THE MUSHROOM LORDS KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT 

I would die for Elizabeth

@@quelaag I would ROT for her

The whole Mushroom "lore" apparently comes from George Martin not Miyazaki. He used the same theories in Game of thrones with the Weir Trees

@@scythianking7315 Miyazaki has used mushrooms as well! There's a few different sources it could've come from! :D We wont know for certain!

Holy crap that's just such a nice confirmation of the erdtree network being made possible by mycelium networks

*hits blunt* haha yeah man mushrooms

Whoa this is huge

What is the name of the real life plant?

YOOOOOO. I always assumed that they were Lilly of the valley?

Yes! I assume this is because they died during the battle with Radhan and they now exist to carry Malenia back to the haligtree to safety

I just entered liurnia for the first time in a new playthrough and i was looking at all the sunken ruins and thinking "how long have they been in such disrepair"

Wouldn't be surprised if that's why Malenia has scarlet rot, it hitched a ride all the way back from her dad's previous marriage.

@@echidnaburger02 wow, metaphysical STDs

“The tragic corruption of the Order has taken its toll. Across the realm, life lies in ruin. Fallen to pieces. Foul curses and misery spread, unabating.” - about marikas golden order

It depends right. If you mind controlled someone to do good things against their evil will, for example, are you harming anyone? I think you could argue both sides

@@schnoz2372 id rather mind control someone to get some tea and chill out then kill them but that’s just my OPINIONNNNNNNN

@@quelaag as benevolent as your intentions may be I think it's basically been proven now that mind control is the *next* measure in ascending scale in terms of population control. When it's "bad for optics" to be violent, you take the mind control route. Miquella probably understood that the scale of the Erdtree's forces couldn't be quelled with his army, so he used his powers to his advantage as all the demigods do. My question is; if Mohg was "in" the pool of blood then what was he *doing* to Miquella. Maybe the reason Varré saw Mohg as a loving & caring being is because he was using Miquella as a conduit to extend the reach of his dynasty's influence. It could explain why Varré is not a fully initiated Noble and why he is distraught and confused when/if the player should defeat him at the palace.

@@quelaag Oh come on now. You gave THE most extreme example of Violence, and THE most benign example of Mind control lol.

Gowry seems to just care about his god being unsealed! With a lot of concepts related to death being sealed away there is a desperation to restore this original order. Enia and Hyetta elude to this! Please watch my “the Elden ring keeps me up at night” video This sacrifice is one he assumes belongs to Millicent (and he cries for her / feels badly for her often) but sees her choice for independence and individuality as a tragic one as it doesn’t benefit the balance of the natural order of things. It just allows Marikas order to persist (as destined death and rot get to continue to be sealed). But it’s a good story about a parent and a child: a parent who has the foresight of longevity and long term goals, but is also grasping for the past to be restored. And a child who has only ever lived this way, and is blossoming into her individuality and independence! You can enjoy him for being creepy rot guy!!! But I do love the natural themes of balance in this game. And I think things like order, chaos, death, birth and rot/abundance can live in harmony but the harmony has been disrupted. I love their story dearly, and it’s clear Gowry loves her. But I do think their story is more symbolic ! Ignoring the themes of natural balance and the union of opposites ignores a pretty big chunk of the game!

@@quelaag Thanks for the response, I think my discomfort comes from people wanting to find a good side to be on and relate to, while I generally see the worst in all of these characters rather than give them the benefit of the doubt. When I listen to Gowry's dialog and how his voice actor performed, I get the impression that Gowry is an inhuman being who isn't even capable of parental love as we humans experience it. Honestly I think he talks about Millicent and her sisters more like a gardener talking about his plants rather than children. His tears seem more self indulgent than actually empathetic (I'll have to lose watching Millicent, not that she will suffer) and when he says the old should be forgotten what I hear is a clear excuse obfuscating that he doesn't want his existence revealed to Millicent, he doesn't want her to see his guiding hand. In relation to his meditative pose and Melania's children being representative of eastern alchemy it makes me think of how Zen Buddhism in japan largely supported militarism in world war 2, how people can easily twist 'good' beliefs to support horrors and atrocities (again not that rot is the horror, the horror is how Millicent is used and abused). I think Miyazaki is pretty critical of eastern thought/religion as well as western. While you say its clear that he loves her, I'd say its clear he doesn't love her, he doesn't even see her as a person, what he loves is her fate, his idealized vision and version of her, her as his pet project, her as the scarlet valkyrie he wants her to become, all while blatantly refusing to see or engage with her on a personal level. Again I'd argue that harmony and balance of the natural world are only morally neutral. Nature isn't good, its amoral, uncaring and brutal but with great capacity for beauty and wonder. I'm not trying to ignore the themes, but rather say that they don't have to lead to 'Good'. I think its pretty clear that Marika is a tyrannical maniac, even if she resists the Greater Will her motivation always seems to be personal power and control. However I don't think that has to mean that things that are against her need to be any better. Volcano Manor wants to burn the Erdtree, but they are ruthless killers and torturers. The Gloam-Eyed Queen wants a new age with death, and yet seems to have created an artificial army of monstrous sadistic psychopaths in the Godskins (see Dominula skinning festival and albinauric mask) (although I suspect that the order of operations was actually Godskin apostasy first and then in response the founding of the Golden Order, Marika probably didn't mind death when it suited her crucible era, but when it was used against her then it's absolutely forbidden (also assuming the gods in question were Marika's ilk and Marika herself wasn't the Gloam-Eyed Queen). Ranni wants a distant order that can't be messed with and doesn't effect people much, and yet is willing to condemn another to soul-death without a second thought. Miquella wants his own age and tree free from control of outer forces, yet is hinted he doesn't mind manipulating and controlling other's wills through his power. I'd even argue that ancient traditions like the sacrifice of the hornless by the ancestral followers and the burning of souls by the deathbirds are pretty immoral, even if they fit into functional natural cycles. But again all these things are cool! and complex! finding balance and unity is perhaps an ideal goal in Elden Ring, but also can easily be used to justify immoral actions, and seemingly can't be realized in game by any of the storylines or in any of the endings.

It may have to do with the scorpion god who was sealed down there! Which is how malenia inherited that power?

I was under the impression that the Rot water flowing through the Grand Cloister and down the waterfall make their way into other various waterways downstream, albeit in a much more diluted state, as the stagnant rot water is now flowing and at some point mixes with flowing clean water, spreading the fungus that grows out of the rot but in a much less concentrated, toxic form.

Their twin blade sword I showed suggests they were intended to live in balance! Plus, the waterfall of rot in the drainage channel becomes purified and is pure water in Malenias bossroom! Go check it out! 🙏

I don't think Gowry's _goal_ is to destroy the Haligtree. He wants Malenia to ascend as the Goddess of Rot and to provide her with Scarlet Valkyries as helpers, and Miquella with his unalloyed gold is definitely postponing all that, but the Haligtree rotting (IF it's due to the blossoms) seems more like a casualty than the main intent.

Agreed! They look intriguing

There is a little cathedral over there before you descend into the temple, which seems like it should be the gateway into that area. Seems like it was either cut for time or perhaps might be made accessible in the DLC.

I always assumed that he was an avatar for the god of rot, and when you kill him he continues speaking. From the wiki "We shall meet again, you and I. There are countless pests to choose from." (First time killing Gowry) "We shall meet again. As many times as it takes. For you to understand." (Subsequent killing at Gowry's Shack after the first) "Have you taken the lesson, now? Killing me is an exercise in futility. All is well, provided you understand. Let's just pretend it never happened, shall we?" (Dialogue after talking to him at Gowry's Shack after he has respawned)

I think he’s a worshiper of the original rot god!

It is noteworthy that there are no scorpions, yet there is a shield depicting a scorpion.

To clarify, the person I referred to as the "Dynast". You refer to as the "green man" or "Elden John", lol I believe Tarnished Archeologist is why I referred to the green man as such.

It is specifically primordial glintstone and I think are tied to the crystalians though I’m uncertain how it got there. If it’s a meteorite, or what

@@quelaag I'm curious, is there other primordial glintstone in the game? This is the first time I've heard of it.

@@quelaag Maybe it was a byproduct of Astel's crashing and landing

I am pretty sure the primordial Glintstone is solid ozone. Okay, stay with me; 1) it can be made essentially "out of thin air" using electricity because it can be a byproduct of 'coronal discharge' from high concentrations of electricity. The clean smell from a lightning storm is ozone. It also comes out with purple light when produced from oxygen. (Coronal Discharge Method>Production tab - en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone#:~:text=In%20standard%20conditions%2C%20ozone%20is,finally%20a%20violet%2Dblack%20solid. ) 2) Ozone is a disinfectant which inhibits mold growth. 3) if Radahn replaced all of the void in his universe with solid ozone it would definitely keep everything in place including any rot.

THE CLOUDS ARE NOT CLOUDS!!! THEY ARE THE BOTTOM OF WAVES!!!!! I now think significant portions of the game are intended to present to particular enemies that they are on the bottom of a deep ocean. That's why there is no half cloud, half sky animations or ones where you can see moving celestial objects. Also why there are super murder ocean animals all over the place. The best predictor I've found so far is places where there are ghost jellies. I think that's why the rivers & the flow direction of the water matters. It corresponds to the sky so when we can't tell what universe we are in based off the stars, we can tell based off the direction of the water flow in relation to light source.

@@SixBeark Ozone isn't really stable enough to stick around to be mined in caves, for a start wikipedia gives its half-life time as 25 h under typical lab conditions, a boiling point of 161 K and a melting point of 81 K. Those aren't "Dark Moon cold" temperatures, the latter is almost cold enough to liquefy air! 1) Only works in low concentrations of ozone and high concentrations of regular oxygen. It doesn't _have_ to be electricity either, you need some energy source to split up oxygen molecules and if the resulting lone atoms collide with other oxygen molecules they _might_ form ozone. But if an ozone molecule gets zapped it can just as easily disintegrate again, even easier in fact as it's inherently less stable than O2. 3) Please just don't. A star-sized volume of pretty much _any_ solid would collapse under its own weight and ignite a new star, the exception being elements close to iron which will just collapse into a neutron star or a black hole instead because they can't release any more energy via nuclear reactions. Filling _the entire universe_ with solid matter would likewise cause it to collapse in on itself. Aside from just being a generic magical crystal Glintstone primarily reminds me of comets and similar space debris, some of them are almost entirely comprised of water. And while the explicit reference is "cold" all the visuals are either clearly water ice (which granted could be ambient) or at least more readily inspired by it (e.g. blue glacial ice) rather than some exotic substance which most people won't ever see even once in their life (the glow of lightning is from atomic excitation or ionisation which you can get from most substances, not a bulk effect of ozone gas). Oh and lightning of course is already claimed by the Ancient Dragons and thus tied to order and gold, while Glintstone has only minor connections to it mostly through individual people.

@@Photoloss so I got stuck up on a lot of this too initially. The thing which made me come back to it as likely correct is not that anything you said above is incorrect. Instead, how I have come to believe the lands between physics is anything but "typical lab conditions" - I think instead it is more like physics in a truly simulated & curated world where every essential element can be interchangeable.

@@Photoloss I would also distinguish between the other types of Glintstone with what gets called the primal Glintstone above the rot river. The primal Glintstone/gravity Glintstone is black purple whereas Lusats is blue black & Azur's is the current.

I think that’s what we’re seeing with grafting and some other elements as well with the erdtree taking on the responsibility of “rot and decay” via erdtree burials. As far as gowry controlling “witless pests” it seems to be a way for the mushroom lords to communicate without the potential of being harmed. Most of the kindred that have the fungi seem to be experiencing religious ecstasy and engage in prayer, so I’m uncertain if in this universe it means something more.

I’ve been so busy with streams and art and everything !!!!

Miro

I mean, it's kinda not too. He's not seated as in a position of meditation. He's not upright and relaxed at all. He sits forward in his chair and he's leaned back as though his spine has become rigid. Which is the behavior we see when ants infected by chordyceps prepare for the fungus to spore. They climb a tree then bite into it with their jaws. Their body becomes rigid and acts as a tiny branch for the fungus to produce a fruiting body from. Really the only thing meditative about the pose is the distinctive positioning of the hands. The rest just screams of discomfort. But of course, that's not evinced vocally because "Gowry" isn't the body but the fungus inhabiting it.

@@rainbowkrampus that’s not true haha he is leaned backwards in his chair with his palms up toward the sky - that is a mudra.

@@quelaag What mudra exactly? It's not like any I am familiar with. Nothing about that pose strikes me as being evocative of meditation. Dude is manspreading like he just collapsed into a chair after running a marathon.

I thought glintstone came when the primeval sorcerers, Lusat and Azur glimpsed the primeval current. They saw a bunch of stars dying and in that same moment, it was made real for the lands between.

@@differentbutsimilar7893 as far as I understood it the founding fathers of glintstone sorcerers caused stars to fall from the sky and land in the lands between

@@Valdyr_Hrafn Mmm... and the description for the Rain of Stars spell reads " Thought to be the founding glintstone sorcery. The glimpse of the primeval current that the astrologer saw became real, and the stars' amber rained down on this land" IIRC, Sellen also describes glintstone as the amber of star energy. It's always seemed to me that Lusat and Azur were the original glintstone sorcerers, and there wasn't much, if any glintstone before the current was glimpsed.

@@differentbutsimilar7893 right sorry i didn't mean the actual stars falling. They'd destroy the planet lmao. I just interpreted the amber of stars actually coming from space. And like how literal amber traps stuff in it on earth and preserves it. These shards from the stars would've brought shards of the gods who are sometimes called stars or other celestial bodies. Astel dropping from the sky is implied. Astel creatures come from the black star, void, black hole nothingness part of space. What if this giant scorpion that was defeated a while ago dropped as a shard from the rot god? I'd be happy to hear if there's something disproving this I've not touched or thought about ER for over a month so I'm rusty

I believe Quelaag is attempting to make a broader point about war and violence on a larger scale. I can see the moral argument of your point if viewed as an individual in a hopeless fight against an overpowering enemy. You at least might take out or least cause pain to the enemy, and that's justified because the enemy is bad. But that's not how violence works on a large scale. Large scale systematic violence doesn't just affect the combatants. It also has tragic effects on the lives of those who are adjacent to violence, such as family and the community of those who went down fighting, as well as those who have absolutely nothing to do with fight who could even die themselves as mere collateral damage. I struggle to think of anything more evil than taking the life of an innocent person. Perhaps contributing or acquiescing to the taking of an innocent life is slightly less evil, but it's evil nonetheless. Lastly, war and large scale violent conflict, especially in Elden Ring, is entirely about the powerful using other people as puppets to fight for them so they don't have to sacrifice themselves. Just because someone has convinced you to show up and risk your life in a fight for whatever it is that person is hoping to get through violence for themselves doesn't mean that you're not their puppet. Miquella used "mind control" to protect the weak and ostracized from violent genocide at the hands of the strong and powerful. Both mind control and violence involve manipulation and coercion that takes away peoples' autonomy, but someone who's more comfortable with innocent people getting hurt than having to feel "weak" because someone else told him what to do is saying that his **feelings** are more important than those peoples' **actual lives**.

@@calyx_datura This dude really thinking the reason I dont like mind control is cuss I might feel emasculated if a mushroom takes over my brain.

@@kienesel7 No, I don't think that. I don't know you, and I have no idea what you think or feel. You didn't say anything about likes or dislikes in your post. My reply was in response to your comment about mind control being more evil than violence. Were I to guess, I'd assume you don't like either.

I’m not even referring to fighting here lmao. Gowry’s pest simply sits in a chair.

@@quelaag I suppose I wasn’t clear, I was referring to it being preferable to die being on the wrong side than being mind controlled into another way of thinking. I don’t advocate for stubbornness, one should always question things, but mind control is another thing entirely, it makes people into objects.