The Amount Of Times I Said Something Along The Lines Of "They Would Not Fucking Do/say That!" While Watching

I hate when people are like "What do you mean I should spoiler tag this massive plot twist? This thing has been out for years you should have experienced it already!" As if completely oblivious to the fact that new people... exist?

Shockingly enough someone that's 15 may not have had the chance to experience this game that came out 7 years ago yet. God forbid young people get the chance to experience old content too.

Tbf there are also a couple other things that link Marika to the black knives. Notably the fact that the group seem to have aligned themselves with the GW in some way after the shattering, due to them hunting down Ranni’s squad after she goes after her fingers (her baleful shadow is even kitted out with the same destined death powers, which shouldn't be possible if they weren't specifically given it by someone) and the one guarding the throne room in Leyndell.

On top of this the item description for the black knife set not only says that the black knives were all Numen women but specifically mentions that they had close ties with Marika.

Then there's the question as to how Ranni even got to farum azula to steal from Maliketh in the first place, which could very neatly tie into the grand and as of now unexplained "betrayal" that Marika commited against Maliketh.

There’s also Melina, who is one of Marika’s own children who uses the very distinct black knife fighting style if summoned for the Morgott fight. Since she's also technically a numen woman she's also in the running as a black knife candidate.

One of the things that has always vexes me is how people made the assumption that Marika the Eternal had some hand in the Black knife plot that killed Godwyn. The reasoning? Because the Black Knife assassins happen to be the same race as her, Numens.

Gee it's not like an entire civilization of Numen exist or anything, it's not like the player character can choose to play as a Numen or anything???

There are literally no other facts that link them outside of race. Yeah it is true that Marika was delving deep into the meaning of the order to find flaws with it, but if you knew your boss was making constant plans to replace you with some other candidates then what else would you do but question how they work??

All in all, there is no definite facts that line up either way, but I prefer to keep to the belief that Marika's shattering of the Elden Ring was an act of grief and loss of faith with the death of one of her most prominent children rather then something out of pure malice. I also support the theory that as Ranni was being groomed to take on Marika's role as the new goddess of the Erdtree, Godwyn was being groomed to take on the role of Elden Lord. It would explain why he was chosen specifically for her plot, and why she seemingly shows no remorse for his 'death.'

Not that Godwyn was seemingly a bad individual as far as in game lore goes. He was pretty much the Ned Flanders of Leyndell before he got merc'ed.

It’s such a shame honestly. She’s travelling with us for the entirety of the game, across this massive world with so much to discover and talk about (barring farum azula and onward) and I’m pretty sure she has less unique dialogue (not counting Marika’s spoken echos as actual interactions with her as a character) than Ranni, who only really interacts with us within her specific questline.

Hell, Even Latenna has some pretty good travelling dialogue when we’re doing the Haligtree quest.

I felt more connected to both of these characters as travelling companions than I ever did with Melina, which is really sad because I also really like Melina but I just tend to forget she’s there most of the time. It feels like the biggest contribution she makes to the story is being a talking piece for other characters, explaining Torrent's motivations to us and being a scribe for Marika but like… I want to know about you Meli!

I am glad we’re of one mind that Melina is a character whose potential was sorely wasted in Elden Ring. I mean, it’s probably why I can’t get too invested in her.

It is weird. Zelda lore in general is just kinda a nightmare. For example Zelda is apparently the descendant of Sonia and Rauru but the game literally makes no reference to a child of the two existing up until and after the point where Sonia is killed.

Even as a stand alone BOTW/TOTK have a lot of little weird inconsistencies. Hell, there's really no way to know whether I'm actually right about this or not because the games seem to just pick and choose when they're pulling from previous lore and when they're doing something different.

Like, with the existence of Fi and Zelda's goddess power, I think It's safe to assume that an event similar to skyward sword happened in lore, meaning that ganon could have demise' curse. But at the same time, like you said the origin of hyrule has been rewritten and we're in an entirely different timeline so it's entirely impossible to tell just how much of the pre established stuff actually plays into it. (Though I do personally believe that Demise is cannon in BOTW/TOTK due to the immense amount of power the secret stone was able to grant Ganondorf despite them only being able to enhance someone's innate abilities and not grant them totally new ones)

This could also add to why susie acts so… reluctant? About her bullying of Kris in chapter 1. In the first chapter, while she’s still mean I notice that she almost constantly backs down on her threats and jabs, never even waiting for Kris to react to the things she says.

Something that a lot of people have pointed out is just how much worse Susie’s bullying is in the secret post compared to her more reserved nature in the game, (to an uncomfortable degree) to the point where it was theorised that it was intentionally written to seem out of character.

But now that you've brought this up, it seems much more likely that Susie did used to be so much worse, it's just that whatever Kris said to her that day shook her so badly that she started to mellow out.

Okay so Noelle’s private post about Kris and Susie, yeah that post.

So I see a lot of people theorising that Kris replied back to Susie something like ‘what like you?’ or ‘like your mom?’ or something like that, which is a possibility.

However I saw one person on twitter suggest another possible reply that is even more harrowing in my opinion.

And that was “good.”

I’m actually more inclined to believe that especially because of Susie reaction afterwards.

If what Kris had replied was insulting I think she would just get more angry, but instead, Susie was shocked. Noelle said that her whole demeanour changed and that she backed off quickly , this is important, it indicates that was Kris said disturbed her.

I think that sort of reaction out of Susie would’ve come more from Kris indicating wanting to be gone, or some sort of agreement that their mum would be happy if they did so.

Noelle also mentioned that Susie is head was held low, which of course may just be because she was upset at what Kris said if it was something equally cruel. However, to me it also shows shame,

because she realised that she was picking on someone who already wants to disappear.

The convergence is a really good elden ring mod, but I have just one criticism: I think that design change to Rennala was a mistake, let her have her weird moon shaped hat, she already have weird alien proportions this insistance of making women all have the same conventionally attractive limits design so much, the point of Rennala's hat was to look like a moon shaped mitre (pope's hat) that showed how the carian family view the moon and glintstone magic as divine (differently than the golden order) and as a symbol of authority while also visually accentuating the slenderness, "verticality", and counterposing Rennala's weirder proportions.

Here how she is standing uptight and with her hat, there is nothing really off abt her at first glance speacially from this angle

But if you pay attention, she starts looking really odd at different angles:

look how broad her shoulders are, how long her neck and arms are relativetly to a regular person's proportions. Dont get me wrong I love her design and I think she looks really beatiful and find her lankyness interesting way to show is not a regular human and there is something outerwordly going on with her (the moon's influence and the glintstone). And here is how her hat makes her design all come together and make her visual shape more imposing authentic and less goofy:

(I edited on paint dont judge)See how without the long hat her silhouette weirder, like she is wearing some big shoulder pads? how she looks more like a big rectangle with some skinny arms popping out?

Thats why I get mad when they pussyout to gamer bros complaint about her hat making her look ugly and with end up with this:

completely ruined her shape language and removed the mitre part of her symbolism to a generic crown/tiara.

Even then it's made clear that the sealing power passed down the royal family is still very much a thing. Along with most of the other standard zelda stuff (link/the hero being reborn throughout time and Ganon coming back to wreck havoc on the kingdom.) Even Fi seems to be somewhat cannon to the BOTW timeline.

Remember BOTW's story only works the way it does because the Kingdom knew about Ganon's resurrections and planned for it ahead of time. So he's definitely come back before and will almost certainly come back again.

Even if it's set in a different timeline/continuity it still follows the same general rules as the other zelda games

It's not really implied very heavily in lore but I've always subscribed to the theory that the greatrunes negatively affect their demi-gods, since most greatrune holders have been trapped into never ending cycles of trying to amass power/accomplish a specific goal.

Rykard, Mohg and Godrick are all similarly running in circles trying to gain power without actually doing anything with it and Rennala is endlessly trying to birth something before we take her greatrune off of her.

The only real exceptions to this are Radahn, because he's lost his mind, Malenia, because she's only just woken up for the first time since the shattering wars and Morgott because... IDK, I've got nothing for Morgott, he's just built different I guess. (Though you could argue that him hunting tarnished and perpetuating the status quo is his endless cycle)

All active people who own a greatrune shard, demi-god or not, have fallen into some sort of self destructive, never ending cycle.

fuck, if you really wanna push this theory Maliketh is holding a greatrune in the form of the rune of death and he's litterelly been stuck in a timeless structure for the entire shattering.

I feel like this is also implied because Ranni decided to cast aside her greatrune, this being significant because she’s the only demi-god who can actually accomplish their end goal by the finale of the game and isn't just running in circles.

btw I'm calling it now that those eye markings that Melina and Ranni have are actually marks of empyreans. (which would also make Melina herself one aswell.)

I just think it's slightly too suspect that we never see the full face of a living empyrean in the game.

Marika has her eyes covered in the intro and is missing one half of her face in the ending (the perfect place for an eye marking to have been without leaving any evidence)

Malenia's upper face has been affected by the rot and thus no eye marking would be visible.

Miquella's face is also never properly shown in game. Even in the shadow of the erdtree teaser it is kept out of shot of the camera.

And while Ranni does have an eye marking on her puppet body, we have no idea what her original one might have had, as it's been burnt beyond recognition and no depictions of living Ranni exist in game.

Even if it isn't the eye marking, there's been a very deliberate choice to keep empyrean's faces hidden throughout the game and I feel like it means something.

Elden ring DLC ending spoilers

It's really interesting how Ranni and Miquella’s goals for godhood are basically polar opposites.

Ranni wants to create a better world through absolute freedom while Miquella wants to create a better wolrd through absolute control.

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Ranni believes in and strives for absolute freedom. Both for herself and for all other residents of the world. She doesn’t want to use her power of godhood to rule over the lands between as queen, but instead decides to watch on from a distance and let the people of the world decide for themselves how to live. For better or for worse.

You can also see this in the way she treats her followers. She never forces anyone to do anything. She's borderline remorseful of just how loyal Blaidd and Ijji are towards her, and says in her own words that they are "willing to give to much for her."

It also extends to how she interacts with the tarnished. She holds unimaginable power over them. Able to kill them instantly with a mere glance if she so chooses. But she very rarely does. No matter what you do in her questline, the only time she'll get truly furious enough with them to the point of using that power is if the Tarnished attempts to use Seluvis' tonic on her.

You can ignore her orders in the second half of the questline, betray and attack her right at the end and even straight up not summon her at the end of the game, and the only time she'll ever actively be a threat to you is if you attempt to take away her bodily autonomy.

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Miquella however has no qualms with controlling others to benefit himself, and to force them to do his bidding.

Whether you're friend or foe, you're never truly safe from his powers.

He uses his powers to force his followers to get along and follow in his footsteps. Even ones that are unshakingly loyal to him aren’t spared from having their rougher edges smoothed off by his ability.

He uses his powers to make connections and further his goals. Stealing Mohg’s heart and taking advantage of him to enter the lands of shadow and then later, after he's taken all he can, goes on to desecrate his corpse.

He also likely uses his powers on Radahn, as I wholeheartedly believe that he did not accept Miquella’s proposal to become his consort.

The dude's a golden order loyalist that thrives on the battle ground. I don't see him suddenly siding with Miquella to make the world a "gentler place." Especially since him and Malenia got into such a violent battle during the shattering. And how there's no record anywhere in the game about the connection between Miquella and Radahn.

Because it's entirely one sided.

And the worst part of it all is that he'll convince you that it was your thoughts and feelings all along.

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Ranni's age is an age of doubt and fear because there's truly no knowing how people will chose to move forward with their strings severed. You've just got to put your trust in the good of people and hope that they can manage make the world a better place now that they're free of the god's petty power squabbles.

Miquella's age would be akin to a gilded cage. Peaceful and gentle, but the furthest thing from free that the lands between has ever been. You can't even trust that your own thoughts, feelings and devotion are genuine, because no matter your stance or standing, Miquella the god is all too willing to twist your mind if it will in any way benefit him. And if he for some reason can't? Well, he's got one of the most terrifying and powerful demigods in existence under his control.

If you don't agree with him or like him, Yes you do! Remember? You always have silly! And you always will...