Honestly When You Think About It, It Makes A Lot Of Sense That The Lands Between And Land Of Shadow Don't

Personally I think Radahn is now acting in a similar vein to spirit ash. As Ranni says while handing us the bell for it (which she got from torrents former master aka miquella/st trina) spirit ashes fight by the users side based on instinct installed in prior battles, which is why they'll fight anything and everything without hesitation, which seems to be exactly what's happening with radahn. Either that or Miquella could just inherently bewitch radahn easily after acquiring his soul

Y'know, I've been thinking about the vow between Miquella and Radahn a lot recently, and I feel like I've come up with a possible explanation for why Radahn seemingly agreed at first but later backed out of the deal.

If Radahn truly did agree to become Miquella's consort, what are the chances that it was made under the pretense that he'd be the next elden lord in the golden order? Continuing the legacy and age of both his personal hero and father, alongside Miquella as the new god of the age, but things remaining overall the same.

Once Miquella became disillusioned with Marika's age and decided to do his own thing, and create his own age, Radahn probably lost interest in becoming his consort because he wouldn't be the lord of the age he loved anymore, infact he would be a major factor in it ending. Something that he historically does not stand for.

This probably lead to a disagreement between the two that lead to Malenia invading Selia. Miquella feeling betrayed because Radahn was now refusing to uphold his promise, and Radahn feeling betrayed because Miquella turned his back on the golden order he loved and was now trying to bring it to an end.

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.

Screw Marika's motivations. I want to know what the fuck is up with Melina and Ranni. Why do they seem like 2 halves of the same whole?

Why are they so similar design wise? Why are they both "burned and bodiless"? Why are they the only characters that know torrent on a first name basis? Why do they both share the same closed eye aesthetic? Why do their faces complete eachother if you overlap them? Why do these two, seemingly completely unrelated characters have so much in common? What the fuck is going on?!

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Semi side rant incoming but what if those eye markings that Melina and Ranni have are markings of an Empyrean? I mean, other than Ranni have we ever actually seen the full, undamaged face of an Empyrean before? By the time we see Malenia, Marika and even to a certain extent Ranni’s own face they’re all damaged to the point where any marking would be long gone (and we just straight up never see Miquella’s face) and we conveniently also never see a proper painting or depiction of any of the Empyreans faces ever throughout the game. Sure there’s a couple statues here and there but I’d believe that tattoo/mark details would be left out of that sort of stuff.

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.

Assuming this isn’t sarcasm here we go (also some spoilers)

There’s not really a lot of lore on torrent. All we really know is that he’s a spirit mount that we can summon with the golden whistle ring, much like we can summon normal spirit ash’s with the spirit calling bell. Both of these items seem to reanimate the dead in a sort of 'spirit state', with the whistle we summon a spirit to ride and with the bell we can summon spirits to fight with us. Both of these things are possible because death isn’t really a thing in the lands between anymore. This is because the 'rune of death' was removed from the elden ring, which essentially removed the concept of death from the world itself. (the elden ring seems to control the laws of reality and said laws can be messed with or altered by taking away or adding different things to the ring). Torrent just sort of poofs when he gets hurt and can be resummoned at will because he isn’t alive in the first place and thus cannot be permanently destroyed.

The Erdtree’s a little trickier to explain but if you’re interested I can go into it.

Elden Ring lore, huh?

I mean I can just say a bunch random words with 'the' in front of them, too.

A lot of games get accused of having world building that really doesn't matter to gameplay. Elden Ring feels like a dare to see how far you can take that.

I still don't know why you can summon an antelope to ride on that can't die but just disappears if someone hits it, and then there is a cool-down period before you can bring it back. And what does that have to do with the giant LED tree?

Who made all of these barrels and boxes? Because this world seems to only have monsters and guys who kill monsters in it.

Please reblog this explaining everything to me. I'm sure it will suddenly be not a bunch of whatever nonsense when YOU type it.

As far as I've seen recently, I've noticed a pretty big shift in public opinion regarding the DLC's final boss. I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's starting to make more sense to people after being given a bit more time to think it over.

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Interestingly enough, I think Messmer is the only one of her children that we know her interactions with. No one else has any mention of times spent with her. Most demigods don't seem to have anything to say about her at all. The only outlier being Melina who also doesn't seem to really know much either.

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Kind of, but it's not a very clear picture. We know he upheld the golden order's ideals but we also know that he was not as battle hungry as his father or as dedicated to the horrors of the order as his mother, due to his diplomatic approach to ending the war with the dragons. Instead of forcing them into the order (or out of existence) they managed to come to an understanding and live harmoniously alongside each other, in stark contrast to the outcomes of every other war the order has waged. (despite the fact that they still kept Lansaxx's corpse in their city as a war trophy)

Unfortunately most of Godwyn's past, even including the golden order's proper gander has been lost to time, but from what we know, he seemed to have been a pretty upstanding guy.

While this is more headcannon territory, it's known that Godwyn at some point did have children of his own (due to the golden lineage going all the way down to Godrick, who is a distant ancestor to the rest of the royal family) and I believe that his consort was actually the dragon "Fortisaxx" who he met during the war against the dragons and became good friends and "companions" with, which directly led to the end of the war and peaceful integration of the dragons into the golden order. I have a whole post going over the topic if you're interested in seeing they deeper thought process behind this.

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unfortunately I don't know much about the albinuriac woman, but she seems to be an incredibly important figure in the albinuriac society.

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Sadly, where the land of shadow fits into the timeline is a little bit muddy. All we know is that it used to be a part of the lands between, being the centre that is missing in modern day, but was at some point separated and isolated from the rest of the world, probably in order to hide Marika and the Golden Order's deepest darkest secrets.

I don’t think I ‘hate’ a single Elden Ring character. Each and every one is designed so compellingly, their stories are so varied, their interactions while sparse are the type to carry magnitudes of meaning.

Example:

For the longest time I did not realize that the scene we stroll into at Castle Morne is a slave rebellion. The misbegotten are treated as chattel. My first go around I assumed “ah yes, monster attack castle, understand”

It wasn’t until I watched a random lore video that only referenced it that I got it. I went back and read the descriptions of stuff and I’ll be damned.

There’s a lot of little tidbits hidden here and there that flip entire perspectives on their heads. Preaching to the choir on this point.

Even the characters that I generally dislike/disregard (dung-eater, (hot take) Varre, selvus) I still find fascinating. One of the cool parts about the game is you can just kill the character you don’t like. If you’re doing a run and you want to get a little roleplay in, sometimes murder freak be murdering.

Personally, I’m not on twitter, instagram (used to be), deviant art (do people still use that), or anywhere else ((I Do have a blue sky but I think I’m too dim to use it just yet)) . I’d love to be in a space where people talk more about lore or art things! I haven’t the foggiest clue where to go though. When I hear people say “everyone hates on xyz character” or “this fandom is so nuts” or whatever I am genuinely confused. I’m only seeing a portion of the stuff here, and so far it’s been more than pleasant! Big ups to the people on here, so far you’ve all been very kind 😊

So I guess, could I ask anybody to fill me in? Or where to go to get filled in?

In the meantime I want you to know I’ve started working on a pair of drawings centered around Malenia and Miquella - ooooo be so tragic oooooo

There's something painfully funny that Avatar Aang, master of all 4 elements and protector of the world doesn't even attempt to nudge a single fucking drop of water for the entirety of the season dedicated to him learning how to bend water!!!

Like fuck. By the end of season 1 in the OG Aang was a master at airbending, was decent at water bending and had even attempted some fire bending a few times. But this time I don't think he did any water bending at all (The ending of the season doesn't count imo since it was the ocean spirit bending the water, not Aang himself.)

I'm pretty sure even the movie dedicated some time to showing Aang practicing water bending but this time he just doesn't fucking bother I suppose (despite the fact that everyone keeps telling him how important it is that he becomes stronger.)

How are you really going to be so terrible at your job as supreme god that your vassal successfully planned to overthrow you and betrayed you right under your nose and one of her possible replacements went to some seriously extreme lengths just to get away from you?

Wouldn’t be surprised if the GW abandoned the lands between out of embarrassment tbh. The other outer gods are never going to let it live this down. The formless mother has a very loyal pawn and the rot god has wormed its way back into the system. What does the GW have again? Two problem children that wont listen to it?

Oh what Radagon? Radagon's probably it's self insert it made/possessed to try and looks slightly less pathetic /hj

oh... the butterfly that Kinger's trying to catch on the tote bag is brown and red huh?

I uh... wonder why that could be.

Honestly I’m surprised by the amount of people who think Mohg’s character was at all reduced by the DLC— if anything, the introduction of a character like Ansbach and the reveal that he was bewitched adds a lot to his story.

I wonder if there’s any correlation between those who believe his character was taken away from and those who very staunchly believed that he kidnapped Miquella all on his own? Because in my personal experience, I’m someone who always thought it was more likely that it was either a mutual agreement or manipulation + bewitchment on Miquella’s end rather than kidnapping— otherwise, there’s a lot going on in terms of the environment and story details that just don’t make sense (IE; why is nobody at the Haligtree concerned about there being a kidnapping, and are simply waiting for Miquella to come back)! And also, since GRRM has a quote discussing how he’s not fond of the “here’s the good guys, they dress in white and look pretty while the bad guys dress in black and are ugly” trope, I would’ve been more shocked if that was played straight and it WAS a kidnapping.

Another thing, I fell in love with his character before I knew anything about his involvement with Miquella. Varré’s quest, the subtle buildup of his presence you see throughout the world of the game and the characterization it provides! As soon as I saw the Bloodroses for the first time, I knew he was going to be a favorite of mine. They alone clue us in on so much about him as a character, painting this mysterious Lord of Blood as a romantic, but morbid figure.

He has so much character without Miquella, he has a fully fleshed out backstory that I can’t help but to adore. Then, the DLC comes in and makes you confront any pre-conceived notions of what Mohgwyn was like prior to Miquella, it makes you ask what this blood cult was like before it got extra bloody, it makes you ask where this love for Miquella came from, and so on. I personally subscribe to “it was a combination of genuine manipulation from Miq’s end along with bewitchment— which played horribly well with Mohg’s idea of and need for love”, but there’s so many ways you can go about it! So many fun possibilities to explore that add further depth to these characters and their relationship!

So I find it surprising as hell that people would think the DLC took anything away from his character, when it really just fleshed him out further.