow life after death, mwaning the undead are part of the cycle. Since they don't go back to the erdtree they can't make the minor erdtrees grow and the undead become a problem for the golden order and the greater will. Since marika is involved with the black knives (but the black knives work for the greater will as well, one killed a lot of finger readers and is located in the queen's chambers) and she feels devastated after godwyn dies, we can assume that marika was plotting against the golden order, got found out and when ranni wanted to off herserlf with no other goal in mind, the greater will would be left with no empyrean to succeed marika and with no way of growing his erdtrees anymore. So he killed godwyn as to punish marika and to split the 2 runes to stop ranni from creating such rune. The greater will can't kill marika since there is no other empyrean at the moment an still needs her, but godwyn is her most beloved son.

Great video!!I watched another with someone saying they translated the english version wrong with what Ranni says a few times, like at the end. It makes it seem like she is doing something evil but the translation is off, she wants to give back free will to people. I only saw the video touched on it briefly but that was really interesting to me. I've been trying to find a video that goes more in depth on that aspect.

Nice! I was looking forward to this

My main theory was that with Marika getting tired of the Greater Will, she orchestrated things like the Black Knives, Ranni stealing the Death Rune, etc. My assumptions is derived from the following: 1. Ranni and Godwyn both died at the same time, and because they died at the same time that the cursemark was broken in half. From this, my understanding is, if only one were to die, e.g. Ranni, her body AND soul will perish. But since Ranni and Godwyn died at the same time, the cursemark split, so Ranni's body died and Godwyn's soul died. 2. Marika was working with the Black Knives. I thought the Black Knives was working with the Two Fingers, since they BK had Ranni's cohorts killed at the end of Ranni's questline. With that in mind, Marika should also have some power over the Black Knives. At least, some faction of the BK loyal to Marika rather than the Two Fingers. Apparently, the Two Fingers had confessors so there was no need for the Black Knives. 3. Ranni stole the rune of death. The rune of death is guarded by Maliketh. Maliketh was betrayed by Marika. In what order should this be considered? The ambiguity of it all lead me to believe that Marika had Ranni stole the rune of death. Maliketh failed to protect the rune of death, so was punished to starve for death. Hence the betrayal in the Maliketh remembrance description. But Maliketh doesn't seem to be aware of this. He appears to only be aware of the "punishment" of hunger Marika cursed him with. This is only going on the dialogue at the end of Maliketh's questline. ... 4. Ranni imbued the rune of death to the knives so she can kill herself to release her soul from her body. How does she know for a fact that this will be the outcome? How does she know this won't kill both her soul and her body? This lead me to the assumption that Marika told Ranni what to do. I.E. to have two demigods die at the same time so Ranni's body dies but her soul survives. This in turn, will cause the other demigod's soul to die, but their body to continue living. I also think Marika deliberately chose Godwyn to be the other demigod. Marika is fairly selfish and, if Godwyn is the "golden" boy he really was, an excellent fighter as seen from his defeat of Fortissax, but also very devout to the Two Fingers, then Godwyn might be a problem if left alive. This also gives Marika kind of like a coverup reason to eventually break the Elden Ring, as in "She is so wrought with grief and disillusionment of the Two Fingers to allow the death of her favourite child in such a horrible manner she broke the elden ring". ... 5. Why did Marika tell and work with Ranni in the first place? Well, Marika realised Ranni's disdain for the Two Fingers. So much so that she would willing kill herself, or at least part of herself, to escape the Two Fingers. Hence forth, Marika saw the potential in Ranni in carrying out a plan to be done with the Two Fingers so Marika worked wwith Ranni This is also the reason why I assumed that Marika kinda wanted Ranni to succeed in her Age of Stars

An Empyrean simply means a candidate to replace Marica as the anchor for the elden ring and greater will

Excited to hear more about Blaidd, definitely seems like one of the most interesting NPCs in the entire game

Ranni is one of my favorite characters in this game. I personally think she's one of the coolest designed characters by fromsoftware. I just beat my first run of the game today at about 265 hours. But Of course I went with her ending. Now on to look around see what I missed then ng+. Nice video. I'm thinking Ranni and Melina are definitely connected somehow. Tine will tell as more theories and speculation continue to come. These vids are also what I find so great about FS games. Elden ring is officially my favorite game of all time.

can the next episode be everything about the frenzied flame, shabriri, hyetta, and the 3 fingers? i cant figure out WHO exactly the 3 fingers are despite doing the full frenzied flame playthrough also i just want to state, the dead body of Ranni atop the shrine is extremely masculine. goes out of its way to look masculine as fuck. sorry but i claim Ranni as a trans woman now.

Definitely earned a sub, very excited for elden ring lore!!

adding new information to old videos in new videos is a good idea

If you cast a specific spell in front of a statue in the capital, a message appears on the ground that says "Marika is Radagon". So Ranni split herself into two people, like Radagon/Marika. That's why she's got a ghost face that is joined with her at the eye. Betting the closed eye matches with her other half, Melina, and the mark on Melina's eye may be the other part of the death mark and she split the mark between two bodies in order to cheat the death effect.

I think that cut Marika dialogue from Melina is something that was patched in to order, or occur more easily at least. On my first play through I didn’t hear it, but definitely went the same route as my next play through (which happened a few patches later) and I got her to say it. Idk weird. Great video!

I was just wondering when you were going to release this. Then it popped up.

Nice theory man so u finally changed it to bandit games well it was fun while it lasted😌

Seriously great job