Legend has it that you can zoom in on any point of one of Quelaag's charts forever and still keep finding new information. Like a fractal made of lore.
“Thank you so much for supporting me for all these years, and sticking around to hear me scream.” You are like a cicada of knowledge, and we are here to hang out and listen when the time is right! Thank you for the lore drops!
I'm a big heraldry nerd, and one thing I haven't seen many people talk about is the symbol on Messmer's cape. It's a classical heraldic practice called impalement. The heraldry is split in half (impaled) with a solid line and on either side is the heraldic device of two different houses, typically used to symbolize a union through marriage. Generally this would be done if both parties were of families with enough prestige to warrant equal billing, but due to the time period typically meant that it was used when the female member of the union was politically powerful or relevant enough to not be able to keep off the heraldry. On the left side of Messmer's heraldry we see what looks similar but different to both the Dragon Communion symbol and the Frenzied Flame symbol, and then on the other side we see the braided helix that is related directly to the Crucible. The left half of a heraldry (the dexter side) represents the Husband, and the right (the sinister side) the Wife's... or rather her Father's because again women in ye olde Europe. Fire McDragon-eyes is representing himself with the Flame/Dragon Communion symbol and his heraldry is showing a union between him and whoever he married who is represented by, or whose father is represented by, the braids of the crucible. These braids are all over specifically the Lion Dancer as well, making me think that whatever Messmer's betrayal was involved his union to whoever was in charge of this Omen/Grafting society of the Land of Shadows. In my opinion, probably the Gloam Eyed Queen.
Very interesting! Associations: braids/ fire/crucible = fire giant, melina( who possibly is connected to the gloam eyed queen), mountain tops. What if Melina can not be our maiden, because the heraldic depiction of marriage refers to her? What if this was the reason Marika went to war on mountaintops of the giants?
Oh, interesting! But a tiny correction: sinister is left while dexter is right. I don't think it changes anything, but I thought I'd let you know just in case :)
@@BigBadWolframio In latin that's correct, but in heraldry the "right/dexter" side of the shield is on the left from our point of view, because that's the side on the shield-bearer's right. Kinda like "stage left" being on the right, from the audience's point of view. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_and_sinister
I've been feeling for almost a year now that one of the biggest keys/themes to Elden Ring's lore is a ruler's capability to decide history. To actually wipe or mostly hide things, to cover up secrets and have the narrative conflict with things we find. Marika's will is one of the most convoluted things about the timeline and cause and effect for most of the central events in the story, and it's just a black hole of non confirmation. But we hear in multiple places about the defeat of th giants and their god, but see their descendents and even fight the last one who has full command of the Fell God's power. Godfrey is "First" Elden Lord but only after burning her Erdtree do we see the realm of previous gods and Elden Lords. I think a lot of the gaps and contradictions we find everywhere in the lore is the result of Marika's manipulation of history and the truth. As DLCs usually double down on important aspects, Marika has hidden a child and an entire section of world completely separated from everyone. What is the extent of her powers to hide? How much of what we know is simply what she wants us to know?
A few more goodies: The Rotted Duelists (not the regular ones) out in snowfields summon an actual snake when they do a grab attack on you. The serpent bow has the double snake motif and refers to a group of assassins called the formless serpents (which get named checked on the serpent arrows) - you find these in the abandoned cave with all the busted iron virgins. The taker's cameo also has the double snake motif right next to Rykard's face. The inquisitor's Girandole might just have a double snake on the shaft of the spear (weak) but the text is *rather evocative* in context of messmer and you get it from the abductor virgin duo fight. ... lastly - it's worth looking closely at the "O' in the Shadow of the Erdtree title.
Also, the tapestry behind Rykard's throne in Volcano Manor depicts the caduceus symbol with the double snake. It's something very easy to miss because it's partially hidden by the throne.
Melina tells us that she was born "at the foot of the Erdtree," and if we look at this from a map perspective, the bottom or "foot" of the Erdtree icon on the map places it inside the shadow realm (if this empty geometric middle is in fact the DLC area). So maybe Melina was born there (Messmer's daughter??), was burned in Messmer's flame for some reason (why she's burned/bodiless), and this is why she has Torrent (met Miquella there and was sent to find us?)
More like she's the Gloam-Eyed Queen's daughter. When you visit the shaded castle, there's 4 statues repeated everywhere. And shown very prominently in the boss area: The old woman, the young man, the young woman, and the child. I think Vaati already mentioned the old woman as the Gloam-Eyed Queen. But I think the 3 others have to be Messmer, Melina and St. Trinia (Miquella). That explains which alliance Melina had and where she came from with Torrent (the Shadow of the Erdtree realm). Melina died when she tried to burn the Erdtree (the first time), but returned to the Lands Between (with Torrent) to finish the job.
I just had a weird thought, and pure speculation here but: 1) the Crucible is the "primordial form of the Erdtree" (source: Crucible Gauntlets) 'Primordial' immediately makes me think it's like ... a sapling, a younger Erdtree, which mean we were traveling in time. But what if, and this is where I go off the deep end Okay so in Māori mythology, bioluminescence is like ... the first draft of the stars and sun. People petitioned Papatūānuku, Goddess of the Heavens, for a light source because the world was entirely dark, and the first thing she came up with was the New Zealand glow worm (arachnocampa luminosa), and people rejected it because it didn't cast enough light, but she couldn't bring herself to destroy it so she just ... hid it away. In caves beneath the earth (where glow worms are found), and beneath the ocean (this is mostly likely referring to bioluminscent algae blooms). What if this is something similar? What if the Crucible was like ... a failed prototype of the Erdtree? A first draft. Does that make sense? And Marika couldn't bring herself to destroy it, so she hid it away behind a veil of shadow, so we're not moving in time but rather uncovering a hidden space. I feel like a lot of this trailer is pointing towards the idea that this is happening at the nexus of the divine towers, in the middle of the ocean, and I suddenly went back to that old myth I'd heard, that the first draft of the sun and stars lived deep beneath the ocean, and sometimes their glow would rise up through the water.
Along the same lines I think it's possible marika did try to destroy this world to try again but miquella may have stopped her from fully destroying it, meaning marika trapped miquella in this shadow land E: Unsure if this would be because marika wasn't able to kill miquella or simply didn't want to. I'm not really sure what the relationship between marika and miquella was like before.
The Elden Ring lore community is so elite. It's about the size of a true to form encyclopedia at this point. Quelaag, Smough, Hawkshaw, Tarnished Archaeologist, The Lore Hunter, Crunchy, Vaati, Ratatoskr, Ziostorm, Honored Madman, Miss Chalise, Square Table, and many others have and continue to add meaningful discussion on this game.
“I want more grand cloister.” Hidetaka Miyazaki-“no” “I want more Uhl Palace.” Hidetaka Miyazaki-No. Everyone-“Well then what do we get!” Hidetaka Miyazaki-“More questions.”
Not to be a party pooper, but at 12:08 you try to align places based upon how they line up with the drapes from above, however this only works if your FOV remains the same, and you look at the tree from the same location. As the drape comes down from a central pillar, were you to look at the tree from the opposite side, the alignment of the Baldachin drapes will be flipped, for example.
8:20 The fabric reminds me a lot of the concealing veils of the black knife assassins. After all, it is also able to conceal its wearer from the eyes of others. The allusion doesn't necessarily have to be to a specific or real baldachin. It can simply be representative of the fact that the Land of Shadow has been concealed and now lies in the shadows/dreams.
Not saying Tanith is 100% from the Land of Shadow, but Tanith is 100% from the Land of Shadow. What settles it for me is one point I haven't seen mentioned so far: Dancer Castanets. We know that she was a dancer from a foreign land when Rykard met her, a dancer that used castanets. Now, what type of dancer uses castanets? a flamenco dancer. What does the red dancer lady in the trailer look like? A god damn flamenco dancer.
When you're talking about the clock, I had a thought. You mentioned how it mirrors the real-world engraving representing eternity... My thought after you speculated that the still part could represent the Shadow Realm, was that maybe the spiral part in the very center could represent Farum Azula? The immovable flow of time in a storm, surrounded by the obscured and still Shadow Realm? IDK, just my crackpot theory! I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this!
In the Tarnished Archeologist's video on the DLC trailer they pointed out that the gigantic pipe in the lake of lava has a turbine engine in it and proposed that it was an archimedes screw moving magma. Looking at the image of this erdtree at the 18:06 mark where you're talking about the magma flowing through it and out into the "crucible" area made me put 2 and 2 together here that they're pumping magma using that turbine engine. WOW. Also, I've been thinking about the angle of the tree here. I went back through the main game and looked at the angle of the glowing erdtree to see which direction it's leaning, because it does have an angle. And I think that the first image where the tarnished is seeing that tree is actually from somewhere near the Bestial Sanctum of Caelid. Because that's about the same angle that the erdtree is leaning.
I love how the blue field and purple forest(?) area looks.I hope we will meet both the blue fairy who sealed away the god of rot and maybe Miquela's St Trina persona in these places, and most importantly I want neither to be corrupted but blessed areas
After brushing up on Celtic mythology, I'm convinced that Messmer is akin to Lugh and Miquella is akin to Bres the beautiful. Lugh's weapon was a firey spear and he was sometimes shown with a two headed snake wrapped around him. He was also known to wield fire. Bres was also called Eochu Bres or, :the beautiful horseman." Sometimes just called Eochaid. He was the beautiful son of of the one-eyed Balor and was the lord of the Formorians. He was made kind when Nuada was disqualified due to the loss of his hand. Bres was known to be a bad king who made their equivalent of Zeus dig ditches. Lugh was also know as, "Lugh of the Long Arm." Lugh was also half god and half giant and killed the Dagah, the, "Good God," who controlled life and death and was the father of druids. He also lead the fight vs the Formorians and killed the one-eyed lord of the Formorians, Balor, who was also his father. There is a little overlap and things don't match perfectly but there are some incredible similarities.
there is so much untapped celtic mythology that no one seems to cover in both Elden ring and the souls series so its nice to see someone realise the connections
Part of me wonders if we might be getting some Adam and Eve or Cain and Abel stuff with Messmer. Obviously he's giving original, cardinal sin: burning the Erdtree. And while I was very against the idea initially, I'm beginning to wonder if Melina is actually his twin. Or in some way tied to him. She mentions several times asking you to commit "a cardinal sin." And the Finger-Reader Crone at the base of the Grandlift of Rold asks when you give her your hands, "Who would put you up to [committing this cardinal sin]?" Melina lol But I'm wondering is Messmer, seduced by this "serpent" (either literal or figurative), burned his sister to set fire to the Great Tree. Which might inform us as to why Marika is so terrified of the Erdtree burning and what launches her campaign against the Fire Giants. She's seen this happen before. You've also pointed out that twins herein tend to represent dichotomies: maybe these two are piety vs. blasphemy, virtue vs. sin. I also think Melina has big phoenix energy. Through burning, she is reborn. Again and again, perhaps? I also wonder if they may actually be Marika's first-born twins. With Radagon. Born, killed/exiled even before Godfrey shows up. I also think that the tree we see in the Shadowlands is what the Erdtree really looks without Marika's illusion hiding it from the Lands Between. And I think that fact that it's still dripping sap despite the "age of abundance" coming to an end is very telling. Or, in other words, not only is the true appearance of the Erdtree being hidden from the lands between, but also its sap that Marika alone now has access to by being (presumably) the only one who knows how to access the Shadowlands.
Something I haven't seen people talk about yet is a potentially quite direct story parallel between Rykard and Messmer. Per Tarnished Archaeologist's interpretation, Rykard seems to have been initially appointed as a governor of Mount Gelmir and an inquisitor into the heretical practices of its population. However, he seems to have become enamored with the forbidden knowledge and power that he found there, and seduced into blasphemy by it. Likewise, knowing that Messmer is a son of Marika and seeing that he's sitting on a demigod's throne in the promo image, I think it's possible he was appointed to a similar, though not identical position in the Land of Shadow, before 'falling' to the influence of the many forbidden powers he seems to have embraced by the time we see him. I would like to lay out supporting evidence here, but unfortunately I don't have a lot; Messmer as a kind of Praetor of the Land of Shadow is mostly a vibe I got without a lot of evidentiary backing as yet. However, I do think the line "Those who are without the Grace of Gold shall meet death in the embrace of Messmer's flame" implies that Messmer is, or at least was, acting in the interests of the Golden Order. Edit: I've just realised the wording here implies that I think people haven't at all noticed the similarities between Rykard and Messmer, and that wasn't my intention. Of course lots of people have seen the clear parallels in design and background between the two, and have been discussing them since basically minute one; what I mean to say is that this specific comparison doesn't seem to have been made yet that I've seen.
Your discovery of the unmoving centre in the clock of the game and its symbolism is mindboggling for me! First off: I really like all the theories about the Lands of Shadow being veiled in the centre of the Lands Between, right underneath the canopy of the Erdtree and in the midst of the Divine Towers. I even assume that all the different areas we see in the trailer and their thematic connections to the areas of the main game come from them being the parts of these lands which were closest to those from the centre and/or broken away from them by the veil. However, as plausible as I think that is, there is someting that doesn't sit right with me and that is Farum Azula. We've got historical evidence of that great castle, floating in the sky, the Stormlord over Stormveil Castle, the rubble and ruin fragments, especially in Limgrave and on the Weeping Peninsula, and the Section in Farum Azula with the adorned Wormfaces, which looks like it was broken off the southern part of the Altus Plateau (right south of the First Church of Marika btw. which has this weirdly deformed Minor Erdtree I rarely see brought up in lore questions). I don't have to explain this, because you did a video about that exact topic^^ That Symbol, representing eternity, in the middle of the games clock kinda looks like a black tornado from the top to me - and Farum Azula rests within a Storm of black tornadoes, with the fight against Placidusax even being beyond time or in timelessness within that black tornado. It screams to me Farum Azula once being the centre of the Lands Between, just north of Stormveil castle and South of Leyndell. I suppose that the Lands Between today are widely bent out of shape, tectonically shifted and warped by the seismic event that hit Farum Azula and let Placidusax'es God being fled. It might have been a meterorite coming from the North - since Farum Azula seems to have crashed South over Limgrave and then shifted eastward in an Arc, eventually stopping at where we find it on the map today. The timeless centre of the clockwork had broken out of the frame and thus the lands shifted and warped outwards like our continents nowadays, being sprung from the supercontinent Pangaea. A Shattering before the Shattering? We have got this weird Bestial Sanctum at the eastmost tip of Caelid - and the fauna of Caelid and the Mountaintops (Ravens and Dogs) is quite similar, as if there once was a connection of these lands. I see people surmising that the area in midst of the Lands Between roughly fits Myazakis stated size of the LoS but what if that area has warped and changed since they were veiled? Since we don't know yet, when that might have happened, it's difficult to speculate (I mean, it always is :P) but for me who wants to believe both theories, it is double so difficult. The LoS might be in the centre of the LB and there might be a broken-off part even in them, where Farum Azula once could have been connected (we have got that city, in which the shadowed part makes freaky gravity- and Farum Azula-anomalies). Farum Azula might once have been hovering over a part of the LoS (maybe we find some big heaps of Ruin Fragments in the DLC?). Or maybe Farum Azula always was wandering, the LoS are somewhere entirely different or something else entirely. I love to speculate, theorize and throw it all away again once we actually see the stuff in the DLC. But so far, I don't want to forget the old, plausible discoveries the community made about Farum Azula and tectonic movements in the Lands Between, while new, juicy lore needs to find a place in the big framework. One last thing I found while writing this and I couldn't fit in this ramble: The Sun Realm Shield tells of a City crowned by the Sun, which was often speculated to be connected to Farum Azula, Leyndell, Castle Sol or an entirely forgotten civilization. It is only rarely dropped by Skeletons, also drawing some connections to Godwyn and Deathblight. Maybe we will find some reference to this Seat of the Sun in the Veiled Lands of Shadow...
Man 12 years? I've never heard of your channel before, damn, you are one of the OG's and just now i found you, better late than never, there is also a guy that i found who has a full 600 page sketch book about his experience playing elden ring, and he made a 40 minute video, that was also pretty cool.
Imagine if at the end of the DLC the veil is lifted and literally all of the Land of Shadows is slotted into the base game map. That would be absolutely wild.
One thing I was wondering, that's oddly specific, is the weird lack of standalone Green (not green-blue) in Elden Ring as it relates to Outer gods and magic. What green is present usually comes in two flavors, stamina green and poison green. Also, it mostly plays second fiddle to Scarlet Rot.
30:34 the shading of the top of the tree reminds me of the Duskborn ending hue. I haven’t seen them side by side, but it is maybe the closest Godwyn reference I’ve seen in the DLC promo material.
I believe something will occur regarding Godwyn. We know that one of the most recent/longlasting projects of Miquella is Castle Sol and the Mausoleum’s. This is an active goal he is STILL currently trying to achieve. Miyazaki confirmed that Radahn is mandatory for the dlc (Famitsu, 2023), and this would link back to our age-old theories that Miquella sent malenia to kill Radahn to alter his fate and resume the movement of the stars - for an eclipse. The shadowlands are particularly representing a sort of Hell, Dumping grounds. it is being veiled and obscured, not out of our reality. Perhaps there are some secrets regarding Godwyns death Marika is trying to remain hidden and that is what Miquella is there for. After all, The Land of Shadow seems to represent Marika’s ‘Dumping Grounds’, but also a shadow. My crackpot theory is that the shadowlands are the hidden psyche of the human mind… the part that does not want to be revealed… I’ve always theorised that the Gloam Queen is Marika’s shadow half - the part she defeated to hide her TRUE self from the world. I think Messmer himself is a shadow bound to the realm of shadow, meaning he’s probably a direct antithetical to a character in the main game (perhaps Godwyn???), but he’s also a canon child of Marika. He’s a shadow like the Gloam Queen, but he is also a legitimate Demigod - instead born into the world of dark Again, Godwyns absence in the trailer is REALLY is his presence. Miyazaki deffo doesn’t wanna reveal the secrets of the second half of dlc, and im still of the belief that the Shadowtree is being strangled by the Deathroot of Godwyn
@@HeevaEgo I’m with you in that it would be very strange to not see or experience Godwyn content in the DLC, given Miquella’s goals in the base game. It will be really interesting to see how. But I do think the Eclipse will be important somehow, since one of the criteria to enter the DLC is to have completed Radahn.
@@HeevaEgo I used to originally think Messmer was a Shadow- bound to an Emyrean, lost in the lands, used as the sympathetic link to come and go…but as more info came out and we know about the intended messaging about his throne, I’m in the camp that believes Messmer is the first born of Marika. And yes, that means Radagon would have been merged with her for a lot longer than is comfortable. But Messmer -for reasons to be revealed - stays behind to be praetor over Marika’s secrets.
like most people I kinda fell into a couple rabbit holes after the trailer dropped. One of them led me to a Celtic legend/story about the Red Branch and a celtic hero named cu chulainn. Apparently this guy was given a "spear of mortal pain/death"(called the Gae bulg) from a woman warrior from "the land of shadow". It is all probably just a coincidence but it definitely caught my attention while Messmer is on the mind.
This has to be the most interesting Elden Ring dlc video I have ever seen… probably the best Elden Ring lore video I have seen. Your videos are on another level. I wish I could subscribe and like more than once.
Theory: Surrounding the DLC there seems to be a lot of delevation and ocean related lore (cliffs, center of the map, ships) maybe the dlc takes place where the water level that flooded the center of the map recedes.
Not to beat an old horse, but marais is french for swamp. So yeah, they rule over an actual swamp. But if they come from elsewhere they could also have created the swamp in the image of their homeland! I speculate they were installed as a buffer state between the houses of Leyndell and Gelmir in the shattering war
Well, this video sure made me sub to your channel. It's like every clue i thought i noticed in the trailer has been connected with dots already, and expanded thrice-fold. Wonderful work!
If Tanith is from the Shadowed Lands and Rykard met her there, it could fill in a lot of gaps of why he decided to turn to "blasphemy" to begin with. If he really did go to the Shadowed Lands, I think whatever he discovered there led him to his belief that the gods deserved be destroyed. Maybe he even talked with Messmer. There seems to be some sort of link between Rykard, Eiglay, the Godskins, and serpents in general so I also wonder if Messmer has some connection to or knowledge of the Gloam-Eyed Queen. If the Shadowed Lands was sealed away before the demonization of the Crucible era, it may be from before Death was sealed away as well. Many things to ponder.
Oooh, the Depraved Perfumer Tabard bit is such a great catch~! And, yea, it does look like a lot of Volcano Manor/Mt Gelmir is just following in Messmer's footsteps - definitely agree on him at least being Godfrey era if not earlier
you were right about the dlc fitting between the towers, the map is literally a perfect fit, both godwyn corpses are in exactly the same place as well !
new interview with miazaki confirmed that elden ring base game still has secrets to uncover... quote: Director Hidetaka Miyazaki confirmed as much, noting that while the majority of Elden Ring's secrets have been found, there's at least one that's eluded the player base. source: screenrant and ign so far
At 16:05 you mention the temple of liurnia. If we simply make the DLC map mirror vertically (meaning that the player orientation is upside down to the base game map). Your theory is 100% working on the placement. Instead of going to another time of the lore, I think we are just landing in a place where there's no time.
8:57 I think that is right on the money honestly, giant Evergaol to seal the forgotten war away. I do think the divine towers have something to do with this. And the reason the erd tree looks transparent even. Melina is somehow related to the tree and thats why she doesnt want the frenzy flame to burn it all away. The real tree is in the evergoal, Messmer may want to rule the lands between himself, and marika sealed him away possibly? Melina is a spirit of some kind, maybe from the evergoal. Maybe the flame of frenzy is actually Messmers influnence breaking the evergoal somehow? i also wonder if we will see the lost black moon of nokstella in this DLC as well. The other day the moon in castle sol dissapeared in my game. wish i had it recording but it got me thinking. What if the shadow lands in the dlc will have something to do with the moon activating this giant evergoal from the divine towers. i mean we have to beat both Radahn and Mohg right? if not the black moon of nokstella then maybe one of the other 2 moons in the game? Castle Sol, there is an eclipse that was supposed to happen but never did. maybe it will now in the DLC due to defeating Radahn and allowing access to the DLC. And the connection to Mt Gelmir makes a lot of sense, "The Great Serpent". Messmer also has serpents. So i wonder if Messmer is "The Great Serpent". And since being sealed, Messmer himself faded into obscurity but like how history and ancient history is like a game of telephone, messmers tale was twisted over the years. So whats fact and whats fiction. Im a bit of a crack pot theorist myself lmao after learning shintoism and how zelda tears of the kingdom and even kingdom hearts adapts alchemy from real life history along with cosmology/ astrophysics, and how even final fantasy 7 life stream, kingdom hearts giant moon shaped heart and the erd tree are all the same concept as inspiration, The Anima Mundi, its almost like a strategy guide or hint book to help guide us with the lore the developers put into the game for us to solve. Those are a lot of hours i went into a rabbit hole learning about real life alchemy, cosmology, astrophysics, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism etc Kingdom Hearts, Yin Yang, Light and Dark. In the deepist pit of Darkness is Light. what if that light is evil. Final Fantasy Versus 13/14/KH4 Shows that to an extent, so heres whats im getting at. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" -William Shakespear Messmer is the Light in the ShadowLands. that light is every where in the shadow lands. so hed leak over into the realm of light barley as a darkness. burning everying to ash sure sounds like that, and the fingerprint grape, Vykes eye, whose also on the cover and was the closest to becoming elden lord, the item description reads "Seared with a repulsive fingerprint burn akin to those that marred his entire body. If offered to the blind maiden, it will lead her to the source of the distant light, allowing her to become a Finger Maiden." light in the darkness. Messmer. and this was on the podcast with rataosker i heard that i commented on and ill put my comment here too "About the Mimic Tear and the fact its a copy of us but its its own person. Or own copy with a will of its own. Reminds me of the No bodies in Kingdom Hearts lore. Yes it takes the same inspirations as Elden Ring as well. Same with Final Fantasy and Persona. Naruto too! And yes it goes a lot deeper. Even down to the cosmic connections. Roxas and Sora are basically like Marika and Radagon in that aspect if he is a mimic tear. The cut quest reminds me so much of Sora and Roxas being from the same heart yet seperate souls, wills."
I've been thinking about where the land of Shadows would be if they were in the Lands Between physically and based on walking around the map a bit. I'm kinda of the idea that is close to the Forbidden Lands. The Forbidden Lands has an unnatural shadow to it, the shape of the land there is also not natural. In the trailer there is the shot of the player using the throwing knives on a dark spirit. The dark fog a bit beyond the spirit reminds me of that unyeilding darkness of the Forbidden Lands, a place right next to the Erdtree but you pretty much can't see it. There is also the matter of considering why those lands are marked as forbidden. Some have suggested it is forbidden because it leads to the Mountain Top of the Giants to which I countered then shouldn't the Mountain tops be called "The Forbidden Mountain Top"
Glad I was able to found your channel .This video is great. I'm a huge Elden Ring fan and this is the best breakdown of the trailer I've watched so far. Keep up the great work.
Since Miyazaki took the money I had down on Messmer being Miquella Alter with those interviews, my brain has been working overtime trying to figure out what his deal is. He's a weird mish-mash of different iconography from a bunch of things considered anathema to the Erdtree. If we take that at face value. I don't have any solid proof, and this is crazy, tin-foil hat speculation, but I just have this feeling that Messmer is in some way a victim of his mother's penchant for manipulation. Imagine for a sec. The war is over. The Golden Order won, but there are still hold outs of resistance spread across The Lands Between. Rooting them out is proving difficult, so Marika comes up with a plan. Through some method of manipulation, she pisses off her son, Messmer, and he turns against her, gathering all the forces still opposed to the Erdtree to strike back at her. Then, when the majority of the remaining forces converge under Messmer 's banner, she basically X-Zones the entire landmass they gathered on into the Ream of Shadow. tl:dr: Marika used her own son as bait to lure out and banish her opposition. Maybe that is why snakes are symbolic of traitors. Like I said, super speculative, but makes for a fun thought, yeah?
Regarding the idea of The Crucible being central to the dlc, there's the Miyazaki quote about the Shadow Realm's "different culture" that's older than the Golden Order & what the lion dance character is derived from.
The land of shadow is like the Bermuda triangle where ships go missing. You have a starting player character tarnished with a mariner background you could create a narrative around related with the land of shadow.
I haven’t finished the video yet so forgive me if this gets brought up, but do you think the Numen are from the land of shadow? Queen Marika is Numen, and this saying she first stepped foot in the land of shadow. All of the black knife assassins were Numen, and their concealing cloaks seem very similar to the concealing fabric over the land of shadow. I’m really starting to think that the land of shadow is the home of the Numen.
I can't properly convey why I can relate and how I enjoy this in the way I'd wish to say, but the thought process speaks to the me I try not to be and I love it.
I might be going insane but does Fort Laidd have any connection to Messmer? It was a fort owned by Rykard's and protected by his Lendyll knights, but it was raided by the fire monks seemingly in search of something. With Messmer connection to both snakes and a flame, a fort with a connection to rykard and fire giants seems somehow connected. I might be making shit up.
10:00 That ֍ spiral symbol ֎ is the Armenian eternity sign (you can look it up on Wikipedia if you're curious). It's an old Pagan symbol that survived our conversion to Christianity and is still persists in Armenian Christian iconography today. They also used Armenian names in AC6: Father Dolmayan and his AC, Astghik (translates roughly into "star", an important figure in the Armenian Pagan pantheon). Since Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as state religion, From might be using those symbols or names to signify religious shifts, or show remnants of the old religion persisting in the new one. It's amazing how the From team draws inspiration from so many traditions and mixes them up so well. Their attention to detail is incredible.
I know the pink/purple butterflies from that one new spell in the trailer has been speculated on with butterfly theory as "new butterflies", but I don't think ive seen anyone acknowledge that those butterflies aren't new. They can't be acquired like the nascent or smoldering butterflies, but in a chamber on your way to Melania's boss room, you can find those purple/pink butterflies. It's in the rot waterfall room with the Ulcerated Tree Spirit, right after the hallway with the crystalians. I presume then they have some connection with Melania or Miquella.
Perhaps they represent St. Trina? Or, with how the butterflies appear to be away from the rot waterfall, maybe they're butterflies before they were changed in some way by rot? And these butterflies are the last of their kind. I haven't been able to find them anywhere else.
An inconsistent upload schedule indicates that a person has priorities and lives a busy life. So excited for this dlc and your videos are always super insightful and fun
The Depraved Perfumer Tabard also resembles Mercury/Hermes Caduceus staff, which is also the medial symbol used today. But these snakes are wrapped around the Erdtree.
Currently, you and SmoughTown are my two favorite Souls lore-tubers. Because your longform format is great for putting on some headphones and listening to you in the background while Im playing a game.
I vaguely remember seeing a video a while ago (I think it was one of Zullie's) that pointed out a rock formation in Mt. Gelmir that looks like a burnt down Erdtree. You can see it from the full-grown fallingstar beast arena looking north. Maybe it was burned by Messmer, making another connection to the Volcano Manor. The existence of this tree would also enhance the Parallels between Nidhogg as Eiglay would be beneath it rather than be faraway from the Erdtree in Leyndell.
@@lucasgraeff5391 It is far larger than any minor erdtree, you can see the difference looking down east of the arena. If you're suggesting that it is a minor Erdtree that grew much larger than rest that could be a possibility.
Fantastic work Quelaag! Love the way you approach and connect every hidden detail!Also for historical reference: Vlad the impaler is probably the foundation for Messmer. Not even do they share the same title (the impaler), Vlad was also part of the order of the dragon and was called dragon or devil (dracula). this one also goes hand in hand with the dragon communion theory of his eye. The small wings on his snake also remind me of bat wings instead of dragon wings. The list goes on and on (shadow realm, paleness, castle on the left rising to the sky) but I agree, we might have to wait until June haha. Keep up the good work🙏🏼
I left this same comment on Ratatoskr's latest video. But I find it relevant to this video as well. In terms of appearance, Messmer the Implaer looks a lot like Elric of Melniboné. They have similar dragon helmets, their clothes are similar, and the blade of the sword-spear that Messmer wields it has a black blade like Elric's sword Stormbringer. Elric is heavily associated with dragons (and may or may not be descended from dragons), and while Messmer has snakes coiled around him, he does have dragon wings on both his weapon and helmet. Also, both dragons and snakes are described as serpents, which are used interchangeably with each other in the Bible. And let's also look at the "Impaler" part of Messmer's name. Obviously, this is in reference to Vlad the Impaler, or what he is more famously known as Dracula. Dracula when translated into English means "Son of the Dragon". So, Messmer has a lot of associations with dragons, he even has eyes like a dragon. Fun Facts: George R.R. Martin used both Elric and the culture of Melnibonéans as the inspiration for House Targaryen. There even was a reference to Stormbringer in the show. In season 4, episode 2 Joffrey asks the crowd what he should name his new sword, and someone cries out "STORMBRINGER"
Also anyone notice the "sword" coming out of dudes head is actually a branch of the erd tree? Or looks like one at least. There's a statue of a very similar character outside Godfreys throne room in Stormveil of a baldish man holding a branch of the erd tree.
At 23:50 when she's discussing the perfumer tabard, she focuses on the dual snakes (which obviously is incredibly important and a clear pointing towards Messmer) but I felt like she didn't notice (or at least didn't mention) how the silvery, almost melted candle that the snakes entwine also appears to be reminiscent of Messmer's spear! It's so fascinating how Messmer seems to have collected aspects from so many different factions in this world and yet is still focused on what every tarnished is journeying to do: become the elden lord. Miquella, on the other hand, instead leaves remnants and signs of himself (or herself when mentioning St. Trina) wherever he journeys that the people he interacts with cling to. Miquella does not want to become elden lord, but rather to create something entirely new. A new age that extinguishes the Golden Order, which could be amazing...or since it's Fromsoftware he'll probably surprise us with something even worse than what's already been going on 🤣
I'm curious, have any of the lore youtubers ever brought up the fields of flowers that are present throughout the game and what the color of flowers in each field might suggest? So for example, in the battlefield outside of leyndell, there are fields of red flowers growing out of the ground where the remains of soldiers who fought that battle died, and patches of white flowers around spots that were hit with the ballista and trebuchets.
I just found you and I love how you do your videos. The rambling is really calming. I wont be able to play the dlc so I’m excited to hear you talk about it.
All these years of hearing credits to you and your work from other creators across multiple FromSoft games and a video of yours finally appears in my recommended section. It’s good to finally match a name to a face.
its also probably worth mentioning how the tendrils of the sun on the wickerman are essentially like horns (omen horns maybe). the sun of the dungeater is more flower pedal like tho
Seems like rather a lot of this speculation is based on assuming the shadow tree is North in the screenshots. Maybe it is, but it could as easily be in any other direction. We enter from Mohg’s palace. Why not northwest? Ofc, we don’t know how we shift from one place to the other, how far we move and in what direction. Could be we start still underground but in a new cavern and gradually make our way to the surface… yeah, that tree could be in any direction
OK... I forgot how much I appreciate the way you present/break things down... I'd noticed the Hexagram shape the towers make. 100% the DLC is in that space... I need to catch up with your ER theories. Seeing this pop up on my feed has made me want to look into what AGermanSpy and EpicMarcusBro are up to. Respect the OGs
I swear, Miro is such a good app for making fantheories of the most absolute crazy shit. Thank you for showing me The Way (I just made in two hours a whole diagram with images and in depth descriptions of a Good Omens theory that I had floating in my mind. WITH A WHOLE TIMELINE.).
around 10:00 That central symbol was also used at least partially in DS2 for the Pilgrims of Dark covenant. Duno if related but DS2 shows up yet again.
The pale rider in the trailer reminds me so much of a Kelpie which is a Celtic water horse creature. It's design is reminiscint to how they appear in the SMT series and they are known to lure children and then the children get "stuck" to them. Which makes sense in the way that the rider is almost fused to it.
@Queelaag Did you notice there is a change in the Shadow Tree from leaking sap at the start of the DLC trailer and at the end when Miquela unviels the sap no longer leaks and the canopy looks grey somewhat similar to the Erdtree in the Age of Duskborn.
Of many things you said, I tend to lean towards The Tarnished Archaeologist's view. The crucible is what happened when Marika cut down the OG great tree and selected the sprout that would become the Erdtree. The golems and divine towers are remnants of the first civilisation of meteor worshiping giants. And the big empty space on the map is the crater those giants worshipped (and built the divine towers around). Have you seen his content? Pretty good. Reminds me of Vaati back in his early days
Presuming that the sky-drapes envelop all of the Land of Shadow, then your orientation would determine which direction the drapes are falling in the skybox, right? I'm assuming if we turn 180° away from the mangled Erdtree, we would see sky-drapes there as well. It makes sense that they'd be covering the whole area. With that in mind, I don't think it's effective to use the draping when speculating on where areas in the trailer are located. Your architecture and context clues seem more reliable to me.
14:08 if we assume that the structures in the blue field area are boats then wouldn't it make more sense if the area was to the right ? If the land of shadows is the "missing" center piece of the lands between and this area was to the left the boats would be next to liurna which seems a bit weird..
Hey i thought of something today. Maybe sacrificing one eye/eyesight like Ranni or Melina, is the price the Gloam Eyed Queen demands for knowledge on the Rune of Death. Who are the two characters with knowledge and even know the location of the Rune? Not sure if messmer has 2 eyes or not but something to think about.
![The Elden Ring Map Keeps Me Up At Night [Ramble]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NL296BVG2QA/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Elden Ring Map Keeps Me Up At Night [Ramble]](/img/tr.png)
Legend has it that you can zoom in on any point of one of Quelaag's charts forever and still keep finding new information. Like a fractal made of lore.
“Thank you so much for supporting me for all these years, and sticking around to hear me scream.” You are like a cicada of knowledge, and we are here to hang out and listen when the time is right! Thank you for the lore drops!
Oh my god! Yes! This is perfect 😂
The weirdest yet most accurate compliment I have ever heard.
I'm a big heraldry nerd, and one thing I haven't seen many people talk about is the symbol on Messmer's cape. It's a classical heraldic practice called impalement. The heraldry is split in half (impaled) with a solid line and on either side is the heraldic device of two different houses, typically used to symbolize a union through marriage. Generally this would be done if both parties were of families with enough prestige to warrant equal billing, but due to the time period typically meant that it was used when the female member of the union was politically powerful or relevant enough to not be able to keep off the heraldry. On the left side of Messmer's heraldry we see what looks similar but different to both the Dragon Communion symbol and the Frenzied Flame symbol, and then on the other side we see the braided helix that is related directly to the Crucible. The left half of a heraldry (the dexter side) represents the Husband, and the right (the sinister side) the Wife's... or rather her Father's because again women in ye olde Europe. Fire McDragon-eyes is representing himself with the Flame/Dragon Communion symbol and his heraldry is showing a union between him and whoever he married who is represented by, or whose father is represented by, the braids of the crucible. These braids are all over specifically the Lion Dancer as well, making me think that whatever Messmer's betrayal was involved his union to whoever was in charge of this Omen/Grafting society of the Land of Shadows. In my opinion, probably the Gloam Eyed Queen.
Very interesting! Associations: braids/ fire/crucible = fire giant, melina( who possibly is connected to the gloam eyed queen), mountain tops. What if Melina can not be our maiden, because the heraldic depiction of marriage refers to her? What if this was the reason Marika went to war on mountaintops of the giants?
Oh, interesting! But a tiny correction: sinister is left while dexter is right. I don't think it changes anything, but I thought I'd let you know just in case :)
@@BigBadWolframio In latin that's correct, but in heraldry the "right/dexter" side of the shield is on the left from our point of view, because that's the side on the shield-bearer's right. Kinda like "stage left" being on the right, from the audience's point of view.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_and_sinister
@@fccg65 Oooh, gotcha. Good to know!
I've been feeling for almost a year now that one of the biggest keys/themes to Elden Ring's lore is a ruler's capability to decide history. To actually wipe or mostly hide things, to cover up secrets and have the narrative conflict with things we find.
Marika's will is one of the most convoluted things about the timeline and cause and effect for most of the central events in the story, and it's just a black hole of non confirmation.
But we hear in multiple places about the defeat of th giants and their god, but see their descendents and even fight the last one who has full command of the Fell God's power.
Godfrey is "First" Elden Lord but only after burning her Erdtree do we see the realm of previous gods and Elden Lords.
I think a lot of the gaps and contradictions we find everywhere in the lore is the result of Marika's manipulation of history and the truth.
As DLCs usually double down on important aspects, Marika has hidden a child and an entire section of world completely separated from everyone. What is the extent of her powers to hide? How much of what we know is simply what she wants us to know?
A few more goodies:
The Rotted Duelists (not the regular ones) out in snowfields summon an actual snake when they do a grab attack on you.
The serpent bow has the double snake motif and refers to a group of assassins called the formless serpents (which get named checked on the serpent arrows) - you find these in the abandoned cave with all the busted iron virgins.
The taker's cameo also has the double snake motif right next to Rykard's face.
The inquisitor's Girandole might just have a double snake on the shaft of the spear (weak) but the text is *rather evocative* in context of messmer and you get it from the abductor virgin duo fight.
... lastly - it's worth looking closely at the "O' in the Shadow of the Erdtree title.
Oh damn even the "O" is an ouroboros
omg i noticed the o immediately as well, this is gonna be so good
Also, the tapestry behind Rykard's throne in Volcano Manor depicts the caduceus symbol with the double snake. It's something very easy to miss because it's partially hidden by the throne.
@@grimerlin i mean who else but rykard tbh
Yes! I made a video on the DLC announcement image and talked about the O awhile back 😊
Melina tells us that she was born "at the foot of the Erdtree," and if we look at this from a map perspective, the bottom or "foot" of the Erdtree icon on the map places it inside the shadow realm (if this empty geometric middle is in fact the DLC area). So maybe Melina was born there (Messmer's daughter??), was burned in Messmer's flame for some reason (why she's burned/bodiless), and this is why she has Torrent (met Miquella there and was sent to find us?)
More like she's the Gloam-Eyed Queen's daughter. When you visit the shaded castle, there's 4 statues repeated everywhere. And shown very prominently in the boss area: The old woman, the young man, the young woman, and the child. I think Vaati already mentioned the old woman as the Gloam-Eyed Queen. But I think the 3 others have to be Messmer, Melina and St. Trinia (Miquella). That explains which alliance Melina had and where she came from with Torrent (the Shadow of the Erdtree realm). Melina died when she tried to burn the Erdtree (the first time), but returned to the Lands Between (with Torrent) to finish the job.
@@Terovi Very cool theory! 👌
I just had a weird thought, and pure speculation here but:
1) the Crucible is the "primordial form of the Erdtree" (source: Crucible Gauntlets)
'Primordial' immediately makes me think it's like ... a sapling, a younger Erdtree, which mean we were traveling in time. But what if, and this is where I go off the deep end
Okay so in Māori mythology, bioluminescence is like ... the first draft of the stars and sun. People petitioned Papatūānuku, Goddess of the Heavens, for a light source because the world was entirely dark, and the first thing she came up with was the New Zealand glow worm (arachnocampa luminosa), and people rejected it because it didn't cast enough light, but she couldn't bring herself to destroy it so she just ... hid it away. In caves beneath the earth (where glow worms are found), and beneath the ocean (this is mostly likely referring to bioluminscent algae blooms).
What if this is something similar? What if the Crucible was like ... a failed prototype of the Erdtree? A first draft. Does that make sense? And Marika couldn't bring herself to destroy it, so she hid it away behind a veil of shadow, so we're not moving in time but rather uncovering a hidden space. I feel like a lot of this trailer is pointing towards the idea that this is happening at the nexus of the divine towers, in the middle of the ocean, and I suddenly went back to that old myth I'd heard, that the first draft of the sun and stars lived deep beneath the ocean, and sometimes their glow would rise up through the water.
I hadn't thought about it like that I like this theory a lot 👍🏻
Along the same lines I think it's possible marika did try to destroy this world to try again but miquella may have stopped her from fully destroying it, meaning marika trapped miquella in this shadow land
E: Unsure if this would be because marika wasn't able to kill miquella or simply didn't want to. I'm not really sure what the relationship between marika and miquella was like before.
@@jeggarty I don't think that's true at all, but I do love schizo lore speculation
Tarnished archeology notes that a crucible is also a name for a stump with sprouts on it
@@Solare1 tbh same
I got so many snacks ready dudes. Like bby carrots and shit too.
Got hummus?
The Elden Ring lore community is so elite. It's about the size of a true to form encyclopedia at this point. Quelaag, Smough, Hawkshaw, Tarnished Archaeologist, The Lore Hunter, Crunchy, Vaati, Ratatoskr, Ziostorm, Honored Madman, Miss Chalise, Square Table, and many others have and continue to add meaningful discussion on this game.
she's the Elden Queen
I see that you're a fan of The Black Queen.
Bow down
I think she might be older than 17
Based
she's been slangin dope lore vids for 12yrs bruh@@CyrodiilCome
“I want more grand cloister.”
Hidetaka Miyazaki-“no”
“I want more Uhl Palace.”
Hidetaka Miyazaki-No.
Everyone-“Well then what do we get!”
Hidetaka Miyazaki-“More questions.”
Not to be a party pooper, but at 12:08 you try to align places based upon how they line up with the drapes from above, however this only works if your FOV remains the same, and you look at the tree from the same location.
As the drape comes down from a central pillar, were you to look at the tree from the opposite side, the alignment of the Baldachin drapes will be flipped, for example.
Yeah my bf was just explaining this
I get so excited when Quelaag pulls out the unhinged “Pepe Silvia” info charts lmao. Gets me HYPED every time!
8:20 The fabric reminds me a lot of the concealing veils of the black knife assassins. After all, it is also able to conceal its wearer from the eyes of others.
The allusion doesn't necessarily have to be to a specific or real baldachin. It can simply be representative of the fact that the Land of Shadow has been concealed and now lies in the shadows/dreams.
That’s a really cool thought. I’d love the idea of the veils that the BKA’s used also used to conceal this realm.
Don’t know why but this video makes me really want either a memoir or biography on Miyazaki.
Not saying Tanith is 100% from the Land of Shadow, but Tanith is 100% from the Land of Shadow. What settles it for me is one point I haven't seen mentioned so far: Dancer Castanets. We know that she was a dancer from a foreign land when Rykard met her, a dancer that used castanets. Now, what type of dancer uses castanets? a flamenco dancer. What does the red dancer lady in the trailer look like? A god damn flamenco dancer.
When you're talking about the clock, I had a thought. You mentioned how it mirrors the real-world engraving representing eternity... My thought after you speculated that the still part could represent the Shadow Realm, was that maybe the spiral part in the very center could represent Farum Azula? The immovable flow of time in a storm, surrounded by the obscured and still Shadow Realm?
IDK, just my crackpot theory! I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on this!
In the Tarnished Archeologist's video on the DLC trailer they pointed out that the gigantic pipe in the lake of lava has a turbine engine in it and proposed that it was an archimedes screw moving magma. Looking at the image of this erdtree at the 18:06 mark where you're talking about the magma flowing through it and out into the "crucible" area made me put 2 and 2 together here that they're pumping magma using that turbine engine. WOW. Also, I've been thinking about the angle of the tree here. I went back through the main game and looked at the angle of the glowing erdtree to see which direction it's leaning, because it does have an angle. And I think that the first image where the tarnished is seeing that tree is actually from somewhere near the Bestial Sanctum of Caelid. Because that's about the same angle that the erdtree is leaning.
@zade8586 i believe the lava would have been used to heat the crucible?
TA is a lore heavyweight. His historical knowledge is bananas. Would love to see him collab with Vaati, Quelaag, and Zullie.
@@bigmeatswangin5837”lore heavyweight” is a great description
My sleep schedule will never be fixed. Now’s the Time for elden ring dlc lore
me fr rn
Just pray for saint Trina's blessing.
I finally get my sleep schedule sorted out and then this happens. From did it on purpose! Back to the 4hr naps cycle 😅
I love how the blue field and purple forest(?) area looks.I hope we will meet both the blue fairy who sealed away the god of rot and maybe Miquela's St Trina persona in these places, and most importantly I want neither to be corrupted but blessed areas
After brushing up on Celtic mythology, I'm convinced that Messmer is akin to Lugh and Miquella is akin to Bres the beautiful. Lugh's weapon was a firey spear and he was sometimes shown with a two headed snake wrapped around him. He was also known to wield fire.
Bres was also called Eochu Bres or, :the beautiful horseman." Sometimes just called Eochaid. He was the beautiful son of of the one-eyed Balor and was the lord of the Formorians. He was made kind when Nuada was disqualified due to the loss of his hand. Bres was known to be a bad king who made their equivalent of Zeus dig ditches.
Lugh was also know as, "Lugh of the Long Arm."
Lugh was also half god and half giant and killed the Dagah, the, "Good God," who controlled life and death and was the father of druids.
He also lead the fight vs the Formorians and killed the one-eyed lord of the Formorians, Balor, who was also his father.
There is a little overlap and things don't match perfectly but there are some incredible similarities.
People keep sleeping on the Eclipse. It's the whole focus of the DLC. It's Miquella's chief concern and why else would Radahn need to die?
Good point
I just discovered your channel and I'm SO glad I did! LOVE THESE LONG-FORM VIDEOS!!!!
there is so much untapped celtic mythology that no one seems to cover in both Elden ring and the souls series so its nice to see someone realise the connections
Part of me wonders if we might be getting some Adam and Eve or Cain and Abel stuff with Messmer. Obviously he's giving original, cardinal sin: burning the Erdtree. And while I was very against the idea initially, I'm beginning to wonder if Melina is actually his twin. Or in some way tied to him. She mentions several times asking you to commit "a cardinal sin." And the Finger-Reader Crone at the base of the Grandlift of Rold asks when you give her your hands, "Who would put you up to [committing this cardinal sin]?"
Melina lol
But I'm wondering is Messmer, seduced by this "serpent" (either literal or figurative), burned his sister to set fire to the Great Tree.
Which might inform us as to why Marika is so terrified of the Erdtree burning and what launches her campaign against the Fire Giants. She's seen this happen before.
You've also pointed out that twins herein tend to represent dichotomies: maybe these two are piety vs. blasphemy, virtue vs. sin.
I also think Melina has big phoenix energy. Through burning, she is reborn. Again and again, perhaps?
I also wonder if they may actually be Marika's first-born twins. With Radagon. Born, killed/exiled even before Godfrey shows up.
I also think that the tree we see in the Shadowlands is what the Erdtree really looks without Marika's illusion hiding it from the Lands Between. And I think that fact that it's still dripping sap despite the "age of abundance" coming to an end is very telling. Or, in other words, not only is the true appearance of the Erdtree being hidden from the lands between, but also its sap that Marika alone now has access to by being (presumably) the only one who knows how to access the Shadowlands.
Something I haven't seen people talk about yet is a potentially quite direct story parallel between Rykard and Messmer.
Per Tarnished Archaeologist's interpretation, Rykard seems to have been initially appointed as a governor of Mount Gelmir and an inquisitor into the heretical practices of its population. However, he seems to have become enamored with the forbidden knowledge and power that he found there, and seduced into blasphemy by it.
Likewise, knowing that Messmer is a son of Marika and seeing that he's sitting on a demigod's throne in the promo image, I think it's possible he was appointed to a similar, though not identical position in the Land of Shadow, before 'falling' to the influence of the many forbidden powers he seems to have embraced by the time we see him.
I would like to lay out supporting evidence here, but unfortunately I don't have a lot; Messmer as a kind of Praetor of the Land of Shadow is mostly a vibe I got without a lot of evidentiary backing as yet. However, I do think the line "Those who are without the Grace of Gold shall meet death in the embrace of Messmer's flame" implies that Messmer is, or at least was, acting in the interests of the Golden Order.
Edit: I've just realised the wording here implies that I think people haven't at all noticed the similarities between Rykard and Messmer, and that wasn't my intention. Of course lots of people have seen the clear parallels in design and background between the two, and have been discussing them since basically minute one; what I mean to say is that this specific comparison doesn't seem to have been made yet that I've seen.
Your discovery of the unmoving centre in the clock of the game and its symbolism is mindboggling for me!
First off: I really like all the theories about the Lands of Shadow being veiled in the centre of the Lands Between, right underneath the canopy of the Erdtree and in the midst of the Divine Towers. I even assume that all the different areas we see in the trailer and their thematic connections to the areas of the main game come from them being the parts of these lands which were closest to those from the centre and/or broken away from them by the veil. However, as plausible as I think that is, there is someting that doesn't sit right with me and that is Farum Azula.
We've got historical evidence of that great castle, floating in the sky, the Stormlord over Stormveil Castle, the rubble and ruin fragments, especially in Limgrave and on the Weeping Peninsula, and the Section in Farum Azula with the adorned Wormfaces, which looks like it was broken off the southern part of the Altus Plateau (right south of the First Church of Marika btw. which has this weirdly deformed Minor Erdtree I rarely see brought up in lore questions). I don't have to explain this, because you did a video about that exact topic^^
That Symbol, representing eternity, in the middle of the games clock kinda looks like a black tornado from the top to me - and Farum Azula rests within a Storm of black tornadoes, with the fight against Placidusax even being beyond time or in timelessness within that black tornado. It screams to me Farum Azula once being the centre of the Lands Between, just north of Stormveil castle and South of Leyndell.
I suppose that the Lands Between today are widely bent out of shape, tectonically shifted and warped by the seismic event that hit Farum Azula and let Placidusax'es God being fled. It might have been a meterorite coming from the North - since Farum Azula seems to have crashed South over Limgrave and then shifted eastward in an Arc, eventually stopping at where we find it on the map today. The timeless centre of the clockwork had broken out of the frame and thus the lands shifted and warped outwards like our continents nowadays, being sprung from the supercontinent Pangaea. A Shattering before the Shattering? We have got this weird Bestial Sanctum at the eastmost tip of Caelid - and the fauna of Caelid and the Mountaintops (Ravens and Dogs) is quite similar, as if there once was a connection of these lands.
I see people surmising that the area in midst of the Lands Between roughly fits Myazakis stated size of the LoS but what if that area has warped and changed since they were veiled? Since we don't know yet, when that might have happened, it's difficult to speculate (I mean, it always is :P) but for me who wants to believe both theories, it is double so difficult. The LoS might be in the centre of the LB and there might be a broken-off part even in them, where Farum Azula once could have been connected (we have got that city, in which the shadowed part makes freaky gravity- and Farum Azula-anomalies). Farum Azula might once have been hovering over a part of the LoS (maybe we find some big heaps of Ruin Fragments in the DLC?). Or maybe Farum Azula always was wandering, the LoS are somewhere entirely different or something else entirely. I love to speculate, theorize and throw it all away again once we actually see the stuff in the DLC. But so far, I don't want to forget the old, plausible discoveries the community made about Farum Azula and tectonic movements in the Lands Between, while new, juicy lore needs to find a place in the big framework.
One last thing I found while writing this and I couldn't fit in this ramble: The Sun Realm Shield tells of a City crowned by the Sun, which was often speculated to be connected to Farum Azula, Leyndell, Castle Sol or an entirely forgotten civilization. It is only rarely dropped by Skeletons, also drawing some connections to Godwyn and Deathblight. Maybe we will find some reference to this Seat of the Sun in the Veiled Lands of Shadow...
Jesus christ I clicked looking for lore and I got a college level break down doc. Love it!
You and the Tarnished Archeologist are my favourite. The artistic and archeological influences shouldn't be overlooked.
Man 12 years? I've never heard of your channel before, damn, you are one of the OG's and just now i found you, better late than never, there is also a guy that i found who has a full 600 page sketch book about his experience playing elden ring, and he made a 40 minute video, that was also pretty cool.
Imagine if at the end of the DLC the veil is lifted and literally all of the Land of Shadows is slotted into the base game map.
That would be absolutely wild.
im hoping for this dude, i would love to be able to look down at the DLC content from the cliffs of Liurnia and vice versa
That would be a logistical nightmare to implement.
@@yurifairy2969 Oh boy, I hope so-be lame if it were easy,
Also don't forget that in the lands between there is a dungeon called The IMPALER
One thing I was wondering, that's oddly specific, is the weird lack of standalone Green (not green-blue) in Elden Ring as it relates to Outer gods and magic. What green is present usually comes in two flavors, stamina green and poison green. Also, it mostly plays second fiddle to Scarlet Rot.
30:34 the shading of the top of the tree reminds me of the Duskborn ending hue. I haven’t seen them side by side, but it is maybe the closest Godwyn reference I’ve seen in the DLC promo material.
I believe something will occur regarding Godwyn. We know that one of the most recent/longlasting projects of Miquella is Castle Sol and the Mausoleum’s.
This is an active goal he is STILL currently trying to achieve. Miyazaki confirmed that Radahn is mandatory for the dlc (Famitsu, 2023), and this would link back to our age-old theories that Miquella sent malenia to kill Radahn to alter his fate and resume the movement of the stars - for an eclipse.
The shadowlands are particularly representing a sort of Hell, Dumping grounds. it is being veiled and obscured, not out of our reality. Perhaps there are some secrets regarding Godwyns death Marika is trying to remain hidden and that is what Miquella is there for. After all, The Land of Shadow seems to represent Marika’s ‘Dumping Grounds’, but also a shadow.
My crackpot theory is that the shadowlands are the hidden psyche of the human mind… the part that does not want to be revealed… I’ve always theorised that the Gloam Queen is Marika’s shadow half - the part she defeated to hide her TRUE self from the world. I think Messmer himself is a shadow bound to the realm of shadow, meaning he’s probably a direct antithetical to a character in the main game (perhaps Godwyn???), but he’s also a canon child of Marika. He’s a shadow like the Gloam Queen, but he is also a legitimate Demigod - instead born into the world of dark
Again, Godwyns absence in the trailer is REALLY is his presence. Miyazaki deffo doesn’t wanna reveal the secrets of the second half of dlc, and im still of the belief that the Shadowtree is being strangled by the Deathroot of Godwyn
@@HeevaEgo I’m with you in that it would be very strange to not see or experience Godwyn content in the DLC, given Miquella’s goals in the base game.
It will be really interesting to see how. But I do think the Eclipse will be important somehow, since one of the criteria to enter the DLC is to have completed Radahn.
@@HeevaEgo I used to originally think Messmer was a Shadow- bound to an Emyrean, lost in the lands, used as the sympathetic link to come and go…but as more info came out and we know about the intended messaging about his throne, I’m in the camp that believes Messmer is the first born of Marika. And yes, that means Radagon would have been merged with her for a lot longer than is comfortable.
But Messmer -for reasons to be revealed - stays behind to be praetor over Marika’s secrets.
like most people I kinda fell into a couple rabbit holes after the trailer dropped. One of them led me to a Celtic legend/story about the Red Branch and a celtic hero named cu chulainn. Apparently this guy was given a "spear of mortal pain/death"(called the Gae bulg) from a woman warrior from "the land of shadow". It is all probably just a coincidence but it definitely caught my attention while Messmer is on the mind.
More lore from Queen Quelaag! Marika be praised!
I always look foward to you and Vati the most. Thank you for the amazing content
This has to be the most interesting Elden Ring dlc video I have ever seen… probably the best Elden Ring lore video I have seen. Your videos are on another level. I wish I could subscribe and like more than once.
This is amazing holy shit, great job to both you and the community who worked on this 🔥
Theory: Surrounding the DLC there seems to be a lot of delevation and ocean related lore (cliffs, center of the map, ships) maybe the dlc takes place where the water level that flooded the center of the map recedes.
Not to beat an old horse, but marais is french for swamp. So yeah, they rule over an actual swamp. But if they come from elsewhere they could also have created the swamp in the image of their homeland!
I speculate they were installed as a buffer state between the houses of Leyndell and Gelmir in the shattering war
Well, this video sure made me sub to your channel. It's like every clue i thought i noticed in the trailer has been connected with dots already, and expanded thrice-fold. Wonderful work!
If Tanith is from the Shadowed Lands and Rykard met her there, it could fill in a lot of gaps of why he decided to turn to "blasphemy" to begin with. If he really did go to the Shadowed Lands, I think whatever he discovered there led him to his belief that the gods deserved be destroyed. Maybe he even talked with Messmer. There seems to be some sort of link between Rykard, Eiglay, the Godskins, and serpents in general so I also wonder if Messmer has some connection to or knowledge of the Gloam-Eyed Queen. If the Shadowed Lands was sealed away before the demonization of the Crucible era, it may be from before Death was sealed away as well. Many things to ponder.
Oooh, the Depraved Perfumer Tabard bit is such a great catch~! And, yea, it does look like a lot of Volcano Manor/Mt Gelmir is just following in Messmer's footsteps - definitely agree on him at least being Godfrey era if not earlier
you were right about the dlc fitting between the towers, the map is literally a perfect fit, both godwyn corpses are in exactly the same place as well !
In my restless dreams,
I see F E E T weapons.
new interview with miazaki confirmed that elden ring base game still has secrets to uncover...
quote: Director Hidetaka Miyazaki confirmed as much, noting that while the majority of Elden Ring's secrets have been found, there's at least one that's eluded the player base.
source: screenrant and ign so far
At 16:05 you mention the temple of liurnia. If we simply make the DLC map mirror vertically (meaning that the player orientation is upside down to the base game map). Your theory is 100% working on the placement.
Instead of going to another time of the lore, I think we are just landing in a place where there's no time.
Also the grrm vampire book is historical fiction. It takes place shortly before and shortly after the civil war. He literally can’t help himself lol
8:57 I think that is right on the money honestly, giant Evergaol to seal the forgotten war away. I do think the divine towers have something to do with this. And the reason the erd tree looks transparent even. Melina is somehow related to the tree and thats why she doesnt want the frenzy flame to burn it all away. The real tree is in the evergoal, Messmer may want to rule the lands between himself, and marika sealed him away possibly? Melina is a spirit of some kind, maybe from the evergoal. Maybe the flame of frenzy is actually Messmers influnence breaking the evergoal somehow?
i also wonder if we will see the lost black moon of nokstella in this DLC as well. The other day the moon in castle sol dissapeared in my game. wish i had it recording but it got me thinking. What if the shadow lands in the dlc will have something to do with the moon activating this giant evergoal from the divine towers. i mean we have to beat both Radahn and Mohg right? if not the black moon of nokstella then maybe one of the other 2 moons in the game?
Castle Sol, there is an eclipse that was supposed to happen but never did. maybe it will now in the DLC due to defeating Radahn and allowing access to the DLC.
And the connection to Mt Gelmir makes a lot of sense, "The Great Serpent". Messmer also has serpents. So i wonder if Messmer is "The Great Serpent".
And since being sealed, Messmer himself faded into obscurity but like how history and ancient history is like a game of telephone, messmers tale was twisted over the years. So whats fact and whats fiction.
Im a bit of a crack pot theorist myself lmao
after learning shintoism and how zelda tears of the kingdom and even kingdom hearts adapts alchemy from real life history along with cosmology/ astrophysics, and how even final fantasy 7 life stream, kingdom hearts giant moon shaped heart and the erd tree are all the same concept as inspiration, The Anima Mundi, its almost like a strategy guide or hint book to help guide us with the lore the developers put into the game for us to solve.
Those are a lot of hours i went into a rabbit hole learning about real life alchemy, cosmology, astrophysics, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shintoism etc
Kingdom Hearts, Yin Yang, Light and Dark. In the deepist pit of Darkness is Light.
what if that light is evil. Final Fantasy Versus 13/14/KH4 Shows that to an extent, so heres whats im getting at.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" -William Shakespear
Messmer is the Light in the ShadowLands. that light is every where in the shadow lands. so hed leak over into the realm of light barley as a darkness. burning everying to ash sure sounds like that, and the fingerprint grape, Vykes eye, whose also on the cover and was the closest to becoming elden lord, the item description reads "Seared with a repulsive fingerprint burn akin to those that marred his entire body.
If offered to the blind maiden, it will lead her to the source of the distant light, allowing her to become a Finger Maiden." light in the darkness. Messmer.
and this was on the podcast with rataosker i heard that i commented on and ill put my comment here too
"About the Mimic Tear and the fact its a copy of us but its its own person. Or own copy with a will of its own. Reminds me of the No bodies in Kingdom Hearts lore. Yes it takes the same inspirations as Elden Ring as well. Same with Final Fantasy and Persona. Naruto too! And yes it goes a lot deeper. Even down to the cosmic connections.
Roxas and Sora are basically like Marika and Radagon in that aspect if he is a mimic tear. The cut quest reminds me so much of Sora and Roxas being from the same heart yet seperate souls, wills."
This makes a ton of sense, you should make Elden Ring Lore videos if you know so much, especially since the DLC is around the corner.
This is my favorite style of video btw, really great stuff.
I've been thinking about where the land of Shadows would be if they were in the Lands Between physically and based on walking around the map a bit. I'm kinda of the idea that is close to the Forbidden Lands. The Forbidden Lands has an unnatural shadow to it, the shape of the land there is also not natural. In the trailer there is the shot of the player using the throwing knives on a dark spirit. The dark fog a bit beyond the spirit reminds me of that unyeilding darkness of the Forbidden Lands, a place right next to the Erdtree but you pretty much can't see it. There is also the matter of considering why those lands are marked as forbidden. Some have suggested it is forbidden because it leads to the Mountain Top of the Giants to which I countered then shouldn't the Mountain tops be called "The Forbidden Mountain Top"
Glad I was able to found your channel .This video is great. I'm a huge Elden Ring fan and this is the best breakdown of the trailer I've watched so far. Keep up the great work.
Since Miyazaki took the money I had down on Messmer being Miquella Alter with those interviews, my brain has been working overtime trying to figure out what his deal is.
He's a weird mish-mash of different iconography from a bunch of things considered anathema to the Erdtree. If we take that at face value. I don't have any solid proof, and this is crazy, tin-foil hat speculation, but I just have this feeling that Messmer is in some way a victim of his mother's penchant for manipulation.
Imagine for a sec. The war is over. The Golden Order won, but there are still hold outs of resistance spread across The Lands Between. Rooting them out is proving difficult, so Marika comes up with a plan. Through some method of manipulation, she pisses off her son, Messmer, and he turns against her, gathering all the forces still opposed to the Erdtree to strike back at her. Then, when the majority of the remaining forces converge under Messmer 's banner, she basically X-Zones the entire landmass they gathered on into the Ream of Shadow.
tl:dr: Marika used her own son as bait to lure out and banish her opposition. Maybe that is why snakes are symbolic of traitors.
Like I said, super speculative, but makes for a fun thought, yeah?
Regarding the idea of The Crucible being central to the dlc, there's the Miyazaki quote about the Shadow Realm's "different culture" that's older than the Golden Order & what the lion dance character is derived from.
The land of shadow is like the Bermuda triangle where ships go missing.
You have a starting player character tarnished with a mariner background you could create a narrative around related with the land of shadow.
I haven’t finished the video yet so forgive me if this gets brought up, but do you think the Numen are from the land of shadow? Queen Marika is Numen, and this saying she first stepped foot in the land of shadow. All of the black knife assassins were Numen, and their concealing cloaks seem very similar to the concealing fabric over the land of shadow. I’m really starting to think that the land of shadow is the home of the Numen.
I can't properly convey why I can relate and how I enjoy this in the way I'd wish to say, but the thought process speaks to the me I try not to be and I love it.
I might be going insane but does Fort Laidd have any connection to Messmer?
It was a fort owned by Rykard's and protected by his Lendyll knights, but it was raided by the fire monks seemingly in search of something. With Messmer connection to both snakes and a flame, a fort with a connection to rykard and fire giants seems somehow connected. I might be making shit up.
10:00 That ֍ spiral symbol ֎ is the Armenian eternity sign (you can look it up on Wikipedia if you're curious). It's an old Pagan symbol that survived our conversion to Christianity and is still persists in Armenian Christian iconography today.
They also used Armenian names in AC6: Father Dolmayan and his AC, Astghik (translates roughly into "star", an important figure in the Armenian Pagan pantheon). Since Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as state religion, From might be using those symbols or names to signify religious shifts, or show remnants of the old religion persisting in the new one.
It's amazing how the From team draws inspiration from so many traditions and mixes them up so well. Their attention to detail is incredible.
You’re fantastic! Thank you for sharing
I know the pink/purple butterflies from that one new spell in the trailer has been speculated on with butterfly theory as "new butterflies", but I don't think ive seen anyone acknowledge that those butterflies aren't new.
They can't be acquired like the nascent or smoldering butterflies, but in a chamber on your way to Melania's boss room, you can find those purple/pink butterflies. It's in the rot waterfall room with the Ulcerated Tree Spirit, right after the hallway with the crystalians.
I presume then they have some connection with Melania or Miquella.
Perhaps they represent St. Trina? Or, with how the butterflies appear to be away from the rot waterfall, maybe they're butterflies before they were changed in some way by rot? And these butterflies are the last of their kind. I haven't been able to find them anywhere else.
An inconsistent upload schedule indicates that a person has priorities and lives a busy life. So excited for this dlc and your videos are always super insightful and fun
The Depraved Perfumer Tabard also resembles Mercury/Hermes Caduceus staff, which is also the medial symbol used today. But these snakes are wrapped around the Erdtree.
Just to clarify, the staff of Asclepius with one snake around a stick is the medical symbol. It is often mistaken for the hermetic caduceus.
Came here to post that you are mixing the staves up, but still Miyazaki might be mixing them up intentionally anyway.
12 years later and i still cant get enough of this stuff.
Currently, you and SmoughTown are my two favorite Souls lore-tubers. Because your longform format is great for putting on some headphones and listening to you in the background while Im playing a game.
I vaguely remember seeing a video a while ago (I think it was one of Zullie's) that pointed out a rock formation in Mt. Gelmir that looks like a burnt down Erdtree. You can see it from the full-grown fallingstar beast arena looking north. Maybe it was burned by Messmer, making another connection to the Volcano Manor. The existence of this tree would also enhance the Parallels between Nidhogg as Eiglay would be beneath it rather than be faraway from the Erdtree in Leyndell.
a minor erdtree?
@@lucasgraeff5391 It is far larger than any minor erdtree, you can see the difference looking down east of the arena. If you're suggesting that it is a minor Erdtree that grew much larger than rest that could be a possibility.
the first thing that I thought when I saw the name 'land of shadows' was land of the reeds too@charleshastings7260
Just found your channel from your recent lore videos on Shadow of the Erdtree. Really enjoying your analysis. Super insightful.
no bell squad lets go! love your work!
Fantastic work Quelaag! Love the way you approach and connect every hidden detail!Also for historical reference: Vlad the impaler is probably the foundation for Messmer. Not even do they share the same title (the impaler), Vlad was also part of the order of the dragon and was called dragon or devil (dracula). this one also goes hand in hand with the dragon communion theory of his eye. The small wings on his snake also remind me of bat wings instead of dragon wings. The list goes on and on (shadow realm, paleness, castle on the left rising to the sky) but I agree, we might have to wait until June haha. Keep up the good work🙏🏼
The golden erdtree is an illusory tree, so it is possible the black teee is what it actully looks like
I left this same comment on Ratatoskr's latest video. But I find it relevant to this video as well.
In terms of appearance, Messmer the Implaer looks a lot like Elric of Melniboné. They have similar dragon helmets, their clothes are similar, and the blade of the sword-spear that Messmer wields it has a black blade like Elric's sword Stormbringer.
Elric is heavily associated with dragons (and may or may not be descended from dragons), and while Messmer has snakes coiled around him, he does have dragon wings on both his weapon and helmet. Also, both dragons and snakes are described as serpents, which are used interchangeably with each other in the Bible.
And let's also look at the "Impaler" part of Messmer's name. Obviously, this is in reference to Vlad the Impaler, or what he is more famously known as Dracula. Dracula when translated into English means "Son of the Dragon". So, Messmer has a lot of associations with dragons, he even has eyes like a dragon.
Fun Facts: George R.R. Martin used both Elric and the culture of Melnibonéans as the inspiration for House Targaryen. There even was a reference to Stormbringer in the show. In season 4, episode 2 Joffrey asks the crowd what he should name his new sword, and someone cries out "STORMBRINGER"
Also anyone notice the "sword" coming out of dudes head is actually a branch of the erd tree? Or looks like one at least. There's a statue of a very similar character outside Godfreys throne room in Stormveil of a baldish man holding a branch of the erd tree.
At 23:50 when she's discussing the perfumer tabard, she focuses on the dual snakes (which obviously is incredibly important and a clear pointing towards Messmer) but I felt like she didn't notice (or at least didn't mention) how the silvery, almost melted candle that the snakes entwine also appears to be reminiscent of Messmer's spear!
It's so fascinating how Messmer seems to have collected aspects from so many different factions in this world and yet is still focused on what every tarnished is journeying to do: become the elden lord. Miquella, on the other hand, instead leaves remnants and signs of himself (or herself when mentioning St. Trina) wherever he journeys that the people he interacts with cling to. Miquella does not want to become elden lord, but rather to create something entirely new. A new age that extinguishes the Golden Order, which could be amazing...or since it's Fromsoftware he'll probably surprise us with something even worse than what's already been going on 🤣
I'm curious, have any of the lore youtubers ever brought up the fields of flowers that are present throughout the game and what the color of flowers in each field might suggest? So for example, in the battlefield outside of leyndell, there are fields of red flowers growing out of the ground where the remains of soldiers who fought that battle died, and patches of white flowers around spots that were hit with the ballista and trebuchets.
I just found you and I love how you do your videos. The rambling is really calming. I wont be able to play the dlc so I’m excited to hear you talk about it.
How long have I been subbed to this channel, love that it just drifts in and out
doing Lands Between spatial analysis is dope as fuck great video!!!
Been a fan of your channel for over a decade hell yeah🤌🤌🤌
nice this is exactly what I'm looking for, I could listen to this for days
All these years of hearing credits to you and your work from other creators across multiple FromSoft games and a video of yours finally appears in my recommended section. It’s good to finally match a name to a face.
So much explaining needs to be done in DLC
melina and messimer both having left eye irritation needs to be answered for me
its also probably worth mentioning how the tendrils of the sun on the wickerman are essentially like horns (omen horns maybe).
the sun of the dungeater is more flower pedal like tho
I'm a big fan of sinclair lore if you know them; this is the only other channel I've found that scratches the same itch. Thank you!!
Seems like rather a lot of this speculation is based on assuming the shadow tree is North in the screenshots.
Maybe it is, but it could as easily be in any other direction.
We enter from Mohg’s palace. Why not northwest?
Ofc, we don’t know how we shift from one place to the other, how far we move and in what direction. Could be we start still underground but in a new cavern and gradually make our way to the surface…
yeah, that tree could be in any direction
OK... I forgot how much I appreciate the way you present/break things down... I'd noticed the Hexagram shape the towers make. 100% the DLC is in that space... I need to catch up with your ER theories. Seeing this pop up on my feed has made me want to look into what AGermanSpy and EpicMarcusBro are up to. Respect the OGs
Your videos are S tier. Thank you!
I swear, Miro is such a good app for making fantheories of the most absolute crazy shit. Thank you for showing me The Way (I just made in two hours a whole diagram with images and in depth descriptions of a Good Omens theory that I had floating in my mind. WITH A WHOLE TIMELINE.).
around 10:00 That central symbol was also used at least partially in DS2 for the Pilgrims of Dark covenant. Duno if related but DS2 shows up yet again.
You have so much knowledge and insight into these games! I am so glad you continue to release videos! Your passion really comes through.
Your content is so good!! Thank you for taking the time to do this, it helps so much, especially seeing it all laid out!
I do enjoy your process, especially the real world comparisons. Keep up the good work !
The pale rider in the trailer reminds me so much of a Kelpie which is a Celtic water horse creature. It's design is reminiscint to how they appear in the SMT series and they are known to lure children and then the children get "stuck" to them. Which makes sense in the way that the rider is almost fused to it.
We love your twisted mind
@Queelaag Did you notice there is a change in the Shadow Tree from leaking sap at the start of the DLC trailer and at the end when Miquela unviels the sap no longer leaks and the canopy looks grey somewhat similar to the Erdtree in the Age of Duskborn.
Of many things you said, I tend to lean towards The Tarnished Archaeologist's view. The crucible is what happened when Marika cut down the OG great tree and selected the sprout that would become the Erdtree. The golems and divine towers are remnants of the first civilisation of meteor worshiping giants. And the big empty space on the map is the crater those giants worshipped (and built the divine towers around). Have you seen his content? Pretty good. Reminds me of Vaati back in his early days
Presuming that the sky-drapes envelop all of the Land of Shadow, then your orientation would determine which direction the drapes are falling in the skybox, right? I'm assuming if we turn 180° away from the mangled Erdtree, we would see sky-drapes there as well. It makes sense that they'd be covering the whole area. With that in mind, I don't think it's effective to use the draping when speculating on where areas in the trailer are located. Your architecture and context clues seem more reliable to me.
14:08 if we assume that the structures in the blue field area are boats then wouldn't it make more sense if the area was to the right ? If the land of shadows is the "missing" center piece of the lands between and this area was to the left the boats would be next to liurna which seems a bit weird..
Hey i thought of something today. Maybe sacrificing one eye/eyesight like Ranni or Melina, is the price the Gloam Eyed Queen demands for knowledge on the Rune of Death. Who are the two characters with knowledge and even know the location of the Rune? Not sure if messmer has 2 eyes or not but something to think about.