My first time through, I completely forgot that in that very first room there's a dead finger maiden just lying there. And Varre just being outside by "coincidence"? lol
Let me dissuade that, the chapel of anticipation is not even close, plus you have to go through a cave full of enemies to the tarnished to reach the area.
Could the spirit summon “finger maiden therolina” be our maiden? Her description states she is a maiden who never got to meet the tarnished she was meant to guide
Varre didn't kill the maiden, Godrick's scion did. Varre is looking for more tarnished to bring to Mogh, and in order to do that the tarnished NEEDS to have a maiden to eventually kill. So, the entire reason he treats the player as useless because they're maidenless is because they literally are useless to him. It's not until you kill Godrick that he opens up to you and sees you as a potential candidate after all. Godrick wants to make sure tarnished never make it to him, and if they do, they wouldn't be strong enough to beat him. Varre actually wants a fully functional tarnished in order to corrupt them.
@@dejectedfrogcat2840 Perhaps the Scion fatally wounded her, but she managed to retreat to the safety of the church only to succumb to her injuries soon afterwards?
I definitely think the “prune” translation of his name is the most important. You prune a branch and use it to graft. He’s not just a surgeon, he’s also a gardener. That’s why he carries roses! Wow
It is oddly convenient that he just happens to know we don’t have a maiden. Maybe we have one but she needed a pee break and said she’ll catch up with us out front. Or maybe our maiden went off ahead and told us to meet her somewhere. Presumably other Tarnished we meet have their own maidens, but we don’t see them hanging around. It doesn’t even have to be Varre that killed our maiden. It could be that his fellow followers of Mohg are going out and killing all the maidens they can find, and so Varre can safely assume all new Tarnished are maidenless.
The recusants,as well as the bloody fingers,are known to go around in a maiden killing spree,so the list of suspects is quite long,though Varre is still at the top of it
You know it just hit me: Your first enemy is a Grafted Scion. They serve Godrick. So perhaps Varre didn't do it, but Godrick has been taking out tarnished by sending out grafted scions and what else. Varre's no saint, but he probably knew we were maidenless because it's not the first time.
The idea here was that Godrick is chasing Varre. He comes to the chapel to kill our maiden and rubs away. The scion we fight is the one that is after him and made him flee.
The maiden at the Chapel is almost certaibnly ours, she even left a message for us. For Varre murdering her, well he doesn't really have a motive, does he? There is no advantage for him in us being maidenless at all, if anything it's a hindrance to his cause
I'd say it's mostly to either induct us into the moghwyn dynasty or to mess with the goals of the two fingers. Likely both. Also the blood makes people kinda crazy it seems and Varre definitely isn't a level headed individual. While I do think what I've mentioned is motive enough, I don't think he'd need motive to murder a maiden.
He has us murder any random maiden as an induction rite, which also doesn't benefit him. He just wants blood, as well as to mess with the Two Fingers. The few motives he has are basically spite and blood for sacrifice
It actually makes complete sense. The Finger Maidens' are servants to the Two Fingers, and their role is to simply guide the Tarnished, thus aligning them with the Two Fingers goals in mind. Were our Maiden to live, then we would be compelled to complete the game in a much more linear way, but with her dead, we are instead forced to expose ourselves to the intrincacies of the world, exploring many conflicting bits of information that eventually leads us to realize that the Two Fingers are actually just as clueless as you are. This also explains Varre's frustrations. His dialogue reveals that he has most definitely slain his own Finger Maiden, and that he has actually been to the Roundtable. This means he saw through the Two Fingers ignorance, since most Tarnished consistently fail at the things they set out to accomplish, and realized he too was led astray by guidance. I mean, if the Two Fingers knew what they were doing, then how come these legendary warriors haven't fixed the problem yet? And so he rebuked the Two Fingers and decided to follow Mohg.
The maidens are there to guide the Tarnished in service to the Fingers. They would clearly try to guide us away from his goal. Consider also that there’s no way he could have predicted Melina would appear to take on the role. Without a maiden we wouldn’t be able to strengthen ourselves or even get into the Roundtable Hold. I think Varre intended us to be totally isolated with nobody to turn to except him. Melina ruined this plan so he was forced to adapt.
Good find, it's not something you really notice til NG+ since it's just a dead body that has no meaning on the first time through. I'd say 100% it's our Maiden and Varre killed her to induct us into Mohg's Order. But it brings up a lot of other questions. Like the process of the tarnished getting grace back and having a maiden assigned to them by the fingers or merica? Like why are the tarnish chosen to come back. Original Cut dialog had Hoarah Loux before the lands in between and his dialog tells you to go there so Being a tarnished given grace back sent back and assigned a maiden is a big thing, it's not like there are thousands of maidens to be had or laying around the map. So the process of the tarnished being chosen to come back and all that is something no one has really dished out, but some of it's cut content someone had to mod the game to get the dialog to work but its in text and voiced. So the chances you are a random doesn't exist, and is set up so you HAD to have had a maiden. The only way Varre could know walking out is that. Most likely the first finger he gives you is her's, because we have no idea how long the ride across the ocean took, not to mention we wake up meaning we apparently were not awake when we got to the lands in between from boat and kinda dumped there. And we meet our maiden but all we see is the first grabbable ingame item. Honestly good work this actually helps push several other theories along quite nicely.
That's very interesting, I've already got so many videos slowly panning out in my mind but that cut content really changes things in my head somewhat. Makes a lot of sense in hindsight. Your comment was very appreciated
Why would Varre kill her tho, even if he wanted to recruit us ?? wouldnt he want us to kill her to show loyalty ? he even says that killing own maiden is needed
The tarnished come back because that was marika's design. She's the one who took the grace from godfrey and his men (the OG tarnished), she says that she will take their grace and that they will leave the lands between to war on another continent where they will live and die, but that one day they will return to the lands between for their grace
I will agree that the corpse sitting in the Chapel of Anticipation is almost certainly our Maiden. She leaves us the message finger and a message telling us to become Elden Lord. But I don't think that Varre was her murderer. You are also correct that Varre is a Tarnished as well. The same as most people we meet along the journey, such as Vyke and Gideon. And like most, such as the fire giants, Raya Lucaria and the Nox, Varre is opposed to Queen Marika and the Greater Will. Varre waits near the first steps, leading fresh Tarnished for the same reason as Bernahl and Rya. They are testing the convictions of new tarnished in hopes of recruiting for their respective covenants. Varres whole goal is to get the Tarnished to become disillusioned by the state of the Roundtable Hold after their audience with the Finger Reader. Varre practically requires you to have a Maiden to perform his ritual. He even states in plain English that it's preferred that you use your own maidens blood to consecrated the cloth. Why would he rob you of your Maiden, then ask you to rob yourself of the very same Maiden? Now the quest to soak the cloth is interesting because it confirms that the corpse sitting in the Chapel is indeed a Maiden in the least, even if she isn't our specific Maiden. And there is only one other Maiden corpse in the game, where we get the Maiden set from. And that body is guarded by her Tarnished, Vyke of the Frenzied Flame. Now something else I should mention that might aide in solving this mystery of our maidenlessness. Once you make it to past the Carian Manor in Liurnia, you can seek audience with Ranni and join her covenant. Doing so gives you access to a little snot nosed prick of fleshlump meat bag named Selivus. The condescending asshat helps little with your tasks in service of the Witch, but he does have a few secret projects going on. If you buy a certain note from the merchant hiding just outside of Raya Lucaria, it will tell you that Selivus has a secret laboratory hidden within the ruins just outside of the Manor. If you uncover the lab, you will find lifeless dolls of all kinds, including a Sellen doll positioned right next to a bed in a second hidden room, implying all sorts of things. And you can directly confront the prickly bastard about all this... and he let's you in on the operation! He asks you to feed a dubious potion to Nepheli. You have a few choices here. Give her the potion, give it to her foster daddy for questionable disposal, or save it and give it to the Lothesome Dung Eater once he submits to getting poop shoved down his throat while being tied to a chair. After you make your choice and use the potion how you see fit, no matter the choice, Sata..I mean Selivus will let you purchase a doll from him. These dolls are used exactly the same way as spirit summon Ashes, even upgraded the same as named Ashes. Both Nepheli and the Lothesome Dung Eater show up as Ashes if you fed the potion to them respectively. Besides the two you can drug and turn into puppets, he has two other dolls for purchase. One is a pot head dude, probably the in game inspiration for Let Me Solo Her, while the other doll is much, much more interesting. The Finger Maiden Thorelina. Her item description pokes direct fun at her being Tarnishedless and us being Maidenless. It says that she died waiting for her Tarnished to return. You find a second, not so spirit Ashey. Once you follow through with Rannis quest and are tasked with killing Radahn to let the fated stars run their course, you make your way to his castle and the festival within. There are many warriors whom showed up for the festivities. Your Witch Covenant buddy Blaidd is here, along with the Warrior Jar Alexander. There are a few phantoms of Tarnished as well. And among the crowd is also, in the "flesh" a mute female in Maiden attire. She is the Finger Maiden Thorelina, and although she doesn't speak to us she still gifts us the bow gesture, similar to how we retrieve a gesture from Ensha upon first meeting him. It is my belief that sniviling Selivus was the one to kill our maiden. I also believe he is using her doll to aide us in the Radahn fight. I believe he has his own agenda with the Albanauric servant of Caria, Pitia, as he attempts to betray Ranni and the both of them seem to pay the price for it, though each in their own way.
Interesting indeed, I did know about pretty much all of this but I'm not sure seluvius would be the murderer. He doesn't necessarily have motive to kill but rather he would want to keep the finger maiden. Near his spire you can find an invisible wall/floor that leads to his lab and in there are the sleeping, unkillable, bodies of (if i remember correctly) the maiden and the pot headed gentlemen. i think he'd much rather capture the maiden not kill her(i think its very clear the unsavory reasons he wants these puppets). Ty for the comment either way, i think seluvius is a compelling candidate for the murderer of the maiden in the chapel of anticipation. I'm am just slightly more inclined to believe Varre makes more sense. I do eventually intend to do a video on seluvius too.
@@Rageikari Again thought, why would Varre kill our maiden then require us to kill our maiden ourselves to join his cult? Wouldn't he just have us do it when we finally agree to join, like is tradition for this particular ritual. He states it in plain English. You are suppose to kill your own maiden and soak the cloth in her blood. It's to symbolize the severing of the Greater Wills influence over you. It's akin to how you must "divest yourself of your possessions" to get past the door to the Three Fingers. The Bloody Fingers don't go around killing Maidens. They go around invading fellow Tarnished that still serve the Greater Will. They require the Tarnished that join kill their own Maidens, which means they have to have unkilled maidens to then kill.
@@sereksusvictar7888 He obviously didn't NEED us to kill our maiden to join his cult, considering we can join without even having a maiden to kill. The way i see it, he's either lying (which his bouquet suggests he does often) or he regrets his decision. Either way he acts very odd and the answer to who killed our maiden/ why we are maidenless is very up in the air.
@@Rageikari I'm pretty sure the point of the original comment was to simply say that the chapel maiden isn't ours and that Theorlina is. The how and why the chapel maiden died is sorta irrelevant.
@@Cat_Sidhe well even in that case, I dont believe seluvius' puppets are dead as you can find their "bodies" under his rise. It seems more like their bodies are sleeping as their souls have been puppeted. Which wouldn't really leave us maidenless. Either way all of these points are at least interesting. In my opinion it's most likely that Varre killed our maiden in the chapel of anticipation but you are welcome to come to your own conclusions (as you already have). I'd also like to thank you both again, you've given me plenty to think on.
When you know all the lore the opening of this game is pretty wild. The only major factions you don't have access to within an hour of gameplay are the frenzied flame and the nox.
I still tend to think Melina knowing EXACTLY where and when we start the game is a better suspect. Varre has been hanging out in the area sending Tarnished to Stormveil per Red Riding Hood. Him killing our Maiden before we get to the Roundtable doesn't fit the narrative.
@@gatorboy25000 ... She finds you in the cave right after you've been thrown/fallen into the ocean and are on the brink of death. That happens before you have interacted with any sites of grace, so my question is why was she there at exactly the right time?
I have been thinking about this too; I don't think it was melina per se, only because that, yes she knows where you are in the cutscene but acts like it was dumb luck she finds you, unless she is joking with torrent like a psychopath. The fact you are passed out, she has nothing to gain from playing dumb with her dialoge at this moment. But you being maidenless does have its perks for marika. So i say per se because melina is marika's only back door key into the erdtree. So in tandem with who ever murdered your maiden she is helping you get to the tree. I have been basing my logic on the description of the Lords rune, it says that when the ring was shattered, the would-be lords lost their way. A cause and effect for her breaking the ring, if this was part of her motive, to stop others from replacing Godwyn as lord or stalling if you will, why? Maybe (I say maybe) cause she doesn't want just anyone to be lord. Then to seal the tree with briars so no one can enter, and withholding grace from tarnished till she finds one she wants. Melina says that grace comes from the tree and later that it's from the ring itself, so grace comes from something that is shattered? Marika could withhold it since it is "coming from the tree"(this im not sure about but it explains why it stopped showing until now) Giving the tarnished grace is a signal so melina knows who to aid, which then tells ranni who to visit to give the bell and encourage the player to explore the land and doubt the two fingers (odd that both ranni and vatte tell you to doubt them but in different ways.) This new maidenless tarnished won't follow the fingers as strictly, the maiden would be the one to tell you what the order wants so you are on their side, but this IS speculation but would explain a lot of whys that marika does that feel so backwards. I mention ranni because i really think that marika might have wanted ranni to fulfill her fate as sella describes it, but radahn was holding the stars back and he needed to go before she could continue. If marika is linked to the black knives more than just blood as a numan and wants what they and ranni want, to restore night/moon worship. It would explain her motives even more, won't let anyone become lord, let it be one who serves ranni. Of course that could be not connected, I need more context before i double down on this but haven't found any evidence to suggest other wise other than what gideon says about wanting tarnished in an eternal struggle, but if that was the case then melina was lying when she said marika gave her the new purpose of burning the tree. So either merika is dumb, melina is lying or gideon misunderstood marikas motives when he 'glimpsed' into her.
The dead maiden at the starting church is most certainly the player's. You would assume that since Varre has already gotten so far under Mohg, his own maiden would have been killed long ago. Also, the Scion was most likely sent by Godrick to hunt down Varre, not the new tarnished, he was last spotted near the church, undoubtedly killing the player's maiden. Perhaps the maiden had some sort of telepathy where she could ask the two fingers for help. Godrick took the call for help as his duty, but also for revenge against Varre.
Hm, I also was musing on the possibility of the maiden puppet that Seluvis had was our intended maiden -- her spirit ash description reads as follows: One of Seluvis's puppets. Use to summon the spirit of the Finger Maiden Therolina. Spirit of Finger Maiden who never met the Tarnished she was meant to guide. Uses healing incantations and Holy Water Pots, but she is not a fighter by nature and is ill-suited to battle. A Maiden without a Tarnished. A Tarnished without a Maiden. And yet no guide to bring them together. The description does seem to hint that she was possibly our intended maiden -- thoughts?
@@screaming5483 1. How does that at all imply she's not our maiden? People think thats the body we see in the secret lab over in the three sisters or maybe even the puppet, either one being controlled by selivus to help us kill radahn for whatever reason 2. Did you read the last part of the description they quoted? It mentions both therolina and us and says there was no guide to bring the two of you together, why would we need to come together at all if she isnt our own finger maiden?
@@jorgeoquendo7514 I know it's her because they look the same and have the same name. And it just says tarnished in the description. Which could mean anyone.
@@screaming5483 The only "maidenless tarnished" mentioned in the game is us though, right? And yeah, the body and puppet in the secret lab are therolina too, the person we see at radahn is either the body we see or her puppet. I think the body because it isn't a glowing blue spirit
Grafting is also a technique used on trees among other plants. Would argue the grafted scion meaning is 3 fold, in that they were likely grafted from a young age, if not birth.
Never even crossed my mind that the dead lady at the start of the game was mostly like our Maiden that was killed while waiting for us. I just thought it was someone the scion killed.
Im more curious how we wound up the hero's grave when we fell off of a peak way further north on the map (or were killed by the scion) presumably melina and torrent carried us there? But those locations are quite far apart to say varre killed the maiden in the chapel
To be fair, varre in portuguese is just the present form of the verb "Varrer", which has a lot of old meanings but it's only actual use is to describe cleaning a place with a broom, every other use is a metaphor. I... don't think that's the inspiration there.
hes been my favourite character ever since he told me to kms back in the CNT. I originally missed his red sign both in my first playthrough and as my second while cosplaying him. now Im happy to know I never betrayed him x3
This is a theory I came upon as I played as well, I mentioned this doing one of my stream's of Elden ring, Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought about this.
I thought about this a lot and it just doesn't make sense for him to kill her, especially considering that one of the main requirements for joining the dynasty is for a tarnished to kill their own maiden. I think he just greets new tarnished, just like with roderika
I agree The ceremony of you killing your own maiden mean that he doesn't need to kill your maiden Her being dead makes manipulating you easier for sure but if the way to serve mohg is to kill your maiden was already put in place, it makes him killing her not required to get more servants of blood. Seems like a taking advantage to me.
The quest requires Maiden blood. Perhaps the killing your finger maiden was a ruse to ease you into doing his bidding. Also the bloody fingers opposed the Golden Order, so killing two finger maidens to leave confused, weak Tarnished defenseless and with no guidance would help his cause.
I think it makes perfect sense for variety to kill her so we can get the blood easier. A tarnished might go to the frenzied flame instead of killing their maiden
While i agree with the general idea i think it lacks something else: It is likely that when Marika casted off the tarnished and Godfrey from the Lands Betweenshe also had all maidens killed, as they had no purpose without their tarnished. A handful of them were able to survive (Therolina, the maiden at the church of anticipation, Hyetta and another one in a church). also to mention that if Varre knows and was a member of the round table it stands to reason that he was told by sir Gideon Ofnir about him becoming Elden Lord, which is by the looks of it a well known prophecy amongst those with some wits in the Lands Between. I think that Varre is there because he is recruiting, he knows that your maiden is dead and that you'll appear through that door (i don't think "the first steps" site of grace is a candid name, but rather a common waythrough for all tarnished returning to the Lands Between) I also think that Melina was looking for us at the church of anticipation, but didn't find us so she went to the next logical place we would "land" upon arrival. Also of note is that the 4 Belfries connect 3 important spots The church of the Rose, Nokron, The Chappel of Anticipation and Farum Azula, 3 of them heavily connected to your theory, as Nokron is where Moghwyn's palace is located and The Chappel, so that's how Varre was able to sneak to kill our maiden, and the Church of The Rose is a place connected to the cess blood
To commune with the two fingers at Roundtable Hold, you need to have obtained a great rune .... and I highly doubt Varre defeated a shardbearer and then lost it ... him waiting at the first step and the dead maiden .... now that's an interesting thread I never thought of
The war surgeon set and mercicord state that the battle field doctors were essentially mercy killers. Varre was overwhelmed by blood and death during the shattering. Then he was abducted by Mog and injected with cursed blood that drove the other physicians mad. He's a sympathetic character when you deep dive into the lore. He was also in Limgrave while our tarnished and the maiden started out/died way aways in Liurnia.
I killed him early since I can't play online right now. I was sad he didn't drop anything. It seems most characters don't drop their loot if killed of early.
I believe that varre killing our maiden is supposed to be the cycle that abducts every tarnished because if a tarnished has no maiden then they can be easily manipulated into either being a war surgeon or just blood for the Mogh
I wish in varres quest line if you already used Melina as kindling, you convince another maiden to follow you around and that’s how you get the maiden blood, or if you used the frenzied flame as kindling you can kill melina
This is by far the best thwory video I have seen on Varre. I was dissapointed that there is no aay to have a bloody finger ending. It woukd have been cool, that instead of us defeating other bloody fingers, we continue to invade other tarnished (NPCs) and then Yura invades us, regretting helping us (if we ever met him) or just disguisted that more bloody fingers are appearing. We defeat Yura, and thats how Varre gives us the Pureblood Knights Medal. And if we waited until we defeated Melania, that would have been the trigger to go to Moghwyn's Palace, and he would accept us. Ww fight him still (I know FromSoft wouldnt just make us skip a boss fight), but its as a test. We can fight him with Varre aiding us, since he is wanting to test his two best soldiers. And after "defeating him", he welcomes us fully into his dynasty. Wants US to become Elden Lord since we can see the guideance of grace, but at his behest. And we do so, completing his final step. We are the Elden Lord yes, but we serve Moghwyn, thus HE is the one in charge of everything. And a Bloody Ending happens.
Ok wait , hear me out, miq is to be cursed with perma baby face, but the one in the cocoon is aged by growth and appearance( old man hands) so I think what Mogh and the Formless mother had cooking up had just finished, it done , we too late.
From the first time my confessor set foot to the lands between, the first target to put down is vare, I didn't follow his quest line, I took him down first before proceeding the game.
I don't think it was Varre. In his questline Varre encourages you to kill your own maiden, as that is the traditional rite in which you're inducted as a knight of blood. And given the strict hierarchy and Varre's own position on that ladder, it wouldn't make sense for him to go out of his way to kill our maiden. Far more likely, if you consider the maiden at the Chapel of Anticipation our dead maiden, is that she sealed herself inside the chapel trying to hide from the spider. This was why the door to the chapel was closed. And if you look up you can see a hole in the roof of the chapel as well as damage to its interior. It's likely that the spider burst through the roof and a struggle ensued, to which the maiden was swiftly killed. In her dying moments she writes a message with the finger she had on her. It could be assumed that the maiden had found the tarnished in the chapel and was attempting to protect you, or that she saw that she was going to die and with no other option left that message as a final act as a finger maiden to guide any tarnished that might have made their way their.
@@petercottantail7850 The door is closed. It breaks in through the roof. It does not exit back through the door, as the door is closed when you get there.
My theory is that Milena was the one who killed our maiden, so that she can replace her and bring her plans to free Destined Death into fruition. After all, it is the player character that has the highest rate succeed amongst all remaining Tarnished. What's implied by the system of PvP invasions and the spirits from other worlds going through the same motions and all the same locations is that we are sharing one role in Fate, even if we are all somehow distinct individuals in different worlds that are each one the Lands Between. We are not vying against each other, we are all just probabilities of a singular role and Milena has aligned herself with the bearer of this role. If so, nice work of fiction FS.
Just found this: So Seluvis maybe why we're maidenless The finger maiden caption reads: One of Seluvis's puppets. Use to summon the spirit of the Finger Maiden Therolina. Spirit of Finger Maiden who never met the Tarnished she was meant to guide. Uses healing incantations and Holy Water Pots, but she is not a fighter by nature and is ill-suited to battle. A Maiden without a Tarnished. A Tarnished without a Maiden. And yet no guide to bring them together. I think this was our maiden
Great video! Subscribing right now! There's a lot of cool content about minor characters that are hard to find around here. I've watched a dozen videos about Morgott and Radahn, but these in-depth analysis of other tarnished really make my day.
3:50 you said a surgeon might be useful to the grafting process… but but godrick literally just cuts his hand off, shoved it into a dragons face, and started spewing flame with it… idk if a surgeon is really that important lol. But I’ll finish the video and give my opinion.
Varre killing our maiden is pretty likely, but i always assumed the chapel of inhibition was vykes maiden, after all he goes to great lengths to defend that place and invades you there.
Meanwhile... I am invading people with my Varre character :P... with the rose hammer and everything :D I only wish there was a voiceline to call someone maidenless
The first dead body you see is your maiden. She was likely killed by the grafted scion, likely on orders of all of the demigods, as they know the Tarnished are after their great runes, in order to mend the Elden Ring.
At first I thought he was cutting off your finger, but judging from the description and the image, I think your finger is still attached, just dead, and he injected it with blood.
I don't do online so I killed him since I'm not completing his quest requirements. He doesn't deal with dragon spells very well, poor weak boy...prissy bastard
What if that maiden was the one we we’re supposed to meet and he kills her on purpose and that’s why saying we are unfortunately maidenless and that’s why we meet melnia insted 🤔🤔🤔
Two notes on the video: 1. "Lambkin" could very well refer (and likeley does) to the fact that lambs were often use in ritualistic animal sacrifice, which makes sense considering Moghs reaction upon seeing us, ostensibly an anointed knight of his own dynasty. He welcomes us as an "honored guest",right before trying to murder us immediatley. Human sacrifice was most often seen as an honor; a way to appease the ire of a god for the community perfoming the ritual, but also a chance to meet this god in person, or so fiction about this topic would have us believe. This makes me think his convent actually works very similarly to Rykard and his Recusants; recruiting powerful but disillusioned tarnished, fostering their careers as tarnished killlers and then ritually sacrificing them to strengthen the head of the convent. 2. There is actually one more Finger Maiden to be found in the game, Finger Maiden Therolina. You can get her puppet from Seluvis and it reads: "Use to summon the spirit of the Finger Maiden Therolina. Spirit of Finger Maiden who never met the Tarnished she was meant to guide. Uses healing incantations and Holy Water Pots, but she is not a fighter by nature and is ill-suited to battle. A Maiden without a Tarnished. A Tarnished without a Maiden. And yet no guide to bring them together." The last part especially could be read as her being your maiden, who never made it to you because she was taken in by seluvis, who might not even have know what her destiny was. Ofc it could very well be she was meant to be another, unmentioned tarnished's maiden and the PC was destined to receive the maiden in the chapel of anticipation, but at minimum it is odd that the game highlights the dramatic irony in both of the coincidences. All of that is to say, the maiden in the chapel might have been Varrés after all - maybe he ritually sacrificed here the, the place they first met, to rescind the two fingers and join Luminary Mogh - because your maiden can still be accounted for, it would be Therolia in this case. Not that it matters all that much; the point still stands that apparently both Varré and Godrick, by extension through his scion, were spawncamping you.
Oh another thing i just remembered. The weapon the Nameless White Masks use, the Misericorde, who's description also links it to the war surgeons and is depicted next to their masks on the dagger talisman, is found in Stormveil castle on a corpse. I think this lends some credence to your theory that Godrick had war surgeons in his employ. Though ofc i could also just have been a hapless surgeon abducted by godricks soldier for grafting, because the dagger talisman is found in volcano manner on a corpse. Seems like war surgens need to demand hazard pay.
tbh i had never considered the implications of varre like......just sitting there? it really is just a random spot to be at. the idea that he set us up is just not one I've considered
It's likely thats only to prove your worth If you are maidenless. He once had a maiden so he didn't need to pass that arbitrary test. But we also have evidence that other great runes and other demigods existed so it's possible he did beat one
I have a promising theory that the Milena is the killer of your maiden and Varre witnessing this perhaps because he too wanted to kill your maiden. Aside from Varre, she too knows you are maidenless and with all hints pointing that she is the gloam-eyed queen and the master of Destined Death, her sweet countenance belies a more sinister nature and a master plot to defeat the Golden Order and get back her power over Destined Death given to Maliketh. What Mogh and Milena share in common is that both have such master plans, where Mogh wants to corrupt Miquella in order bring his Age of Blood to reality and seeks out Tarnished like Varre and you to meet this end, but it is Milena alone who seeks you out specifically and has a more well-formed plan towards her goal embodied by Grace itself pointing each point along the way to the defeat of the Golden Order i.e., implying that Milena has hijacked the Lost Graces to misguide the player character. Other clues supporting my theory are the thorny barrier that blocks you after defeating Morgott (why would there be one when you are supposed to be chosen?) and the fact that the 2 Fingers at RoundTable Hold are utterly confused and begin communing with the Greater Will after you fail to get to the ErdTree due to the barrier. This points to a deep layer of deception that the story does not tell and it all seems to point to machinations on Milena's part. While she does sacrifice herself to burn the ErdTree, is there proof that this makes her permanently gone? I think the story leaves that ambiguous and FS certainly wants us to think so. But even if she were truly dead in all endings except the one for you as the Lord of Frenzied Flame, freeing Destined Death was always her goal.
Where are the other tarnished maiden’s? Like Sir Gideon and others of the round table or even Godfrey? Or are we the only one supposed to have a maiden/(maidenless)?
Well vyke has a maiden and hyetta is likely a maiden but that is definitely a mystery I have some ideas on that I intend to do a video on. Eventually. Hopefully
I had a slightly different path to killing him. See all game i had wondered what his deal was. I never did his invasions cuz it seemed evil. Finally i did his invasions. Literally and coincidently the next thing i did after i killed both mohgs. Then i talk to him and he reveals his big thing was that he wanted me to serve the demi-god mohg.....
I actually don’t believe it was vare whom murdered our maiden. The maidens blood is still fresh- meaning she was killed recently, and most likely by the grafted scion, whom is also trying to kill you. And as we know Godrick has been hunting tarnished, probably with the scions, so he could cut them up and use them for grafting. He literally has a whole room dedicated to tarnished hands, with the only other grafted scion in the game appearing i there. So basically the grafted scion was sent by godrick to hunt tarnished at the church of ambition because that’s where tarnished were supposed to show up.
This is also a fair interpretation. This mystery is very open ended and there are plenty of potential culprits, and I like hearing everyone's theories on this.
Also there are a few characters who note that you’re maiden-less, probably because your character is so weak at the beginning, they can see that, and only a maiden can turn your runes into power,
Well not to disagree with your statement cause it does seem right, but there are other scions besides stormveil. One is in the valcano area too and randomly enough a lobster in the lakes turns into one for a larval tear😂 which personally i think is the devs having fun over lore there. it doent take away from your main point but doesn't help either.
Late comment, but I'm about halfway through the video and I have only one critique: it's hard to finish the video because the clips of Varre are SO quiet compared the the rest of the video that I'm choosing between hearing his lines in-game or getting jumpscared when you resume speaking. Perhaps you've since fixed this, since this video is a year old at this point, but maybe it'd help to check the audio levels before exporting the video? Just to make* sure everything's nice and even. Otherwise, I love your narration; speed, cadence, tone, etc., was so easy on the ears and all these theories are awesome! I love Varre.
I personally think FInger Maiden Therolina is a good candidate. If you get her Puppet from Seluvis, it's description outright remarks about "A maiden without a tarnished. A tarnished without a maiden. And yet no guide to bring them together." That does beg the question as to what Seluvis was doing with her, or why she can be found at the Radahn fight. But its also possible that she's at the Radahn fight on behalf of Seluvis, and he's controlling her from afar.
I don't think godrick worked with varré or the war surgeons, at least not from that evidence alone. If there was something resembling them in stormveil castle, then I'd be convinced, but Varré is tarnished, and godrick has been grafting specifically tarnished. And it seems that people in this game can tell that you're tarnished just by looking at you, so maybe it's more likely that godrick's great rune was one of the great runes he tried to get when he was serving the two fingers. Also, finger maiden at the start I think is definitely out maiden, or at least a maiden of a tarnished that varré or the knights of mogh killed. I mean, why would varré kill his maiden there of all places? It makes much more sense to be our maiden at the church.
My first time through, I completely forgot that in that very first room there's a dead finger maiden just lying there. And Varre just being outside by "coincidence"? lol
Let me dissuade that, the chapel of anticipation is not even close, plus you have to go through a cave full of enemies to the tarnished to reach the area.
Could the spirit summon “finger maiden therolina” be our maiden? Her description states she is a maiden who never got to meet the tarnished she was meant to guide
@@graysonchavis Therolina is the maiden that participates in Radahn Festival
Chapel of anticipation where the corpse is, is not anywhere near fringefolk hero grave wtf
@@naxergss2625 is she really? Where does it say so? I always just assumed she was just another one of seluvis puppets?
It's awfully convenient to blame Varre. Maybe being unable to accept responsibility for yourself is why you're maidenless.
Perhaps it was necessary to shed our maidens to rise to the rank of elden lord. But either way, your comment made me laugh, thank you LOL
@@Rageikari thanks, I aim to please.
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Damn, you just roasted 90% of Elden ring gamers….and it hit
@@SO-if3yn
I speak from experience.
Varre didn't kill the maiden, Godrick's scion did. Varre is looking for more tarnished to bring to Mogh, and in order to do that the tarnished NEEDS to have a maiden to eventually kill. So, the entire reason he treats the player as useless because they're maidenless is because they literally are useless to him. It's not until you kill Godrick that he opens up to you and sees you as a potential candidate after all. Godrick wants to make sure tarnished never make it to him, and if they do, they wouldn't be strong enough to beat him. Varre actually wants a fully functional tarnished in order to corrupt them.
How could the scion kill her when it can't even fit in the door of the church?
@@dejectedfrogcat2840 could have stabbed her outside and she struggled her way in to the chapel, possibly
@@dejectedfrogcat2840 Perhaps the Scion fatally wounded her, but she managed to retreat to the safety of the church only to succumb to her injuries soon afterwards?
@@dejectedfrogcat2840 there's a hole in the roof
@@A_Random_Prussian And Scions are known to jump down roofs like in that Heroe's Grave.
I definitely think the “prune” translation of his name is the most important. You prune a branch and use it to graft. He’s not just a surgeon, he’s also a gardener. That’s why he carries roses! Wow
It is oddly convenient that he just happens to know we don’t have a maiden. Maybe we have one but she needed a pee break and said she’ll catch up with us out front. Or maybe our maiden went off ahead and told us to meet her somewhere.
Presumably other Tarnished we meet have their own maidens, but we don’t see them hanging around.
It doesn’t even have to be Varre that killed our maiden. It could be that his fellow followers of Mohg are going out and killing all the maidens they can find, and so Varre can safely assume all new Tarnished are maidenless.
The recusants,as well as the bloody fingers,are known to go around in a maiden killing spree,so the list of suspects is quite long,though Varre is still at the top of it
Varr is norse for 'aware' or 'wary'. And Var is a goddess usually tied to oaths or promises, often between men and women.
You know it just hit me: Your first enemy is a Grafted Scion.
They serve Godrick. So perhaps Varre didn't do it, but Godrick has been taking out tarnished by sending out grafted scions and what else. Varre's no saint, but he probably knew we were maidenless because it's not the first time.
hey you, your finaly alive. walked right into the grafted scion's ambush, just like the rest of them
The idea here was that Godrick is chasing Varre. He comes to the chapel to kill our maiden and rubs away. The scion we fight is the one that is after him and made him flee.
The maiden at the Chapel is almost certaibnly ours, she even left a message for us.
For Varre murdering her, well he doesn't really have a motive, does he? There is no advantage for him in us being maidenless at all, if anything it's a hindrance to his cause
I'd say it's mostly to either induct us into the moghwyn dynasty or to mess with the goals of the two fingers. Likely both. Also the blood makes people kinda crazy it seems and Varre definitely isn't a level headed individual. While I do think what I've mentioned is motive enough, I don't think he'd need motive to murder a maiden.
i would think he did it so we could be more easily manipulated into forsaking the 2 fingers
He has us murder any random maiden as an induction rite, which also doesn't benefit him. He just wants blood, as well as to mess with the Two Fingers. The few motives he has are basically spite and blood for sacrifice
It actually makes complete sense.
The Finger Maidens' are servants to the Two Fingers, and their role is to simply guide the Tarnished, thus aligning them with the Two Fingers goals in mind.
Were our Maiden to live, then we would be compelled to complete the game in a much more linear way, but with her dead, we are instead forced to expose ourselves to the intrincacies of the world, exploring many conflicting bits of information that eventually leads us to realize that the Two Fingers are actually just as clueless as you are.
This also explains Varre's frustrations. His dialogue reveals that he has most definitely slain his own Finger Maiden, and that he has actually been to the Roundtable.
This means he saw through the Two Fingers ignorance, since most Tarnished consistently fail at the things they set out to accomplish, and realized he too was led astray by guidance. I mean, if the Two Fingers knew what they were doing, then how come these legendary warriors haven't fixed the problem yet?
And so he rebuked the Two Fingers and decided to follow Mohg.
The maidens are there to guide the Tarnished in service to the Fingers. They would clearly try to guide us away from his goal.
Consider also that there’s no way he could have predicted Melina would appear to take on the role. Without a maiden we wouldn’t be able to strengthen ourselves or even get into the Roundtable Hold.
I think Varre intended us to be totally isolated with nobody to turn to except him. Melina ruined this plan so he was forced to adapt.
Good find, it's not something you really notice til NG+ since it's just a dead body that has no meaning on the first time through. I'd say 100% it's our Maiden and Varre killed her to induct us into Mohg's Order. But it brings up a lot of other questions.
Like the process of the tarnished getting grace back and having a maiden assigned to them by the fingers or merica? Like why are the tarnish chosen to come back. Original Cut dialog had Hoarah Loux before the lands in between and his dialog tells you to go there so Being a tarnished given grace back sent back and assigned a maiden is a big thing, it's not like there are thousands of maidens to be had or laying around the map. So the process of the tarnished being chosen to come back and all that is something no one has really dished out, but some of it's cut content someone had to mod the game to get the dialog to work but its in text and voiced.
So the chances you are a random doesn't exist, and is set up so you HAD to have had a maiden. The only way Varre could know walking out is that. Most likely the first finger he gives you is her's, because we have no idea how long the ride across the ocean took, not to mention we wake up meaning we apparently were not awake when we got to the lands in between from boat and kinda dumped there. And we meet our maiden but all we see is the first grabbable ingame item.
Honestly good work this actually helps push several other theories along quite nicely.
That's very interesting, I've already got so many videos slowly panning out in my mind but that cut content really changes things in my head somewhat. Makes a lot of sense in hindsight. Your comment was very appreciated
Why would Varre kill her tho, even if he wanted to recruit us ?? wouldnt he want us to kill her to show loyalty ? he even says that killing own maiden is needed
@@naxergss2625 to remove a positive influence
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The tarnished come back because that was marika's design. She's the one who took the grace from godfrey and his men (the OG tarnished), she says that she will take their grace and that they will leave the lands between to war on another continent where they will live and die, but that one day they will return to the lands between for their grace
I will agree that the corpse sitting in the Chapel of Anticipation is almost certainly our Maiden. She leaves us the message finger and a message telling us to become Elden Lord. But I don't think that Varre was her murderer.
You are also correct that Varre is a Tarnished as well. The same as most people we meet along the journey, such as Vyke and Gideon. And like most, such as the fire giants, Raya Lucaria and the Nox, Varre is opposed to Queen Marika and the Greater Will.
Varre waits near the first steps, leading fresh Tarnished for the same reason as Bernahl and Rya. They are testing the convictions of new tarnished in hopes of recruiting for their respective covenants. Varres whole goal is to get the Tarnished to become disillusioned by the state of the Roundtable Hold after their audience with the Finger Reader.
Varre practically requires you to have a Maiden to perform his ritual. He even states in plain English that it's preferred that you use your own maidens blood to consecrated the cloth. Why would he rob you of your Maiden, then ask you to rob yourself of the very same Maiden?
Now the quest to soak the cloth is interesting because it confirms that the corpse sitting in the Chapel is indeed a Maiden in the least, even if she isn't our specific Maiden. And there is only one other Maiden corpse in the game, where we get the Maiden set from. And that body is guarded by her Tarnished, Vyke of the Frenzied Flame.
Now something else I should mention that might aide in solving this mystery of our maidenlessness. Once you make it to past the Carian Manor in Liurnia, you can seek audience with Ranni and join her covenant. Doing so gives you access to a little snot nosed prick of fleshlump meat bag named Selivus.
The condescending asshat helps little with your tasks in service of the Witch, but he does have a few secret projects going on. If you buy a certain note from the merchant hiding just outside of Raya Lucaria, it will tell you that Selivus has a secret laboratory hidden within the ruins just outside of the Manor.
If you uncover the lab, you will find lifeless dolls of all kinds, including a Sellen doll positioned right next to a bed in a second hidden room, implying all sorts of things. And you can directly confront the prickly bastard about all this... and he let's you in on the operation!
He asks you to feed a dubious potion to Nepheli. You have a few choices here. Give her the potion, give it to her foster daddy for questionable disposal, or save it and give it to the Lothesome Dung Eater once he submits to getting poop shoved down his throat while being tied to a chair.
After you make your choice and use the potion how you see fit, no matter the choice, Sata..I mean Selivus will let you purchase a doll from him. These dolls are used exactly the same way as spirit summon Ashes, even upgraded the same as named Ashes. Both Nepheli and the Lothesome Dung Eater show up as Ashes if you fed the potion to them respectively.
Besides the two you can drug and turn into puppets, he has two other dolls for purchase. One is a pot head dude, probably the in game inspiration for Let Me Solo Her, while the other doll is much, much more interesting. The Finger Maiden Thorelina. Her item description pokes direct fun at her being Tarnishedless and us being Maidenless. It says that she died waiting for her Tarnished to return.
You find a second, not so spirit Ashey. Once you follow through with Rannis quest and are tasked with killing Radahn to let the fated stars run their course, you make your way to his castle and the festival within. There are many warriors whom showed up for the festivities. Your Witch Covenant buddy Blaidd is here, along with the Warrior Jar Alexander. There are a few phantoms of Tarnished as well. And among the crowd is also, in the "flesh" a mute female in Maiden attire. She is the Finger Maiden Thorelina, and although she doesn't speak to us she still gifts us the bow gesture, similar to how we retrieve a gesture from Ensha upon first meeting him.
It is my belief that sniviling Selivus was the one to kill our maiden. I also believe he is using her doll to aide us in the Radahn fight. I believe he has his own agenda with the Albanauric servant of Caria, Pitia, as he attempts to betray Ranni and the both of them seem to pay the price for it, though each in their own way.
Interesting indeed, I did know about pretty much all of this but I'm not sure seluvius would be the murderer. He doesn't necessarily have motive to kill but rather he would want to keep the finger maiden.
Near his spire you can find an invisible wall/floor that leads to his lab and in there are the sleeping, unkillable, bodies of (if i remember correctly) the maiden and the pot headed gentlemen.
i think he'd much rather capture the maiden not kill her(i think its very clear the unsavory reasons he wants these puppets).
Ty for the comment either way, i think seluvius is a compelling candidate for the murderer of the maiden in the chapel of anticipation. I'm am just slightly more inclined to believe Varre makes more sense. I do eventually intend to do a video on seluvius too.
@@Rageikari Again thought, why would Varre kill our maiden then require us to kill our maiden ourselves to join his cult? Wouldn't he just have us do it when we finally agree to join, like is tradition for this particular ritual.
He states it in plain English. You are suppose to kill your own maiden and soak the cloth in her blood. It's to symbolize the severing of the Greater Wills influence over you. It's akin to how you must "divest yourself of your possessions" to get past the door to the Three Fingers.
The Bloody Fingers don't go around killing Maidens. They go around invading fellow Tarnished that still serve the Greater Will. They require the Tarnished that join kill their own Maidens, which means they have to have unkilled maidens to then kill.
@@sereksusvictar7888 He obviously didn't NEED us to kill our maiden to join his cult, considering we can join without even having a maiden to kill. The way i see it, he's either lying (which his bouquet suggests he does often) or he regrets his decision. Either way he acts very odd and the answer to who killed our maiden/ why we are maidenless is very up in the air.
@@Rageikari I'm pretty sure the point of the original comment was to simply say that the chapel maiden isn't ours and that Theorlina is. The how and why the chapel maiden died is sorta irrelevant.
@@Cat_Sidhe well even in that case, I dont believe seluvius' puppets are dead as you can find their "bodies" under his rise. It seems more like their bodies are sleeping as their souls have been puppeted. Which wouldn't really leave us maidenless. Either way all of these points are at least interesting. In my opinion it's most likely that Varre killed our maiden in the chapel of anticipation but you are welcome to come to your own conclusions (as you already have). I'd also like to thank you both again, you've given me plenty to think on.
When you know all the lore the opening of this game is pretty wild. The only major factions you don't have access to within an hour of gameplay are the frenzied flame and the nox.
I still tend to think Melina knowing EXACTLY where and when we start the game is a better suspect.
Varre has been hanging out in the area sending Tarnished to Stormveil per Red Riding Hood.
Him killing our Maiden before we get to the Roundtable doesn't fit the narrative.
True, and it does fit Melina's goal to burn the you know what. By substituting herself as a maiden she gets to arrive at her goal.
I think it's more likely that Melina sensed the lost graces being awoken by a new tarnished than her knowing when/where the tarnished would appear
@@gatorboy25000 ...
She finds you in the cave right after you've been thrown/fallen into the ocean and are on the brink of death.
That happens before you have interacted with any sites of grace, so my question is why was she there at exactly the right time?
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I have been thinking about this too; I don't think it was melina per se, only because that, yes she knows where you are in the cutscene but acts like it was dumb luck she finds you, unless she is joking with torrent like a psychopath. The fact you are passed out, she has nothing to gain from playing dumb with her dialoge at this moment.
But you being maidenless does have its perks for marika. So i say per se because melina is marika's only back door key into the erdtree. So in tandem with who ever murdered your maiden she is helping you get to the tree.
I have been basing my logic on the description of the Lords rune, it says that when the ring was shattered, the would-be lords lost their way. A cause and effect for her breaking the ring, if this was part of her motive, to stop others from replacing Godwyn as lord or stalling if you will, why? Maybe (I say maybe) cause she doesn't want just anyone to be lord. Then to seal the tree with briars so no one can enter, and withholding grace from tarnished till she finds one she wants. Melina says that grace comes from the tree and later that it's from the ring itself, so grace comes from something that is shattered? Marika could withhold it since it is "coming from the tree"(this im not sure about but it explains why it stopped showing until now) Giving the tarnished grace is a signal so melina knows who to aid, which then tells ranni who to visit to give the bell and encourage the player to explore the land and doubt the two fingers (odd that both ranni and vatte tell you to doubt them but in different ways.) This new maidenless tarnished won't follow the fingers as strictly, the maiden would be the one to tell you what the order wants so you are on their side, but this IS speculation but would explain a lot of whys that marika does that feel so backwards.
I mention ranni because i really think that marika might have wanted ranni to fulfill her fate as sella describes it, but radahn was holding the stars back and he needed to go before she could continue.
If marika is linked to the black knives more than just blood as a numan and wants what they and ranni want, to restore night/moon worship. It would explain her motives even more, won't let anyone become lord, let it be one who serves ranni.
Of course that could be not connected, I need more context before i double down on this but haven't found any evidence to suggest other wise other than what gideon says about wanting tarnished in an eternal struggle, but if that was the case then melina was lying when she said marika gave her the new purpose of burning the tree. So either merika is dumb, melina is lying or gideon misunderstood marikas motives when he 'glimpsed' into her.
The dead maiden at the starting church is most certainly the player's. You would assume that since Varre has already gotten so far under Mohg, his own maiden would have been killed long ago. Also, the Scion was most likely sent by Godrick to hunt down Varre, not the new tarnished, he was last spotted near the church, undoubtedly killing the player's maiden.
Perhaps the maiden had some sort of telepathy where she could ask the two fingers for help. Godrick took the call for help as his duty, but also for revenge against Varre.
Hm, I also was musing on the possibility of the maiden puppet that Seluvis had was our intended maiden -- her spirit ash description reads as follows:
One of Seluvis's puppets. Use to summon the spirit of the Finger Maiden Therolina. Spirit of Finger Maiden who never met the Tarnished she was meant to guide. Uses healing incantations and Holy Water Pots, but she is not a fighter by nature and is ill-suited to battle.
A Maiden without a Tarnished. A Tarnished without a Maiden. And yet no guide to bring them together.
The description does seem to hint that she was possibly our intended maiden -- thoughts?
It is indeed an option yes. This mystery is very open ended. Lots of theories fit
That puppet is the NPC you talk to to get the polite bow emote before the radahn fight. So I doubt she's our maiden.
@@screaming5483
1. How does that at all imply she's not our maiden? People think thats the body we see in the secret lab over in the three sisters or maybe even the puppet, either one being controlled by selivus to help us kill radahn for whatever reason
2. Did you read the last part of the description they quoted? It mentions both therolina and us and says there was no guide to bring the two of you together, why would we need to come together at all if she isnt our own finger maiden?
@@jorgeoquendo7514 I know it's her because they look the same and have the same name. And it just says tarnished in the description. Which could mean anyone.
@@screaming5483 The only "maidenless tarnished" mentioned in the game is us though, right?
And yeah, the body and puppet in the secret lab are therolina too, the person we see at radahn is either the body we see or her puppet. I think the body because it isn't a glowing blue spirit
Grafting is also a technique used on trees among other plants. Would argue the grafted scion meaning is 3 fold, in that they were likely grafted from a young age, if not birth.
Never even crossed my mind that the dead lady at the start of the game was mostly like our Maiden that was killed while waiting for us. I just thought it was someone the scion killed.
Im more curious how we wound up the hero's grave when we fell off of a peak way further north on the map (or were killed by the scion) presumably melina and torrent carried us there? But those locations are quite far apart to say varre killed the maiden in the chapel
To be fair, varre in portuguese is just the present form of the verb "Varrer", which has a lot of old meanings but it's only actual use is to describe cleaning a place with a broom, every other use is a metaphor. I... don't think that's the inspiration there.
hes been my favourite character ever since he told me to kms back in the CNT. I originally missed his red sign both in my first playthrough and as my second while cosplaying him. now Im happy to know I never betrayed him x3
I found him to be a fascinating character. Right out the gate I knew something about him is special.
This is a theory I came upon as I played as well, I mentioned this doing one of my stream's of Elden ring, Glad to see I'm not the only one who thought about this.
I thought about this a lot and it just doesn't make sense for him to kill her, especially considering that one of the main requirements for joining the dynasty is for a tarnished to kill their own maiden. I think he just greets new tarnished, just like with roderika
I agree
The ceremony of you killing your own maiden mean that he doesn't need to kill your maiden Her being dead makes manipulating you easier for sure but if the way to serve mohg is to kill your maiden was already put in place, it makes him killing her not required to get more servants of blood. Seems like a taking advantage to me.
The quest requires Maiden blood. Perhaps the killing your finger maiden was a ruse to ease you into doing his bidding. Also the bloody fingers opposed the Golden Order, so killing two finger maidens to leave confused, weak Tarnished defenseless and with no guidance would help his cause.
I think it makes perfect sense for variety to kill her so we can get the blood easier. A tarnished might go to the frenzied flame instead of killing their maiden
“Hello. I am Tarnished. You killed my maiden. Prepare to die”
While i agree with the general idea i think it lacks something else:
It is likely that when Marika casted off the tarnished and Godfrey from the Lands Betweenshe also had all maidens killed, as they had no purpose without their tarnished. A handful of them were able to survive (Therolina, the maiden at the church of anticipation, Hyetta and another one in a church). also to mention that if Varre knows and was a member of the round table it stands to reason that he was told by sir Gideon Ofnir about him becoming Elden Lord, which is by the looks of it a well known prophecy amongst those with some wits in the Lands Between.
I think that Varre is there because he is recruiting, he knows that your maiden is dead and that you'll appear through that door (i don't think "the first steps" site of grace is a candid name, but rather a common waythrough for all tarnished returning to the Lands Between)
I also think that Melina was looking for us at the church of anticipation, but didn't find us so she went to the next logical place we would "land" upon arrival. Also of note is that the 4 Belfries connect 3 important spots The church of the Rose, Nokron, The Chappel of Anticipation and Farum Azula, 3 of them heavily connected to your theory, as Nokron is where Moghwyn's palace is located and The Chappel, so that's how Varre was able to sneak to kill our maiden, and the Church of The Rose is a place connected to the cess blood
To commune with the two fingers at Roundtable Hold, you need to have obtained a great rune .... and I highly doubt Varre defeated a shardbearer and then lost it ... him waiting at the first step and the dead maiden .... now that's an interesting thread I never thought of
The misericorde (war surgeon dagger) is found in godricks castle, so yeah that adds up
The war surgeon set and mercicord state that the battle field doctors were essentially mercy killers. Varre was overwhelmed by blood and death during the shattering. Then he was abducted by Mog and injected with cursed blood that drove the other physicians mad. He's a sympathetic character when you deep dive into the lore. He was also in Limgrave while our tarnished and the maiden started out/died way aways in Liurnia.
I killed him early since I can't play online right now. I was sad he didn't drop anything. It seems most characters don't drop their loot if killed of early.
I believe that varre killing our maiden is supposed to be the cycle that abducts every tarnished because if a tarnished has no maiden then they can be easily manipulated into either being a war surgeon or just blood for the Mogh
I wish in varres quest line if you already used Melina as kindling, you convince another maiden to follow you around and that’s how you get the maiden blood, or if you used the frenzied flame as kindling you can kill melina
That voice actor is insane. I wish I wouldn’t have murked Varre after watching this vid lol. Gonna have to do his quest next playthrough.
Great video! I figured the dead maiden at the chapel was mine, but I didn’t put it together with Varre!!
i had no idea you could use maidens other than the one that is by Vyke in Liurnia. wild.
Great video I like how you went over things step by step and explained a few different thoughts on a “why” or a “how” for the lore
Yeah, I knew he was a villain, because of the scorn Rodericka used when talking about him.
This is by far the best thwory video I have seen on Varre. I was dissapointed that there is no aay to have a bloody finger ending. It woukd have been cool, that instead of us defeating other bloody fingers, we continue to invade other tarnished (NPCs) and then Yura invades us, regretting helping us (if we ever met him) or just disguisted that more bloody fingers are appearing. We defeat Yura, and thats how Varre gives us the Pureblood Knights Medal.
And if we waited until we defeated Melania, that would have been the trigger to go to Moghwyn's Palace, and he would accept us. Ww fight him still (I know FromSoft wouldnt just make us skip a boss fight), but its as a test. We can fight him with Varre aiding us, since he is wanting to test his two best soldiers. And after "defeating him", he welcomes us fully into his dynasty. Wants US to become Elden Lord since we can see the guideance of grace, but at his behest. And we do so, completing his final step. We are the Elden Lord yes, but we serve Moghwyn, thus HE is the one in charge of everything. And a Bloody Ending happens.
It's still possible with DLC and the fleshing out of the attempts of Mogh to corrupt Miquella. I hope we get it.
I want this so bad, lord of frenzy is not the kind of crazy I want
Me - Starts new game and attacks Varré. Why Varré why?
Ok wait , hear me out, miq is to be cursed with perma baby face, but the one in the cocoon is aged by growth and appearance( old man hands) so I think what Mogh and the Formless mother had cooking up had just finished, it done , we too late.
From the first time my confessor set foot to the lands between, the first target to put down is vare, I didn't follow his quest line, I took him down first before proceeding the game.
So basically if u kill Varre in the beginning ur stopping a black hearted murderer in cold blood :D
I don't think it was Varre. In his questline Varre encourages you to kill your own maiden, as that is the traditional rite in which you're inducted as a knight of blood. And given the strict hierarchy and Varre's own position on that ladder, it wouldn't make sense for him to go out of his way to kill our maiden.
Far more likely, if you consider the maiden at the Chapel of Anticipation our dead maiden, is that she sealed herself inside the chapel trying to hide from the spider. This was why the door to the chapel was closed. And if you look up you can see a hole in the roof of the chapel as well as damage to its interior. It's likely that the spider burst through the roof and a struggle ensued, to which the maiden was swiftly killed. In her dying moments she writes a message with the finger she had on her.
It could be assumed that the maiden had found the tarnished in the chapel and was attempting to protect you, or that she saw that she was going to die and with no other option left that message as a final act as a finger maiden to guide any tarnished that might have made their way their.
How is the scion gunna fit through the door? 🧐
@@petercottantail7850 The door is closed. It breaks in through the roof. It does not exit back through the door, as the door is closed when you get there.
My theory is that Milena was the one who killed our maiden, so that she can replace her and bring her plans to free Destined Death into fruition. After all, it is the player character that has the highest rate succeed amongst all remaining Tarnished. What's implied by the system of PvP invasions and the spirits from other worlds going through the same motions and all the same locations is that we are sharing one role in Fate, even if we are all somehow distinct individuals in different worlds that are each one the Lands Between.
We are not vying against each other, we are all just probabilities of a singular role and Milena has aligned herself with the bearer of this role. If so, nice work of fiction FS.
Great video. So much lore and theories blossom in the opening minutes of the game.
I was wondering who killed our maiden! I really thought it was Melina at first
Nice video dude, congrats on the views too, nice numbers for your channel 😁🔥
so is the dead girl on Chapel of anticipation supposed to be our maiden that is killed by someone before they got to meet us?
Yes
Also the voice of The Curator in the Dark Pictures Anthology.
The title card for 8:32 xD hahaha, niceee
"Now, give me your finger."
Alright, I'm ready for that follow up video now 😀
There's a dagger that has medic info on it.
Can’t wait for next vid
He killed your maiden then mocks you for it. Varre the maiden killer.
Varre: A Lesson in Why Not to Take Candy From Strangers
Just found this: So Seluvis maybe why we're maidenless
The finger maiden caption reads:
One of Seluvis's puppets.
Use to summon the spirit of the Finger Maiden Therolina.
Spirit of Finger Maiden who never met the Tarnished she was
meant to guide. Uses healing incantations and Holy Water Pots,
but she is not a fighter by nature and is ill-suited to battle.
A Maiden without a Tarnished. A Tarnished without a Maiden.
And yet no guide to bring them together.
I think this was our maiden
It's definitely a possibility
Great video! Subscribing right now! There's a lot of cool content about minor characters that are hard to find around here. I've watched a dozen videos about Morgott and Radahn, but these in-depth analysis of other tarnished really make my day.
My next few videos will likely be on a few bigger characters but I fully intend to cover more side characters after those.
3:50 you said a surgeon might be useful to the grafting process… but but godrick literally just cuts his hand off, shoved it into a dragons face, and started spewing flame with it… idk if a surgeon is really that important lol. But I’ll finish the video and give my opinion.
Desperate times call for desperate measures
I love how at 2:57 you just got the blade resting against Varre neck all casually. Lol 😂
Great content!
Varre killing our maiden is pretty likely, but i always assumed the chapel of inhibition was vykes maiden, after all he goes to great lengths to defend that place and invades you there.
Wrong place. The room you start in at the very beginning is the place not where vyke is.
You're thinking the Chapel of Inhibition
@@zjuraeventide8949 got the names mixed up my bad
Meanwhile...
I am invading people with my Varre character :P... with the rose hammer and everything :D
I only wish there was a voiceline to call someone maidenless
Good stuff man. 👍 Subscribed
The first dead body you see is your maiden. She was likely killed by the grafted scion, likely on orders of all of the demigods, as they know the Tarnished are after their great runes, in order to mend the Elden Ring.
I wonder if being "maidenless" is also a statement that the player character has no fate?
After all, we cannot use the Fingerslayer Blade.
At first I thought he was cutting off your finger, but judging from the description and the image, I think your finger is still attached, just dead, and he injected it with blood.
Varre is such an interesting character, like most Elden Ring side characters. I hope they give us more endings in DLC.
Nice video, you got a new sub from it!
So varre killed my MAIDEN!
Funny, but the one NPC that pretends to be a Maiden may have ultimately been after Varré.
Is that the same voice actor as Mikolash (the cage head boss) in Bloodborne? Varre I mean.
Varre is pip Torrens but micolash is Ryan Gage and Steven Elliot I believe.
@@Rageikari Oh cool. I thought they sounded kind of alike, but good to know. Good luck on your channel, you're doing good.
@@j-frolland4200 thank you very much ♥️
I don't do online so I killed him since I'm not completing his quest requirements. He doesn't deal with dragon spells very well, poor weak boy...prissy bastard
What if that maiden was the one we we’re supposed to meet and he kills her on purpose and that’s why saying we are unfortunately maidenless and that’s why we meet melnia insted 🤔🤔🤔
I mean, I can't do his quest line anyway since I don't have online, so spoil everything for me!
Two notes on the video:
1. "Lambkin" could very well refer (and likeley does) to the fact that lambs were often use in ritualistic animal sacrifice, which makes sense considering Moghs reaction upon seeing us, ostensibly an anointed knight of his own dynasty. He welcomes us as an "honored guest",right before trying to murder us immediatley. Human sacrifice was most often seen as an honor; a way to appease the ire of a god for the community perfoming the ritual, but also a chance to meet this god in person, or so fiction about this topic would have us believe.
This makes me think his convent actually works very similarly to Rykard and his Recusants; recruiting powerful but disillusioned tarnished, fostering their careers as tarnished killlers and then ritually sacrificing them to strengthen the head of the convent.
2. There is actually one more Finger Maiden to be found in the game, Finger Maiden Therolina. You can get her puppet from Seluvis and it reads:
"Use to summon the spirit of the Finger Maiden Therolina.
Spirit of Finger Maiden who never met the Tarnished she was
meant to guide. Uses healing incantations and Holy Water Pots,
but she is not a fighter by nature and is ill-suited to battle.
A Maiden without a Tarnished. A Tarnished without a Maiden.
And yet no guide to bring them together."
The last part especially could be read as her being your maiden, who never made it to you because she was taken in by seluvis, who might not even have know what her destiny was.
Ofc it could very well be she was meant to be another, unmentioned tarnished's maiden and the PC was destined to receive the maiden in the chapel of anticipation, but at minimum it is odd that the game highlights the dramatic irony in both of the coincidences.
All of that is to say, the maiden in the chapel might have been Varrés after all - maybe he ritually sacrificed here the, the place they first met, to rescind the two fingers and join Luminary Mogh - because your maiden can still be accounted for, it would be Therolia in this case. Not that it matters all that much; the point still stands that apparently both Varré and Godrick, by extension through his scion, were spawncamping you.
Oh another thing i just remembered. The weapon the Nameless White Masks use, the Misericorde, who's description also links it to the war surgeons and is depicted next to their masks on the dagger talisman, is found in Stormveil castle on a corpse. I think this lends some credence to your theory that Godrick had war surgeons in his employ. Though ofc i could also just have been a hapless surgeon abducted by godricks soldier for grafting, because the dagger talisman is found in volcano manner on a corpse.
Seems like war surgens need to demand hazard pay.
There's also a puppet spirit ash therolina?? Turned into a puppet before she could find her tarnished.
There's also a dead maiden at the church of inhibition. Where you can soak the cloth
tbh i had never considered the implications of varre like......just sitting there? it really is just a random spot to be at. the idea that he set us up is just not one I've considered
Varre is my favorite NPC so far. Im a new player and he just get to me somehow! He gives big scammer vibe but I love it lol
Great video
Misericorde is related to Varre and the war surgeons as well. Specifically used by war physicians in white outfits, but it’s close enough
Very good point, thats hugely helpful actually, thanks
The intro has me laughing 😂
On thing I don’t get, if you have to beat someone with a Great Rune to meet the 2 fingers, who did Varre defeat to be granted audience?
It's likely thats only to prove your worth If you are maidenless. He once had a maiden so he didn't need to pass that arbitrary test. But we also have evidence that other great runes and other demigods existed so it's possible he did beat one
@@Rageikari aahh, I see I see, indeed. Thank you
How do you have less than 1k subs?? Based on this video I figured you had at least 100k! You’ve earned a sub from me, keep up the amazing work!
I was always under the presumption that Selivus turned our Maiden into a puppet before she could find us.
Actually, Melanie killed our maiden so as to become ours instead.
I have a promising theory that the Milena is the killer of your maiden and Varre witnessing this perhaps because he too wanted to kill your maiden. Aside from Varre, she too knows you are maidenless and with all hints pointing that she is the gloam-eyed queen and the master of Destined Death, her sweet countenance belies a more sinister nature and a master plot to defeat the Golden Order and get back her power over Destined Death given to Maliketh.
What Mogh and Milena share in common is that both have such master plans, where Mogh wants to corrupt Miquella in order bring his Age of Blood to reality and seeks out Tarnished like Varre and you to meet this end, but it is Milena alone who seeks you out specifically and has a more well-formed plan towards her goal embodied by Grace itself pointing each point along the way to the defeat of the Golden Order i.e., implying that Milena has hijacked the Lost Graces to misguide the player character.
Other clues supporting my theory are the thorny barrier that blocks you after defeating Morgott (why would there be one when you are supposed to be chosen?) and the fact that the 2 Fingers at RoundTable Hold are utterly confused and begin communing with the Greater Will after you fail to get to the ErdTree due to the barrier. This points to a deep layer of deception that the story does not tell and it all seems to point to machinations on Milena's part.
While she does sacrifice herself to burn the ErdTree, is there proof that this makes her permanently gone? I think the story leaves that ambiguous and FS certainly wants us to think so. But even if she were truly dead in all endings except the one for you as the Lord of Frenzied Flame, freeing Destined Death was always her goal.
Now I feel less bad about killing him, he just seemed so ominous.
love this theory.
Where are the other tarnished maiden’s? Like Sir Gideon and others of the round table or even Godfrey? Or are we the only one supposed to have a maiden/(maidenless)?
Well vyke has a maiden and hyetta is likely a maiden but that is definitely a mystery I have some ideas on that I intend to do a video on. Eventually. Hopefully
Mr. Steal Yo Maiden
I killed Varre instantly as soon as He called me maidenless
I had a slightly different path to killing him.
See all game i had wondered what his deal was. I never did his invasions cuz it seemed evil.
Finally i did his invasions. Literally and coincidently the next thing i did after i killed both mohgs.
Then i talk to him and he reveals his big thing was that he wanted me to serve the demi-god mohg.....
I actually don’t believe it was vare whom murdered our maiden. The maidens blood is still fresh- meaning she was killed recently, and most likely by the grafted scion, whom is also trying to kill you. And as we know Godrick has been hunting tarnished, probably with the scions, so he could cut them up and use them for grafting. He literally has a whole room dedicated to tarnished hands, with the only other grafted scion in the game appearing i there. So basically the grafted scion was sent by godrick to hunt tarnished at the church of ambition because that’s where tarnished were supposed to show up.
This is also a fair interpretation. This mystery is very open ended and there are plenty of potential culprits, and I like hearing everyone's theories on this.
Also there are a few characters who note that you’re maiden-less, probably because your character is so weak at the beginning, they can see that, and only a maiden can turn your runes into power,
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Well not to disagree with your statement cause it does seem right, but there are other scions besides stormveil. One is in the valcano area too and randomly enough a lobster in the lakes turns into one for a larval tear😂 which personally i think is the devs having fun over lore there.
it doent take away from your main point but doesn't help either.
@@TheChocolateNick There are several more scions. Including the two in that Catacombs near the Stranded Graveyard
I had a theory that someone kills the maiden in that starting area...
My first fight in elden ring was with varre😂
The fool was killed by a low level noob
Serves him right for killing my maiden
Is there a way to get back to the Chapel of Anticipation?
The four belfries west of liurnia of the lakes. I believe it's the second belfrie that takes you
Late comment, but I'm about halfway through the video and I have only one critique: it's hard to finish the video because the clips of Varre are SO quiet compared the the rest of the video that I'm choosing between hearing his lines in-game or getting jumpscared when you resume speaking. Perhaps you've since fixed this, since this video is a year old at this point, but maybe it'd help to check the audio levels before exporting the video? Just to make* sure everything's nice and even.
Otherwise, I love your narration; speed, cadence, tone, etc., was so easy on the ears and all these theories are awesome! I love Varre.
Nah. I'm still blaming sulivus, and Therolina is our maiden.
varre didn't even betray you, you just betray varre
Lmfao the intro
I personally think FInger Maiden Therolina is a good candidate. If you get her Puppet from Seluvis, it's description outright remarks about "A maiden without a tarnished. A tarnished without a maiden. And yet no guide to bring them together."
That does beg the question as to what Seluvis was doing with her, or why she can be found at the Radahn fight. But its also possible that she's at the Radahn fight on behalf of Seluvis, and he's controlling her from afar.
I don't think godrick worked with varré or the war surgeons, at least not from that evidence alone. If there was something resembling them in stormveil castle, then I'd be convinced, but Varré is tarnished, and godrick has been grafting specifically tarnished. And it seems that people in this game can tell that you're tarnished just by looking at you, so maybe it's more likely that godrick's great rune was one of the great runes he tried to get when he was serving the two fingers.
Also, finger maiden at the start I think is definitely out maiden, or at least a maiden of a tarnished that varré or the knights of mogh killed. I mean, why would varré kill his maiden there of all places? It makes much more sense to be our maiden at the church.
Haha I enjoyed this 👍