I assumed it was a reference to the talisman. In the description of the talisman it talks about having adoration for stardust and knowing love but it also states the hand is gently gripping a glintstone. Yet we Mesmer crush his seal that was given to him, which I thought symbolized him casting away his love for his mother Marika
I think part of the betrayal could have been Marika defeating the fire giants on behalf of the Hornsent ("the fell god haunts the sagas of the Hornsent"), earning their favor, then turning on them with the crusade. There was a time when she was seemingly venerated by the Hornsent, with her churches found in the lands of shadow. And Erdtree-related item drops can be obtained in Enir-Ilim (drawstring holy grease, sunwarmth stone, etc).
@TheHonoredMadman Oh, thanks. Yeah, the timeline is always tricky, I'm still trying to piece it together. I started with the impression that the crusade was one of the earlier events in Marika's story, but now I think it has to be quite a bit later. Messmer's flame knights being high-ranking Erdtree officials and commander Gaius being close with both Messmer and Radahn really threw me off.
I'm inclined to believe the theory that Melina has already been used as kindling once before, hence burnt and bodiless, born at the foot of the erdtree, and would explain all the corpsewax sealing the windows and doors of Lendeyll, as well as the golden part of the erdtree being described as more of a object of faith that only those with grace can still see
I think the burns come from the rune of death being used against her by Maliketh, after Marika sealed it away into him. We see with Ranni that real body is burnt to a crisp, which was done with the power of the rune of death. THAT SAID, my theory has as much merit as yours, so I won't detract from this. Its a really interesting interpretation, especially with the corpse wax tie in.
corpsewax is the fat from bodies breaking down in a body of water, it's definitely either amber from the erdtee or something similar that seals the doors in leyndell.
With regards to Messmer’s parentage, to me there is no doubt whatsoever he is a son of Radagon, an Elder brother of Radahn, their musical themes align as well.
I think the connections between The Black knives Assassins and Melana is clue about a deeper relationship between her and Marika. The fact that she uses the secret erdtree that is Marika left behind, a secret incantations Marika maybe taught her and the connections between Marika and the plot of the killing of Godwyn. Idk the exact clues, I just remember a lot of Videos linking the eternal City to Marika
They look way more like dragons on the forge. Also I think we are missing the mark just assuming Melina is the GEQ. I think she is the "Millicent to Malenia" for the GEQ. One Melina and Malenia have very similar names and both have butterflies. Melina has the same clothes and size as Millicent, whereas other demi-gods are all large and tall like Marika and Radagon. Milicent is born without an arm like Malenia, I think Melina is born without an eye like GEQ who has hers plucked out. Millicent can bloom into a scarlet Valkyrie, similar to how Malenia can bloom into a full Goddess of Rot. I think Melina can become the bringer of death, just like the body she sprouted from. We see shamans turning into trees in the DLC, and I think that the GEQ was bonded with Marika at first, to kill certain gods like the Fell God, and then Marika betrayed her, turning her into the Erdtree. This intense event spawned Melina like the bloom in Caelid spawned Millicent. Marika told Melina lies and raised her as her own. I think we see the egg of Mesmer in the DLC Story Trailer, and that he is the son of GEQ and Radagon. I think Radagon is legit connected to the Fire Giants from the forges, and because of the war against the giants that Marika did with GEQ, the curse of the Fell God is in Mesmer. For Melina nad the Black Knives, I believe From is trying to hint at when she was burnt: during the Shattering, and this is when the erdtree was burnt for the first time possibly (causing ash in Leyndell)
What if Marika was entangled by Eiglay the Snake God, like Eve tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden? The snake tempted Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, and what does Marika’s other half represent? Sorcery, intelligence, great knowledge. So I’m thinking either Messmer and Melina were children from her and Eiglay and he became part of her as Radagon, or maybe she did something to make him curse her first children, just like Eve eating the fruit cursed mankind. Marika’s got a lot of bad karma that fell on her kids, so I’m thinking the latter. I like the snake + fire knowledge motif. I’ve never seen it before and it goes together surprisingly well
I think one sentence illustrates perfectly the divine beings in Elden Ring. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." - Because no matter what they did, they were all kind of doomed from the start.
In a way, we have no direct interaction or factual moment to reference involving the actual divine of the story, the outer gods. The characters we are told are gods are in actually only the avatars of actual gods and at best are barely autonomous, "inner gods" for clarity. The point of Miquella's story is that the inner gods and demi gods we know are all under the unseen puppeteering of a real god, an outer god, and even if you purge yourself of the influence of the outer gods in the pursuit of becoming an independant inner god, a mortal worldy godhood, the process of doing so transforms you into something no less corrupt and bereft of humanity
@@xXOMGPwniesXx I think the revelation that the Greater Will had abandoned the lands between for WAY longer than people thought is I think a point to prove sort of how it's as usual the folly of the mortals. So I disagree with the whole "puppeteering" thing, at least for some part. I think the general point of the game is the ambition and want of the mortals, or better put, of people. And how it gets corrupted. The Hornsent were studying divinity and I believe they generally wanted the best for people, including the Shamans. However it was clear they were uncaring for how they would reach their goal, creating the Gate of Divinity with corpses and persecuting the clearly innocent Shamans. Marika most likely wanted a world free of suffering through devotion to the Greater Will and the Elden Ring. However she didn't have the foresight (probably blinded by vengeance) to see that the Two Fingers weren't saying anything worth shit. This led her down a path of bloody conquest, manipulation, and terrible parenting. Only now has she seen her mistake, but it's far too late to fix any of it now. Miquella wanted a gentler world, but was too naive to see his means were totalitarian and by all means evil. The same thing goes for lots of story relevant characters, such as Rykard's righteous rebellion falling into sin, how even when Ranni is generally depicted as the good guy, she still organized the death of a person by all means had nothing majorly evil about him, how Alexander's want for strength would never end and that it would only bring his own end, etc etc. The story clearly shows many characters' "flame of ambition" and how they go unruly or fade out. However the Tarnished ofc are the general "optimistic" view of ambition. The Tarnished can right the wrongs of the past. Most people do this through Ranni, people like me take Goldmask, and some people even believe the Frenzied Flame is right and we should just hard reset. It's up to the player to decide what is best for the world. TL;DR in this unorganized response that 100% could be better, I half disagree.
this is what im absolutely most interested in as far as elden ring lore. I'd kill to learn more solid facts about Melina and the frenzied flame ending . I feel like it would connect SO many dots between so many subjects. Great vid, loved it!
My opinion on it changes like the winds. I was against it for years then i conceded but honestly its all just speculation on my part anyway, its not like i know definitively one way or the other
man i love twilight princess so much, i instantly loved hearing the twilight sound, immediately it took me back to my youth and amazing memories. I think the vibe of that game really influenced my tastes and was one of the games that most inspired my love and longing for exploring big somber lonely worlds. Its such an amazing game and i always love when you put TP music in ur videos. ur vids are 10/10 man, love smoking to ur vids, keeep it up man!
Same here. That games aesthetic heavily influenced my tastes. I need to finish my replay of it ao i can make more videos on it, i got so many ideas mapped out, i just need the proper footage
5:25 Notice that the imagery here is meant to depict multiple things beyond just "Rykard gave himself to the god devouring serpent" this snake just hatched, it still has fluid dripping off of it There is a whole clutch of fresh snake eggs (from an oviparous snake species, meaning eggs are laid and hatched outside the body). One egg is shown to have hatched, presumably our friend here munching on Rykards head. Two to three other eggs are just about ready to hatch (as shown as having already been pierced by the snake inside's egg tooth) who are the other snakes? messmer's snake is a constrictor based on the head shape (think non venomous python or boa). the snake depicted here seems to be a totally different species than Messmer's snake just based on the head shape, but who knows, they could be related (and from this very clutch? do we know how old Messmer is in relation to Rykard, do we even know if Messmer was possessed by his serpent at birth or did it happen later in life?)
i think there are multiple eiglay-like serpents- that they're literally a species of giant maneating snakes. There's a lot I think of symbolically ab the bonny village snakeskin but in literal terms i think it was a scavenger in a sense. If you've ever read the book of the new sun, there's a creature called the alzabo- in the barest sense it's a soul/memory receptacle organism which can talk with the voices of those it devoured (or the voices are talking through it- who's to say) and i imagine the maneater (godeater, lol) snakes as something similar, maybe even luring in prey with human voices.
Definitely, they look like the dagger of calling but with a mark of the centipede welded onto them lol. I think maybe the black knives were marikas bastards or something
I think that you are almost certainly onto something about the significance of the left eye. There are so many beings with the left eye missing. I'm pretty sure that both Marika and Radagon both are missing their left eyes, as are the death birds. Interestingly spirit Ranni still has her left eye and seems to use it to see out of the doll. Might be a link. Finally, look up the Evil eye. The Evil Eye is a symbol all over the Mediterranean and seems to be older and more respected than some modern religions in some regions. My parents just came back from a vacation in Istanbul and one of their hosts said that his wife, while Muslim, had more faith in the evil eye. I think the evil eye is expressed as Godwyn's eyes in game or the Eyes of death in Dark Souls1. Also, maybe it's just their gloam eye. =) One last point about eyes that I think is relevant is how some of the Greeks, like Plato, thought that vision partly worked by the eyes emitting light. If the light from the eyes and light from something like the sun mixed, then you could see. This was believed because some animals had glowing eyes at night, like cats.
you gave me so much insight, I will type what I gather as I finis watching: 1- first with marika, comparing serpents, fire and seduction aka like a lure from a deep sea fish is kinda genius, it makes me think of the golden threads as some sort of new discovery of some sort of 5 star skin to an already existing power in this case, like when in a game the 5 star skins comes with cooler particle effects compared to the base skin, but in the ends is still fire, is bound to run off. 2-naming one of the kings of anime villains is also a genius comparison because I don't remember beeing well explained specially for kids and teenagers but orochimaru's true for was this some sort of giant manserpent who could split itself into several tiny ones, creating this sort of hivemind like army of serpents who created the full body, it kinda makes me reconsider or ask what if marika was one of this so called "little serpent" who lied and betrayed the main body or host and became her own, like one offshoot or part of orochimaru turning agains't himself or something, just rambling out loud. 3- I've watched a romina video recently of her absence of neither much lore o a cutscene despite beeing a mandatory boss and part of me wants to think that it ties very well with the will of merika of hiding a very important thing. You see, in another game I'm currently playing we are seeing things related to Homa rituals, themes of sacrifices, the ashes consumed, the fire obtained, death and rebirth and aplying all this random rambling to eldenring, at the bare minimum somewhere along this cicle must be the steps of ascention to goodhod marika wanted to hide, along with the tower, maybe the aspect of rot, serpents and fire are more conected than we think, thinking of that molted snake skin in shaman village and how romina weaved into existance I don't now how to call them by lore name but this new aspect of life who bloomed in rot using themes of fungus like things or how in order to gain wings for a butterfly, first it has to molt. Also in the romina video it talked a little about how Verdigris is made, its uses and things alike, or how a form of rot that we know as fermentation is used for positive. 4- I'm starting to think we should maybe start thinking of the spiral tower as this literal fossil fuel power station where maybe the spirals converge at the base of the gate, marika beeing the perfect tether for it like how the rotation of the planets are guided by the pull of the sun and the solar sistem path across the milky way is depicted in media my copium validation for this brainrot is how the elden beast references the great atractor. Makes me wonder and I'm gonna speculate a lot here, but I wonder if maybe miquella knew or wanted to show us or even use us more like to reactivate the tower's functions or something with themes of fresh spilled blood in the heat of our battle with radhan and more impresive beeing his success involving along many things the vow? despite failing with his Godwyn attempt and the eclipsed sun.
Could Messmers father be the ancient Mt. Gelmir serpent diety. He could still inherit the red hair via Marika/Radagon being one person while having a different "Father". Also they called Marika a hoochie in the* DLC, Dedica was called a hoochie in the base game. Reasonable imo for Marika to have a different name at different points in history.
What's with Marika, Melina and Messmer all changing hair (and snake) color in cutscenes? Marika's hair changes color while shattering the Elden Ring years before the game even came out Melina goes red to white while summoning the flame of ruin Messmer goes red to white when the abyssal serpent breaks loose
for some reason, the other day i had the thought that messmers dad was one of the big snakes we see skins of. got no clue if anything other than him harboring some snakes supports that but weirder stuff has happened.
"Do you ever feel a strange sadness when dusk falls?" Been waiting for months for an in-depth video on what has become one of my favorite sibling duos in the game. Can't wait to watch.
I think Messmer (and possibly Melina) are the children of the Gloam Eyed Queen and Radagon. There’s a few things in the game that allude to this and it’s the theory I like the most. It’s all still speculation though because the hints are vague, but they are there.
Hey madman great vid got an idea for you to think about cause all of the video is pretty flawless except the idea that melina rebelled due to not having purpose doesn't seem to fit to me I offer an alternative theory. Perhaps the reason is fire and flame is blasphemy to the golden order is because thats the propaganda marika through out to the world after she convinced everyone that mesmer attacked the hornsent on his own and gave her reasoning to seal him away there to do her bidding. Now perhaps Melina being his sister could see through the bs and rebelled cause obviously her brother was just falsely accused of heresy and locked away for no reason other than following marikas orders. perhaps this is why she rebelled and the reason the godskins have snakelike tendency either in honor of mesmer or they were like that before idk im not the lore god here but it would also explain by their are the flying serpents all over that room where the godskin noble is in volcano manner perhaps the snake motiffs there are not because of rykard soley but maybe it was mesmers base there before rykard took it. Would possibly explain the dou near maliketh as well perhaps going to get revenge for their queen not sure but if melina rebelled in order to try to save mesmer perhaps the only thing she thought would break the seal in the scadu realm would be to burn the erdtree and thats how it came to be burned the first time. doing so probably is what finally made Marika sic Maliketh on her and seal her demise. Just some thoughts got to get back to work have a good one.
Messmer and Melina were the children of the Gloam-eyed Queen, taken by Marika while they were still infants, as spoils of war after Maliketh killed her. This is also why both their left eyes were sealed or removed, because they shared their mother's gloam-eye. Rykard being in a position privy to many dark secrets, learned of this and created the Abductor Virgins as an open depiction of Marika's crime of stealing children before she had any of her own.
Conan the Barbarian '82 has more rewatchability than LotR to you? Indeed it is an honour to be your subscriber, my brother :D Have you done a vid on that movie yet? Would love to hear your thoughts. What is best in life? Clearly, we both know the answer!
And thats not me knocking the lotr trilogy because i love those films. Ive actually been wanting to do one on the 82 conan for a long time, its john milius' masterpiece. The whole movie is so captivating and like immersing. The score is amazing. I gotta write a full review on it and record it
This theory is exactly what I’ve been thinking since the dlc released. Marika’s betrayal of the hornsent was a seduction. Messmer and Melina are the children of the Hornsent god, born before Godfrey was in the picture.
My headcanon is that Melina and Mohg are the children of the Fell God and Marika. Marika and the Fell God worked together during her crusade until Marika betrayed the Fell God, who, in his dying breath, cursed their children so their innate flame powers would become weapons to destroy Marika and everything related to grace. She sent Godfrey to kill the fire giants, who would be loyal to their god's heirs, to ensure that should one of them rise up, they would not have an army. The forge needs to be tended to because it has some connection to the god's power and would otherwise go out of control. I haven't figured out Messmers abyssal serpent or Melina's Gloam-Eyed Queen in the context of this theory though; it could be the Fell God's curse or a third party getting involved.
I think that messmer was born afflicted with the fell flame, which attracted the serpent. The god-devouring serpent could've been attracted to the same thing on Mt. Gelmir
I actually tend to think that the shadowy spirit people are less related to messmer's flame than people think. Personally, I think the Scadutree is almost like the Chernobyl reactor, its "holiness" running rampant suffusing its energy throughout the realm of shadow. Broken runes and the crucible mutations being akin to the side effects of radiation on living things. The shadowy spirits being less of a parallel to real processes, but instead demonstrating the effects of that holy energy on life (at least on beings without the strength/runes to withstand it) breaking down their physical bodies completely and completely suffusing them with its shadowy essence.
The redmanes are heavily incorporated with fire because of the scarlet rot, that was the only way they could hold it at bay considering one moment Caelid was normal, and then the next the whole place is turned into a gigantic VD infection
Serpent gods curved sword description reads Curved sword fashioned in the image of an ancient serpent deity and tool of a forgotten religion practiced on Mt. Gelmir
I think Melina was the one to originally burn the Erdtree. The First Cardinal Sin. She burned it in body, so she burned in body, but both remained in spirit until you were able to help her fulfill the other half of her task.
There is a video on youtube called something like "the prisoner theory" for Elden Ring. It is about how the prisoner mask has the left eye covered, leading to the theory that all of the many characters with blocked left eyes are also prisoners in some way.
Always happy to see a Madman vid pop-up! Great stuff as usual 👍 Especially loved hearing your thoughts on Melina as GEQ. Would love to hear your thoughts on the Ranni-Melina similarities sometime. Maybe this is connected to Melina using the Black Knife Assassin stance? You know, seeing as how Ranni is the one character directly connected to that plot. Either way, looking forward to more, as always! ❤
The comments have made me realize i ahould do a black knife video that covers both melina and rannis connection to the assassins as well as marikas own
Melina is the reason I get the Yellow Flame to light the Forge, and the purge the Madness with the Unalloyed Needle. Ranni maybe my queen, but Melina is my friend.
I think Marika stole grace from the abyssal serpent, who cannot be killed, and used it at the divine gate to become god. And Mesmer was the divine abyssal serpent’s reincarnation
I cant help but think of DS3 and what the firekeeper says when you give her eyes back and usurp the flame ending, fire and the abyss and the snakes are very reminiscent.
I remember back in the early days of Elden Ring I subscribed to the theory that Melina and Ranni were somehow connected. It was because if you lined up Melina's face over Ranni's ghost face they looked pretty identical. It didn't really have much evidence but I thought it was neat.
22:46 maybe she purposely inserted their flesh to gain their powers, more power to reach her divinity at the gates, just like the crucible contains all perhaps to obtain divinity she needed a piece of all those with power, her children getting cursed as a side effect
i feel like radagon said to be cursed with red hair by the giants implies that he may have existed before marika became a god i like to think that he came with the elden beast as a way to have complete control of marika since the only title we got of him is the champion of the golden order
We all seem to forget, that the Assasins are to be also from the same tribe as Marika, thus they are of the same tribe as Melina and Messmer (at least half). So couldn’t it be, they went through the hornsent treatment as well? Probably a stretch, but one that goes with my believe that Marika actually had to endure that treatment and her personality split in half (psychologically a form of schizophrenia) to prevent her true self from being destroyed by such a terrorising endure. That itself it kind of a stretch, admittedly.
Semi-related re: Messmer’s parentage - if Radagon, I can’t shake the importance of his name being anagram for A DRAGON (especially given GRRM’s style)…could be a red herring, but seems pretty elaborate to not be meant as a clue…
My take is that messer and milena aka GEK are childrens to the great snake god makira copulated with ... and took the arch rune from , wich in turn gave ( i mean hereditary) them snake like features . That would definetively explain where the serpent traits comes from . So there was definetively an age of sunlight with sunflowers etc... with a snake god on top of the food chain as a god (by god i mean the one Who bears the great runes not outer gods).
Regarding the black knives and melina's fighting style I think that the fighting style belonged to shaman women The black knives are rumoured to be of the same "stock" as marika and if melina was born early in the timeline then it makes sense that she has the same fighting style but without access to the rune of death
Great video ps have you ever thought of doing a explained video on something more comical. Like remamber that overlord game i ask you about. Mabey you can do a lore video on the minons for a chance
I'd like to see something about the black spirals we see in a lot of the cutscenes. Does it imply those are corrupted in some way and is there any evidence in game about it? No necessarily the black flame. Like in Renalla's boss fight when Renna the witch enters, or the rune of death appearing, or before Messmer's flame appears on his hand there are black spirals.
Here me out, mellina and messmer were CONJOINED TWINS and mellinas body died yet her spirit remained There's two snakes in his second phase, one that looks like him and one that looks gloam
Also could explain messmers posture since they'd be conjoined and mellina in spirit looks like her true self, also conjoined twins would follow alot of narratives between the game and dlc
Good video homie, only big question mark is, if Melina took care of the god skins in a motherly.. way how come she don't know what a mother is supposed to be, or be like. I'm referencing Melina's bok dialogue re missing his mother
I like to think that Messmer is the product of the fell god and the gloam eyed (snake) queen. Marika stole him from her and hes not even her real kid, along with Melina even.
Do bosses have infinite fp or regeneritive fp? Our mimic tear had infinite or all fp costs are Zero. I wonder as finding out might help us understand the magic of the demigods
alright boys:
arsonist snake son or arsonist ghost(?) daughter
Arsonist snake
Why not both?
They can both fix me
Arsonist arsonist
@@Bondrewd_TheNovelI agree
Mesmers hand breaking the seal in the cutscene looks exactly like the beloved stardust talisman, maybe he has an opposite
Good observation, interesting to think about.
Thats a great catch, i hadnt noticed that
Even the same cuff on the wrist
I assumed it was a reference to the talisman. In the description of the talisman it talks about having adoration for stardust and knowing love but it also states the hand is gently gripping a glintstone. Yet we Mesmer crush his seal that was given to him, which I thought symbolized him casting away his love for his mother Marika
I think part of the betrayal could have been Marika defeating the fire giants on behalf of the Hornsent ("the fell god haunts the sagas of the Hornsent"), earning their favor, then turning on them with the crusade.
There was a time when she was seemingly venerated by the Hornsent, with her churches found in the lands of shadow. And Erdtree-related item drops can be obtained in Enir-Ilim (drawstring holy grease, sunwarmth stone, etc).
This is a really interesting take, especially because we dont have a clear timeline of all those events, i like it
@TheHonoredMadman Oh, thanks. Yeah, the timeline is always tricky, I'm still trying to piece it together. I started with the impression that the crusade was one of the earlier events in Marika's story, but now I think it has to be quite a bit later. Messmer's flame knights being high-ranking Erdtree officials and commander Gaius being close with both Messmer and Radahn really threw me off.
I'm inclined to believe the theory that Melina has already been used as kindling once before, hence burnt and bodiless, born at the foot of the erdtree, and would explain all the corpsewax sealing the windows and doors of Lendeyll, as well as the golden part of the erdtree being described as more of a object of faith that only those with grace can still see
I think the burns come from the rune of death being used against her by Maliketh, after Marika sealed it away into him. We see with Ranni that real body is burnt to a crisp, which was done with the power of the rune of death.
THAT SAID, my theory has as much merit as yours, so I won't detract from this. Its a really interesting interpretation, especially with the corpse wax tie in.
corpsewax is the fat from bodies breaking down in a body of water, it's definitely either amber from the erdtee or something similar that seals the doors in leyndell.
@@ramim681made me think of tree sap whenever I first saw it since it is right next to the tree
With regards to Messmer’s parentage, to me there is no doubt whatsoever he is a son of Radagon, an Elder brother of Radahn, their musical themes align as well.
I totally spaced on that bit about the themes. Spot on
I think the connections between The Black knives Assassins and Melana is clue about a deeper relationship between her and Marika. The fact that she uses the secret erdtree that is Marika left behind, a secret incantations Marika maybe taught her and the connections between Marika and the plot of the killing of Godwyn. Idk the exact clues, I just remember a lot of Videos linking the eternal City to Marika
They look way more like dragons on the forge. Also I think we are missing the mark just assuming Melina is the GEQ. I think she is the "Millicent to Malenia" for the GEQ. One Melina and Malenia have very similar names and both have butterflies. Melina has the same clothes and size as Millicent, whereas other demi-gods are all large and tall like Marika and Radagon. Milicent is born without an arm like Malenia, I think Melina is born without an eye like GEQ who has hers plucked out. Millicent can bloom into a scarlet Valkyrie, similar to how Malenia can bloom into a full Goddess of Rot. I think Melina can become the bringer of death, just like the body she sprouted from.
We see shamans turning into trees in the DLC, and I think that the GEQ was bonded with Marika at first, to kill certain gods like the Fell God, and then Marika betrayed her, turning her into the Erdtree. This intense event spawned Melina like the bloom in Caelid spawned Millicent. Marika told Melina lies and raised her as her own. I think we see the egg of Mesmer in the DLC Story Trailer, and that he is the son of GEQ and Radagon. I think Radagon is legit connected to the Fire Giants from the forges, and because of the war against the giants that Marika did with GEQ, the curse of the Fell God is in Mesmer.
For Melina nad the Black Knives, I believe From is trying to hint at when she was burnt: during the Shattering, and this is when the erdtree was burnt for the first time possibly (causing ash in Leyndell)
Last one, but what a fantastic connection between Melina's eye and the giant skeleton shooting its ghost flame beam from its left eye socket
And i only noticed it at the last minute too, kinda blew my mind. It might just be a coincidence but i had to mention it haha
What if Marika was entangled by Eiglay the Snake God, like Eve tempted by the serpent in the Garden of Eden? The snake tempted Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, and what does Marika’s other half represent? Sorcery, intelligence, great knowledge. So I’m thinking either Messmer and Melina were children from her and Eiglay and he became part of her as Radagon, or maybe she did something to make him curse her first children, just like Eve eating the fruit cursed mankind. Marika’s got a lot of bad karma that fell on her kids, so I’m thinking the latter. I like the snake + fire knowledge motif. I’ve never seen it before and it goes together surprisingly well
I think one sentence illustrates perfectly the divine beings in Elden Ring. "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." - Because no matter what they did, they were all kind of doomed from the start.
In a way, we have no direct interaction or factual moment to reference involving the actual divine of the story, the outer gods. The characters we are told are gods are in actually only the avatars of actual gods and at best are barely autonomous, "inner gods" for clarity. The point of Miquella's story is that the inner gods and demi gods we know are all under the unseen puppeteering of a real god, an outer god, and even if you purge yourself of the influence of the outer gods in the pursuit of becoming an independant inner god, a mortal worldy godhood, the process of doing so transforms you into something no less corrupt and bereft of humanity
@@xXOMGPwniesXx I think the revelation that the Greater Will had abandoned the lands between for WAY longer than people thought is I think a point to prove sort of how it's as usual the folly of the mortals. So I disagree with the whole "puppeteering" thing, at least for some part.
I think the general point of the game is the ambition and want of the mortals, or better put, of people. And how it gets corrupted.
The Hornsent were studying divinity and I believe they generally wanted the best for people, including the Shamans. However it was clear they were uncaring for how they would reach their goal, creating the Gate of Divinity with corpses and persecuting the clearly innocent Shamans.
Marika most likely wanted a world free of suffering through devotion to the Greater Will and the Elden Ring. However she didn't have the foresight (probably blinded by vengeance) to see that the Two Fingers weren't saying anything worth shit. This led her down a path of bloody conquest, manipulation, and terrible parenting. Only now has she seen her mistake, but it's far too late to fix any of it now.
Miquella wanted a gentler world, but was too naive to see his means were totalitarian and by all means evil.
The same thing goes for lots of story relevant characters, such as Rykard's righteous rebellion falling into sin, how even when Ranni is generally depicted as the good guy, she still organized the death of a person by all means had nothing majorly evil about him, how Alexander's want for strength would never end and that it would only bring his own end, etc etc.
The story clearly shows many characters' "flame of ambition" and how they go unruly or fade out.
However the Tarnished ofc are the general "optimistic" view of ambition. The Tarnished can right the wrongs of the past. Most people do this through Ranni, people like me take Goldmask, and some people even believe the Frenzied Flame is right and we should just hard reset. It's up to the player to decide what is best for the world.
TL;DR in this unorganized response that 100% could be better, I half disagree.
Lets go new honored madman drop
Like he doesn't drop content more frequently that vaati lol
Finally a new lore video to fall asleep half way through
Oh yeah, the two arsonists of Elden ring bring the fire, baby
14:01
Ah, so that's why Rellana was down bad for the Impaler. 😂
this is what im absolutely most interested in as far as elden ring lore. I'd kill to learn more solid facts about Melina and the frenzied flame ending . I feel like it would connect SO many dots between so many subjects. Great vid, loved it!
You had me all the way up to the Gloam eyed queen
ya hes just straight up incorrect
My opinion on it changes like the winds. I was against it for years then i conceded but honestly its all just speculation on my part anyway, its not like i know definitively one way or the other
Marika was letting everyone hit
man i love twilight princess so much, i instantly loved hearing the twilight sound, immediately it took me back to my youth and amazing memories.
I think the vibe of that game really influenced my tastes and was one of the games that most inspired my love and longing for exploring big somber lonely worlds. Its such an amazing game and i always love when you put TP music in ur videos. ur vids are 10/10 man, love smoking to ur vids, keeep it up man!
Same here. That games aesthetic heavily influenced my tastes. I need to finish my replay of it ao i can make more videos on it, i got so many ideas mapped out, i just need the proper footage
The only thing certain about this game is that Marika had a lot of damn kids. Woman was shattering bed frames waaay before the Elden Ring
5:25
Notice that the imagery here is meant to depict multiple things beyond just "Rykard gave himself to the god devouring serpent"
this snake just hatched, it still has fluid dripping off of it
There is a whole clutch of fresh snake eggs (from an oviparous snake species, meaning eggs are laid and hatched outside the body).
One egg is shown to have hatched, presumably our friend here munching on Rykards head. Two to three other eggs are just about ready to hatch (as shown as having already been pierced by the snake inside's egg tooth)
who are the other snakes? messmer's snake is a constrictor based on the head shape (think non venomous python or boa).
the snake depicted here seems to be a totally different species than Messmer's snake just based on the head shape, but who knows, they could be related (and from this very clutch? do we know how old Messmer is in relation to Rykard, do we even know if Messmer was possessed by his serpent at birth or did it happen later in life?)
i think there are multiple eiglay-like serpents- that they're literally a species of giant maneating snakes. There's a lot I think of symbolically ab the bonny village snakeskin but in literal terms i think it was a scavenger in a sense. If you've ever read the book of the new sun, there's a creature called the alzabo- in the barest sense it's a soul/memory receptacle organism which can talk with the voices of those it devoured (or the voices are talking through it- who's to say) and i imagine the maneater (godeater, lol) snakes as something similar, maybe even luring in prey with human voices.
I think Melina's dagger is a Numen dagger, and the BKA's knives are the same but changed by the rune of death to emulate the centipede mark.
Definitely, they look like the dagger of calling but with a mark of the centipede welded onto them lol. I think maybe the black knives were marikas bastards or something
Underrated channel
very much so
10/10 username
I think that you are almost certainly onto something about the significance of the left eye. There are so many beings with the left eye missing. I'm pretty sure that both Marika and Radagon both are missing their left eyes, as are the death birds.
Interestingly spirit Ranni still has her left eye and seems to use it to see out of the doll. Might be a link.
Finally, look up the Evil eye. The Evil Eye is a symbol all over the Mediterranean and seems to be older and more respected than some modern religions in some regions. My parents just came back from a vacation in Istanbul and one of their hosts said that his wife, while Muslim, had more faith in the evil eye.
I think the evil eye is expressed as Godwyn's eyes in game or the Eyes of death in Dark Souls1.
Also, maybe it's just their gloam eye. =)
One last point about eyes that I think is relevant is how some of the Greeks, like Plato, thought that vision partly worked by the eyes emitting light. If the light from the eyes and light from something like the sun mixed, then you could see. This was believed because some animals had glowing eyes at night, like cats.
nah that intro is insane, insta cut to dusk into twilight princess, low blow, u insta got me this gonna be good
you gave me so much insight, I will type what I gather as I finis watching:
1- first with marika, comparing serpents, fire and seduction aka like a lure from a deep sea fish is kinda genius, it makes me think of the golden threads as some sort of new discovery of some sort of 5 star skin to an already existing power in this case, like when in a game the 5 star skins comes with cooler particle effects compared to the base skin, but in the ends is still fire, is bound to run off.
2-naming one of the kings of anime villains is also a genius comparison because I don't remember beeing well explained specially for kids and teenagers but orochimaru's true for was this some sort of giant manserpent who could split itself into several tiny ones, creating this sort of hivemind like army of serpents who created the full body, it kinda makes me reconsider or ask what if marika was one of this so called "little serpent" who lied and betrayed the main body or host and became her own, like one offshoot or part of orochimaru turning agains't himself or something, just rambling out loud.
3- I've watched a romina video recently of her absence of neither much lore o a cutscene despite beeing a mandatory boss and part of me wants to think that it ties very well with the will of merika of hiding a very important thing. You see, in another game I'm currently playing we are seeing things related to Homa rituals, themes of sacrifices, the ashes consumed, the fire obtained, death and rebirth and aplying all this random rambling to eldenring, at the bare minimum somewhere along this cicle must be the steps of ascention to goodhod marika wanted to hide, along with the tower, maybe the aspect of rot, serpents and fire are more conected than we think, thinking of that molted snake skin in shaman village and how romina weaved into existance I don't now how to call them by lore name but this new aspect of life who bloomed in rot using themes of fungus like things or how in order to gain wings for a butterfly, first it has to molt. Also in the romina video it talked a little about how Verdigris is made, its uses and things alike, or how a form of rot that we know as fermentation is used for positive.
4- I'm starting to think we should maybe start thinking of the spiral tower as this literal fossil fuel power station where maybe the spirals converge at the base of the gate, marika beeing the perfect tether for it like how the rotation of the planets are guided by the pull of the sun and the solar sistem path across the milky way is depicted in media my copium validation for this brainrot is how the elden beast references the great atractor. Makes me wonder and I'm gonna speculate a lot here, but I wonder if maybe miquella knew or wanted to show us or even use us more like to reactivate the tower's functions or something with themes of fresh spilled blood in the heat of our battle with radhan and more impresive beeing his success involving along many things the vow? despite failing with his Godwyn attempt and the eclipsed sun.
Could Messmers father be the ancient Mt. Gelmir serpent diety. He could still inherit the red hair via Marika/Radagon being one person while having a different "Father". Also they called Marika a hoochie in the* DLC, Dedica was called a hoochie in the base game.
Reasonable imo for Marika to have a different name at different points in history.
I’m an honored madman when honored madman drops a 40 min video
What's with Marika, Melina and Messmer all changing hair (and snake) color in cutscenes?
Marika's hair changes color while shattering the Elden Ring years before the game even came out
Melina goes red to white while summoning the flame of ruin
Messmer goes red to white when the abyssal serpent breaks loose
We're honored you madman .
for some reason, the other day i had the thought that messmers dad was one of the big snakes we see skins of. got no clue if anything other than him harboring some snakes supports that but weirder stuff has happened.
I like vidya.. smough… but I feel like we are at a bar relaxing talking about Eldin Ring, subbed!
"Do you ever feel a strange sadness when dusk falls?"
Been waiting for months for an in-depth video on what has become one of my favorite sibling duos in the game. Can't wait to watch.
That quote always makes me want to replay twilight princess and do a 2 hour long video on it
FINALLY SOMEONE SEES THE SIMILARITIES IN ELDEN RING AND TWIN PEAKS 🗣🔥
Love those Twin Peaks audio clips.
I think Messmer (and possibly Melina) are the children of the Gloam Eyed Queen and Radagon. There’s a few things in the game that allude to this and it’s the theory I like the most. It’s all still speculation though because the hints are vague, but they are there.
Hey madman great vid got an idea for you to think about cause all of the video is pretty flawless except the idea that melina rebelled due to not having purpose doesn't seem to fit to me I offer an alternative theory.
Perhaps the reason is fire and flame is blasphemy to the golden order is because thats the propaganda marika through out to the world after she convinced everyone that mesmer attacked the hornsent on his own and gave her reasoning to seal him away there to do her bidding. Now perhaps Melina being his sister could see through the bs and rebelled cause obviously her brother was just falsely accused of heresy and locked away for no reason other than following marikas orders. perhaps this is why she rebelled and the reason the godskins have snakelike tendency either in honor of mesmer or they were like that before idk im not the lore god here but it would also explain by their are the flying serpents all over that room where the godskin noble is in volcano manner perhaps the snake motiffs there are not because of rykard soley but maybe it was mesmers base there before rykard took it. Would possibly explain the dou near maliketh as well perhaps going to get revenge for their queen not sure but if melina rebelled in order to try to save mesmer perhaps the only thing she thought would break the seal in the scadu realm would be to burn the erdtree and thats how it came to be burned the first time. doing so probably is what finally made Marika sic Maliketh on her and seal her demise. Just some thoughts got to get back to work have a good one.
Messmer and Melina were the children of the Gloam-eyed Queen, taken by Marika while they were still infants, as spoils of war after Maliketh killed her.
This is also why both their left eyes were sealed or removed, because they shared their mother's gloam-eye.
Rykard being in a position privy to many dark secrets, learned of this and created the Abductor Virgins as an open depiction of Marika's crime of stealing children before she had any of her own.
Conan the Barbarian '82 has more rewatchability than LotR to you? Indeed it is an honour to be your subscriber, my brother :D Have you done a vid on that movie yet? Would love to hear your thoughts. What is best in life? Clearly, we both know the answer!
And thats not me knocking the lotr trilogy because i love those films. Ive actually been wanting to do one on the 82 conan for a long time, its john milius' masterpiece. The whole movie is so captivating and like immersing. The score is amazing. I gotta write a full review on it and record it
@TheHonoredMadman Can't wait :)
This theory is exactly what I’ve been thinking since the dlc released. Marika’s betrayal of the hornsent was a seduction. Messmer and Melina are the children of the Hornsent god, born before Godfrey was in the picture.
They were likely Empyrean too, as Marika made sure to take one of their eyes.
I love the videos man keep it up
HMM is the best ER creator for entertainment value by far.
Your videos…so good. You are a legend
Now that the new elden ring game has been announced. Looking at Melina’s eye color makes me think her as a boss is a possibility now.
My headcanon is that Melina and Mohg are the children of the Fell God and Marika. Marika and the Fell God worked together during her crusade until Marika betrayed the Fell God, who, in his dying breath, cursed their children so their innate flame powers would become weapons to destroy Marika and everything related to grace. She sent Godfrey to kill the fire giants, who would be loyal to their god's heirs, to ensure that should one of them rise up, they would not have an army. The forge needs to be tended to because it has some connection to the god's power and would otherwise go out of control. I haven't figured out Messmers abyssal serpent or Melina's Gloam-Eyed Queen in the context of this theory though; it could be the Fell God's curse or a third party getting involved.
I think that messmer was born afflicted with the fell flame, which attracted the serpent. The god-devouring serpent could've been attracted to the same thing on Mt. Gelmir
You stole the corn, Queen Marika!
19:26 love the Lynch reference. Good draw.
I actually tend to think that the shadowy spirit people are less related to messmer's flame than people think.
Personally, I think the Scadutree is almost like the Chernobyl reactor, its "holiness" running rampant suffusing its energy throughout the realm of shadow.
Broken runes and the crucible mutations being akin to the side effects of radiation on living things.
The shadowy spirits being less of a parallel to real processes, but instead demonstrating the effects of that holy energy on life (at least on beings without the strength/runes to withstand it) breaking down their physical bodies completely and completely suffusing them with its shadowy essence.
The redmanes are heavily incorporated with fire because of the scarlet rot, that was the only way they could hold it at bay considering one moment Caelid was normal, and then the next the whole place is turned into a gigantic VD infection
Serpent gods curved sword description reads
Curved sword fashioned in the image of an ancient serpent deity
and tool of a forgotten religion practiced on Mt. Gelmir
Left eye connection is pretty interesting.
I think Melina was the one to originally burn the Erdtree. The First Cardinal Sin. She burned it in body, so she burned in body, but both remained in spirit until you were able to help her fulfill the other half of her task.
There is a video on youtube called something like "the prisoner theory" for Elden Ring. It is about how the prisoner mask has the left eye covered, leading to the theory that all of the many characters with blocked left eyes are also prisoners in some way.
Great catch i totally missed that one, thanks!
Always happy to see a Madman vid pop-up! Great stuff as usual 👍
Especially loved hearing your thoughts on Melina as GEQ.
Would love to hear your thoughts on the Ranni-Melina similarities sometime. Maybe this is connected to Melina using the Black Knife Assassin stance? You know, seeing as how Ranni is the one character directly connected to that plot.
Either way, looking forward to more, as always! ❤
The comments have made me realize i ahould do a black knife video that covers both melina and rannis connection to the assassins as well as marikas own
I thought that what Messmer breaks in his eye was an Iris of Grace, much like the ones we can give to the 2 NPCs we find
is that twilight princess ? the fx so good
An interesting link between ER and Conan the Barbarian is that Conan and Godfrey are both crucified on a tree in a similar manner.
Oh, hells, yeah !!!! Another Madman classic !!! Fire it up and enjoy the evening !!!
twilight princess music and that quote from reverend swanson tells me that we are the exact same kind of person
Melina is the reason I get the Yellow Flame to light the Forge, and the purge the Madness with the Unalloyed Needle.
Ranni maybe my queen, but Melina is my friend.
Ive been meaning to try this. Does she ever reappear after purging the yellow?
Also, the Winged Serpents are actually referred to as "Wise Friends" of Messmer, further indication of their, at least, benign existence
I think Marika stole grace from the abyssal serpent, who cannot be killed, and used it at the divine gate to become god. And Mesmer was the divine abyssal serpent’s reincarnation
Twin Peaks reference, worth the sub alone 👍🏽
I cant help but think of DS3 and what the firekeeper says when you give her eyes back and usurp the flame ending, fire and the abyss and the snakes are very reminiscent.
Speaking of curses, I guess it depends on the way you look at it. Look at Mohg and Morgott. For one it's a curse, for the other a blessing.
I remember back in the early days of Elden Ring I subscribed to the theory that Melina and Ranni were somehow connected. It was because if you lined up Melina's face over Ranni's ghost face they looked pretty identical. It didn't really have much evidence but I thought it was neat.
22:46 maybe she purposely inserted their flesh to gain their powers, more power to reach her divinity at the gates, just like the crucible contains all perhaps to obtain divinity she needed a piece of all those with power, her children getting cursed as a side effect
i feel like radagon said to be cursed with red hair by the giants implies that he may have existed before marika became a god i like to think that he came with the elden beast as a way to have complete control of marika since the only title we got of him is the champion of the golden order
If hadn't just chose the frenzied flame ending and just defeated Mesmer in the same day I wouldn't have watched this
We all seem to forget, that the Assasins are to be also from the same tribe as Marika, thus they are of the same tribe as Melina and Messmer (at least half). So couldn’t it be, they went through the hornsent treatment as well? Probably a stretch, but one that goes with my believe that Marika actually had to endure that treatment and her personality split in half (psychologically a form of schizophrenia) to prevent her true self from being destroyed by such a terrorising endure. That itself it kind of a stretch, admittedly.
That twilight princess music hit me hard
zero hour gang
Nice rip at the end
Semi-related re: Messmer’s parentage - if Radagon, I can’t shake the importance of his name being anagram for A DRAGON (especially given GRRM’s style)…could be a red herring, but seems pretty elaborate to not be meant as a clue…
My take is that messer and milena aka GEK are childrens to the great snake god makira copulated with ... and took the arch rune from , wich in turn gave ( i mean hereditary) them snake like features . That would definetively explain where the serpent traits comes from . So there was definetively an age of sunlight with sunflowers etc... with a snake god on top of the food chain as a god (by god i mean the one Who bears the great runes not outer gods).
What is GEK? Gloam-Eyed Kids?
Milena aka my Italian hair dresser
Oh sry it was geq 😂😂😂
Morgott was her first child. (Last of all Kings)
Love Elden Ring. The lore is fantastic
Marika had to have known of Nepheli somehow as she is like the player a resurrected tarnished like Godfrey himself.
True, i never realized that, so shes godfreys daughter from before he became godfrey?
Regarding the black knives and melina's fighting style
I think that the fighting style belonged to shaman women
The black knives are rumoured to be of the same "stock" as marika and if melina was born early in the timeline then it makes sense that she has the same fighting style but without access to the rune of death
HONEY!
HONEY, WAKE UP!
NEW HONORED MADMAN JUST DROPPED!
you’re cooking,,,,,
i need a honoredmadman fel god vid
Great video ps have you ever thought of doing a explained video on something more comical. Like remamber that overlord game i ask you about. Mabey you can do a lore video on the minons for a chance
I gotta replay it but i would love to do one on overlord or like one of the first two fable games as well
Bong rip for the win
Just as I get into bed absolute W
Its one of the blessings
Man, I love Maliketh.
I'd like to see something about the black spirals we see in a lot of the cutscenes. Does it imply those are corrupted in some way and is there any evidence in game about it? No necessarily the black flame. Like in Renalla's boss fight when Renna the witch enters, or the rune of death appearing, or before Messmer's flame appears on his hand there are black spirals.
I think Messmer and Melina were the first 2. Then Godwynn, Morgot and Mogh. Then Rykard Radahn and Ranni. Finally Miquella and Malenia
bro please talk about the curse, that show was mindblowing
Definitely coming soon, might not be able to get much footage of it in the edit but im Definitely gonna do a video soon
Left eye of the shinigami
Hell yeah, brother
"like orochimaru" 😂😂
Here me out, mellina and messmer were CONJOINED TWINS and mellinas body died yet her spirit remained
There's two snakes in his second phase, one that looks like him and one that looks gloam
Twin headed giant snaked ceiling like a helix sounds about right
Also could explain messmers posture since they'd be conjoined and mellina in spirit looks like her true self, also conjoined twins would follow alot of narratives between the game and dlc
Handcuff clincking, Midna yawn
Good video homie, only big question mark is, if Melina took care of the god skins in a motherly.. way how come she don't know what a mother is supposed to be, or be like. I'm referencing Melina's bok dialogue re missing his mother
I like to think that Messmer is the product of the fell god and the gloam eyed (snake) queen. Marika stole him from her and hes not even her real kid, along with Melina even.
I like this
31:00 sans
I’m losing my mind. Where is the music in the intro from because I recognize it and I’m 90% sure it’s from Zelda but I can’t figure out what
TP ost very nice
Do bosses have infinite fp or regeneritive fp?
Our mimic tear had infinite or all fp costs are Zero.
I wonder as finding out might help us understand the magic of the demigods