2:56:34 the Rune of Death comes from the same place all the Runes do: the Elden Ring. I think a deeper question would be: where are all of the missing runes from the Dragon’s Ring?
The Demi-Human Queens with the glowing purple eyes are likely being mind-controlled. The glowing purple eyes can be proven to be a visual effect of mind-control by sleeping the ant mounts ridden by the Nox. After being slept, the ant mount will wake up and begin attacking the Nox that bewitched them. Additionally, the Bewitching Branch item image and effect are also eerily similar in color.
So with regards to Elden Lord status: Saint Peter is considered the first pope. But the title of Pope comes from the pre-Christian Pontifus Maximus which was basically the high priest of Rome. I think something like that is at play here. Basically the same position but with different cultural significance.
Here is some info that may have contributed to the creation of “Eiglay” in Elden Ring: Eglė, the Queen of Serpents. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egl%C4%97_the_Queen_of_Serpents At the end of the tragic story, Eglė and her sons turn into … Well, I won’t spoil the end of the story; it’s not a long article. But it’s fascinating in light of Eiglay and Rykard’s “joining” - was Rykard trying to “marry” Eiglay to become their Elden Lord? Cheers. These reactions are fun, LP. 🍻 I can’t keep up with every live stream, but I do try to keep up with them until exhaustion overtakes me 😂. VODs are crucial! You’re a very prolific livestreamer. 🥳💜
How do the specifics of the Black Flame and Black Blade related items measure up in Japanese? _"After a fragment of Death was stolen on that fateful night, Maliketh bound the blade within his own flesh, such that none might ever rob Death again."_ - Maliketh's Black Blade weapon. Combined with his battle quote "O, Death. Become my blade, once more." we could interpret _this_ as the "sealing" of Destined Death itself, however that does not quite line up with Scouring Black Flame: _"The black flame could once slay gods. But when Maliketh sealed Destined Death, the true power of the black flame was lost."_ - if the god-slaying flame had retained its power until _after_ the Night of the Black Knives then the assassins should have used that instead of their eponymous knives in the first place. I'm not sure we have explicit confirmation of this point but I believe Maliketh's _control_ of the Black Blade requires the rune's removal as if it were present in the Elden Ring I think everyone should at least theoretically be able to invoke its power. The Godskin Apostle set provides explicit timing information: _"But after their defeat by Maliketh, the Black Blade, the source of their power was sealed away."_ - not only did the sealing occur after the defeat of the Godskins (and probably the GEQ, see Godslayer Greatsword) Maliketh has his moniker of "the Black Blade" here meaning he probably already wielded said blade. Therefore it seems as if initially the Rune of Death was still part of the Elden Ring when the Godskins first formed, then Marika removed the rune (technically creating the Golden Order 1.0 version in the process) as a stopgap which did _NOT_ seal away its power but granted it to Maliketh to wield as a blade, then Maliketh stomped the Godskins+GEQ the good old-fashioned Godfrey way, then after gaining full control over Destined Death through conquest he seals it into his blade and takes up the mantle of "Death of the Demigods" as the _exclusive_ wielder of Death under the Golden Order, and then much later after Ranni does her thing he seals away the blade within himself which has no immediate effect on the world at large but deprives _him_ of its use as well in order to prevent it from being stolen. However all of this is dependent on the semantics of the words used, especially "seal" implying deprivation and "after" having chronological implications. If those are merely unintended translation issues the timeline could be very different, although I still hold that the "Death of the Demigods" cannot exist before the creation of the Golden Order and that Destined Death only being truly "sealed" _after_ the NotBK makes that plot look incredibly stupid. Re the golden thrones: if they are pre-Shattering then Godwyn and one out of Marika and Radagon is also missing, I don't see those two squeezing into a single seat let alone in each others' laps while attending a formal council meeting. If they are post-Shattering then the wooden throne is Morgott's and he's covering for Mohg, Godwyn is "dead", and Marika+Radagon are disappeared so the odd one out is actually Ranni. Why the heck would she join a ruling council of demigods in her doll form?
Yeah, that's a good point about the BKA's not needing to use DD if its power was still active in the world. The Japanese doesn't really differ significantly in Scouring Black Flame or Maliketh's Black Blade. I agree that it would seem the black flame's power should have been lost when Maliketh defeated the GEQ since its power was said to have been "sealed away," but I was just trying to think if it was possible for there two be two "sealings" with DD being sealed into Malikeith's blade being the first "sealing," and then the blade going into Maliketh being the "second." I don't think it works out unfortunately, but I still think it's a cool idea nonetheless. Thanks for the comment
@@LastProtagonist Oh I agree with the two sealing transitions for Maliketh you state here, we're just fairly limited on the timing. The second sealing "Blade into Maliketh" explicitly says it happened after (and in reaction to) the NotBK on the Black Blade itself. It would be very convenient for the first one to be the _reason_ for the GEQ's defeat but the Godskin Apostle set explicitly contradicts this. So if the Apostle description is not skipping an age ahead to the NotBK the first sealing "Rune into Blade" must have served a different purpose e.g. codifying the Golden Order and securing its power base against future threats. Completely different tangent: how do you think Godfrey's tarnishing, the Apostasy, the removal of Destined Death and the First Liurnian War/Campaign line up chronologically? All of those seem to fit into a nebulous transition period after the Age of Plenty but before the Golden Order had fully taken hold as a political and religious institution, and they mostly stand out for "why did X _NOT_ interfere in Y?"
Good question. I think the Liurnia Wars happened first, and when Radagon returned to Leyndell, he/Marika met Godfrey and used the power of lunar magic to "drain" the Tarnished of their grace and "avert" Destined Death similarly to what's described on the Eclipse shields. Super speculation here, but Marika may have used the moon or something to guide death's dark "fate" into her "shadow"hound beast, sealing it within the Erdtree (if you believe the Rold Finger Reader Crone's dialogue). If DD was part of the ring already, I think it would imply Marika had some dominion over it, so Marika may have had to seal a part of herself (Melina?) to seal away DD. Therefore, Maliketh could figuratively "defeat" the GEQ, removing the RoD from the Elden Ring and allow Radagon to integrate his rune into the Order and become Elden Lord himself. I think this is very messy though, and I won't be surprised at all if I need to revise this with the DLC and whatnot
@@LastProtagonist Interesting! So why do you think Godfrey did not crush Liurnia? Even if we take the "last worthy opponent" bit as completely fabricated propaganda his personality would still make it difficult to keep him out of a war that is already being fought. If lunar magic is needed for the Eclipse anti-death to work how was Miquella fulfilling that requirement? I think it's fairly easy to explain Malenia was sent to kill Radahn to allow celestial movement and thus fate manipulation, but it is critical for her ongoing failure that Ranni does not learn of that connection and she would have been the only viable collaborator for Miquella. You attribute "Death's dark fate" to the Rold crone, but shouldn't that be Enia speaking in the post-Maliketh cutscene? She's arguably the only one who knows about burning the thorns at the time. Is there a plausible way for Destined Death to be "The forbidden shadow, plucked from the Golden Order upon its creation" _without_ it being a rune in the Elden Ring? The political Order kept it in the form of Maliketh so that line more or less has to be referring to the metaphysical world order, which to my understanding is directly defined by the Elden Ring and the runes within.
The Three Fingers don't fit thematically, Chaos wants to eliminate death as much as it wants to eliminate life. There is no mention of Five Fingers as an actual sentient entity, only symbolic references in relation to beasts. Hypothetically being chosen by the five fingers of intelligent beasthood _could_ work, but that would place the GEQ as a rival to Marika's initial rise to power (or even earlier) and thus detach that episode from the Godskin Apostasy as there would not be any demigods to skin for quite a while. Plus it would still cheapen the impact of Hyetta's lie through omission if the item description randomly pulled the same trick with nothing else tying the two together.
There’s not much direct support for this but I have a feeling the gods the Godskins were after were dragons. Dragons are weak to pierce damage and all the Godskin weapons do pierce damage. Additionally the way the black flame works make it useful for killing dragons.
I'm not sure if there's a difference in translation with brother Corhyn's dialog- I'll get to the point for that in a bit here - and it's been a while since I've played to have this one specific line committed to memory so i just wanted to get that out of the way before i continue (I've also been a long-time fan of your channel since Bloodborne came out); I genuinely appreciate your dedication to basing most of your interpretations off of both the translations of the overall story and the explicitly "definitively" worded bits of lore as far as what can be "trusted" as opposed to the hear-say bits, but for Elden Ring specifically you have to be careful with leaning on that every time things get contextual for one major reason in specific. The biggest elephant in the room with putting more weight behind the more definitely worded lore is the fact that as stated by Brother Corhyn, Marika is the leader of the Golden Order and it is explicitly stated that the foundation of the Golden Order is based upon the *belief* or fact that Marika is the one true god. That automatically makes every single definitively worded piece of lore with its' roots being from the age and characters associated to the Golden Order a potential re-writing of history/propaganda (history is written by the victor) to further cement the Golden Order's power regardless of whether or not bits of the in-game lore come from Marika herself, or any subsequent follower of the Golden Order. It's no secret that Merika and the Golden Order were conquerors, and with conquest comes the inevitable discrediting of the previous powers and the justification of the current powers right to rule and the winning of the minds of the masses that the current order/ruler is better. This makes trusting ANY of the lore problematic because there isn't any telling what information is factual, or what is being written by the victors. Just some musings I've had for a while and wanted to share with fellow lore enthusiasts. Love your vids man, and I'm glad to see the big lore creators checking out each other's works.
Hi, you've said that Melina might have been chiped away from Marika's whole during the shattering of the ER but isn't more plausable that if she's the GEQ that shes been plugged from Marika and the elden ring with the rune of death? That would explain their connection to both DD, and Marika.
2:56:34 the Rune of Death comes from the same place all the Runes do: the Elden Ring. I think a deeper question would be: where are all of the missing runes from the Dragon’s Ring?
The Demi-Human Queens with the glowing purple eyes are likely being mind-controlled. The glowing purple eyes can be proven to be a visual effect of mind-control by sleeping the ant mounts ridden by the Nox. After being slept, the ant mount will wake up and begin attacking the Nox that bewitched them. Additionally, the Bewitching Branch item image and effect are also eerily similar in color.
So with regards to Elden Lord status: Saint Peter is considered the first pope. But the title of Pope comes from the pre-Christian Pontifus Maximus which was basically the high priest of Rome. I think something like that is at play here. Basically the same position but with different cultural significance.
Here is some info that may have contributed to the creation of “Eiglay” in Elden Ring: Eglė, the Queen of Serpents.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egl%C4%97_the_Queen_of_Serpents
At the end of the tragic story, Eglė and her sons turn into …
Well, I won’t spoil the end of the story; it’s not a long article. But it’s fascinating in light of Eiglay and Rykard’s “joining” - was Rykard trying to “marry” Eiglay to become their Elden Lord?
Cheers. These reactions are fun, LP. 🍻 I can’t keep up with every live stream, but I do try to keep up with them until exhaustion overtakes me 😂. VODs are crucial! You’re a very prolific livestreamer. 🥳💜
Thanks for the link, I'm very interested to see what this is about!
How do the specifics of the Black Flame and Black Blade related items measure up in Japanese? _"After a fragment of Death was stolen on that fateful night, Maliketh bound the blade within his own flesh, such that none might ever rob Death again."_ - Maliketh's Black Blade weapon. Combined with his battle quote "O, Death. Become my blade, once more." we could interpret _this_ as the "sealing" of Destined Death itself, however that does not quite line up with Scouring Black Flame: _"The black flame could once slay gods. But when Maliketh sealed Destined Death, the true power of the black flame was lost."_ - if the god-slaying flame had retained its power until _after_ the Night of the Black Knives then the assassins should have used that instead of their eponymous knives in the first place.
I'm not sure we have explicit confirmation of this point but I believe Maliketh's _control_ of the Black Blade requires the rune's removal as if it were present in the Elden Ring I think everyone should at least theoretically be able to invoke its power. The Godskin Apostle set provides explicit timing information: _"But after their defeat by Maliketh, the Black Blade, the source of their power was sealed away."_ - not only did the sealing occur after the defeat of the Godskins (and probably the GEQ, see Godslayer Greatsword) Maliketh has his moniker of "the Black Blade" here meaning he probably already wielded said blade. Therefore it seems as if initially the Rune of Death was still part of the Elden Ring when the Godskins first formed, then Marika removed the rune (technically creating the Golden Order 1.0 version in the process) as a stopgap which did _NOT_ seal away its power but granted it to Maliketh to wield as a blade, then Maliketh stomped the Godskins+GEQ the good old-fashioned Godfrey way, then after gaining full control over Destined Death through conquest he seals it into his blade and takes up the mantle of "Death of the Demigods" as the _exclusive_ wielder of Death under the Golden Order, and then much later after Ranni does her thing he seals away the blade within himself which has no immediate effect on the world at large but deprives _him_ of its use as well in order to prevent it from being stolen.
However all of this is dependent on the semantics of the words used, especially "seal" implying deprivation and "after" having chronological implications. If those are merely unintended translation issues the timeline could be very different, although I still hold that the "Death of the Demigods" cannot exist before the creation of the Golden Order and that Destined Death only being truly "sealed" _after_ the NotBK makes that plot look incredibly stupid.
Re the golden thrones: if they are pre-Shattering then Godwyn and one out of Marika and Radagon is also missing, I don't see those two squeezing into a single seat let alone in each others' laps while attending a formal council meeting. If they are post-Shattering then the wooden throne is Morgott's and he's covering for Mohg, Godwyn is "dead", and Marika+Radagon are disappeared so the odd one out is actually Ranni. Why the heck would she join a ruling council of demigods in her doll form?
Yeah, that's a good point about the BKA's not needing to use DD if its power was still active in the world. The Japanese doesn't really differ significantly in Scouring Black Flame or Maliketh's Black Blade. I agree that it would seem the black flame's power should have been lost when Maliketh defeated the GEQ since its power was said to have been "sealed away," but I was just trying to think if it was possible for there two be two "sealings" with DD being sealed into Malikeith's blade being the first "sealing," and then the blade going into Maliketh being the "second." I don't think it works out unfortunately, but I still think it's a cool idea nonetheless. Thanks for the comment
@@LastProtagonist Oh I agree with the two sealing transitions for Maliketh you state here, we're just fairly limited on the timing. The second sealing "Blade into Maliketh" explicitly says it happened after (and in reaction to) the NotBK on the Black Blade itself. It would be very convenient for the first one to be the _reason_ for the GEQ's defeat but the Godskin Apostle set explicitly contradicts this. So if the Apostle description is not skipping an age ahead to the NotBK the first sealing "Rune into Blade" must have served a different purpose e.g. codifying the Golden Order and securing its power base against future threats.
Completely different tangent: how do you think Godfrey's tarnishing, the Apostasy, the removal of Destined Death and the First Liurnian War/Campaign line up chronologically? All of those seem to fit into a nebulous transition period after the Age of Plenty but before the Golden Order had fully taken hold as a political and religious institution, and they mostly stand out for "why did X _NOT_ interfere in Y?"
Good question. I think the Liurnia Wars happened first, and when Radagon returned to Leyndell, he/Marika met Godfrey and used the power of lunar magic to "drain" the Tarnished of their grace and "avert" Destined Death similarly to what's described on the Eclipse shields.
Super speculation here, but Marika may have used the moon or something to guide death's dark "fate" into her "shadow"hound beast, sealing it within the Erdtree (if you believe the Rold Finger Reader Crone's dialogue).
If DD was part of the ring already, I think it would imply Marika had some dominion over it, so Marika may have had to seal a part of herself (Melina?) to seal away DD. Therefore, Maliketh could figuratively "defeat" the GEQ, removing the RoD from the Elden Ring and allow Radagon to integrate his rune into the Order and become Elden Lord himself.
I think this is very messy though, and I won't be surprised at all if I need to revise this with the DLC and whatnot
@@LastProtagonist Interesting! So why do you think Godfrey did not crush Liurnia? Even if we take the "last worthy opponent" bit as completely fabricated propaganda his personality would still make it difficult to keep him out of a war that is already being fought.
If lunar magic is needed for the Eclipse anti-death to work how was Miquella fulfilling that requirement? I think it's fairly easy to explain Malenia was sent to kill Radahn to allow celestial movement and thus fate manipulation, but it is critical for her ongoing failure that Ranni does not learn of that connection and she would have been the only viable collaborator for Miquella.
You attribute "Death's dark fate" to the Rold crone, but shouldn't that be Enia speaking in the post-Maliketh cutscene? She's arguably the only one who knows about burning the thorns at the time. Is there a plausible way for Destined Death to be "The forbidden shadow, plucked from the Golden Order upon its creation" _without_ it being a rune in the Elden Ring? The political Order kept it in the form of Maliketh so that line more or less has to be referring to the metaphysical world order, which to my understanding is directly defined by the Elden Ring and the runes within.
6:09 whats interesting is that it doesnt say wich "fingers", it could be the 2 or 3 fingers or maybe even a different set of fingers (5)
The Three Fingers don't fit thematically, Chaos wants to eliminate death as much as it wants to eliminate life. There is no mention of Five Fingers as an actual sentient entity, only symbolic references in relation to beasts. Hypothetically being chosen by the five fingers of intelligent beasthood _could_ work, but that would place the GEQ as a rival to Marika's initial rise to power (or even earlier) and thus detach that episode from the Godskin Apostasy as there would not be any demigods to skin for quite a while. Plus it would still cheapen the impact of Hyetta's lie through omission if the item description randomly pulled the same trick with nothing else tying the two together.
There’s not much direct support for this but I have a feeling the gods the Godskins were after were dragons. Dragons are weak to pierce damage and all the Godskin weapons do pierce damage. Additionally the way the black flame works make it useful for killing dragons.
Further support for this: I embarrassed Placidusax for the first time using the Godskin stitcher. Usually a fight that goes down to the wire for me.
I'm not sure if there's a difference in translation with brother Corhyn's dialog- I'll get to the point for that in a bit here - and it's been a while since I've played to have this one specific line committed to memory so i just wanted to get that out of the way before i continue (I've also been a long-time fan of your channel since Bloodborne came out); I genuinely appreciate your dedication to basing most of your interpretations off of both the translations of the overall story and the explicitly "definitively" worded bits of lore as far as what can be "trusted" as opposed to the hear-say bits, but for Elden Ring specifically you have to be careful with leaning on that every time things get contextual for one major reason in specific.
The biggest elephant in the room with putting more weight behind the more definitely worded lore is the fact that as stated by Brother Corhyn, Marika is the leader of the Golden Order and it is explicitly stated that the foundation of the Golden Order is based upon the *belief* or fact that Marika is the one true god.
That automatically makes every single definitively worded piece of lore with its' roots being from the age and characters associated to the Golden Order a potential re-writing of history/propaganda (history is written by the victor) to further cement the Golden Order's power regardless of whether or not bits of the in-game lore come from Marika herself, or any subsequent follower of the Golden Order.
It's no secret that Merika and the Golden Order were conquerors, and with conquest comes the inevitable discrediting of the previous powers and the justification of the current powers right to rule and the winning of the minds of the masses that the current order/ruler is better.
This makes trusting ANY of the lore problematic because there isn't any telling what information is factual, or what is being written by the victors. Just some musings I've had for a while and wanted to share with fellow lore enthusiasts. Love your vids man, and I'm glad to see the big lore creators checking out each other's works.
Hi, you've said that Melina might have been chiped away from Marika's whole during the shattering of the ER but isn't more plausable that if she's the GEQ that shes been plugged from Marika and the elden ring with the rune of death? That would explain their connection to both DD, and Marika.
Yes, that is also a possible interpretation, but I'm not comfortable sticking to anything based on prior FromSoft games lol
Melina being the GEQ would be really bad writing...