วีดีโอ

great video!

Underrated! I would honestly be totally up to see the full version of the video, your take on it is very interesting!

this channel belongs to an idiot.

I'm sorry to report that you need to change your apology to spanish speakers to "all one of you" now, at least. I fully agree with you about BG3 on every single aspect- including the fact that despite its flaws on gender depiction, I'm still playing the hell out of it and enjoying every minute. But yeah, it's lonely being the only nonbinary character out there, especially when being nonbinary is completely reduced to the one set of pronouns they use for you, and that's pretty much it. Great video, thank you!

Personally as a Marika simp, Marika did nothing wrong

“Lore” people were disappointed by the DLC while storytelling people ate.

Watching a break down on the trees in game of thrones and the people begging for death stuck inside those trees

I thank the algorithm Gods for putting this amazing video in my recommendation! BTW, already subbed to your channel you tarnished champion.

There is always a story to these wondrous worlds. However, the world is more than just current events it is a living breathing being that is old and beaten. We aren't just supposed to learn the truth. We are the wanders of these worlds,we are meant to simply experience them, and more over, we are to make our own interpretations of them so they can stay living on in our minds.

13:24 he beaten the alegations

CRUNDER!

They painted the Crucible from Elden Ring, but even that acceptance didn't last

Something worth noting: in the original Japanese translation of Miquella's Great Rune, it says nothing about original sin, but rather Causality (as in, Law of Causality, part of Golden Order magic that Miquella is a prodigy in). Causality is also associated with karma in Buddhism. The Buddhist doctrine of karma is different from the Christian doctrine of sin. It reminds me of how in Naruto, after Madara enacted the Infinite Tsukiyomi, he declared "I have severed the karmic cycle of this world".

A beautiful video for the most beautiful game. A very interesting theme that you came with out of this experience! For me signalis is my favorite art piece ever. It's such a perfect piece for introspection. The promise is meant to be seen through the players perspective and it tells you so much about yourself. Signalis to me is the perfect encapsulation of the human condition. Of alienation, lonleyness, oppression, suffering, hope, wonderment, love and death. To me the promise was that they would dance again. That despite everything the universe throwed at them love would in time remain, eternal. It would transcend the boundries of flesh and blood, of time and space, of being and oblivion. And at the end the two lovers would hold each other once more. I love this game so much if you can't tell. It's such a beautifully crafted story woven onto such a perfect canvass. The most important aspect it was made by 2 people and they poured their heart and soul into it and you can tell. We need more games like this Thanks for the awesome video, gonna go cry while listening to the soundtrack again ;)

Yeah I always feel baffled that from get credit for the story, we don’t know exactly how much others contributed like GRRM but I mean, it’s a setting similar to dark souls but with a decent writer involved for once, written a lot like GOT, with similar themes…

Wonderfully done. I think it is rather ironic that the person whom the game is based around and whom actions have the most consequences is supposed to be represented by Causality, she runs from her actions from the causes of her suffering and yet she is ultimately joined to Regression and cannot escape that which she represents. Eventually her comeuppance is due and the punishment is terrible. Did she deserve what happened to her? Yes but that doesn’t mean I don’t wish it could been different, much like with certain bosses I wish to speak with them and not have to fight them to not be forced to come to power in a clash of blades and blood. To settle things in a more peaceful manner, to try and fix the broke world in a way that does not require such strife. It’s why I like GoldMask so much, he does not fight he just tries to find the truth, to make right that which is wrong without killing but by understanding.

Came here from the GRRM video that was recommended by youtube. I do agree with your point that lore videos kind of focus too much on item descriptions, but i do not think they should be entirely dismissed. What shadow of the erdtree made me realise is that Elden ring, despite it's godly and legendary veneer, is a human story at core ( Very GRRM-esq ). It's quite akin to the legends and illiads of the ancient greek. Marika is a very tragic figure. At her core all she ever wanted was to create a world in which her people would never suffer like they did. Only to become a prisoner to her own devices, and to an unknowable "greater will". It's a very human story of how people with good intentions and people we would root for become the very monsters that once plagued them. But in the end i don't think Marika deserved any of this, my only wish is that i could turn back time and save that little girl and her village from the hornsent. Marika most of all deserved peace at the end, it was what she sought most. Love the inclusion of signalis' soundtrack! i've put that video next on my watchlist.

Excellent video. I admit I let the lore hunters do a lot of the explaining while I dodge a 50 hit combo, lol, but joking aside elden ring makes so much more sense when you look at it through a thematic lens. I don't think I've seen a video that deviates from fictional archaeology and actually tries to underatand what the game wants us to understand. God bless, friend.

This was an absolutely beautiful take on the story of elden ring. I feel like we all forget that Miyazaki writes story's more as poetry than intricately written puzzle. while George probably gave a good play by play about the actual lore and myth, Miyazaki took all of that and gave us a wonderful poem to look and and see how it makes us feel.

Legit

I thought we hit video-game essay end-game with the likes of Jacob Geller, Noah Gervais, eurothug4000 and others. Glad to find out, there's still incredibly talented essayists hiding under the algorithm. This video earned a place on my favorites playlist.

To be loved is to be changed

I do appreciate an analysis where vibes and themes take center stage, and combed-together details are just examples to support them. I do think that a healthy medium exists between wanting the details and realizing that they exist to support the less concrete and more artistic pursuits of theme and vibe, and I think some creators who hunt for details are at least reasonable about not missing the forest for the trees on that front. If you haven't seen his work already, I feel like you might enjoy Noah Gervais' long-form reviews of the fromsoft catelogue, because while he didn't express the same relationship with how fans observe the games, he essentially rejected it and just had fun exploring and putting pieces together on his own in ways that feel resonant- he absolutely was here for the vibes and themes alone, and found his way, bit by bit, to conclusions that he found resonant and satisfying, even if Vaatividya and other experts might have some corrections if you sat them together in a room to talk about it. Past that, been loving your channel now that I've discovered it today. A lovely place to subscribe to.

I actually find the parts of this analysis that have been somewhat debunked by the DLC to be super interesting, and I think there's value in preserving the Time Capsule of "Well, this is what we thought at the time." The shunning of the Omens is, I think, delightfully tragic, in that it's so easy and tempting to deflect blame away from Marika, to blame the Greater Will... but no, now we know better. Her hatred of the Hornsent clearly stayed with her, suffering and scars begetting even more suffering and scars as Marika treats her own children like they are among the enemies of her Youth.

ONLY 1k SUBS?! Dude I was listening to this and I thought it was a relatively old and popular channel that I haven’t seen before

An eye for an eye makes the world go blind, after all.

I LOVE your videos. This is the exactly what the souls community needs

This is beautiful! Please, we NEED more of your videos on Elden Ring!

Did you notice the NPCs, in the DLC, for the most part are all inherently good? And NPCs in the base are kinda… not? Interesting dichotomy. I could be wrong, but it seems most in the base are very self interested and the DLC are all centered around honor and redemption. The NPCs feel the shame the shadow casts

Love to see this kind of discussion of Elden Ring!

I think Marika is trying to play a cosmic game on the same level as the Greater Will. I don't think her body or even mind matter as much as her own will, which lives on through Miquella, Ranni and the Tarnished.

elden ring is all about mothers, but who is marika's mother?

What a fantastic video! You completely hit the nail on the head when it comes to Marika, I basically had the exact same feelings when it comes to the quality of her characterization. The development of how her story is presented, which encapsulates what makes these games so brilliant with their subtle and purposefully ambiguous yet dense and well-written non-traditional storytelling, has got to be the single greatest achievement of storytelling that Elden Ring produces. As you note here, with the expansion her tale somehow became even more nuanced and mysterious, she is both the single most important figure in the narrative and lore of ER’s story and simultaneously also the grandest enigma, both absent yet also so thoroughly pervasive in every manner, in past and present, across the fractured world that she helped create. I feel like she’s a big step up from prior figures in From games like Gwyn, Sulyvahn or even Gehrman, perhaps due to Martin’s added influence on her character and its intricacies in personality (just look at the ever present Radagon debate, and now the revelation of Shaman Village and its implications, which allow for fantastic lore AND substantive thematic speculation such as in this video). She’s just the wonderful central pillar of it all as far as the lore goes, and her designs, her goals, her acts, all the questions around her history and purpose, will be discussed ad infinitum at this point, she’s just that complex and open to interpretation, there is just so much to contemplate, she’s a literary goldmine in the artistic sense, a faceted masterpiece of a character. A truly compelling driving force of the story and lore, she’s got to be the shining light of the tale Elden Ring tells for me in this specific instance. Which brings me to the other great aspect of this analysis, that you emphasize focusing on thematic messages and conceptual/abstract ideas instead of just obsessing about lore debates, and that the delineation of less overt forms of storytelling absorbed through the WORLD and our multifarious experience of it matters just as much as concrete item descriptions or ambiguous lore conjecture and connectivity revolving around forced "theories" about everything. This wider appreciation of how the game opens itself to interpretation is exactly what makes the Soulsborne games so engrossing, makes them feel so artistic, like you're travelling through a painting rife with symbolic and narrative meaning, and Shadow of the Erdtree did this as well as anything else they've worked on (perhaps besides The Old Hunters). This is what helps relay thematic depth, and the underscoring of the philosophical idea of Power and its importance in the themes Elden Ring as a force of cyclical destruction and corruption is wonderfully explored here. The base game already conveys this theme in particular with the presentation of various Orders and our ruminations on what they mean (look at Ranni's story to comprehend just how important a theme power is in this setting), but it goes even harder when it comes to Marika, since she is the nexus of it all in so many ways, the embodiment of the complexities of power and the consequences of its expression. Miquella is another fantastic link to this topic, and the parallelism with Marika which the expansion elucidates upon really is a fascinating topic, particularly in relation to the theme of power as seen by the pursuit of godhood. I can't wait to see your video and analysis on him and how his narrative ties with the themes surrounding Marika that you so expertly presented here, you've made a new fan and I am looking forward to more. Well done!

I got another one, why do you think Marika's missing so much of her body? Aren't we missing the big picture here? In order to be an Empirion you have to come from one God. I think we're mistaking here, we compare the reproduction in the lands between with with ours, the humans, we multiply by 1 man and 1 woman. Births are never described in the lands between, they sometimes say this dude is the son of this and that but they don't talk how they where created. What if the pots are the only way to reproduce in this universe? Two or more persons flesh has to come together and "incubate" in order for a birth to occur. Gods, in the lands between, are just not a product of 2 entities, if you want God like figures, you cut the flesh of one God and grow it in a pot. In short, it's a direct message to the jar fillers, on "how to" grow Gods.

This was the PERFECT job for GRRM.... he got to create a world, and didn't have to finish the story

Maybe I am wrong ... but aren't we hearing this wrongly? Marika is a God... Gods don't wage war (unless they are the Gods of war)... but when you are a God like Marika, I don't think she would have wished nor ordered anything. "In Marika's words" and then a generality... almost no one can claim receiving a specific address about her, like "go wipe the giants" ... The only "order" she supposedly gave was to remove the gold out of tarnished (maybe because something they did prior). It's more like who ever did the deed was emboldened by her and did what they thought she would want. Mesmer is a half abyss dominated half snake ... so obviously he thought she would like him to murder and burn the hornsent, Godfrey was a warrior so he took upon himself to wipe out the giants, Radagon was a champion and a good looking man, so he fought then he loved Ranala... Am I just looking too much into this or those characters would have done exactly that on their own, they just got inspired to do so by Marika. Same rule applies to the other, but none have been moved by her orders, I don't think. After all as far as I am concerned, I don't know when she got impaled or crucified up there... we assume that probably this happened after the she shattered the Elden Ring... but isn't that something that is in her? I think she's became inanimate way before the shattering and when he "perfect" son died, something just broke in the Elden Ring contained in her, but I think she always was up there "imprisoner or dead already, as the god she became". After all we know from St Trina that "godhood is an imprisonment", be it a jar or a tree.

Just one thing. The disaster of Death Stranding isn't stopped, its DELAYED. It already started, inevitable.

What an eloquent way with words you have. Good stuff

I'm a firm believer in Robert Caro's maxim that power doesn't corrupt, it reveals. In Marika's case, it revealed her inability to overcome cycles of violence, even in the face of her purity, her idealism. It's a story of impotence, from failing to save her people, to failing to preserve her golden child (and the world, i guess) from death. Her ultimate failure is the Shattering - she destroyed the thing she literally *was*, her Golden Order. It's tragic and incredibly human. I cannot sympathize with her because Morgott is my favorite character and I will defend him to my death, but I can see where she's coming from. A woman burdened with godhood. Amazing video, I was drawing while listening, and your analysis was very inspiring!

What i love about the DLC is that what we learn of Marika's backstory fills the gaps of Miquella's journey and vice-versa Because they parallel each other.

"You've heard of the Golden Rule, haven't you?" "Sure. Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You." "No. The One With The Gold Makes The Rules."

"What did GRRM even do?" *Miquella and Malenia are cursed bastards, born of incest* "Ahh, there it is"

Never understood how anyone could enjoy this game. All plot points that you bring up and call satisfying and gratifying are meaningless. The combat was super plain and boring. Environments and enemies felt like the bare minimum to tell a super short 15 hour story for a full price game. The only thing that felt like a natural part of the SW world was the music. There hasn't been a single good SW game since The Force Unleashed 1 and 2. I feel bad for all the fans of these series being content deprived from good movies and games to the point that they call this game a worthwhile experience

liked and subed <3

05:00 yeessss man, please, this is what really matters. thank you

I don’t disagree about the ultimate theme of the game being cyclical, both GRRM and From have a tendency to touch on that as a core theme. I will say that I always assumed that the entire reason the hornsent refer to Marika as a traitor suggests that they thought she was on their side. Meaning, she at least did some stuff under their vision while smiling and nodding. I think they did put her in a jar. Just like everyone else. But it worked, she gained status and was a symbol for destruction and hatred and violence that she detested. Perhaps, after her, they doubled down on their belief. After all, it worked once… They brought her to the gate because they had their God and at the last moment Marika chose to show them godhood. I’m not suggesting she hasn’t been through enough without also going through the horrible torture but it seemed to me that’s the catalyst for people, herself and her children, being able to be multiple people. It’s an important element and it coming about as an extension of trauma, like a mind fracturing in response to excessive stimuli, felt plausible to me. Anyway, incredible video and sometimes, we do need to explore art on our own terms. If anyone’s still reading this: I think you would enjoy Dan Olsen’s video on Annihilation. Sometimes we miss the point of art when we’re too obsessed with “solving” it.