Berserk fans might have been misleaded into believing that Miquella "is Griffith", while, when drawing comparison, Marika seems to be more like him, building illusion of "heaven" after ascending to godhood while sacrifising everyone
4:44 I'm of the opinion that the reason why we don't see certain characters' faces is because it would be much easier to discern who is an Empyrean -- I think the mark of the Empyrean is the closed left eye. We know of five Empyreans: Marika, Malenia, Miquella, the Gloam-Eyed-Queen, and Ranni. Ranni's doll has its *right* eye sealed, but notably it's her *spirit's* left. If Melina is or is related to the GEQ, having her left eye sealed to mark an Empyrean fits. We can't determine if Malenia had a sealed eye, since the upper half of her face is rotted, and we've never seen Miquella's face. Finally, Marika's face is almost always obscured -- the only time we see it quite clearly is in Ranni's ending, where she holds up Marika's petrified head. I think it's quite telling that half of Marika's face is missing, including the eye. The LEFT half. Obviously, this would have implications for Messmer, since his left eye is also sealed. EDIT: To expand on this, as we theorize with Melina, the eye holds the mark of the specific Outer God that holds influence over the individual. For Melina, the "Gloamy" eye could symbolize some unnamed god of death, the same god of the deathbirds. The Fire Giant's chest-eye clearly shows us the mark of the Fell God. The Blood Star, the Formless Mother, the Frenzied Flame, perhaps even the unknown dragon god; each of these Outer Gods have an associated effect on the eyes of the people who they influence. EDIT2: The Scarseals, which are eyes, are said to "represent the lifelong duty of those chosen by the gods."
I LISTENED TO YOURS. I'm so glad to hear another take on Marika's motivations. If she is the one responsible for all the dead bodies she fully is like griffith
The fact that the Erdtree was made from a crucible of bloody bodies is shown in-game in another crucible that is happening in Caelid: the Scarlet Rot is a crucible melting down and reforming Life for a new age. It births the Kindred, mushrooms, plants, and buds of Malenia (Millicent, Pollyanna, etc.). Yet, Malenia refuses to embrace her potential age, denying the Scarlet Rot and its crucible.
@@teahousereloaded yeah, he wants to "devour the world" to rebirth the world. Rykard understood how Crucibles work, and he mocks Marika for the great lie that she perpetrated to create her "Age of Plenty".
It's all very fitting. Everyone is acting out the age-old cliché metaphor of kingdoms and empires being built/founded "atop a mountain of corpses" - Except in typical Elden Ring fashion the "metaphoric description" is actually completely literal and not hyperbolic or dramatized at all. Marika did it successfully, and now that her age is floundering, many other would-be powers are trying to repeat it in their own way - Rykard feeding himself and countless others he deems worthy to the serpent, The Rot consuming all the casualties of the war in Caelid, Godwyn's deathroot spreading to consume more and more of the dead, Mohg filling up the entire dynasty mausoleum with blood and viscera, The scholars of Raya Lucaria amalgamating sorcerers together into "cores of stars", and even "lesser powers" such as the misbegotten or ants building great corpse piles for reasons which may have way more practical/symbolic meaning than we'd first assume. In light of this, we might also assign very different meanings to acts such as erdtree burials or dragon communion. Or read much more sinister implications into Miquella "feeding the haligtree with his own blood" (no way his alone would suffice).
I got an email from the official newsletter that gives us some good info: "Marika's Golden Order was birthed from Shadow. Messmer's flame purged the Lands. Miquella would abandon Grace in pursuit of something greater. Will you walk with him?"
That's actually great info! The most revealing part of this trailer IMO was the line that Miquella 'abandoned his fate', presumable meaning his goal isn't to fulfil his duty as an Empyrean any more. The alternative I thought was that he was still trying to save Godwyn but that wouldn't be 'something greater' I guess it's not that either. Somehow it's always like this with Fromsoft; it always turns out to be a third thing you never even thought of and I can't wait to see what wild twist we end up with.
@@HammerspaceCreature "The alternative I thought was that he was still trying to save Godwyn but that wouldn't be 'something greater' I guess it's not that either." I wouldn't sell it so short. The story seems to imply he has been and will exhaust all options he can think of to try and right the wrongs afflicting his siblings and indeed all the unjustly maligned. To save Malenia, to grant Godwyn his true death, to provide a safe harbor for mistreated something truly warping in its consequences need occur. Something grander and more consequential than the Golden Order and the cyclical nature of The Lands Between to this point. Something that required shedding all his former godly ties (something Ranni's quest also sought to do though it was to reclaim her halted fate). It may not end up coming back into play but I wouldn't be surprised that it was the hunt for knowledge and power unknown to continue his efforts to cure his siblings that revealed the "something greater" to which he must now strive.
The spine on that Omen enemy people think might be Godwyn is a shadow between their back muscles. When a jacked person squeezes their shoulder-blades together in real life, that’s what it looks like.
seeing the Omen as recipient for souls actually blew my mind this makes so much sense even about their nightmare who coulb be spirits trapped inside them haunting them in their sleep. Now that I think more about it you could even say that they litterally are ''crucibles for/of souls''
I think from a thematic perspective the shadow represents all the dark deeds committed to bring about the supposed golden age. Everything that was shunned, exterminated, and trampled to make way for her vision. Miquella learning about it is like a kid in a colonial power coming to the realization of all the suffering their prosperity is built on.
One of my crackhead theories is that Miquella isnt a child of Marika but another god that has convinced everyone that he is. The statue at Malikeths boss room is an androgynous young person with three wolves which is what we get with the spirit calling bell from torrents former master which is implied to be Miquella. As well as his power being stated to be the most fearsome of all the demigods
This is similar to my thoughts, too. Miquella is a changeling. He is "Elden John" pretending to be a child, which is why Siofra River and Ainsel flow near the Uhl ruins, and why the Haligtree depicts an old man with a beard (very similar to Elden John statues). Miquella is a "Siofra" or "changeling". Changelings were old fairies who took the place of trueborn infants in the cradle (connecting to Cradlesong). Miquella has fairy wings. All of his flavor text mentions Radagon and Malenia, but he seems estranged from his mother, almost like Marika suspected that he was not her child. The Ainsel River's name also originates in an Scottih fairytale called "Ainsel", which means "my own self", and features a fairy that is burned by an ember. The fairy blames the boy, or tries to, telling his fairy mother that "Ainsel" burned her, but Ainsel means "my own self". A long arm then reaches through the chimney and picks the fairychild up. Also, when changelings died they turned into lumps of wood, not unlike Miquella's wooden effigy within Malenia's bossroom.
28:29 Actually there may be another reason for this: There is a theory that the Dung Eater was the father of an Omen who had his horns amputated, but the baby did not survive; This event would leave the Dung Eater traumatized, breaking his sanity and gaining a deep hatred towards the golden order, so he would wear armor that imitates an Omen with amputated horns, in honor of his deceased son. And like all parents of omen babies, he would have an Omen Bairn, an object with which both he and our character are capable of summoning cursed spirits. The armor is key to this idea since it would be strange for someone obsessed with omens if their armor, which imitates one, is not imitating them to its maximum potential, with fully grown horns.
@@GrimmWitchands There's also GOT to be some symbolism with the sun and the omen / giant culture. The dung eater wears a sun pendant but the sun made of omen horns as a mockery on the wickerman seems so cruel
@@quelaag Perhaps the Omens were the privileged inhabitants of the Sun Realm, while the humans were its servants, or its second-class citizens who did the hard work, such as being its guardians (I'm saying this because of those who live in death), even voluntarily.
Just spent all of last night bingeing the recent uploads on Tesla lore, and I must say your ability to bring new insights to not only Miyazaki games but also electric car companies is astonishing.
So happy you’re back! Wanted to add some insight as a jeweler/goldsmith. I think you’re spot on with your theory that the beginning of the trailer is showing the crucible. When creating a gold ingot for smithing, goldsmiths use a crucible to melt down gold, or alloy pure 24k gold into other karats (like 14k or 18k) by combining it with other alloys (fine silver, copper) and melting those together. Fitting that the Elden Ring crucible is where all life is blended together. It does look like Marika is creating a great rune made of gold, and maybe that golden rune is what is fashioned into the Elden Ring, shaped with her hammer, very similar to the way goldsmiths take a gold ingot poured from a crucible and use hammers and mills to shape and mold gold into the desired design. We would literally use that same process of forging a gold ingot, milling, hammering, and bending to create bangles like the bracelets Marika is wearing. Would love to see the tie in with Miquella’s unalloyed needle. Pure, unalloyed gold is 24k. I’m wondering if Marika was the one to bring pure gold into being, or if she simply discovered it, and alloyed it to a lower “karat” using the sacrifices within the crucible? Was this a new alloy of gold born from an affair and betrayal? And was Miquella the only one to discover pure, unalloyed gold in the lands between? I have too many nerdy metallurgy lore questions that need answering!
It looks like Marika is pulling threads from a womb. Threads and needles are closely associated with Godskin Nobles (not only do they wear skin but they fight with sewing needles) and thus the Gloam-Eyed Queen, as she cradles these Godkins in swaddling cloth she possibly makes herself. Could it be that threads are the shape runes took when the Gloam-Eyed Queen was potentially the god (and carrier of the Elden Ring) of the past age ? IRL and in fantasy at large, runes can be etched into hard materials like wood or metal (this is the theme/iconography associated with Marika/Radagon since the first trailer and the first time we saw the Elden Ring or shards of it, in association with the hammer) but they can also be sewn into fabric. I don't know, these are just random ideas I had watching the trailer.
I keep thinking about the amniotic sac from volcano manor when I see it. There's some link with the devouring serpent, the primordial erdtree, and Mesmer with his sneks. Might be reductive, but there are definitely Garden of Eden themes and motifs at work. Temptation/seduction of knowledge or power, snakes, exile, paradise, etc.
Completely agree with the gwyn/senpou monks, and even bergynwyrth comparison - all powerful figures trying in vain to extend their rule and escape mortality, and in each of those games, the rulers attempting to escape mortality willingly did horrible things to make it happen, and each of them slowly watch their efforts decay into something less than or beneath what they had before. they made this huge "necessary" sacrifice to bring on this amazing conceptual future, and when they start to see it peeling away at the edges, they cant accept it because it means the horrible things they did were for nothing
41:09 I would like to point out how the choir changes from a child singing (Miquella) to a women's choir (St Trina). It's so dope. The music is also telling a story 😭
Speaking of Dung Eater and some Omen Lore, it's interesting that he wears a Sun Medallion to represent the mending rune he's had visions of The Wicker Giants also sport a Sun Medallion on them, too.
Have folks speculated that Marika was impaled by Messmer? The arc that holds her in place (evoking Christ on the cross) is the same color and texture of Radagons attacks. The “spear” in Marika is red, matching the color scheme of our boy Messy. Even the material of his spear is red. If there’s anything to this it’s kind of rad that his style is so Roman. Makes the crucifixion stuff fit so perfectly. Great stuff as always, ty for posting!
the tower of viscera that marika holds the strands of hair in reminds me of the blasphemous blade. "Sacred sword of Rykard, Lord of Blasphemy. Remains of the countless heroes he has devoured writhe upon the surface of this blade. Now they share the same blood, bound together as family."
Yes! I do think that Mt Gelmir's rituals mirror a lot of practices both marika and messmer utilized! Kind of a "you did this to us - so Ill do this back to you". Its neat that Tannith has a crucible knight, and a Godskin noble with her as well. Kind of a big "fuck you" to this war.
@@quelaagLet's remember that the snake is a "traitor to the Erdtree", meaning that they were allied for a time. Considering how malleable the Order was initially (see the Liurnia affair), it's not surprising Marika adopted some practices from the Gelmir cult. Moreover, the snake has definitely something to do with the Crucible. He is a small crucible in his own right, absorbing souls and then producing different life with it. His reticence to do so, due to his greed, is probably why he's seen as an unworthy god, as opposed to Marika's liberal use of her womb (both physical and metaphysical). Lastly, I think this cycle of imitation comes full circle with Rykard, who tries to claim divinity by merging with the snake. An Elden Lord that physically and spiritually merges with his God, in a greedy parody of the Marika-Radagon fusion, as evidenced by the profusion of rings on his hand. I doubt this is a coincidence. Hell, if someone could have discovered Marika's secret, it was Rykard. Which wouldn't suprise me, given how radically he changed his mind about the Golden Order
That green glass shards is probably a nod to the impurities we find in glass irl. A lot of the work of making glass is removing the oxides that give it that color. Even in "clear" glass, you can see a green tint when light passes through enough of it. There's another thing in the game with that green color though which might have more meaning: Sellen's stone crown. Probably still overreaching, but I'll through it out there for someone to investigate.
Yay I'm so glad your channel survived! I haven't watched this whole video yet but so far, I've been trying to find parallels between what we know of Miquella's story and Norse and Biblical myth. I think that on one hand, Malenia and Miquella are sort of parallels of Freyr and Freya, and Messmer in this analogy is Surtr. I theorize that Miquella intends to somehow sacrifice themself in order to end the current age, a la Freyr's final battle with Surtr in Muspellheim. That got me started on the idea that Miquella's ultimate goal might be sacrifice, and then the messianic parallels started to stand out. I theorize Miquella is the child and heir to God (Marika), a figure of comfort for the sufferers like Jesus or Dionysus, who has taken it on themself to descend into Hell (the Realm of Shadow) to "unlock the gates" for the oppressed within. They will enter some kind of contract with Messmer, the fallen child of God who now rules the underworld as the reviled judge of the damned, to allow the next age to pass, possibly by somehow divesting their grace into mortals. The only way to do this is to destroy their flesh and let Marika turn her back on them. I think it fits really well with Messmer's Nero/Roman Christianity themes and I hope that's the vibe. EDIT: Also I don't think that's a pregnant belly, I think it's a Gurranq-style burlap sack containing a giant Gloam-eye.
I find it really odd that not a single lore RU-vidr has put together that the building with the tree sap poring into its arc IS the crucible. The entire thing is symbolising a real life crucible with molten metal being poorer into it. My theory is the crucible is some sort of cathedral that was used to collect the sacred sap from the Hailig(sp?) tree, and was a take on “the crucible of life” for that pre Erdtree religion. Messmer then disintegrating the building and stopping the saps flow makes more sense.
in one of the latest screenshots (of the castle crumbling into the sky, specifically) it can be seen that the golden sap(?) is dripping behind the arc-tower rather than into it. It just appears to be dripping into the arc from some/most perspectives
At the beginning of the trailer where Marika brandishes the golden strands and beckons a gust of gold, you can see the gloam sky at the right side of the flesh mass as well, implying that the 'arch' where she stands under is some sort of gateway leading to a golden land (Lands Between?). If the scene wants to show that she split the world in half (half shadow, half gold), then the right side of the sky should be golden as well, no? But we only see the gold sky through the arch. Maybe this arch that eventually becomes the Erdtree's doorway is the one separating the Lands Between and the Shadow Realm. The line 'And so too was Shadow born' is also uttered in this exact scene. The Shadow Realm is literally and figuratively hidden inside the shadow of the Erdtree... Also this is a reach, but I still firmly believe that the bay in the center of the Lands Between was once the Shadow Realm that Marika hid behind the shadow of the Erdtree. The Erdtree sits at the southern edge of Leyndell's coast, which could mean it acts as the gateway to that place. This bay of water has always been suspicious to me since it sits at a higher elevation than the surrounding sea. There is a straight waterfall from the southern tip of the Mountaintops to the northern tip of Caelid that shows this. You can check this out by going to the Divine Tower at the middle of the sea or at Farum Azula and looking towards the West to the direction of the bay. If my crackpot theory is shown to be true I will forever worship Michael Zaki
This happened to Jackdaw from the Dragon Age community about a year and a half ago and it took him almost a month to get his account back. I'm very glad that you got faster/better help.
Doing the geological analysis of the shadow land is so genius! Those buildings in the trailer makes so much sense now once you connect them to the locations on the existing map. I was wondering if we will spawn in the underground area of the shadow land since we entered it through the cocoon, which is located underground inside an ancient dynasty ruin...
A perfect Cooper cameo! So glad to see you got your channel back! My DLC Character: I've been working on a character I'm calling The Blade of the Crucible. A dagger + Crucible incantation build. Head cannon is that he is seeking out the remnants of the crucible in an attempt to resurrect that age.
Re: the golden strands, I was stumped about what informed this design but then it hit me. I love space and it reminds me of the Laniakea Supercluster. So does the Elden Beast but rendered in a different way.
The womb thing at the beginning (that Marika pulls something from) reminds me of a cocoon, like the one Miquella was in and are found all over the Haligtree. In the picture of Mogh stealing Miquella, there is a similar sticky/webby substance.
I want to point out what it seems a lot of people are missing. Marika is shown pulling the gold thread from a single body yes, but then when she holds the gold thread above her, we can trace multiple threads to multiple different bodies on the walls beside her. So I am pretty confident, she is not pulling from just one person/body, but from many, then connecting them. Similar to the ending of Loki s2, how he holds multiple threads together to create a new world/time.
@@quelaag Could be! I haven't finished the vid yet, commenting as I go, but do you mention or give credence to the theory of the veil over the empty spot on the map? Marika using a veil similar to the one seen in her bedchamber to hide the land of shadow, being propped up by the divine towers? And also using the mimic's veil item as an example of that ability in-game.
@@quelaag Also to add onto that, in the game map, we see ships in that spot on the map (bottom left of the potential dlc area), and that could be the spot in the dlc where there are broken ships in that sunken blue area.
@@quelaag ALSO, sorry last thing lol, I think the dlc area is in that empty spot, but also upside down a-la stranger things. And that can connect to the themes of shadow, reflection, and the inversion stuff that is in the base game.
When we see Mesmer standing on the hill, attacking the city, there's this effect of red and black magic swirling around. It really reminds me of the Rune of Death. What if when Marika sealed the Rune of Death, she gave it to Mesmer in the shadow realm to go use it to destroy all her enemies, and then later sealed the whole mess in the shadow realm with Maliketh being the person that keeps the whole thing contained.
It's so good to have you back! I noticed while looking at that picture of Marika that the 'necklace' she's wearing looks similar to the threads she holds up in the trailer. Could those threads be the same thing?
Welcome back! Thank Marika you didn’t lose over a decade of your time and effort. I definitely have a lot to say after the story trailer, so much YT won’t let me post it as a single comment so breaking it up again:(. I also have been going off the rails with digging into the history of Latvian and Baltic culture and mythology since the butterfly video. I first picked up on the inclination of Baltic mythology being an aspect of inspiration for the game perhaps 3 or 4 months ago when doing some reading on real world culture world tree mythology, and was kind of taken aback by how similar the traits were. Since then I’ve read up on as much of the culture as I can possibly ingest, and I want to make a slightly more formal case for why I’ve started to believe that Baltic mythology is not just another of many ancient cultures and myths that Fromsoft has drawn inspiration from, but I believe it is one of two primary religious myths that the basis on which George R.R Martin and Miyazaki got the structure for the entire games universe. Those being Latvian and overall Baltic region religion, and Jainism. In regards to the primordial crucible, and the primordial form of the Erdtree being this mass of bodies. I think it’s definitely possible, and not just in a “anything is possible” sense. George has already created a basis for trees made up of humans to some extent with the Weirwoods of ASOIAF. I also have long theorized since months after release, that the crucible was not merely just an age in the history of the lands between, but an omnipresent, necessary law of the in game universe. There’s countless item descriptions that suggest the true power and source of the crucible is something perhaps even beyond the Elden Ring, and is seemingly what forged the Ring in the first place. Remembrances of now dead demigods and other beings alike are “hewn into the Erdtree”. Which seems to make all the more sense now. As well as perhaps explaining the reasons for Marikas sealing of destined death, and the ushering in of Erdtree rebirth and shunning of all other forms of post death. But I’ll have more to say about that when I talk about the Laima in Latvian mythology. The last thing I want to say on the primordial crucible and Erdtree and the whole last frame of Marika opening the charnal gates and the Gloam sky that surrounds it is, doesn’t it seem like what I assume is the lands between being opened to is like a pocket dimension? Only through this single space between the wall of bodies is the sky shining gold. I get major Norse influences in this. There’s been a lot of Norse inspiration in character design especially in the northern part of the map, and a heavy amount of influence in terms of lore and story. But one of the crucial missing features of the mythos is the existence of the 9 realms. 8 realms for the disparate entities and the outer gods they are the beings born from, and the lands between them, the Midgard of Elden Ring’s world. Which may well explain the symbol of the fire giants great eye. This is a bit of a tangent, but for the sake of the absolute scope of this games lore, it almost seems necessary for me to yap a bit about the giants and the meaning behind the fell eye as I’ve taken to calling it, of the fire giant. In previous comments on the butterfly video I didn’t want to mention the swastika and it’s potential implications in Elden Ring, because it has become a notable anti-Semitic symbol, and because I didn’t think it was necessary to make my massive comments more muddied with mentioning of a seriously controversial symbol even if it was appropriated for evil and misguided means. Nonetheless, East Asian and Eurasian culture to this day has their own history with the symbol, and this history is what Miyazaki or perhaps Martin as well drew the influence from. The swastika in Jainism, has deep meanings for the nature of Samsara and the eternal cycle. “The four arms of the swastika symbolise the four places where a soul could be reborn in samsara, the cycle of birth and death - svarga "heaven", naraka "hell", manushya "humanity" or tiryancha "as flora or fauna" - before the soul attains moksha "salvation" as a siddha, having ended the cycle of birth and death and become omniscient. In short, the fire giants eye holds a lot of deep symbolism and meaning. It seems to represent Queen Marikas curse upon them in its unnatural “with the sun” rotation. It’s natural rotation would be a representation of the fell gods opposition to Marikas stagnating order. It also seems to be a implication towards the true origin of the fell god through both Balto-Slavic and Jainist interpretations of the symbol. A being beyond the scope of the golden order and Marika, and one who exists to continue the cycle of life and death and rebirth. To relate this to Latvian mythology and the more dramatic aspects of Elden Rings lore, Pērkons the god of of thunder, is represented with this symbol, and at this point I finally begin saying some seriously wacky stuff.
If the celestial marriage drama as it is known, can be used as a framework for how the lands between came to be, then we may well have the answer to this seduction and betrayal. The myth has many ways of playing out. But essentially, the sun goddess Saulė (Marika) is consort to either the Moon or Pērkons the thunder god. Either the Moon cheated on Saulė with Aušrinė or was unfaithful with another in some way, and is either cut in pieces by Saulė herself, or by Pērkons. In other myths, Pērkons “strikes the world tree” and destroys it leaving it shattered and in need of putting back together. Which seems to imply if the Fell God was any God from Baltic sources, it would be Pērkons. This could have a lot of meanings. But if Marika is tantamount to Saulė, I see no reason why Messmer cannot be Pērkons in this context. Especially since Pērkons can be denoted with fiery aspects as well as thunder, and lightning. His mythology comes across as somewhat tyrannical as well. I believe Gold as it is conceptualized in Elden Ring, as light and the essence of life and disparity, is the result of a celestial communion that all begins with the void, from which all life in Elden Ring came forth, the purest forms of energy traveling forth and birthing “gods” in the form of celestial bodies that exist in a metaphysical humanoid state in a grand charnal house of souls. “Miquella spoke of the beginning. Of seduction and betrayal.” From this beginning, we see the seduction. These gods meet, interact, and create new life and concepts from the meeting of their contrasting existences, either created through celestial marriages, or battle. If I had to wager a guess how it may have played out in Elden Ring? Marika birthed gold either via union or battle with the moon. The ancient war and union of gold and blue has roots beyond the scope of even the existence of the Erdtree. The power of the primeval current, an aspect of renewal and creation and destruction and the essence of the void, combined with the power of light, the essence of life and the creator of disparate conditions. Perhaps not just a single marriage or war, but many successive ones all combining and interconnecting these celestial beings energy into gold, the precursor to the Elden Ring, the metaphysical object of order, life, and progression. Lastly, because I’m getting really carried away again. I have to bring up the Laima in Latvian/Baltic mythology as a whole, destined death and the rune of death, fate, and how all of this also ties into Miquellas grand story. The Laima is the goddess of fate. “She was associated with childbirth, marriage, and death; she was also the patron of pregnant women.” This deity has so much relation to fate and how it appears in Elden Ring, and simply just notable things referred to in game in some fashion. Laima is said to prophesy how a newborns life will go, including their death. This had genuine impact on the real world culture, with many Baltic cultures who had some level of Laima worship believing in predetermined fate, and so their battle tactics and all other aspects of life were viewed differently. Here’s one last Wikipedia copy and paste, but this one is frankly undeniable evidence that this culture and mythos plays a critical role in the games lore. “Laima was related to Gegutė (cuckoo), which Greimas considered a separate goddess while others see her as an incarnation of Laima. Gegutė was responsible for time and the succession of the seasons. The number of her calls was believed to predict how long a person had left to live. In spring she would also determine how a person would spend the remainder of the year; for example, if a man had no money on him when he heard the cuckoo, he would be poor for the rest of the year.[11] Laima's sacred tree is the linden.” The Cuckoo is such a weird and unexplained thing in Elden Ring. The Carians have a whole group of knights dedicated to it, so what made it so important? I think this gives us a good idea, and if nothing else proves interesting I hope someone skims far enough to see at least that single quote. I mean not only is the Cuckoo a goddess of fate and time or aspect of Laima, which lends enough in the way of possible meanings. But the goddess of fate itself takes the same species of tree as the Erdtree as it’s sacred tree? That just cannot be coincidence. With that said, if Laima is reflected in ER, I wonder if any one character would be that person, or if it’s more complex than that. The stars being rested halted Ranni’s fate, but not our own unless we too wish to divest ourselves and the world of gold. It seems fate is monitored by an overseeing deity, or multiple. I even wonder if similar to the Norns spinning threads of fate, each individual god and it’s order can force a new fate upon another through use of this aforementioned celestial charnal ground, these Gloam lands. The Gloam eyed queen is Laima in Elden Ring. Melina is either actually her daughter, sent to the lands between via her powers of fate, or perhaps actually the Gloam eyed queen. A related goddess to fate is the reaper, Giltinė. Whos sacred bird is the owl. Many have said Melina’s talon mark is a raven or eagle. But perhaps an Owl is the bird being represented on her mark, the sacred bird of the reaper, an aspect of the GEQ, the goddess of fate. Interesting to have St. Trina shown as the phrase “even his fate” plays in reference to what Miquella has lost. If this was intentional, the existence of these twinned characters being one singular person may be a reflection of fate in Elden Ring, and a major callback to the biggest theme of Dark Souls. The inescapability of one’s ultimate fate. In Elden Ring, it seems Samsara does exist. An endless cycle of death and rebirth in many facets and forms all interweaving. Miquella is considered sage by most in the lands between. Powerful and mighty and willing to cast it all off to search for a better path. His fate sealed by gold to be empyrean to a dying order. Perhaps St. Trina, and Radagon too, are either alter egos or other real people inhabited by Marika and Miquella to house their fate, and eventually cast it off. Finally, tying Miquella in with the fire giants eye. In Jainism, the swastika is the symbol of the seventh Jain Tīrthankara Suparshvanatha. His legend goes “When he observed tree leaves falling and flower wilting, he renounced his worldly life. He gave his kingdom to his son and became a Jain ascetic. After 9 months and then obtained Kevala Jnana (omniscience). After a many years of spreading his knowledge, he is said to have attained nirvana at Sammed Shikharji on the sixth day of the dark half of the month of Phālguna.” Miquella cast off fate, all worldly attachments, and is vying for Nirvana, and a way to bring everyone there with him. Talk about an age of abundance. That was a lot.
@@lillonerboi504 I don't have the mental capacity to form a meaningful reply, I just wanted to say I appreciate this incredibly detailed (yet easy to read!) ...observation? Theory? I'm not sure what to call it, but I enjoyed reading it immensely!
@@mackenziedesire7515 thank you! I appreciate it and I’m glad it was easy to read because I’ve tried to explain the relationship between the games lore and the real world Latvian pagan myths before and it’s always a massive word salad of me jumping from various deities, so I’m glad it was digestible even if it was still a massive wall of text lol.
Among other thoughts, I always found it interesting that the two most powerful omen that we know of, other than the horns, have two other aspects of the crucible, i.e Margot's fat tail and moghs wings. I'm excited to learn more about the omen crucible connection
don't know if anybody pointed this out yet, but the corpse mound at the start of the trailer look eerily similar to the corpse mounds giant ants create. the giant ants give numen runes, and the elden star is found in one of their caves. also there's a lonely formic rock nearby the giant underground sea with the white pillars reminescent of the elden beast's arena, nearby nokron. the main theory is that the ants ate the numen corpses around the nameless city, but maybe there's something more to it. Like, maybe the ants are the builders of erdtrees
Two comments I haven't seen in any of the breakdown videos so far. At timestamp 1:17 in the story trailer the figure on the ground has what appears to be a very shallow helmet and what looks like a veil or mesh. This resembles the kind of head covering of Lady Tanith or possibly a finger maiden. Not sure where to go with that. Second note, at the 1:43 mark where you see that sap twisting out of the tree you can see tiny thin tendrils at the bottom of it that look like a claw. This looks almost identical to the golden necklace that Marika is wearing in the promotional art, down to the tendrils and all. Again, not sure where to take that, but it's a noticeable detail.
@@HeyGuy4321 Excuse me for sharing my thoughts in an untimely and irrelevant manner. I don't make a habit of commenting on videos so I'll make sure and not bother next time.
@@EricSRiley Well, yours is the only comment _I've_ seen saying that, personally, so it mattered to myself and anyone else who is equally "untimely and irrelevant"!
I just watched the livestream and youre account changed to the tesla advertisement channel. So hyped your channel got back up, thanks for the insight into the trailer. You're the best!
I love how I have so many souls based channels and I keep finding more. Not just a bunch of random content, but great channels like this. I can’t wait to watch all of your videos.
I'm an infrequent viewer and I had a nice time watching back at your trailer breakdown stream among the other youtubers taking a look at it, and then I saw the Tesla Live and had to wonder who I watched was hacked this time, and tragically it was this channel. Glad you have it back and are right back to more lore!
My main thought when seeing the opening was that its the creation of the erdtree is just Ganishka's rebirth in berserk Relating to the main on going theory that it formed from the crucible, Marika is preforming a mass culling to recreated or use a portion of the crucible for the base of the erdtree. Just like in berserk, where in Ganishka sacrificed several apostles to recreate his own man-made Behirit, which is a natural piece of the world like the crucible. With his berhit he was trying to defy the established order and change the world to his will, exactly like Marika did. And in both of their attempts to create their own order, a tree of life formed
Something i found weird is that we are specially told, also know as being spoon fed, that we chose to walk this path. which is weird that were being told what to think, but were not given any reason behind it.
I'm only at 19:45 in the video, and I don't know if it came up in another breakdown video, but you mentioned something along the lines of the thing Marika seems to pull the golden strands from looks like a pregnant body. That makes me think of a line Melina told about her mother giving her life and purpose at the base of the Erdtree. And since that mass might be a primordial form of the Erdtree, I think, since the Gloam-eyed Queen is a mother figure for the Godskins, she's been defeated by Marika, but with her last breath she gave birth to Melina, to retrieve Destined Death from the one who stole it. As that, probably part of the Gloam-eyed Queen's spirit might've been sort of reborn in Melina
When the DLC comes out, we'll realize that the tesla ads were not a hack or a scam, but actually Quelaag's own theory that, instead of summoning and riding Torrent, we'll instead be summoning and driving a Tesla
Your wickerman explanation is so good. It's the sun realms weapon / golem turned against them when Marika took control of the flames. In that Neon Genesis erdtree scene, the fused bloody bodies look very similar to whats going on with Rykard and the Blasphemous Blade.
I like that idea of having a subtle little character story motive while playing the game or going into DLC. I like to imagine my tarnished trying to leave his confessor roots and unrequited piety behind, really hoping for a better way or a reform of sorts, and sees that in Miquella, his Haligtree, and his plan, whatever it might be. Putting his confessor skills to use trying to find Miquella and help in the redeeming of the Golden Order from its bloody and oppressive roots. As always, love you work; glad to have you back!
Super relieved you’re back! I often listen to your videos while I’m working so I got really worried when I couldn’t find your channel but I’m glad it’s all sorted! Hope you’re alright, I’m sure it’s been very stressful on your end.
Its endlessly fascinating to me how skilled the writing and world building is for From's games. I love how theres so many varied factions in ER with differing ideals but all of them in some way have to incorporate the conjoining of parts of the physical realm in order to fuel their goals. The Godskins flay and melt flesh together and the Golden Order has its catacombs where the souls and bodies of the dead are returned to the Erdtree. Life propogated from the division of a unified whole, and yet combining that life back to a whole is a common means to gain or maintain power.
My character for the main game is headlored as an astrologer outcast from the Carian line so I am definitely going into the DLC as your Carian Detective! 🕵♂ Nice analysis of the trailer, great to see you back.
the first character i'll go into the dlc with is a scholar, and Gideon's academic "rival" (self-proclaimed, and very petty), so his motivation will basically be "oh sorry did you say that Miquella is still a mystery for you? well NOT FOR ME IT ISN'T"
i'm gonna go crazy if i do anymore lore speculation than i have been doing on my socials rn, so let me just say the character i'm going into the DLC with is a Nox knight searching for answers from the powerful above them in the lands between for themselves and their kin, hence needing to follow miquella and find out his tea. so relieved you got your channel back!! thank u as always for the amazing analysis
The channel's back! It sucks that it happened, but I'm so glad you could recover it ❤ The only thing I can say about the hooded burning figure, is that their body proportions don't match those of the current form of Melina. Their limbs are too elongated and the waist seems too narrow. In size and proportions seems to match the Black Knight Assassin's and the first generation female albinaurics? Not saying it's definitely not Melina, just that her current form doesn't match with the memory figure. Marika strikes me as a rebellious figure, one that massively effs up, but a rebel nonetheless. She rebelled against the previous order and its tenants, somehow succeeded, and then tries to create a perfect world of life and abundance, rejecting the death that so much had traumatised her before. But things get out of control quickly, as her age is based in a massive unbalance. Without death, life stagnates, and she blames everything for it except her new order. At some point she realises she's trapped by her own system, by her very godhood. She has shadows, fingers and a Golden Order following her every move, so she sets a new plan in motion, a new rebellion. This time against a monster of her own creation. She sends Godfrey and his Tarnished away, so they can experience a world of struggle that'll make them stronger, capable of breaking the wheel. Then, cursed forms of death (stagnant rot, deathblight, undeath, etc.) start to make a comeback and everything crumbles. Her dream turned into a nightmare, she decides to break the Elden Ring, force the much needed change, and dies paying for her crimes and her mistakes.
so glad you got your channel back, teslalive! personally for the DLC, I'm running my Leyndell knight so lots of ancient dragon communion stuff, but with some beast/crucible vibes as well so I can take advantage of those expansion incantations 🙏
Who else is convinced that Marika (as Radagon) and the gloam-eyed queen boned, and Messmer is their offspring? Dude looks exactly like a godskin with Radagon hair. His control over flame could be a product of his lineage to the GEQ, and Marika might have specifically planned such a birth for just that reason - i.e. gaining access to a weapon to lay waste to the indigenous people of the land of shadow and bring in a new age.
so thrilled you received your work back. you are an absolute beacon in this community and the person i turn to first when i want to hear some genuine original and researched takes on the lore. also my dlc build is based around a miquella supporter, finally returning to the lands between as a tarnished and just trying to figure out what the fuck happened. it's a fairly basic melee focused build with no st trina influence, as i imagine my character wouldn't be aware of the connection, *yet*.
My tarnished for the DLC is "Knghtess Amantia", she's a former fundamental who left Leyndell when Miquella abandoned fundamentalism to serve under the Haligtree, she then left the Haligtree when the Pests began to infest the tree, so now she just wanders the lands between, waiting for an opportunity to reunite with Miquella. She's an int/faith build who utilises the Miquellan Knight Sword's low scaling to fit into the build, as well as rings of light spells and more classic golden order incants too.
I'm totally respeccing to a kung fu build when the dlc drops no matter what the requirement is. Messmer's going to taste these hands if he still doubts our legitimacy to become Elden Lord.
So happy you got your channel back! Going into the DLC with my Black Flame Knight build. He seeks to learn the origin of the Black Flame and the hidden fate of the Gloam-Eyed Queen. Really hoping we get more GEQ lore and if it really is Melina!
So happy you're back, was extremely worried that RU-vid would just ignore your plight but I'm so happy everything was able to be recovered. I've recommended so many of your vids to my friends, coworkers etc who are interested in Elden Ring these last two years that I was so worried this would be like a library of Alexandria type thing where we'd just lose all of your videos forever. 50:47 You could even call this game a Crucible of influences... ok I'll stop Lastly, you were asking what build we were planning on taking to the DLC and I thought I'd chime in on this. I'm taking my "Moon Knight" into the DLC, which uses both a magic infused Crescent Moon Axe and the Carian Moon spells to complete the vibe. Excited to see what those pesky Carians are up to in the Shadow Lands, totally bought into your theory that a bunch of them got stuck there researching inversion!
The figure holding the golden threads in the air doesn't seem to have breasts. Marika seems to in all of her depictions... So that figure is either a primordial, androgynous form of Marika, or it's Miquella, perhaps.
My guess is Radagon is the OG. Radagon seduced the Gloam-Eyed Queen, betrayed her mid Godskin Hunt, harvested all the runes/grace from the dead including the GEQ, and then transformed himself into Marika (as only females can become God, males become the Elden Lord) to become a Goddess for the new age while forming the Elden RIng from those runes. Messmer is the offspring of this seduction. Edit: We can even see Radagon's hair turning golden while forming the Elden Ring in the trailer. It answers some of the split personality questions. Radagon always wanted the Golden Order. Marika having witnessed the inevitable conclusion of this order wants to tear it all down. My guess with Miquella is that instead of sacrificing countless people and gods to form a new tree. He was trying to only sacrifice himself. A selfish act that followed in the path of the older orders while retaining some of the blessings discovered recently.
One thing I noticed is that the number of people following Miquella at the end of the trailer is 7, which is the same as the amount of walking mausoleums found in the base game. Given that the mausoleums have ties to Godwyn who is in turn tied to Miquella, there is a possibility of a connection. An like how grace reaches dead tarnished and brings them to the lands between to become Elden Lord, they could've been dead people who receive Miquella's grace and are brought to the lands of shadow to become Miquella's promised lord. Given that the tarnished brought to the lands between all have different motives, Dung Eater, Fia, Goldmask, etc, it stands to reason that these figures may not all have the same end goal in mind, cooperative competitors for being Miquella's promised lord.
Looking at the red tree scene, to me, it looks almost like the tree is literally split in half, you can see darker regions on the exterior that almost look like bark. I think that explains the golden threads, Marika is literally sewing the Erdtree closed like a giant wound and bringing the two halves it was built as together. I'd imagine that this was probably how the Land of Shadow was sealed off, the Erdtree is essentially the two sides of the closed door, forming a seal with the Lands Between on one side and the Land of Shadow on the other.
aghhhh i’m so happy to see your channel back, i was so scared when i couldn’t find any of your videos. it was so frustrating to see the situation you were in, super messed up. i’m glad to see you back, your videos are some of my favorite on youtube :3
Wish I had stuff to bring to the lore table but honstly just always stoked to see your lore theories!! As a fairly new souls player this DLC will be the very first time I'll be going into a fromsoft thing with absolutely no idea of what I'm in for, so theorising only gets me way more hyped!
I suppose the one thing i can say is that the back silhouettes of Messmer's soldiers remind me of the album cover of Wishbone Ash's album Argus, which was also a silhouette of a roman soldier and allegedly inspired the design of darth vader. Plus the song "the king will come" has lyrics which really pop for me while watching the story trailer "In the fire, the king will come Thunder rolls, piper and drum Evil sons, overrun Count their sins, judgment comes"
Imagine all this as an cosmic allegory for sea life as hydra or corals. The capital is a reef. Marika is Hydra-like as an immortal cosmic entity and as Medusa who can turn men to stone with her stare and whose ever poisonous blood spawns hostile new life.
Your deconstruction of the video is so informative, like attending a very well thought out collegiate lecture in historical anthropology. Just subscribed and intend to explore the backlog while I work. Currently have a second playthrough Bandit build that has been stuck at Maliketh and Malenia but can go into the DLC right away. Considered starting a new buiild but too busy. Perhaps after exploring the DLC I might depending on how much it offers toward the main campaign.
Some lines of Kabbalah have developed the idea that there are two trees: one of life and light and one of shadow and death. Mentioning Solomon's columns only made me more intrigued by this relationship.
omg I was SO confused when I saw a tesla ad stream in my subscriptions the other day and was like "I don't remember following this channel wtf". Thank god you always show up on my front page so I could re-subscribe. I'm so sorry you had your account breached, it's an overwhelming and awful feeling and I hope everything is okay now.
absolutely insane. i always learn something new from your vidoes not only about the game, but also about real world history and culture, it's so cool!!!!!
One thing to note is that all the examples of “containers” or amalgamation are also representative of the Law of Convergence. The Erdtree, the Omen, the Great Rykard Serpent (whos insides look a lot like the primordial Erdtree), the Warrior Jars etc. are all examples of many lesser things/beings “Converging” into greater more powerful beings.
I've only just noticed that there appears to be the faint outline of the Erdtree, in the background of the shot where the camera goes up and reveals the city being absorbed/crumbled by the Shadow tree(s). If this is what it is then that would put the city under siege and the Shadow tree just south of the Erdtree on the main map. I could be wrong though.
This was a great video! It makes me even more excited for the dlc 😭 I’m going in as a faith/int. build with the intention of playing it like a student of Goldmask and admirer of Miquella, seeking further insight and knowledge from them.
Miyazaki definitely knew what he was doing to us with the whole: Miquella=Griffith, then Marika swap, double bluff, trailer there. He seems to base a lot of his stories or in game concepts on Berserk story beats/concepts its amazing and sometimes gives Berserk fans deeper insight into what Miyazaki might have been trying to convey with certain things sometimes. But not this time, he was just pullin' our leg this time.
