4:48 with the gates behind Miquella they look like wings. As if hes "ascended" but the DLC does nothing to make us care about the magical god door

I really wanted more Godwyn the Golden, and instead, I got more Radahn...

@DeadDeadDeadski

20 күн бұрын

It's a damn crime we didn't get more Godwyn. The prince of death should have at least had a fight here.

@soeintyp9393

19 күн бұрын

The entire story of Godwyn is that he, unlike the rest of the world, permanently died. Thats literally the core of his story and one of the main aspects of the whole deal of removing Destined Death. Why the fuck did you expect the one character thats confirmed to be permanently gone to come back? Him story is complete. It would make no sense to do anything more with him since it would break his already established lore and how it fits into the greater narrative.

@DeadDeadDeadski

19 күн бұрын

@@soeintyp9393 There was the Castle Sol story with the eclipse. It didn’t sound like he was for sure gone forever and I think a lot of other people expected just a bit more about him at the very least. Take it easy and have a great weekend.

@badalrana10

17 күн бұрын

Godwyns story is finished He's a zombie

@DeadDeadDeadski

17 күн бұрын

@@badalrana10 he’s a corpse in the LB. Ranni split her soul from her body. Why wouldn’t Godwyn’s soul show up in some form of the realm of Shadow? A zombie Godwyn would be cool though.

Given Miquella’s plan for Radahn and Mohg, Jerren being a Bloody Finger seems less random.

It's only the relationship between Radahn and Miquella that felt asspulled to me. But then again we never exactly hear what Radahn thinks about it. We only know he is a proud warrior and war is what he lives for. Somehow I doubt he wanted his soul to be brought back into a different body, let alone the body of a nutjob like Mohg just to hold hands (and other things) with his brother in some hippie age of Compassion. That's Miquella's wish, not his. As always Miquella is just forcing someone to do his bidding

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

You want genuine lore breaking plot hole? Night of Black Knives was pointless. Ranni could always just discard her body like Miquella on a whim. Entire plot thread of Godwyn and his brand of undeath is now nonsensical and Ranni did it for laughs and to dab on Godwyn and Golden Order.

@joaoluizkfsantos8392

22 күн бұрын

I totally believe Radahn WOULD want to be brought back and to wage war in Miquella's place. IMO Freyja got it right, fuck being dead, he wants war. Just think back to the beginning of the erdtree era, Marika waged war against basically every other group in the lands between. You think Radahn, knowing that, wouldn't be down for a World War 3? "Sure kid, you can have a thousand years of compassion, after I had mine thousand years of war"

@MisterBlackroad

22 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 I don't remember it all 100% but wasn't Ranni especially in the focus of the two fingers as Marika's successor and basically their pawn? She could only break free from it that way. Miquella wasn't really that important to the two fingers. Also, Miquella gave up basically all of what made him who he was just to become a god, that sounds like no deal Ranni would accept

@ETBrooD

18 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 Ranni needed to undergo a true death to escape her fate. She had only two options: 1) kill herself, 2) link the death of her physical form to the death of Godwyn's soul. This would ensure not a natural death, but a true death nonetheless. And so she escaped her fate and the Two Fingers were of no more concern. That's the motive behind the Night of Black Knives. Why Ranni chose Godwyn specifically, it was probably because she despised the Golden Order, and Godwyn was Marika's favorite child. It was a slight.

I don’t think Mohg and Morgott are necessarily hornsent. Marikas children often come with a curse, and these curses seem to come from the enemies she’s conquered. I always had the idea that Mohg and Morgott were just victims of the hornsent cursing Marika for what she did to them.

@daveknightgael1209

22 күн бұрын

Its pretty poetic after enacting genocide on the hornesent that two of her kids would come out with horns. It kinda explains why they call them omen after and why she reviled them so much as to throw them in the sewers

@jacksondegregorio4450

22 күн бұрын

@@daveknightgael1209 I feel like that is the overarching theme for Elden Ring. The hornsent weren’t saints either, and eventually they met their demise at the hands of someone whose people key killed and tortured. It’s a story of how an empire built out of violence, no matter how justified the violence may seem, will always crumble due to their past sins. You can’t bury the past.

bro took the words out of my mouth

The addition of the death knights and the heavy presence of death stuff in the land of shadow really makes me feel like there was some Godwyn and Miquella lore planned that never got fleshed out. Either that or it’s just a big missed opportunity

@fluffygab

22 күн бұрын

The suppressing pillar monument also lays credence to this

@VentraleStar

21 күн бұрын

There’s literally nothing significant to say about Godwyn. I really don’t understand what you would want. He’s equivalent to the Chaos curse which was explained just as much. His story is complete in the main game alone.

@ETBrooD

18 күн бұрын

@@VentraleStar Godwyn's body continues to infest all of the Lands Between, and now that also includes the Shadow Realm. It continues to grow and spread, and one day it'll engulf all of the lands unless it is stopped. His story still isn't over. All we know is that everyone who tried to save or kill him eventually gave up. But he still exists in a physical, growing form. Now we also know that a soul and a body can be merged into a vessel. Miquella did it successfully with Radahn and Mohg. There's no reason why it couldn't also work with Godwyn. It's very clear to me that there was something in the works that got scrapped in favor of Radahn/Mohg.

@Galamoth06

10 күн бұрын

​@@VentraleStarThere was actual lore in the base game alluding to Miquella and Godwyn, whereas the pact with Radahn is only mentioned within the DLC. We knew granting Godwyn a true death was important to Miquella. I don't think it's true at all that there's nothing significant to say about Godwyn. For one thing, he's still in a state of eternal decay and corruption, and soul or not, is still spreading Deathroot throughout the lands. It's definitely an issue, and it never gets resolved by the ending. Secondly, he's the Prince of Death, and the DLC takes place in the lands where all death converges. Why would we not expect him to have more significance there?

@dvdivine1962

5 күн бұрын

​@@VentraleStar so was radahn's story complete. You wouldn't be saying a thing if they somehow written godwyn back in so sit down.

I believe both Ratatoskr and user Revanx77, who commented under his video titled “Negative Shadow of the Erdtree Review - Elden Ring”, put my issues far more succinctly than I could. You can skip to 8:24 for Ratatoskr’s section which I’ve transcripted below. Ratatoskr: “All right, let's talk about my second criticism. The big criticism: the last boss. If you didn't see a spoiler warning up until this point, now is your chance to leave. This is not a spoiler-free video. The last boss is Radahn, and a lot of people are unhappy with Radahn being the final boss. There are people that are unhappy with him mechanically as a boss. There are people that think that the fight is too much, it's too difficult, disorienting. But apart from those, there are people unhappy with the story ending with Radahn as the final boss. There are people that will go so far as to speculate that the initial story planned Godwyn to be Miquella's consort, and it was changed to Radahn for some reason. The basis of the speculation is that there are numerous item descriptions tying Godwyn to Miquella. The Golden Epitaph sword has Miquella referring to Godwyn as “Lord Brother”, and “Lord Brother" is how he refers to Radahn in the memory cutscene at the end. The sword also has Miquella wishing that Godwyn would die a true death, which could be similar to how he needed Radahn to die so he could bring his soul back in Mohg's body. There's also that Mohg calls his coming dynasty the Mohgwyn Dynasty, which has the words “Mohg” and “Gwyn” in it. Now before I get to my criticism, I want to make sure that it's understood that these two are not the criticisms that I hold. I don't think the fight is too hard or unfair, and I don't think having Radahn at the end is a retcon or that Radahn took the place that Godwyn was supposed to be in. I think it's possible that if we look at previous lore points and the new stuff introduced in Shadow of the Erdtree, the connection between Radahn and Miquella might make more sense. But there is still a problem, and I think it's the real reason why people are dissatisfied with the ending. And it's that having Radahn as the final boss is more confusing than it is satisfying. So for example, let's assume that I'm right and that after some time has passed and we look into the lore and speculation becomes more refined, we discover that the connection between Radahn and Miquella makes perfect sense. Let's assume the best-case scenario, and if we dig deep into the lore, we find that it's actually completely satisfying after the fact. Well, in that case, that still doesn't really help us during the fight. It doesn't help us in the short term. It doesn't matter that it was hinted at for a tiny amount of time in the DLC. It doesn't help the situation that Ansbach and Freyja's questline lets you know about it beforehand. None of those factors make it seem less stupid when you first hear about it. Confusion and displeasure is not what the revelation of the final boss should be inspiring in people during the boss fight. Let me give you an example. In Dark Souls 3, Soul of Cinder had presentation. And you don't have to be very well-versed in the lore, you don't have to go around reading every single item description to understand what Soul of Cinder represents. As you fight him, he switches forms, changing his play style and in many ways moving very much like a player. And as the fight goes on, you realize what he's supposed to be, you realize what he represents. He's you. He's a representation of all the people who chose to link the fire. And then when you get him into the final phase, his fighting style changes once more to resemble Gwyn's, the first Lord of Cinder. It's an impactful moment and it's something you can easily understand even if you don't understand the story, even if you're only partially paying attention to what's happening. From Software is very good at this. They've done it well with many different bosses throughout the years. But Radahn is an unfortunate exception. The reaction I am seeing from people when they see Radahn is confusion and displeasure, and almost all the relevant lore details that would ease the shock aren't accessible until after the boss fight. The remembrance tells us the reason why Miquella wanted Radahn as a consort, and the armor item description reveals to us finally what Malenia said to Radahn during their battle in Caelid, and it helps explain what Malenia was doing in Caelid warring with Radahn in the first place, which was a big mystery in the base game. But again, this is all stuff that you don't get until after you beat the boss fight. It's information that will do nothing for you when Radahn is first revealed or when you are fighting him. And given how difficult he is, that could be quite a while. I think they did a bad job with how Radahn was introduced in the DLC. You can tell by how many people are complaining about it. But not just anybody, even people like me. I'm the biggest Radahn supporter. No one has levied more Malenia slander on this Earth than I. So if even I am unhappy with Radahn's presentation, then I think it's obvious that there's a problem.” Revanx77: “I think that Radahn is a symptom, not a cause. By which I mean the reason behind why people are dissatisfied with him is absolutely all over the DLC. That reason being that the DLC has almost zero integration with the main game. There is zero mention of Messmer anywhere in the base game. When people first heard about Rellana, they thought that it was a joke. The Scadutree and the Divine Gate and the veil over the lands are neither explained nor brought up anywhere in the Lands Between. In the vast majority of the new lore, we are adding complications rather than elaborations, with just a few exceptions. The base game did not hint at any sort of connection between Miquella and Radahn outside of the fact that Malenia fought him, which was the subject of rampant speculation. On the flipside of the coin, the DLC barely, if at all, touches on anything Miquella was doing in the base game. The Haligtree is not mentioned once. Malenia is only referred to by proxy as the mother of the forager brood and is only mentioned by name in the description of Radahn's armor. The Eclipse or what it was for is never mentioned despite Godwyn's Death Knights being present and on a completely inscrutable quest. You can have Miquella's Needle in your head and it goes unnoted. You can wear Miquella's tiara to Malenia's boss fight or her own armor to Radahn's boss fight and nobody says a word. You can have the Flame of Frenzy in you and Midra doesn't change at all, and you are still referred to as a Lord of the Old Order or of the Erdtree or of Marika by everybody. There's no explanation of whether or not the body in the cocoon is even Miquella. There isn't even a cutscene for entering the DLC, you just go through a loading screen and zone in. I've heard people, including you, say that the Godwyn stuff was always wishful thinking in the vein of Velka from DS1. Well to me the much more apt comparison to DS1 is Sif. If you went and did Artorias of the Abyss first and save Sif, then Sif's cutscene actually reflected that in the base game. To me that reflects a level of care which is so often absent from Elden Ring. In a lot of ways this DLC is the most polished and finely crafted piece of content FromSoft has ever put out, but it's also missing the polish and craft that I would most care about.”

@Dark_Moon_Light_Butterfly

22 күн бұрын

Wat

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

This is stuff that I don't think 99 percent of the fanbase cares about. When I go on non-lore nerd servers and see people talk about elden ring they pretty much universally think the final boss is the most badass thing of all time. To casual fans this isn't confusing. Only to people who overthink every detail and approach the game by trying to fit it to their existing headcanon is this confusing

@necromaster998

22 күн бұрын

God damn my man spits an entire dissertation in the yt comments section, and it's nothing but facts.

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

​@@mattb6616 so quality of writing should be brought to the level of lowest possible denominator? Are you insane?

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 no i think we shouldn't let schizophrenic obsessives determine whether something is well written or not.

I think with the dlc the story is of a competition between Empyreans - Miquella and Ranni. Ranni murked Godwyn to stop Miquellas ascension to godhood, hence Miquella opted for Radahn instead of Godwyn. Maybe Radahn stopped the stars to stop the competition (i.e., opposed both), and then was eventually coerced by Miquella.

@chopsandtoots

19 күн бұрын

But Radahn's armor would imply that Miquella had always wanted Radahn as his consort. Idk I was not a fan of how the DLC played out lore wise.

@PrinceBilliamTheFourth

19 күн бұрын

@@chopsandtoots Not necessarily always, but from early on, maybe godwyn stuff took place before the stuff with Radahn

3:45 grr Martin from what I understand from interviews, didn't write the 'plot' of eldenring but the world building up until everything becomes an apocalypse. something like that is what he was asked to write for them. so he went to work but everything after the shattering or maybe after the war for the greatrunes, or maybe a bit after that, is when he stopped and From took the reigns. because of this knowledge, its much easier to call out plot holes because they are no longer tied to martian but motives written by Fromsoftwhile also trying to go along woth martins lore at the same time. I think things the fingers origin or the abysalwoods sub plot with the frenzy mansion are martins storys that were just isolated and From added them for extra content rather than us taking them as part of the base game for a more meaningful lore dump. same with the saints being pot friends, base game already established they were warriors as innards, this is just a different version of them, not the origins of every one. but I definitely agree everything felt out of context and mostly just added confusion but didn't leave any wonder or special feelings of what these things mean like the base game did, probably the biggest reason i was excited for the dlc was how the base game left everything open and anything was possible. but instead we get these mind controlled demi gods with no motives or personality of their own to build character development, or were they controlled? we will never know when or for how long and theres nothing in the game that can tell us that, so its going to be a few years of the community arguing over radahn being controlled or just a vow and none of it really matters cause it doesn't really make the story any deeper, just makes dead ends on what could have been motives for why characters did what they did

That ending cutscene of the gameplay trailer was the kicker for me. Trailer came out four months before the dlc released which should be well enough time for them to know whether it would be cut content or not. If I understand correctly, development would actually be done at this point. That makes me think that they included it knowing that it wouldn't be in the final product. Major disappointment for me, as siding with Miquella was the only thing I wanted from this really.

@theredknight9314

22 күн бұрын

Its clearly a sign of heavy content cutting or rewriting. You dont just randomly have that kind of a cutscene in a game that looks that important and impactful just for laughs. There clearly is something cut

@spookzer16

22 күн бұрын

Eh, I think siding with Miquella would have been terrible for the base game. They would have needed to create an all new ending since literally every ending opposes Miquella's rule.

@j.dickson

13 сағат бұрын

I just rewatched the gameplay trailer and what are you talking about? How is this some alternative cut content it’s just a pan of Miquella to the Scadutree

@theredknight9314

8 сағат бұрын

@@j.dickson its not im the game

@j.dickson

6 сағат бұрын

@@theredknight9314 I mean it’s a zoomed in shot of miquella’s actual asset as to not spoil their appearance I’m sure. OP is somehow implying that that unincluded shot of miquella’s arm suggested that that would mean you are somehow someway siding with them. A brief camera angle of Miquella that isn’t included in the game somehow means you side with them is, I’m sorry, their fault in placing false expectations and actually an insane reach

If miquella somehow made godwyn his consort that would've made much more sense than radahn.

@Hugo_Tate

12 күн бұрын

his dialogue sounds like he was supposed to be talking to godwyn. it fits perfectly. feels like they did a last second change

@arthurdossantos6826

8 күн бұрын

Yeah I mean, he's dead as one can be. Maybe a silver tear of Godwyn or something

Fear the Gold Lore

Lore aside, one thing I do not like in the final boss fight is that Mog's shackle doesn't work. I think it had every right to work but it doesn't. Yeah, the case could be made it ain't Mohg's soul, but doesn't the shackle work on the clone boss fight? Mohg, the Omen? Even after the Lord of Blood is dead? It should've worked in the final boss fight, atleast in the first phase. My major gripe with this DLC is that neither the base game not the DLC reacts to things players have already done, unlike other Fromsoft DLCs. There's also no 'final touch' to the DLC like the Blood of the Dark Soul which you can give to the painter or the King's Crown in DS2 or hell, even Sif's alt cutscene. It felt has if Fromsoft did not pay attention to minute details like they always do this time around.

@eurongreyjoy2

22 күн бұрын

For real! Also lack of cutscenes and character context. later areas severely lacking unique enemies too.

@seanrettig8153

22 күн бұрын

@@eurongreyjoy2 ansbach's lore dump about like literally everything from mohgs body to why we needed to kill radahn has to be the result of something being rushed right? I don't think any NPC has had more important shit to say ever, I kind of wanted him to just stop telling me wtf was going on because it felt like I was cheating

@ni9274

22 күн бұрын

Fromsoft payed attention to last minute details just not in the base game, it’s likely they didn’t want to sacrifice any ressources on the base game since they had so much to do for the DLC. Also I don’t think this is supposed to be the last Elden ring game/DLC, Miyazaki said he didn’t want to close the door on another Elden Ring game clearly marking an attention to do something with it in the futures

@eurongreyjoy2

19 күн бұрын

@@seanrettig8153 you're talking about the final boss alone, who's also the worst boss

@omerozel4716

5 күн бұрын

Also why does the Serpent Hunter not work on Messmer?

Things I liked: - everything about Shaman Village. I can't imagine that anybody thought Marika was a "good person" prior to the DLC, so instead of simply hammering in what an evil dictator she is, adding a tragic backstory to explain why she went all evil was a nice touch. I especially like the lore implications of a Finger Ruins being in a valley right below her home village. - confirming that Melina is a daughter of Marika. We didn't get that much about her, but it's good she wasn't forgotten - the Priestess Heart tying together Dragon Communion with the Dragon Cult. Previously, the only connection between the two was the word "dragon". - the mortal dragon Bayle attacked Placidusax. Am I getting Seath vibes from Dark Souls? Yes. Do I care? No. - Metyr, Mother of Fingers - St Trina being opposed to Miquella's ambitions Things I didn't like: - Radahn was foreshadowed pretty badly. - Other than the Death Knight enemies existing, nothing about Godwyn despite the base game telling us there were ties between him and Miquella. - very little acknowledgement of anything Miquella related from the base game. - Rellana was an awesome fight, but terrible lorewise. It's pretty obvious she was not created by Martin in his lore. Here's an easy fix: she was pretty unremarkable until she joined forces with the Golden Order and found her calling. I guarantee I just put more thought into it than From Software did. - we are told nothing of the nature of the Land of Shadow. Has it always been physically separate, and if Marika separated it, how? We have been given no indication she has such power. What exactly is the Scadutree? And how is it that nobody in the Lands Between seems to be aware of the Land of Shadow? The Golden Order isn't always the most tolerant of stuff outside it, but they've never shown the capacity for the large scale suppression of knowledge that would be required to pull off erasing the Land of Shadow from memory.

@Eladelia

22 күн бұрын

@@Nemo12417 I’d be surprised if there weren’t plenty of people who realized that Marika was trying to provide a good world in the past, the game had indications pre-DLC of it.

The entire dlc I was Solaire, looking for the dang Sun. I never found it (what may have happened to it) but there's a lot of interesting symbolism in the dlc that gets me thinking about its place in ER's cosmology.

It might just be lazy writing on FromSoftware's part to save on retcons but from what I understood why it doesn't tie much into the base game in universe is because Marika successfully covered the land of shadow up. She doesn't want anyone to know. Since you need to beat Mogh just to enter the DLC means that it's not really known at all that this land has existed except for Marika's Children and her consorts.

@ni9274

22 күн бұрын

It absolutely tie into the base game, it’s literally one of Fromsoft DLC that ties the most with the base game in term of lore. There are strong evidence that the land of shadow weren’t always shrouded and they were part of the land between for a long period of time, it’s just that it’s been so long that this land is like a Time Capsule of what the land between looked like at some point

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

​@@ni9274the "dlc doesn't tie into the base game" criticism just sounds so fake and dishonest lol. Its probably the most obviously interconnected and plot revealing dlc from soft has ever put out

@gothbladegaming4122

22 күн бұрын

@@ni9274 I agree with your point. The video says it doesn't tie much into the base game but I'm actually giving a reason why in game it's not talked about or seldom talked about in the Lands Between.

@Eladelia

22 күн бұрын

They could have done a DLC where they kept an area genuinely separate and made that work, but the problem is that they didn't really commit to it. Whether they wanted to do an interconnected world or an isolated world is fine either way, they just needed to invest a little more into doing it well.

A video comparing the English and Japanese would be welcomed. Interestingly someone mentioned if you look at Miquella has never maturing both physically and emotionally, his actions make more sense. For Marika, I believe her people arrived by the stone boats in the Cerulean Coast then made their way to Shaman Village. Although now the timeline is even more confused, if Melina is Messmer’s younger sister then she had to been born after the establishment of the Erdtree ( says she was born at the foot of it). Or maybe Marika and Radagon were always one person and the Messmer and Melina were born through Parthenogenesis. Who knows

@stephenlucas8836

22 күн бұрын

Saint Trina in dlc does support the parthenogenesis side.

@Nova-Franconia

22 күн бұрын

The whole “Japanese Original Text“ has never really brought in anything conclusive, to any discussion, to any of the Soulsborne games. There are no Japanese voice overs, they hire their own English Original VA‘s, write these English VA’s scripts, and make their own translations. The line between mistranslation, and a fully wanted tweak in the translation to maybe fit in more with western audiences, is also very blurry if you ask me. (Ignoring Sekiro btw, but they went a slightly different route with that game)

It feels like the DLC lore was written by a different team who heard a summary of the main game but never played it and forgot who was who among the demigods. And still nobody has asked or answered the question: what was the point of the Night of Black Knives if an Empyrean can simply choose to “divest themselves” of their flesh?

@Eladelia

22 күн бұрын

There is indeed a massive plothole where the the Two Fingers that chose Miquella, the Two Fingers that chose Malenia, and their respective missing shadowbound beasts ought to be...

@tomogburn2462

22 күн бұрын

The story/lore is so vague that its open to a lot of interpretations. Personally I feel like I got Shyamalan'd and it totally tied into the base game. Its aliens. Goldmask is the crazy haired ancient aliens guy, and he was right. The fingers are all just aliens and off shoots of aliens. Everyone worshipping them was just making shit up. The entire Golden Order was bullshit. For me the huge gaping plothole is, what the fuck is the three fingers and why does it want to kill not just its fellow aliens, but, everyone and everything. And Ranni's ending takes on a new context. Its not really a "bad" ending. Shes going to space to presumably, Night of the Black Knives the Greater Will, which probably is just more things like Metyr. They arent gods, theyre just from space. And all the demi-gods and grace and great runes, its all just extraterrestrial technology. There is no greater will, there is no god, there is just these weird ass fingers who crash landed here and people started worshipping them and utilizing their technology, until everyone just started killing each other over it, culminating with Melania using a massive biological weapon (probably also from space) to keep Radahn from killing her. And we see the result of the Night of the Black Knives in all the dungeons where Godwyn is dead af. It triggered the shattering. It was an attack on the alien technology (great runes) because she figured out, that the entire Golden Order was a history channel documentary about fucking UFOs. Miquella seems to just have gone to the Shadow Realm to build an army to come back and fight Ranni, and while doing that, the player character Tarnished goes and wipes everyone out before she can even invade. Then she uses Mohgs body, probably because its the closest giant dead body to the entrance to the shadow realm, and Radahns soul, to merge them together to have a champion who might be able to beat this new Tarnished fellow running around slaying everyone. Which is a safe assumption seeing as Radahn was at one point, so scary that his sister (who knows if any of them are actually related or its just some bullshit they told people, much like them being demi-gods and gods, when all theyre doing is using the great runes to be more powerful, and they got all that shit from the aliens) nuked half of the planet to just not die to him. Of all the souls the Tarnished has sent there, his is probably the best choice. And his boss fight pretty much shows why. He has a fucking orbital laser ffs. But like I said, I think its vague enough that you can kind of make up whatever the fuck you want and it fits. And besides, theres like 5 endings. You cant really take that into the DLC, cause how the hell do you know which one the player got, or was planning to get. The DLC kind of had to have its own thing going on.

@tomogburn2462

22 күн бұрын

@@Eladelia See I dont know. Once you talk to Ymir and figure out its all just aliens and there is no greater will, it kind of casts a doubt on EVERYTHING the fingers say. They're just worshipping some creatures who crashed here. They arent gods. They arent the greater will. And none of the fingers have ever even talked to it. Metyr MAY have once had some sort of communication from alien HQ, but thats it. All of the demigods are kind of full of shit. Most NPCs are full of shit. The only two that presumably arent lying to you, is Ranni, and Hyetta.

@dougdynamo9398

22 күн бұрын

I'm so happy I'm not the only one asking this question. The Night of the Black Knives and the Shattering of the Elden Ring are the two most vitally important events from which all other events pertaining to the player's role spring. If Miquella can just divest himself of his soul and escape the influence of the Elden Ring, why would Ranni choose to slay her brother Godwyn, destroying his very soul, to escape the rules of the universe? And not only that, but Ymir says that the stars are a part of the Greater Will too, so even with Ranni's grand plan, how is she escaping the influence of the thing she was so desperate to break from that she killed her own brother to achieve? The DLC completely breaks what we know and provides no substantive replacement which ultimately diminishes the two most important events in the game. The ONLY answer which has no lore to support it but rather stems from the differences in the two characters is that Miquella and Malenia are born from the same god while Ranni is not. But that immediately falls apart when you follow it with, "Okay, so why didn't Malenia divest herself of her rot?" Why would the curse bound to Malenia, the very thing that sets Miquella down his path, not be easily removed based on the new rules they established in the DLC? The entire story they built up is in disarray because of the DLC, and it is infuriating the more time you invest in trying to understand.

@igornaimoli7321

22 күн бұрын

​@@dougdynamo9398where did you get that Miquella escaped the influence of the Elden Ring? His divesting of his own flesh was part of what he needed to do to become a God... So exactly what an empyrean is supposed to do, and it's the Greater Will who chooses empyreans. Ranni, on the contrary, wanted to divest herself of the role of empyrean

Miquella’s journey and conclusion is just an unfortunate example of what happens when a kid with ADHD gains godly powers

@LeggoMyGekko

22 күн бұрын

Lol he probably meant to resurrect Godwyn but completely forgot. I’d imagine hundreds of years could feel like just a couple days to a neurodivergent demigod 😅

@porkwhisperer3050

22 күн бұрын

@@LeggoMyGekko It’s possible he needed a back up option for a lord if one of them didn’t work out. This honestly feels like the best explanation. It is a bit strange though.

@ni9274

22 күн бұрын

@@LeggoMyGekkoif he becomes a god he should be able to do more to save godwyn soul but I think we’re missing a part of the lore where miquella try to rescue godwyn but just fails so he try to look for a new age

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

​@@ni9274we're not missing that part. All of that is in the base game. Castle Sol, the Golden Epitaph, the Eclipse, all were Miquella's failed attempts to either give godwyn a new soul or to give him a true death. Neither worked.

"why Vyke isn't anywhere near comparable." Because he didn't fully become a Lord of Frenzy, instead his armor protected him from the fingers and only his eye got burnt up (becoming a grape). The Vyke you see in the Jail is after he loses that eye and goes back to normal, having finally freed himself and fully rejected the Flame of Frenzy from his being.

@Kurai_69420

22 күн бұрын

Homie just casually rejects the Frenzied Flame at the cost of one eye and an emo gooning sesh, meanwhile we gotta go get an artifact of Miquella, kill his sister to somehow fix it and then take it to Farum Azula (I still have no idea how we get there after burning the Erdtree), then head to the eye of a storm that reverses time itself.

@pathfindersavant3988

22 күн бұрын

@@Kurai_69420 skill issue

@sillythewanderer4221

21 күн бұрын

@@Kurai_69420 it’s because the player properly becomes lord of frenzy

@nezahuatez

21 күн бұрын

I’m starting to lose faith in this channel because LP…how are you thinking so lazily on such obvious answers.

I mean I’m sure this’ll all make more sense in ten years

@ni9274

22 күн бұрын

It already make sense

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

​@@ni9274 only partially

@KommissarAlexander

22 күн бұрын

Remember Velka? :>

Honestly getting serious GoT S8 vibes from the lore revelations. Lots of plot points that seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth (Gloam-Eyed Queen/Godskins, Godwyn), new character motivations coming out of nowhere (Miquella making a pact with Radahn to be his consort when the final boss is literally the first time we've seen them in the same room together), new lore points that are never explained (the sealing of the land of shadow away from the lands between, giant stone coffin ships that *probably* are how the Numen/Shaman got there but is never explained) and people are still arguing about the basic timeline of when Messmer (who was criminally underused despite being in all the marketing) was born and when his crusade + sealing away of the land of shadows happened. It also makes no sense for literally no references to the land of shadow to exist in the base game when Messmer was able to march a whole army into it, probably as recent as Godfrey's banishing since he knows what a Tarnished is. Honestly it feels like the dlc had completely different writers than the base game. About the only coherent lore we got was the story of the ancient 4-legged dragons vs Bayle's brood of 2-legged drakes. Also hot take, Metyr adds nothing to the lore. We already knew that the Two Fingers hadn't had any real communication with the Greater Will for a while and were just winging it, Metyr is just a third middle man between the Greater Will and everyone else, after the Two Fingers and the finger readers. The only new revelation is that she's the mother of both the Two Fingers and the fingercreepers, which makes no sense. The fingercreepers are not a species of animal that spread and reproduce like normal life, they are an artificial biological construct made from some horrific ritual where someone's hand is cut off and mutated, they even have a bloody stump where the arm should be. Just from looking at them you can tell that they are created, not born.

@mrdeanypants

22 күн бұрын

Did I miss a bloody stump somewhere? What's this about the finger creepers coming from a ritual?

@chopsandtoots

21 күн бұрын

The dlc made everything even messier. I hope we get to see the cut content eventually. The DLC felt like fanfiction.

@VentraleStar

21 күн бұрын

Aka you made a bunch of assumptions and are upset at what was actually important and what wasn’t.

@blarg2429

19 күн бұрын

@@VentraleStar You're projecting.

I’m just glad my Messmer wasn’t rushed.

I’m pretty sure the Omen are NOT the Hornsent: they are the result of the curse or grudge of the Hornsent placed upon Marika’s lineage, as retribution for Messmer’s crusade

@fluffygab

22 күн бұрын

If you murder the grandam npc in the lion dance area she has a line pretty much implying this directly

@t2send

21 күн бұрын

It's not even speculation, I feel it's made very obvious that being an omen isn't some hereditary trait that Marika would carry over from the land of shadow. What would the point of the dung eater be if it's just genes?

@drzaiusdd

21 күн бұрын

The first ghost you meet in the DLC that makes a point about cursing Marika… the fact that the “Guardian Spirit” incantation the grandam gives you looks like the Omen Spirits… I thought it was a clear signal overall

Tbh the main thrust of the story is exactly what I was expecting ever since I learned (from videos like yours) however many months ago that they basically gutted all the Miquella content from the base game This is what has always been flagged up in essence: Miquella compels people to like him, he's maybe not the best guy Miquella abandoned his father's teachings and started dabbling with blood magic, then disappears leaving his sister behind with someone known as the lord of blood. Not a coincidence. The stuff around castle sol explicitly tells us Miquella is trying to exploit some kind of interstitial phenomenal related to eclipses/boundaries between life and death etc ( bla bla tropes) to revive his brother or compatriot The only thing that sort of threw me is that radahn was his target instead of godwyn, but radahn is and has textually been known as the strongest demigod since the first few days everyone had the game -- I think all the epic theory crafting distracted everyone from focusing on the basics that were kind of there the entire time Stuff people knew even but was in the back of their mind/sort of taken for granted because it wasn't as fresh and compelling as whatever the discourse du jour was

Ngl i really hated Metyrs inclusion and the reveal that "the guidance of the fingers" is actually just a bunch of nonsense. Like why would Marika and the Golden Order take the Two Fingers seriously at all if they're just the middleman to Metyr who herself is broken and abandoned by the Greater Will? Her existence just feels so contrived and makes everything seem so pointless, might as well just burn the world with the frezy flame

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

Varre tells you the guidance of the fingers is corrupted and broken nonsense the second you leave round table hold for the first time. More stuff that was in the base game and elaborated on in the dlc and then no one pays attention to.

@peteybakedziti8908

22 күн бұрын

@@mattb6616 Varre is also a mind broken cultist that believes in Mohg and his "coming dynasty" but that's besides the point. We already knew the GW abandoned the world and the Two Fingers in the roundtable will spend 1000s of years pointlessly trying to communicate with it again. Metyrs inclusion adds nothing besides connecting the finger creepers with the Two Fingers. Then there's the problem of the Three Fingers, where tf did that come from if not Meytr? In the base game alone all the fingers were basically envoys of the GW but now they're basically radios tuning into the Metyr channel and receiving nothing but static. Seriously what does Metyrs existence add to the lore?

@andrewbowen2837

22 күн бұрын

​​@peteybakedziti8908 that the two fingers came before the elden beast, and that the greater will abandoned everyone

@jeftecoutinho

21 күн бұрын

​@@peteybakedziti8908 Read the description for Lord's Divine Fortification.

@peteybakedziti8908

21 күн бұрын

@@jeftecoutinho the base game explaining that the GW abandoned The Lands Between isn't an issue, at least that implies that things worked as intended at one point. Metyrs inclusion basically means everything about the Golden Order was based on nonsense from the start

I still have a lot more of the dlc to explore but ya im a little saddened that it didn't seem to really add much to the established world and kinda just did it's own thing a lot of the time. Still want to explore more before I develop any theories though cuz right now not much is making sense to me.

The DLC is fantastic in world building, weapons, incantationsz sorceries, boss and enemy designs. Lorewise, the statement that it feels disconnected from base game, summarize it all pretty well. There are so many concepts and evidence which contradict events of the main game. Also, there is not a single evidence in main game about Messmer, the war, Hornsent, Land of Shadow or Radahn connection to Miquella. If there would be at least something we could speculate on, the entire DLC lore would have very different impact. Also, if the Messmer's war would happen before Golden Order, we could understand that nobody mentions it in base game. But everything we know suggests that the Messmer's crusade happened somewhere between Godfrey's banishment and Radagon becoming an Elden Lord. So having absolutely no evidence about his existence or existence of this war is very strange. Another issue with the lore is, that it does not anwer some imporant events, like betryal we hear about from story trailer. In other cases, the lore is too specific and provides details we do not need to know and those details often contradicts base game story.

2:37 Nanaya's+Torch is a 3rd older lord of frenzy from a distant land, so nothing stopping Shamen from arrive to the land, likely by the massive stone funeral boats, and Marika living in the new village for awhile.( some times during childhood parents move to a new town).

Small correction. Ranni never wanted to be a god and take Marika's place. She doesn't have a mending rune (nor her own rune for that matter) during game's events. She expressly get rid of her empyrian body and two fingers to free herself from Greater Will's control. Her ending breaks the cycle of Elden Ring. Miquella on the other hand wants to remake the cycle with him in Marika's place. That's why he stripes himself from parts of himself. But this opens up potentially larger plot hole. If Miquella can on a whim discard parts of himself, including his body, what was the point of Night of Black Knives?? It seriously looks like two different and separated writing teams made story and lore. One did the base game and another DLC after getting just a summary from previous one.

@joaoluizkfsantos8392

22 күн бұрын

We simply don't know how Miquella did it, but that doesn't mean it was simple or on a whim. Maybe Mohg kidnapping and giving him omen blood was a prerequisite? (Since cursed blood would already be step 1 in a journey away from grave). Or maybe it was the cultivation of the Haligtree... Sad that we will never know, but being obscure doesn't make it a plot hole

@Nobody32990

21 күн бұрын

@@joaoluizkfsantos8392 sure but I'd argue, even if it isn't a plot hole, it's still cheapens the Night of Black Knives. We should get at the very least suggestions how and why exactly he had to do it. It's really weird and not in a good way.

@VentraleStar

21 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990It doesn’t do any of that. My god y’all are thick. Dude literally grew a tree with his own blood and cacooned himself in it to get to where he was when we start. Why are we even comparing what Ranni did to what Miquella did? Ranni was quite literally just getting rid of her body to hide and plan a way to get out of the Two Fingers influence. They don’t seem at all like the same states. Miquella did more than just disregard his flesh. It’s only similar in the fact that they both go through an incorporeal state. These are pretty easily reached and understandable assumptions I’m making here. Its like we are trying to be discontent. I am so worried on why this community suddenly forgot its media literacy skills.

Totally agree. With the DLC, the timeline of events is, somehow, even more confusing, and a lot of subjects that deserved more attention (GEQ), are totally forgotten. To me, the delivery is very underwhelming. I didn't expect that all the loose ends to be explained, but I didn't imagined that so much would not be even mentioned.

Radahn was admittedly a weird twist, and I was disappointed that Malenia and Godwyn received no acknowledgement despite what we knew about Miquella’s goals in the base game, but the more I play and read about SoTE, I enjoy the thematic and narrative similarities between Miquella and Marika. Miquella sought an age of compassion and relief for the afflicted and oppressed, but violence quickly mires his and his followers’ stories, and his ability to compel affection is done so to force the service of others. Radahn is killed, as is Mohg, to be used for Miquella’s ascension. He divests his flesh and his love, and St. Trina remakes that godhood would be a prison. Marika was born into a loving and beautiful village, but begins a crusade of revenge, genocide, and oppression, and she ascends to godhood using a literal construct of living, bloodied bodies. Her godhood and the Erdtree would produce bounty and plenty for many people, but many others were oppressed and ostracized as well. Eventually, godhood becomes a prison for her. Overall I’m happy with the DLC knowing how FromSoft’s DLC’s usually work from a story standpoint. I do have criticisms and not everything turned out how I wanted it to. I do agree with others who say rewrites probably happened at some point, and the Scadutree felt underused compared to the prominence in promotional materials and trailers. It’s incredibly beautiful to behold in-game though, and thematically its crumbling, dark appearance is a fitting reminder of the veiled history and atrocities of Marika’s age when compared to the shining and proud Erdtree which which dominates the lands between. But the Scadutree is simply the “shadow” of the Erdtree and not something more. Lots of unanswered questions from the base game, which I know upsets people. And certainly there are some new revelations that at a glance contradict what we thought we comfortably knew before the DLC release.

@nokne

19 күн бұрын

This DLC was made for ppl like you then

@aruption

18 күн бұрын

@@nokne how do you mean?

@nokne

18 күн бұрын

@@aruption the fact you're happy with the DLC despite it's obvious flaws. As long as ppl like you lap up everything FS spurs out, we'll still get the same nonsense from them

@aruption

18 күн бұрын

@@nokne lmao what? They produce good content pretty consistently, and one DLC with where I have some mixed opinions is suddenly “lapping up content?” Was I supposed to wait for KZreadrs and redditors to give me their opinion before I bought DLC to a game I enjoyed? Leaving a negative review on Steam or whatever is not going to effect change. What part about this DLC is so offensive to you?

I think it’s implied that the numen were from a different land initially. Judging by the nox/numen style ships in cerulean cost. So that could mean Marika wasn’t born in the shadow lands and the reason that village holds significance is purely that it was the place where her people and likely friends were butchered. It’s also possible Marika was butchered there but that’s not extremely relevant I feel. I also think Midra can be explained by him just having more runes and thus being more powerful. He could also just be an earlier one so the frenzied flame gave him more power. The dlc lore made most of the confusing characters motives much more clear and everything retroactively makes sense to me. The only things that I didn’t get answered. 1. exactly how the multiple identities work as in Miquella/st Trina and Radagon/Marika. 2. Who the gloam eyed queen is . 3. Why did Miquella seemingly abandon his plans. 1 and 2 both have some new circumstantial evidence that makes some theory’s much more likely though. The only one I honestly feel is worth criticising is number 3 what is honestly my only real criticism of the lore of the dlc.

Funnily enough I don't think there was any real mention of radagon

@LastProtagonist

22 күн бұрын

Rada Fruit! /s

Maybe it's cope but I'm beginning to think that the opaqueness of elden rings lore has to be part of the point. The line on the golden braid seems to drive that home.

@ni9274

22 күн бұрын

Fromsoft lore is always « opaque »

@quinno.9253

22 күн бұрын

Stuff about the intentions of gods like Marika is left very ambiguous because it puts you in the same position as a Tarnished, you have to choose whether to believe and have faith in grace, the fingers, the Golden Order, and Marika. Things like how the shadowlands are veiled, Miquella’s relation to Radahn, when Melina and Messmer were born, none of those add to the experience by being left out. There’s no reason we as players should still at this point be left in the dark about who was alive during the wars with the giants or liurnia or when the shadowlands were veiled, it just makes discussion confusing with no payoff.

@nezahuatez

21 күн бұрын

It’s always been opaque. Even three games for DS left many central questions vague. We don’t even have an understanding of chronology or time in that world. Why is everyone acting new to this?

@blarg2429

19 күн бұрын

@@nezahuatez You should read the reply above yours, which answers your question. TL;DR: there's different ways of being vague, and you do need to give a lot of clear answers to give the vagueness definition, to let the vagueness be intriguing negative space in a picture instead of just fully empty.

My head cannon goes like this. The Numen are from 'another world'. They arrived upon the world on which the Lands Between, Lands of Shadow (our world) exists via giant spaceships that appear to us as massive rune-covered coffins. The Numen were not like the Hornsent that occupied this region, and as a result their special powers appeared as magic, occult etc. As a result, they were called Shaman. They relocated to a village of their own, a place where they could prosper without fear of being attacked, farmed into jars etc because one of their traits as Shaman/Numen was an inherent ability to graft or be grafted. They were 'built different', more pliable, more compliant. Down the line, this could explain Godrick's ability to graft. And if all of Marika's descendents are also Numen, could explain their own great powers. The Hornsent staged a genocide against what was clearly a more powerful race. And wiped out all but one, in the shape of Marika. Anything of a high enough technology would surely be consided magic, think of Sam Raimi's Army of Darkness as an easy reference. Or, similarly Back to the Future. The Numen must have seemed so beyond anything supernatural the locals had ever witnessed. But at this stage, they were still a minority, easily squashed. Messmer would be Marikas weapon of mass destruction and tool of revenge.

@richlacerra6668

22 күн бұрын

What it doesn’t explain is then why the numen betray marika and murder her children in the night of the black knives, so clearly we’re missing something intentionally

@sarez6767

22 күн бұрын

What I don't get is how a race that can ascend to godhood, has Magic power and has the power to travel through space could be beaten by funny horn looking guys

@OtherPeoplesCars

22 күн бұрын

@@sarez6767 Hey they weren't THAT funny looking 😅 But yea, I know. It's half the fun isn't it, coming up with our own theories. I guess the whole ascend to godhood parable, their true abilities etc might not have occurred to them yet, or become fully realised. It reminds me of how Superman was just a 'regular man' on his home planet, it was only once he arrived on Earth where his abilities were fully realised eg. his planet had a super oppressive gravity endowing him with the ability to fly on ours.

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

​​The fanbase needs to stop coping about pre release American advertising copy and trailers (narrated by the character who is trying to claim full responsibility and deny collaborators) talking about Marika "being driven to the brink" by the nobk being canon and consider the possibility that the woman who has a black knight assassin guarding her bedroom probably worked with the assassins and collaborated on the plot​@@richlacerra6668

@gergelymacsai3776

22 күн бұрын

I think if you add the initial Numen culture into this timeline after their arrival (the Eternal Cities), which then fell into ruin after their first interaction with the Fingers and the Greater Will went sideways somehow, it makes even more sense. After the fall of the Eternal Cities, disparate Numen groups must have spread across the Lands Between. Some took up the worship of the nature aspect of the Crucible and became "shrine maidens" for what look like tree-worship shrines. They lived at/were trained at Shaman Village and were later on converted into the saint jars of the Hornsent who wanted to reach the heavens with their version of the Tower of Babel. It behooves us to remember that Numen are this fantasy universe's Elves: long lived, seldom born, nature and night affinity. So the Nox would be the exiled Dark Elves and the rest of the Numen stuck with nature worship and slowly died out. So the advanced nature of the Numen was lost when their Eternal Cities fell and the descendants on the surface became a peaceful people that could not defend themselves when the Hornsent of Belurat decided they were merely granted life to be part of a divine ritual of sacrifice.

Haven't completed my research of the DLC lore or 100 hours of lore content videos to have a complete opinion, but here's what I'm thinking: I had the same feeling after finishing Dark Souls 1 base game+DLC back in the day. It was an awesome experience, and of course we were still young in the soulsborne experience, but a lot of things didn't make sense, the ending was disappointing, lots of lore characters left out and overall many, many flaws here and there...some months later I'm finding new things, approach certain concepts from a symbolic point of view, find new inspiration and head cannon. So I'm hoping that the same will be true for SotE. Maybe more things start to make sense as we better digest it overtime.

the story is there, you just have to put it together, trust me.

i dont think ranni became a god, she just sealed the inluence o the greater will

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

She didn't. There isn't a single line of dialogue, item description, or cutscene implying she's becoming a god. She may not even be becoming the vessel of the Elden Ring. She's just taking it very far away.

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

​@@mattb6616 Fly me to the Dark Moon ~

@LastProtagonist

22 күн бұрын

I mean, Miquella's lines when he grabs the player mirroring Ranni's lines in her ending imply quite a bit

@headecas

22 күн бұрын

@@LastProtagonist sure, its the dawn of new age

I don't think the Omen are Hornsent, the hornsent only have horns on their heads while Omen is allover the body plus they also have wings and tails, i think that they are the result of the curse that the hornsent put on Marika's children, we know that the hornsent are very connected with spirits and the oman see evil spirits on the sleep and the Omen killers mimic the apparence of theses spirits which have horns, also their clevers do look similar to the greatsword of the horned Warriors when horncalling,

Question: Is Miquella actually dead after final boss fight? Or from Gideon’s dialogue in main game just sleeping?

Question - on the overall timeline, can it be taken as fact that the 3 fingers arrived in the Lands Between AFTER the mother of fingers? If so, and given all fingers spawn from the mother, and her (for lack of a better term) communion with the Greater Will was cut off/just plain off, is it possible the Greater Will sent the 3 fingers as its own sort of failsafe/solution? The 3 fingers sent to start things from scratch - specifically requiring touch to communicate, rather than interpretive sight - as that was the only way to eliminate the level of taint from the lands; to once again impose true order in a world that lacked it for an even longer time than we originally understood "order" to have been shattered?

On the topic of Marika you should watch Proforprof's video called the truth about Marika revealed or something among those lines. His take basically is that she is the actual mother of everyone (not everyone) on the lands between given that in the shadow realm you use mainly shamans for the ritual pots but in the lands between you can use "anyone". Very interesting and well made video.

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

The lands between pots are completely different and used for a different purpose. Becoming a warrior jar is voluntary and they're meant to develop into champions/heroes, not saints. a fringe theory is that Radagon could have been created in a jar with a piece of Marika.

Agreeing with other commentors who are certain the addition to Elden Ring's world will age well. The loss - if there is one - of hope for a distinct narrative triumph is the impact which will need time to heal. For once in These Games there was an active narrative full of energized, motivated characters, and yet- Still, it is true the thematic depth of the game was well expanded, the dig supported the thoughts of others here like @aruption and @Otherpeoplescars

The community has gone the opposite direction in regards to mischaracterizing Miquella. A lot of people think he’s 100% evil now and I think that’s pretty reductive. I agree that his whole story between the base game and the DLC seems disjointed. The ADHD joke is funny but people in the community have also just begun going along with the idea that Miquella is just an idiot with a child’s mind and that’s why his story and actions aren’t making sense… which I think is a really lazy and an unsupported assumption. I wish the story would have given us more direct answers for things that matter. We get plenty of information about the crusade and messmer, but still are left scratching out heads at major aspects of Miquella’s story and other base game lore. The lore in this game has always been too vague for my liking even compared to the other souls games. My crazy hypothesis is that the method of world building for Elden Ring using GRRM’s outline plus Miyazaki’s ideas for the lore just ended up making things extremely convoluted/unfinished and as a result the game relies a little too much on the vagueness of an “ancient world forgotten by time” to compensate for the lack of a more concrete narrative. Nonetheless it can still be fun to make up out own ideas for the story even if we all end up disagreeing about major major aspects of character and plot

I think the DLC is still too new and people are still attached to the lore extrapolations and headcanon from before the DLC, and cling to them instead of discarding most of them and working back up with the new lore. For example, a lot of people assumed Miquella wanted to revive Godwyn based on Castle Sol, but the Golden Epitaph speaks of giving Godwyn a proper/true death, and Castle Sol has a Walking Mausoleum with a demigod on its doorstep, and only mentions Godwyn via the Eclipse Shotel. Miquella's plans most likely evolved as time passed, and Castle Sol could've easily been just a test run to revive the Mausoleum's demigod before trying to go for Godwyn, except it failed at even that step and Miquella discarded it as he did Fundamentalism. The DLC makes it apparent that he had a habit of discarding things when they didn't give the results he wanted or when they held him back. Another thing people assumed was that Marika was directly related to the Nox/Eternal Cities because of Black Knife Assassin items, ignoring how they used hearsay language when talking about that connection. The Shaman Village lore doesn't even contradict those items as far as Marika being a numen. Shamans could simply be an offshoot group of the Numen race that remained aboveground. The Shaman and Jar lore even explains why Grafting works at all for Godrick and the Golden Lineage. We've built up years of theories, some of them actually very wild, that were widely accepted but were proven wrong by new DLC information, and people are still reeling.

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

What was the point of Night of The Black Knives?

@thelvadem5713

22 күн бұрын

​@@Nobody32990So Ranni could discard her empyrean flesh

@Koyy206

22 күн бұрын

⁠​⁠@@thelvadem5713 yes that’s how she did it, but how did Miquella?

@petercottantail7850

21 күн бұрын

the numen rune description literally says shes a numen, what are you talking about

@leonhighwind2305

21 күн бұрын

@@petercottantail7850 The Numen's Rune says "The Numen are said to have come from outside the Lands Between, and are in fact of the same stock as Queen Marika herself". This means she's related to the Numen but not how closely or distantly. By extension, Shamans are Numen, but we can't definitively say how closely related they are to the Numen of the Eternal Cities. Meanwhile, the Black Knife armor description says "The assassins that carried out the deeds of the Night of the Black Knives were all women, and rumored to be Numen who had close ties with Marika herself." The "Rumored" bit is important and marks what comes after it as in-universe hearsay. Marika being a Numen isn't in question. It's the connection between Marika and the Eternal Cities or the Black Knives that's not nearly as definitive as some assumed.

The Numen probably came with those stone boats when the Shadow realm was still part of the lands between. As a 43yo casual I really enjoyed playing the dlc, but was pretty shocked to see Radahn again tho. I thought the Metyr side quest was the best one with the weird finger origin story

Why would the bloody finger and servant of mohg jerren oppose miquellas plan to kill radahn? As far as he was concerned, he was following lord mohgs instructions.

@LastProtagonist

21 күн бұрын

It wasn't the plan to kill Radahn Jerren would have opposed, it was the plan to bring him *back*

@mistakai4226

21 күн бұрын

@@LastProtagonist why would jerren know anything about that?

My mans said "media literacy." Press F for What the Fuck

Anything can be better because nothing is Perfect

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

We talking about elements that SHOULD be better from the start considering the studio's track record.

Are you team Jarika or not?

@VictorIV0310

22 күн бұрын

?

@LastProtagonist

22 күн бұрын

Do what now?

@Burndinorex

22 күн бұрын

​​​@@LastProtagonist Jarika refers to the theory that the hornsent stuffed Marika in a jar and successfully made a "saint" and then became a god after betraying the hornsent. Idk it's got a couple holes but it is kinda interesting at the very least. (I want to clarify that this theory isn't mine, I'm not sure if he came up with it but the first video I saw about it was made by TheCenteredTarnished or something like that.)

@LastProtagonist

22 күн бұрын

@@Burndinorex Cool. I don't think Marika herself was a jarbird, but I think she may have begun her crusade because her people were used in them

I always got the sense that GRRM's part in writing the lore was that he just wrote what amounted to a central document rather than a whole entire novel or the like. Instead of writting complicated stories that tap into the worldbuilding he came up with that we'd get to play through, instead it was just a collection of worldbuilding ideas and characters which would probably be reminiscent of his initial planning phase of his other works. Basically an abstract by which he'd piece together and realize the finer details of himself if this were his story, but passed off to FromSoftware's writers to do in his place instead. That's the only way I could see it "not requiring any additional writing" while also being so seemingly distant from the main game at the same time.

@chstens

22 күн бұрын

He has said as much. He compares what he wrote to Robert Howards "The Hyborean Age", which is an essay outlining the history.

Wait a minute! The whole Eclipse thing with wanted to give life to his soul less friend? Maybe it was all a sham? Maybe miquella did not want godwyn and did not tell his followers what he wanted. Maybe he played to the hearts of men by telling them what they wanted. Godwyn to be the Elden Lord and miquella as his god. Maybe miquella always wanted Radahn sinces he never knew godwyn as well he knew Radahn. My theory is that Miquella was in on the plot with Ranni.

I was hoping Elden John might get a little more elaboration since he is obviously important to the Lands Between, yet there did not seem to be any mention or reference to the Uhl ruins in the Shadowlands at all. Maybe someone else found something that I overlooked? Considering his likeness is watching over us as we enter the Shadowlands it just seems like he had more relevance in a different version of the dlc, left on the cutting room floor.

@AshKingChannel

22 күн бұрын

There is one of Uhl tablet's relief on the entrance of Supressing Pillar.

@falgalhutkinsmarzcal3962

22 күн бұрын

@@AshKingChannel cool. I will have to look at that.

Hello from south africa,understand the whole jars thing,the marika and her lineage and the finger stuff etc but the actual shadow erdree i dont know anything about would be great if you could make a video on the tree itself but i would settle for anyone in the comments telling me what they know about the actual shadow erdree

@eurongreyjoy2

22 күн бұрын

I'm thinking it's the true form of the Erdtree behind Marika's illusion. The new tree became a parasite to the older great tree that came before, Marika wanted everyone to think her tree was perfect and eternal.

@JordanJ_CPT

22 күн бұрын

@@eurongreyjoy2 ohhhh thank you so much!have a good day

I just found it lame that Radahn was the final boss and hated that Miquella always planned on having him as his consort. It was a cool fight but felt dissatisfied at the end and was very disappointed for the first time playing a DLC from them. I never really liked how they presented their stories being convoluted and having to theory craft the whole story for each game, and Elden Ring is the worst offender of this. It's just exhausting. I dont mind having some of the lore being unexplained but when almost everything in the game is unexplained or convoluted then thats just not a good story.

I enjoyed the dlc but cannot help but feel disappointed that this is what it all turned out to be concerning radahn.

This DLC has more base game connections than like any other of their DLCs. We only hear about Oolacile in one item description, and about Artorias, Ciaran, and Gogh in a very related set of rings. We never hear anything at all about the kingdoms of ds2 in the base game. Alonne is barely referenced in his soldiers' armor. They added Vendrick dialog in the form of a memory, and then Aldia later, to try and tie it back in. In Ds3, we never hear anything at all about the painted world of ariandel, nor any of its denizens in the base game. There is an allusion to Yuria having sisters, and we find one there. They also added an item description in the DLC that that is where Sulyvahn came from. As for the Ringed City, there is absolutely nothing about it. We can see a glimpse of the dreg heap whenever we go to the kiln of the first flame. Lorian's sword talks about how he slayed a demon prince. Outside of that, there is nothing. The DLCs feed into each other more, especially with Gael and the painter. They decide to tie stuff back into the lore of the base game after the fact. They have always done that. But in ER, they actually gave us a lot to work with in referring back to Marika, Miquella, Melina, Mohg, Radahn, the Crucible, Placidusax and dragons, and the significance of horns. If you are to critique the DLC for anything, it can't be that.

It was fine, could have been far better and I wished we got more, but it was fine. I really wish we could have learned more about Marika, I ended up pretty unsatisfied after learning her backstory, I got answers to questions I didn't ask and left in the dark on all the questions I was asking. We unironically ended up learning more about Radagon through St. Trina then we did by learning more about Marika, and why didn't we get any information about the Elden Beast? I feel like we really should have gotten at least some information about it, considering the land of shadow was teased as the place where Marika became a god, and Marika's status as a god is only relevant because of the elden ring, aka, the Elden Beast. I got some theory bait from the trailer for the DLC, but not the DLC itself

@VictorIV0310

22 күн бұрын

What’s your issues with Marika’s backstory?

@dougdynamo9398

22 күн бұрын

@@thomasdevlin5825 "I got answers to questions I didn't ask and got left in the dark on all the questions I was asking." This sums up Shadow of the Erdtree perfectly.

@thomasdevlin5825

22 күн бұрын

​@@VictorIV0310 It just felt like we never actually learned anything of value about Marika. We got an in depth explanation about Miquella's relation to St. Trina, originally we thought that Miquella was Trina but we learned that Trina was actually a separate individual that exists as Miquella's other half, and we learn that abandoning Trina meant the same thing as abandoning his hesitation and his love, implying that alter egos are a tangible piece of someone's personality. We can take all that information and apply it to Radagon to get more context on his nature, so then naturally we would ask what exactly was Radagon to Marika? What were the implications of Radagon's presence to Marika as a person? That could have been a slam dunk for the lore of one of the most confusing characters in fromsoft history, but then they never even mention him in the DLC.

I loved the DLC lore but yeah The cultural continuation of the world is unfortunately mostly told by obscure environmental details & items visuals.

4:42 Omg, this had me good! If only it was so easy @.@

I think you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned how big of a headache it is to try to fit all these newly introduced factions into the timeline that the base game established, that’s my only real complaint.

@VentraleStar

21 күн бұрын

It’s not a headache if you understand real world history though. I always come in with the assumption that many things can happen at once and occur over a long period because that’s how history works.

The reason for Miquella going through the gate of Divinity is for him to ascend to Godhood, the same status Marika held. And the reason Ranni didn't seek the gate was because she didn't want to become a God. The whole point of Ranni's questline is her NOT wanting to be a god or anything divine, she discarded her Empyrean flesh long ago and then killed her own Two-Finger just to be extra sure. I think she and Miquella had the same epiphany about the Golden Order but went on separate ways on how things should be changed. On Ranni's part, her conclusion was the Gods, the Elden Ring, and the Greater Will and its vassals were always the problem. And so, she wants to get rid of it all from the world. Meanwhile, on Miquella's part, his conclusion is that the Golden Oder or Marika's rule is the problem. So he seeks to ascend to Godhood through the Gate of Divinity in Enir Ilim, just like his mother did long ago to become a new God and bring in a new age. It seems that the new age that he would bring would not even use the Elden Ring system anymore, as the item description of Circlet of Light description says: "The circlet of light which adorned Miquella's head as he returned in divine aspect. It has begun to fade into nothingness. Slightly boosts intelligence, faith, and arcane, while also boosting the power of Miquella's light. This circle was to be the very foundation upon which Miquella's age of compassion would be built, should it have ever come to pass."

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

For some reason people have become convinced Miquella is doing something unique here even though all marketing and in game information suggests he's following in the footsteps of Marika and trying to replicate her path to godhood from the beginning by emulating what she did using the tools he has available.

I would definitely like to see differences in Japanese vs English!

tl;dw "I don't understand any of it" I know guy, I know 😢

I want to say one small thing about your statement that Ranni never went through the gates of divinity. I think this is just not true. Her “dark path of the Empyrean” is just the same as Miquella’s, except she is seemingly aware of the truth behind Metyr, who is acting as a manipulative mother figure and controlling Marika, and perhaps every golden, gleaming god to have ever touched divinity. She very obviously disappears, conveniently after defeating the “baleful shadow” of Blaidd. I think it’s pretty safe to say Ranni’s dark path is the trip to the shadow lands, and towards the gates of divinity. This does create some small issues with the DLC, as Ranni canonically couldn’t have already reached divinity, even if she has departed on her dark path. But I almost think that’s where Miyazaki has purposefully left it open for you to make your own timeline for your tarnished’s journey. I especially like the headcanon that if you had gotten Ranni down the dark path, your trip through the shadow lands would be with her. Culminating in the clashing of two gods and their consorts. Almost prophetical, which Miquella’s whole scheme seems to be.

It should have been Godwyn who was resurrected, not Radahn. It being Radahn feels like From soft didn't like people saying "wow! Can you imagine what a fight with Prime Radahn would look like?? Le epic!!!!!" And they caved

I really don’t think there’s a problem with the dlc area operating almost entirely separately from the lands between. It was a very guarded and hidden place that no one wants to go to, and Marika doesn’t want anyone to discover. Also, in regard to the shaman village. It’s not where she was born, she most likely came from the ships that washed up on the southern shore. She probably just lived there

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

Why do people think Marika was born in a caste-separated village of mystics who are explicitly all women? How do they think this happened?

Perhaps ranni does not become a god?

Should been Godwyn as the final boss.

The criticism reminded me of some reaction back then when the Ringed City DLC for Dark Souls 3 came out. Some loretuber were unhappy how the presented story didn't go for the big lore and world building they wanted to see. It's not meant as a personal attack here, but I feel your disappointment for the SOTE DLC here is less the fault of the DLC and more on you wanting to see stuff which wasn't that interesting for Fromsoftware to work with. Either they the content in SOTE interested them more or the stuff they already delivered for the base game was enough for them. Like questioning the relationship of the Hornsent with the Dragons and Nox came out of left field for me, because I don't see why they should in the first place. They are connected to the treatment of the Omen in the present Golden Order and give Marika more background and completion. Like for the question, if the Hornsent are actual people then how Marika could be able give birth to two hornsent herself- Because it is poetic irony. It might be less interesting for world building and lore, but I totally get why as a writer one would go this route. Marika, harmed by these horned people and therefore harming them in return, found herself "cursed" with horned children herself. Like, stories are usually not about just lore or world building. They are more about themes, ideas and messages, and for that they sometimes leave gaps in the lore and world building, because these have a lesser priority for the story. That is also a criticism for lore tubers in general, I must admit, that many don't go deeper into the themes and ideas of Fromsoftware games which do tackle some interesting ideas and stop at the superficial stuff instead. Also, we are all aware how Fromsoftware games are about leaving questions and mysteries behind in their worlds, that is their big appeal after all. Pretty much the philosophy of Miyazaki how he makes games. I am not criticizing you for not enjoying that DLC as much as you've hoped, I am just pointing out, that the reason for that might not because of the DLC itself but what YOU wanted from it in the first place and that it might be better to try deal with it on ITS terms instead. EDIT: I do recommend Quest Marker's video "A World Not Desperate to Explain Itself" to better get what I mean. He explains well why it is sometimes OK if a writer doesn't have an answer for everything(yet) and that sometimes not to explain stuff is better.

@nezahuatez

21 күн бұрын

This is why I hate getting into lore discussions when new content is still being released. You are absolutely correct. This happened with Ringed City. People were committed to their own lore canons and refused to give up ground until the wound up frustrated that FS didn’t tell their own story.

People saying its fanfiction or retcons acting like the base game had a complete story, or their version of headcanon was the correct story. Like damn, thats some next level arrogance. That said, anyone solved godefroy yet?

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

It's not arrogance. It's logical conclusion given the fact how disconnect DLC lore is from the base game.

@jellydamgood

22 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 playing through the base game is like watching the last 5 minutes of return of the king and then trying to guess the whole series. Sure you can use that to infer the rest of the movie, the first two, as well as the hobbit. But obviously, you are going to get a lot of things wrong, probably the whole thing. So yes, it's arrogance. I'm guilty of it too, but I thought about it and we are straight up not given any of those information. Don't believe me? Try and answer these questions. Why Godwyn specifically? When the night of the black knives have multiple demigods slain? Who or what was the material used for the fingerslayer blade? What are the names of the demigods in the mausoleums? Who specifically invented the albinaurics? Who is the Storm Lord? What's nepheli's relation to hoarah? Who killed hoarah at the beginning cutscene? Where exactly is eochaid? How did we the tarnished return to the lands between? And many many many more questions that just has no definite answer due the Gulf of information we lack. Kinda like real life really.

@porkwhisperer3050

22 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 Tbh the shadow lands being hidden explains most of the dlcs disconnect in lore. It does explain the motives behind most of the main game characters who were under explained previously. The only disconnect that seems not great is the weird shift in plans from Miquella.

@kristofferkjeldsen6268

22 күн бұрын

Well I do agree with your statement. My issue with the DLC is mainly that; taken what we knew from the base game already with the given "facts" provided in the lore, they took it and did a 180 with a "twist-ending" which felt out of place. It felt like reading a novel where the ending serves you the trope - "You thought this was the killer, but in fact THIS was the killer, Ahaa"

@jellydamgood

22 күн бұрын

@@kristofferkjeldsen6268 well, it's another thing to be disappointed instead. I was disappointed that the some of the old weapons movesets are still unchanged for one. As for the last boss, I was expecting either a fully powered up miquella or miquella puppeting one of the godwyn bodies. But at least that whisper from the early trailers have been answered heh.

Google about 'Mother of Vinegar', what it is and how it relates to vinegar production. You must understand the way that word is used as a prerequisite to any of the language surrounding 'mother' to make sense. You also need to understand that the game is fundamentally resistant to the positivist lens you instinctually reach for. Everything is defined in relationship to everything else. Separation of a concept is a production process which necessitates violence. Your problems start with the mother you use to put the pieces together. Elden Ring requires a mother of mothers.

@AshKingChannel

22 күн бұрын

But in description of Metyr's items it is said directly she gave birth to all Two Fingers and fingercreepers

@SixBeark

22 күн бұрын

@@AshKingChannelwhere? Because the remembrance says; "The mother of all Two Fingers and Fingercreepers was in turn a magnificently gleaming daughter of the Greater Will, and the first shooting star to fall upon the Lands Between."

@SixBeark

22 күн бұрын

@@AshKingChannel off the top of my head, I am pretty sure 'births' are only defined in Elden Ring in context of Fia's rune + Melina/Hyetta talking about the frenziedflame

@AshKingChannel

21 күн бұрын

@@SixBeark it's just choosing of words. During the battle Metyr can throw fingercreepers out of her abdomen so she literally births them.

@SixBeark

20 күн бұрын

@@AshKingChannel I don't think that's how the word 'literally' works. It is not a 'literal' birth. As you say, they come from the chest of a giant finger thingy. Words are also NOT interchangable in Elden Ring lore. Birth is not the same as summon or create nor does it imply the process of biological procreation you are assuming it does. Also also, how the f*ck could choosing of words not matter on a channel which is famous for doing translations of specific words into japanese such that conclusions can be drawn based off the differences between the two meanings. I feel like you sensed hostility in my message and felt the need to respond (which is fair, who tf am I after all, I don't have a youtube channel or followers) more so than you have a meaningful rebuttal.

To me the dlc went on to show how little we know of the characters story. If miquella and radhan have a story then who else does? I assume it’s all buried in the 5000 years of note Martin wrote for this game. The one thing I did notice for the dlc is that it has a sort of inverse theme to the base game. The first boss being storm themed, the second being of carrian royalty, the cursed son holding up the golden order. Then there’s the kindling to burn a mighty tree the churches of mannus whatever lol. Radhan having his body destroyed but soul preserved. There’s a lot of things that have thematic ties to the main game.

Interesting how Radahn averts his eyes when we are charmed.

The Miquella/Radahn connection feels really out of place and shoehorned in. I know this has been long planned due to Malenia whispering in Radahns ear since years back, but their connection feels super weak. I personally would've really preferred if they brought Godwyn back. I know he's super super dead but they could've easily found a workaround that makes sense or at least brought him back partially (maybe with Miquella controlling Godwyn's corpse or something. There's a lot more evidence showing connections between Godwyn and Miquella/Malenia.

@iamthereddemon20

22 күн бұрын

I don't mind radahn in theory i just wish we'd had more links in the base game

@Zythryl

22 күн бұрын

My initial reaction was, literally, “Radahn..? It shoulda been Godwyn!” But, very quickly, did I come to appreciate the new relationship between these two. It’s cool for me, because it continues the Red King White Queen pattern. That’s all it takes. There’s still a bit of me that’s like, ahhh, I want Godwyn, but that’s a wish that ultimately feels like asking for fan service. He would stop being a prince of death, he would lose much of his own meaning, if he suddenly becomes animate in almost any way.

@Zythryl

22 күн бұрын

@@iamthereddemon20this, really. And as many have said, it would have been even better if we had one additional plot beat in the DLC. Like, if we and Ansbach learned about Mohg’s corpse, and went to retrieve it somewhere. Then we find out it’s missing, and get some additional clue or something. Maybe something else with Freyja. Just, something, to add a *little* more color to what we have.

@Eladelia

22 күн бұрын

There was room to make Radahn work here, but it's pretty outlandishly poorly set up in practice. We're being asked to believe that Miquella built an entire city full of statues at the Haligtree, including a ton of statues of himself and Malenia alone with one statue of another unknown man who is definitely not Radahn, and never included any images of Radahn at all? Miquella's most heartfelt wish is that Radahn will eventually be his consort, but he completely and utterly omits him from the Haligtree? Why? It's not as if it would have made it necessarily obvious that something big was going on; there are ways to do it that aren't too extreme like the portrait Rykard has of Radahn in his home.

@LeggoMyGekko

22 күн бұрын

When it comes to Godwyn, the whole “permadeath” thing isn’t even accurate! He didn’t die in such a way that he could never come back, nowhere in-game does it state that he’s permanently down for the count. It’s just that he didn’t die all the way, his soul died but not his body. This means, if his body were to be killed too, he would die a “true” death which is essentially just death as we know it for any other character. Meaning he could enter the Land of Shadow, and become Miquella’s consort. Perhaps this would’ve been the method through which he’d become the Prince of Death (I guess Lord of Death is more accurate) and start the age of the Duskborn. I could see Miquella being down with the Duskborn, considering the ending is basically just a decree not to persecute Those who Live in Death, and that sounds compassionate to me. Maybe this could even be a chance for Miquella to try and remedy the effects of Deathroot? Not sure how Godwyn “Lord of Death” would feel about that but I can see there being a dynamic of a giver of life, and a taker of life, Miquella and Godwyn respectively. Idk. It just makes so much more sense, I’m almost positive it was supposed to be Godwyn. I even think they retconned what Malenia says to Radahn in that cutscene, it’s tough reading lips. Who knows what she actually said? I’m sure it’s been changed several times since Elden Ring released…

"much of it feels too disjointed from the base game to be really impactful, and a large portion of Shadow of the Erdtree's lore ended up feeling a bit too contrived or out of left field for my tastes" I didn't get this impression at all, I felt most of the lore fit pretty well with the base game and mostly made sense, minus a few loose ends. It's subjective, at the end of the day. And really depends on what one was looking for within the lore specifically.

@embodythejotun

22 күн бұрын

Same, I thought the lore and how it fit in/connected things in the base game was fantastic.

@SpectraSkittle

22 күн бұрын

Would you be willing to provide some examples?

@stopit3945

22 күн бұрын

​@@SpectraSkittleYeah, I would also want examples. Only thing I could think of is Marika and shaman village. Everything else was not foreshadowed in the base game and basically feels that they ignored a lot of things that would have been better like expanding on Miquella's and Malenia's relationship.

I think the most important question in all of this is whether the DLC upholds the artistic integrity of base game storycrafting by unfolding the pre created story a little more, or is it merely a patchwork somebody used to fill a few story gaps before they are done with the project for good.. I really wish it was the former but my skepticism points toward the latter.

It's a huge mistake to think GRRM wrote everything and there's no reason to be upset by the difference between cut Miquella and actual Miquella. We already know his involvement: He drafted up the world history and cosmology and invented Marika and her pantheon. Miyazaki was in charge of taking that universe and those characters and making a Fromsoft ARPG out of it. Stuff like Miquella's motices or quest woulsnt be included in Martin's materials. Ahit, Miyazaki said he'd be interested to see GRRM react to what he did to Marika and her children.

The dlc shows the problem with having an outside source write the lore of the game, usually fromsoftware would write the lore after the gameplay and bosses said by Miyazaki himself, but with elden ring they the lore already laid out by G.R.R.M and they have to make the game in a way that covers most of it so it could justify it Personally I think that ended up hurting both the gameplay and the story, the gameplay by having a bunch of empty spaces or a ton repeated enemies that only exist for lore reasons, as you saw with finger ruins or cerulean coast/charo hidden grave, the story by having a lot of set pieces and characters that fromsoftware just can't find a way to fit them into the story and if they do it feels lackluster That's just my opinion

Ranni didn’t become a god like Miquella. She shattered the ring to dust and used the world law of the moon and stars in its place through her communion but they were handed the reins rather than let herself be used as middleman conduct hence the ruling from a distance bit. With the ring gone the cycle of gods and lords is broken rather than Miquella’s continuation of the system with him as the new god and while he did discard his flesh to break the connection to the greater will as well he needed to pass through the gate to ascend rather than just be left a spiritual being eternally like Ranni.

@Eladelia

22 күн бұрын

Ranni isn't breaking the cycle, she's just taking up the slot of god in the next round of it (just like Miquella seeks to do).

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

​@@Eladelia she is. She doesn't have a mending rune, she isn't emyprian anymore, she doesn't use the Gate. There is nothing to suggest she supplants Marika. Her entire quest line is about her breaking herself from the Ring's cycle and Greater Will control.

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

Literally nothing in the entire game suggests Ranni is a god in that ending or wants to be a god, so obviously she must be. Lol

@Eladelia

22 күн бұрын

@@mattb6616 Ranni’s dialogue tells us she is creating her own order for the world, that’s the role of a god.

@Eladelia

22 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 She was still an empyrean during the game: War Counselor Iji: ""When Lady Ranni renounced her flesh, and chose the dark path of the Empyrean, Blaidd and I swore allegiance as vassals"

Maybe explore Dragon's dogma now? There's some interesting stuff going in the story there(especially dark arisen).

Miquella forcing himself on Radahn genuinely took me off guard

In contrast to your emotional take on the gameplay i wholeheartedly agree with this assessment of the lore, i am also confused and disappointed

Thank you for saying what I've been thinking. Been getting gaslit since the dlc came out.

This comment section is full of bad argumentation, people misrepresenting things that are obvious to anyone familiar with them and weird self-justifications that ignore critical information about the lore and FS previous games. I don’t understand it. Gamers have an obsession with being groupthinked into an opinion.

@VentraleStar

21 күн бұрын

Essentially, people who misunderstand the lore, or rather FS’s lore in general, the most are those who try to create a fantasy novel out of it. This isn’t a novel. This is an epic poem, or even an epic oral poem centered around a mythology and a complex allegory in the vein of William Blake, to reach for a potent example of mythology that is common in many cultures. Where does the Land in the Shadow of the Erdtree exist? In the Shadow of the Erdtree. That’s it. That’s the most precise location you are going to get because this isn’t a fantasy novel with a hard magic system and earthly laws of physics. The land exists in the Shadow of the Erdtree because it’s location is allegorically meaningful not literal. It represents the obscured parts of history that we are ignorant of or refuse to acknowledge, that persist and provide meaning though the tale we commonly communicate may seem to exist perfectly well without it. Because the lives and the stories are real and they happened whether we know it or not. It is the unseen force in our measurements. Allegory that is rich with implication. I love Spenser but this isn’t a moral allegory, it is in every way the complex, imagination-centered allegory of Blake.

I feel a lot of people are more troubled with their headcanon not being matched. All From DLCs have elemenents of a retcon, so singling out Shadow of the Erdtree in this regard feels a little out of place. This is nothing new. Now, the key elements of the DLC still largely fit the base game. The hornsent match all the elements of the Cruicible preErdtree societies we suspected to exist - worship of the Cruicible, beasts taking the focal point, as well as storms and lightning. It feels like a transition society and slides in very well. Same with Bayle. Complaint about Godwyn not being the final boss misses the question, of what would happen to Godwyn in the Duskborn ending? He is dead, his soul is destroyed, there is no soul that can be put into a new body, like with Radahn. The gamealso answers on the questions relating to Malenia and Radahn's fight. Midra fits just as well, as any other Frenzied Flame location and characters in the base game. Other elements related to Miquella didn't really need exploration. We know all we need to know about Malenia and the Hailigtree from the base game. Not much that could reasonably be added there. People complaining about Messmer also miss the point, that he is basically like the Fishing Hamlet. A secret purposefully hidden from everyone else. Justified also in that other Marika's kids, like Mohg and Morgott, are hidden, along with their past. Melina was theorized to be Marika's child, yet noone refered to her openly in the base game. Why is it a problem for Messmer? A lot of it seems to be resting on frustration with Radahn, which I think is more of a problem with presentation. The bossfight doesn't give enough mechanical variety and uniqueness to warrant a final boss status. He is unsatisfying and that perception bleeds into people's perception of lore. The lore is probably among the best in the From history. Here you go into conclusions that seem more born from frustration, rather than proper lore analysis. I don't get where you got the "omen are hornsent" take, when the whole dlc shows that Cruicible can sprout on anything. Or the questioning, if Numen came from the Shadowlands... when again, the DLC shows that Shadowlands were separated by Marika and were previously part of the Lands Between. Same with Miquella. We have the resolution on the Hailigtree and the Eclipse - they failed. Miquella consistently tried things, failed and moved on. His characterization as a mind control freak also fits the base game. Same with Radahn. We know his opinion - he fought Malenia to death. Overall, I suggest taking a break and approaching the DLC later, when the dust settles.

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

Past DLCs retcons had more logical sense and didn't feel like they came out of nowhere. Hornsent might fit the crucible but where does Farum Azula and Placidusax fit in all of this? Goldwyn's soul wasn't "destroyed". It was essentially removed from his body. We don't get clear answer of how dead he is exactly and it's not that hard for From to retcon something to make his resurrecting possible (something that Miquella worked on mind you). This would make much more logical sense compared to Radhan out of nowhere. We had plenty of clues and suggestions regarding Goldwyn's relationship with Malenia and Miquella, we have none whatsoever regarding Radhan (in base game). We also don't know what happened to Goldwyn in Duskborn ending, all we know is that undeath is now one or the principles governing the world.

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

Its definitely a "this sounds like fanfic because it doesn't match the fanfic I already wrote" issue.

@mattb6616

22 күн бұрын

People still insist on hornsent/omen as a separate race even after the dlc gets as explicit as from soft has ever gotten about anything that the horns are a trait that sprouts on literally any living thing and the hornsent are a culture that reveres the horns and selects for them. (And also trims them off to use as currency which is why they're only horned on their heads as status signifiers). Its an interesting plot

@matijerzykom

22 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 1. It was destroyed. It wasn't removed from his body, it died a true death. How do you get around it? 2. Miquella worked on making Godwyn die a true death. That's as closest to a clear motivation that we get. For him to die a true death, you need to kill his body. The base game never hints at Miquella wanting to resurrect Godwyn as his lord. 3. What doesn't fit about Farum Azula? It's an earlier civilisation.

@matijerzykom

22 күн бұрын

@@mattb6616 On top of that, we get an explicit example of a Cruicible sprouting on a Fire Giant.

I couldn't have put it into words better myself. The DLC feels incomplete. Some bosses not getting an intro cutscene or 2nd phase scene is just mindbaffling to me, Romina, Rellana, Bayle(!?), these cutscenes would serve to amplify the feeling of dread, awe, and mystery to the bosses but when they are just not there it falls flat for me. I was expecting too much maybe, but after masterpieces like the Ludwig, Maria, Slave Knight Gael, Sister Friede, Manus, and Artorias, I feel like SotE has the least impactful bosses that catches that specific feeling. Another minor detail that bugged me which also made me feel the DLC was rushed was all the spelling mistakes and abruptly cut descriptions in the item section with some of the stuff we found. They set such a high standard with the base-game maybe a followup was dead on arrival lest it be ER 2. Having critiqued this DLC it does not change in the slightest that From is lightyears ahead of anyone else in the industry and SotE is despite its flaws a masterpiece of gaming-experience for me. Putting the basegame and the DLC together you are looking at well over 200h (!!!!!) of the best fantasy gaming experience there is and probably ever will be for a long long time to come.

Gotta say, I agree. They love to do this, adding new crap instead of using what they have. I guess they don't realize it hits the hardest when it's foreshadowed. I mean nameless king? after HOW MANY YEARS? That was incredible. The Ringed City DLC comes to mind as well. That's probably still my favorite DLC they have made because it contextualized so many things already in the lore while still adding and leaving many mysteries to speculate over. Unlike elden ring, we finished dark souls with a satisfying storyline. I mean we still don't even know what marika's plan was in the first place or what she's doing in key cutscenes. I'm both obsessed and frustrated with the lore of elden ring!

Fromsoft creates unseen characters, hypes them up on the base game, and then when they have the chance to elaborate on these characters on the DLC they discard them and create some random guy who wasn't EVER MENTIONED or hinted at and nobody cares about and give him an epic anime fight. And then people hype it up like it's the awesomest thing ever. Godwyn? Gloam Eyed Queen? Renna? Malenia's master? The Fell God? Maybe we even get to know more about Melina's nature?No no no! We have beloved characters such as Midra, Nanaya, Rellana, an ugly golden hippo (????????), Man mounting DS1 Boar, Super Saiyan 4 bears and edgy snakeboy. Bravo Kojima.

@chstens

22 күн бұрын

Acting like this is the first time. Velka, anyone?

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

​@@chstensVelka wasn't as bad. And it was one character, not multiple. Dark Souls didn't have any major plot holes like ER with Night of the Black Knives and Miquella discarding his body on a whim.

@chstens

22 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 I would hardly describe it as on a whim. Miquella is unbindinging himself from the erdtree and its grace, like Ranni did, but using Rannis method is clearly not gonna work for everyone because of the steps involved.

@yuggoth777

22 күн бұрын

@@chstens this not being the first time only makes it worse

@chstens

22 күн бұрын

@@yuggoth777 They do this every game, and honestly its part of the appeal that a lot of things stays a mystery. Not everything has to be excrutiatingly explained, not even seemingly big characters like the gloam eyed queen.

Or... You are/were misreading the lore of the base game. For starters, you are not distinguishing between 'legend' and 'enemy' titles when thinking about lore.

So many things feel wrong lorewise, lol. I have difficulty buying that Mohg, the Lord of BLOOD that hangs out in a swamp of BLOOD, mutating monsters into CREEPIER blood monsters was actually a good guy, one that falls in line with Ansbach''s heroic and forgiving character. And, i thought Miquella needed to get rid of his body before going to shadow lands? How is he going in to get rid of it so he can go in there?? Did i miss anything? Secondly did Miquella build a Haligtree so Mohg (remember, he's a good guy) would abduct him? Once that happens, screw the entire project? Never mentioned again? Godwyn i can understand, he just moved on after failing the project, but we killed Radahn and restored the cosmos and fate, it's back on the table, but no it's Radahn now. You're right, he's got sticktoittiveness problems, heavy ADHD. I like the new Marika lore though, it humanized her, the tradgedy behind her story is incredible. Midras was like.. "lol sorandom" the abyss level was starting to annoy me, i had just gone thru empty ass cerulean coasts, then finger ruins, then teleported to the abyss to finish it and i was getting really annoyed at how empty these are, but although he's just a complete non sequitur, he was godly! That theme was incredible! I was floored! Definitely my favorite boss in this DLC, no contest.

I agree, despite the two years’ wait, the dlc feels rushed. Vast spaces of almost nothing, dropped themes and storylines (knight of the gloam-eyed queen, for instance), things that don’t mesh well (shaman village and dimensional coffin ships), consistency issues (Miquella). And Ymir/Metyr is dangerously close to being a reddit fanfic.

@porkwhisperer3050

22 күн бұрын

I really don’t know why people expect fromsoft to explain every story in their games. How the numen ships and numen village not fit? It’s also possible Miquella was trying to kill resurrect Godwyn because Malenia failed to kill Radahn. It does seem like lame indirection if this is true though. I’m happy they at least gave a reason for why Malenia was attacking Radahn. Ymir and Metyr lore was amazing. Dude just doesn’t like plot twists if you didn’t like that one. That shit was 10/10.

@Nobody32990

22 күн бұрын

​@@porkwhisperer3050 if plot twists are on par with M. Night Shamalyan then they are not good twists.

@porkwhisperer3050

21 күн бұрын

@@Nobody32990 I took this comment as you not liking Ymir’s quest.

This guy literally read my mind. Subbed👍

I was very disappointed in the lore as well. The Eclipse? Nothing. The Abyssal Serpent? No connection to Eiglay or the fire giants. Why Radahn as the final boss and not Godwyn? I can't think of any explanation other than fanservice. Why was Miquella riding Torrent in the first promotional image? Literally nothing other than a creature that kind of looks like Torrent's species in the storehouse. And what's the deal with Midra? It comes across as a checkmark to have frenzied flame in the DLC.

@andrewbowen2837

22 күн бұрын

Fan service? Why would it be Godwyn? If anything, that would have been fan service. The base game shows that Godwyn is done. No soul, rotten body. The eclipse was a failed attempt. The epitaph sword is a dirge. Your head canon not being true doesn't make the dlc bad

@blakebailey22

22 күн бұрын

@@andrewbowen2837 Anyone other than Radahn would have been better, a character we've already seen *and* fought before.

Alright its time to say it. Castle Sol has NOTHING to do with Godwyn and never did. The only connection between godwyn and the eclipse was the fact that the comrade was “soulless” but there is a soulless demigod right outside. Godwyns story as far as Miquella was concerned, in the BASE game, was over. Golden Epitaph was Miquella praying for Godwyn’s death. Why would he turn around and attempt to resurrect the man that he tried to help lay to rest?

average reddit post

I feel like im going crazy. I think this is some of the most well written lore in the series with some major revelations that felt satisfying to discover. Why is everyone acting like its bad ?

@zaynthemane

22 күн бұрын

It’s mostly because people wanted Godwyn and they felt like some things were unanswered (which was inevitable, this is Fromsoft we’re talking about).

@Eladelia

22 күн бұрын

People are perceiving it as underwhelming because it wasn't very well set up, and therefore not very well written. There are people who believe that surprising "twists" are good in themselves, but it's more typical to believe that cohesion of a narrative as a whole is valuable.

@KindredCorpus

22 күн бұрын

How much were you into the lore of the base game? I don't mean this in an elitist way at all, but I think the people who were most familiar with the base game lore are the ones most disappointed now.

@zaynthemane

22 күн бұрын

@@KindredCorpus I’m pretty into the lore and I liked the DLC lore for the most part, including the finale. My main issue is just that some parts (specifically Rellana and Romina) feel disjointed.

@paz1514

22 күн бұрын

@@KindredCorpus Very very familiar and into the lore and I think the lore was done masterfully in the DLC

Bro, I totally agree. At this point I can no longer be sure Miyazaki cares much about lore and worldbuilding. Seems that youtubers have done much more work this way than FromSoftware altogether. Maybe most of the time we were trying to find sense where it never was. I would be glad to see either your videos or streams about dlc.