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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ค. 2022
- Some ending spoilers. The Outer Gods are a mysterious and seriously powerful group of entities that appear in the background of Elden Ring. Could they simply be the stuff of legend, myth, and folklore? In this video, I explore whether or not there is actually a good case for their existence.
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I think the outer gods exist in the same way Oedon does in Bloodborne, in that they have no physical form but their influence permeates reality.
Would you say that even for the Rot God? It seems like they had/have a physical form enough to have fought the Blind Swordsman and been sealed at the Lake of Rot
@@MadLuigi maybe the fact that it (or maybe an avatar of it) is physically in the world is a reason why the rot is so powerful and hard to remove. The rot god in legends might also be mearly a miremembered vassal akin to the elden beast. The elden beast is called the embodyment of order itself, this thing is the "rot itself"
@@MadLuigi honestly I like to think that this physical form the rot had was likely a powerful beast that was likely corrupted by the rot and became its vessel. Since outer God needs a vessel in order to interact with the world and likely it chose a beast since there wasn’t anything that was strong enough to carry its will.🤔🐱
@@notawarpspawn2107 I thought I heard something about the avatar/god being a scorpion.
@@atticratz6128 that could just be how it physically looks.
Remember the scorpions stinger literally says that it was "crafted from the relic of an outer god". So I think that most likely outer gods are real and are able to make (under certain circumstances) a physical appearance in the lands between.
Id say something like that is where Im at too
It says it was crafted from a relic of a sealed outer god, which can be no other than the outer god of rot however I don’t think it was crafted from the outer god itself but more likely a being similar to the 2/3 fingers but for the scarlet rot, this being taking the form of some sort of scorpion
@@jeremiahooms4716 Interesting take, but I am still sticking with my version. Although I must wonder if there is something like the 2/3 fingers for the outer god of rot (and maybe even other outer gods)
@@jeremiahooms4716 It could’ve been some kind of Vassal to the god of Rot which the blind swordsman killed, or that’s my theory anyways
In one of his latest interviews, Miyazaki has stated that he wants to do "weird/abstract fantasy". Compounding that with Bloodborne's narrative in general, I definitely see the outer gods and their influence as something similar to Oedon, Kos or Mergo. Some of them have a physical form, some of them don't, their influence is both direct and indirect, it's sort of a mish-mash.
They all seem to have some idea of how the physical realm should look, and to do that, it seems to me that the Crucible would be their ultimate goal. GW currently has control of it and he gave life order, chaotic forms such as the Misbegotten or the Crucible Knights are now looked down upon in the current dominant society. The (arguable) moon god seems to want to abandon the physical realm in general, the formless mother craves wounds and seems to want life forms who will inflict wounds whatever they do because of their chaotic horns, sometimes even piercing their own flesh...
All in all their existence and influence seems pretty hard to refute, but they vary a lot in terms of how they interact with the physical world. The Rot God does seem like it could have been a physical entity, probably a scorpion as the Scorpion's Stinger suggests, but also not purely physical since it had enough power to inflict Malenia from birth.
My take on the whole "Miquella's Dreamland DLC" idea would be one that is completely taken over by the Formless Mother, a bloody realm where (I hope) the Formless Mother itself could maybe make an appearance (being in a dreamscape and all, maybe it could have a form there y'know ?). But overall I'm really hoping for more information on them through DLCs, particularly when it comes to the Death outer god. I feel like it's the one that's currently being done dirty.
Good point about all of them wanting to take over the crucible! The Greater Will won, so even though it everything seems normal, the current state of the Lands Between partly reflects its desired order.
That certainly lines up with Miquella’s creating of the Haligtree and disdain for the Outer Gods. Funnily enough it wasn’t the Greater Will that got him, it was the Rot God corrupting his sister and the Formless Mother’s regent kidnapping him.
The fact that all OG (or at least, those invested in this conflict) want to influence reality and use the Crucible to do so, or whatever lies even deeper than the Crucible, is pretty much a given, I think.
If anything, a detail of interest to me is the idea by which the world of ER is meant to be not the only one.
The fact that the GW is distant and unable to directly command the Two Fingers of the Elden Beast, or at least even remotely do so, gives me the idea that It has something else to do. Other worlds, other Erdtrees.
I don't think there is anything in support of this, but makes the cosmic level of ER setting much more relevant.
@@Hyperversum3 Note that in the fight with the Elden Beast, you seem to be in a grove of Erdtrees. Also, due to the amount of failsafes the GW put in place as well as it's methods, it's likely that Queen Marika controls grace and rules the GO, meaning the GW almost never made any decisions in the plot
@@muhammadedwards8425 Precisely, the GW is clearly not a costant present "mind". The cosmic proportion of the setting seem obvious to me.
Maybe the GW is of greater importance because of how "lively" the Crucible is, but that's just an idea to justify such a level of conflict for a single world, but dunno.
On topic, 99% Marika is the source of Grace. She ressurects the Tarnished, as she said she would. The Grace guides us on the Path to burn the tree and enter It. The Grace can't come from someone supporting the GW or the current scenario, which is what the Elden Beast does by trapping Marika and Radagon inside.
Marika is also likely the source of Grace as,
@@muhammadedwards8425 It might be Greater's Will's Energy form, since Elden beast is it's vassal that is supposed to have physical apperance and influence in the world.
14:50 And don't forget about the fact that you can use Miquella's Needle to subdue the Frenzied Flame.
Very true! Im sure something I thought to put in and then forgot about lol
I like the concept of horrific mutations happening as a result of the absence/introduction/removal of the concept of death from the lands between. Take Godwyn. He was killed, but instead of perishing remolded into what he is now. It is not a punishment, from a god or tampering with weird sciences or occult magics, not deliberate, it is simply the way things happen. I can only imagine the pain one would feel seeing their loved one interwoven with the roots of a tree in the way Godwyn was, looking like some Dali painting.
Removing death definitely did mess things up
@@MadLuigi Not really, the Erdtree functioned pretty well with its reincarnation properties; shit went wild when reintroducing only a bit of Death in the death-less system.
Remember that what happens to Godwyn's body is happening only because he got inflicted with half cursemark of Death. If he was killed by a normal weapon, his soul would travel to the Erdtree and get reborn, if he was killed with the full cursemark of Death, he would have completely died.
The problem is that ONLY his soul was killed, by using only half cursemark. And Deathroot was the reaction of his body.
So no, I don't get the accanition of people with the removal of Destined Death from the Elden Ring, that's clearly not what caused the issues with Godwyn and then the undead.
When you think about what a God is supposed to represent you usually think of something like Zeus the god of the sky, Thoth the god of scribes, Yahweh the god of everything. But when you look at Elden Ring, it's gods are more oddly specific and don't really connect in a pantheistic way. You can connect the Greater Will and the Frenzied Flame as two halves of one whole, order and chaos, but the Formless Mother of blood and wounds? The God of Rot? The other destructive Fire God, just this time the Giants one? They seem all over the place and not all related.
This leads me to think that the Outer Gods are more like beings on an entirely different plane of reality from us, reaching into the Lands Between to try and influence it, contenting with one another for absolute control. The Greater Will has been in control for most of known history through Merika and the Golden Order, but has seemingly abandoned this reality, allowing for other Gods to sneak in and try to take control. We see this with the Formless Mother and Mohg, the God of Rot and Malenia, ourselves and the Frenzied Flame, and possibly Ranni and the Moon God. The Gods clearly need a vessel through which they exert their power, the such an Empyrean, or simply someone with the right features that allow them to carry said power, such as Mohg with his cursed blood. If the God gains some sort of permanent method of influence in the world (such as the Lake of Rot), then they can at least keep anchored to the Lands Between while waiting for a new vessel.
I fully believe that they're are other Outer Gods that we don't know about simply because they either haven't taken interest in the Lands Between or because the other Gods forced them out.
Yahweh is actually quite similar to the Outer Gods.
There is some evidence that Yahweh was a god of smithing who was in service to El, the ruling god of that pantheon. Then at some point the two got combined into one god. Fun stuff, right?
My thoughts on the Greater Will is it is a pantheon, not a single god. But of course there can only be one who sets policy at a time. So all the different gods we see doing random stuff are in fact fighting for supremacy not unlike the demi gods. They are just trying to get their Champions to take the title of Elden Lord so they can be lead god.
So the other elder gods in elden ring are just invaders upon the lands between. They are not proper creator and destroyer gods, but meandering beasts that intrude on the worlds of the real gods.
@@ghoulishgoober3122 correct. And whatever the Crucible is was related to the Lands Between's original creator.
@@jacobfreeman5444 Not accurate history. What you are describing is semantics. The Hebrews through Abraham came across a being that affirmed itself as the one true God, later stating to Moses that he was being itself. Yahweh is not a name, but rather syllables of a lost name that the Hebrews would not pronounce. Historians still do not know what the original name was. The Hebrews also had other names for God that they used interchangeably, as they needed to know who they were talking about in conversation about him.
Remember, do not get your history from bite-sized sources. If it is easy to understand and spread to others, it likely is not scholarly and lacks nuance.
Likely the formless mother is a manifestation of blood itself. Since each enemies we fight against use blood in ways that is very unnatural.🤔🐱
Blood is her medium. It is the copper wiring by which her electricity travels, and only special, corrupted blood. Like Jesus healing the cripple she blesses their blood with her presence.
It would make a good analogue to rot and the Rot God
I have to say, there is a lot of weird parallels between the different souls games and their use of blood. Similar, but different imagery between the souls games, bloodborne, and elden ring, featuring three prominent vertical lines, or the idea of a trident, the god of blood being without form in each game, though in two examples directly being referred to as "formless", and there are similar attacks manifested by maria of the astral clocktower, spewing trails of blood which burst into flames in a similar way to mohg's attacks.
I think the Outer Gods seem to be like manifestations of concepts like Order, Chaos, Blood/Wounds, Rot etc. They don’t have tangible forms and need to act through intermediaries to do anything. They remind me a lot of the Fears from Magnus Archives of all things
I always thought the Golden Erdtree-like pillars in the Elden Beast's boss arena were a representation of the greater will, pillars of order manifest from a realm beyond our vision and understanding
hey, just sort of an odd thought relating to rot. Scarlet rot in the game seems to work like a horrifyingly powerful fungal infection, what with the scarlet mushrooms coating the surface of caelid and the rotting cracked skin on malenia's face and existing arm. If so, perhaps it has another attribute of fungal growth: Mycelium. A complex net of interconnecting nerves and roots, like a colossal nervous system stretching through the ground across several miles of space. Surely if this nervous system was complex and large enough, it could develop sentience of its own? Maybe the rot god being all of rot at once is less supernaturally tied, and more a product of being a consciousness that exists within the mycelium of scarlet rot afflicted lands?
There's some evidence to suggest that the astels and the elden beast are the same category of being (mostly that both are referred to as 'stars' and they have roughly similar sizes and body plans), and the rot god and formless mother both have hints that could suggest that they have or once had similar creatures under their control. The scorpion stinger weapon is found being held in reverence by the pests, and is described as a "relic of a sealed outer god" and "crafted from the tail of a great scorpion" suggesting that the physical form of the rot god took the shape of a scorpion, and astel's tail is remarkably scorpion-like, and it's body plan as a whole is as much like a scorpion as it is like anything else. meanwhile, the formless mother's connection is more tenuous; a few item descriptions related to the mad tongue guy and the thorn sorcerers that show up with the fire monks mention or allude to something called the "blood star", which wold.make sense as a title for an astel-like being that was associated with the formless mother
Has anyone done a video exploring the nature and relationships of the different outer gods? Is the term “Outer God” paraphyletic? Are they all related or is that title descriptive of general behaviour rather than lineage? They seem to have different goals, appearances, and bound by different rules. The Greater Will and the Frenzied Flame need emissaries within emissaries, but the frenzied flame and god of rot were/are in the Lands Between. The Formless Mother can be directly accessed with the blood incantations, which seems to be different to the rules governing the other outer gods. The Dragon Lord awaits the return of his god, which might imply it had a physical presence in the LB as well.
I think the Dragonlord’s Outer God was actually the Greater Will as well, given all of the gold and “early” Elden ring imagery, or possibly the One Great of Hyetta is to be believed. I think the god he is waiting for is more akin to the vessel for the Elden ring like Marika. It’s further evidenced by Placidusax missing three heads, so they probably had a “Rebus” fusion like Marika/Radagon, but Placidusax’s Marika-equivalent left for some reason. That’s just my take on it, but it definitely gets confusing with how interchangeably they use god and outer god.
They're just a mish mash of physical and non physical gods. The formless mother is more like an idea, because she assumedly has no "real" form. None that we are capable of seeing, at least. The god of rot, meanwhile, has been locked away under the lake of rot and seemingly can't escape, meaning the rot god is definitely physical. It's very interesting to have so many different types of gods in one world, you don't see it too often.
I think it's like differentiated strands from the same source. Think of a Spinozist/pantheistic idea of God-pure causality or necessity, an infinite substance affecting itself-then something happens that really differentiates it from itself, such that it can't be called the same substance anymore. Spinoza says that's necessarily impossible, but the fantasy is: what if it wasn't? What if you really did have competing substances and tendencies? Like different versions of the world, world-wills, wills that gestate inside the world as it is; then "hatching", becoming truly alienated forces in themselves. So the different needs of these Wills grows out of whatever a Will uh wills... But it's not a force to begin with! It has to grow inside (a) people ((The God of Desire from Berserk mentioned in the video is a really good comparison I think)). The Frenzied Flame is a pure, suicidal despair; a despair that wants to do away with everything including itself. It can pop into your head given the right conditions, but most likely it was some intuition or mystic revelation that Shabriri had. The Rot is a despairing too, but there is also curiosity in it... "I wonder what would hapoen if I sat in my own filth? What would grow?" A stagnation that overcomes itself to turn into a different kind of unstoppable creep... insectoid-power-fetish despair. The Formless Mother is some self-sadistic or masochistic Will, a love of, a cathecting into, pain. The Fell God is weird but also kind of why I assume it works in this splitting-logic way to begin with. "Burn, O Flame" says the Fire Giant's were released from their duty to tend to the Flame by their defeat... The Fell God is _in them_ and for it's power it demands the Giant we fight sacrifice its own limb... It is God which gives with one hand and takes with the other. It's _looks_ like a primitive fascination with fire, a force demanding it be reverenced with fear and devotion. It's a Will defined by a mind's given distance from Flame. Unlike the Frenzied Flame, which fountains out of you as a geyser of hatred and despair, the Fell God is an external force, a giving of oneself over to a power that cannot be comprehended or integrated. It is a second life in your belly, demands things of you as an other, even when it's _in you_ (This is kind of how certain kinks work I think, like the votive offering to something that remains outside you even though you try to merge with it in this ritualistic way). You want it for yourself, to deny it, to trivialise it, but it burns eternal. It's that _thought_. None of the Outer Gods are exactly metaphors for anything; they're more like modes of being or striving, abstract logics which would eat through the world heedless to anything else, if they didn't bump into one another.
Your theory about people with a certain type of blood making a connection with the formless mother is confirmed by the line in the description of Mohg's trident "An outer god who bestows power upon accursed blood". We only ever see omens and tarnished using this kind of blood magic.
11:21 I absolutely love how this location looks like. Dominating red contrasting with blue-ish sky. Beautiful
FS hit a lot of the area designs outta the park!
@@MadLuigi Agree, I dont know how FS is able to make both mechanics and visuals that well. Mind blow
It would be a bit circular for the Greater Will to be the manifestation of the Lands-Between’s collective consciousness which then sends the Elden Beast from space to itself…
It also seems to conflict with the numerous Erdtrees in the Elden Beast’s arena (I take them as projections of other Erdtrees), unless the Greater Will is the manifestation of the universe’s collectives consciousness.
I would buy that the Greater Will is the first being and from it all life emerges. After the three fingers split from the hand, representing the Frenzied Flame being split from the Greater Will, the Greater Will now sends out Elden Beasts and plants Erdtrees seeks to impose order alone. Unlike before the split, there is not balance between freedom and order.
I believe that except for the fact that there are forms of worship whose traditions that pre-date the arrival of the Greater Will to the Lands Between.
@@Kommunismus My theory as to those is that after the “big bang” of the Elden Ring universe happens, the Greater Will has been sending out Elden Beasts for who knows how long. In the meantime life has been going on for thousands or more years on some worlds before an Elden Beast reaches it. Definitely agree that there are entities other than the Greater Will, and other powers. What do you think?
@@atticratz6128 I'd say it's fine to think that but there's no evidence in-game to support that.
I love these lore videos. I'd like to see your take on who Melina is. The more I play and watch of Elden Ring lore, the more I can't seem to 'solidify' a concept of Melina. And I personally think the answer lies in the duality of Marika and Radagon. If D and his brother can be one soul with two bodies, perhaps Marika (or Numen in general) can house multiple souls (or aspects) in one body. Perhaps they can even manifest these aspects of themselves once receiving the power of a God from an Outer God like the Greater Will.
What I propose is that Melina is essentially Marika. Or at least an aspect of Marika's soul. This explains the line where Melina wonders about having a real mother, despite saying her mother is within the Erdtree. If Marika and Radagon can share a body, then surely Melina could've been in there too? Perhaps this could even tie into the Gloam Eyed Queen? Perhaps this Empyrean Gloam-Eyed Queen was another aspect of Marika that tried to rebel against the Greater Will once before already? And when Malkieth defeated this aspect, it was sealed within Marika again. (And perhaps Marika let this part of herself out again as Melina, making Melina BOTH the Gloam-Eyed Queen AND a part of Marika?)
This does beg the question of who Radagon is. I'd argue that Radagon is the part of Marika's soul that ENJOYS the privileges of being a God and leading the Golden Order. We even know that Radagon's seal is essentially the rune of Order. If Marika, as a god, has the ability to manifest her aspects of herself physical, then Radagon can both BE Marika, but also act independently in the parts of the history where he's off on his own, marrying Rennala and fighting wars. And also how he can have children with Marika, but then BECOME Marika again (perhaps the rejoining happens after Marika tries to rebel once again, and when Radagon took over, he forced out the rebellious part of Marika - the Gloam-Eyed Queen/Melina?)
Now, whether this is an ability that applies to all Numen, all Gods, all Demi-Gods, or even all people in the Lands Between (like D and the various 'twinned selves' of the various bosses that send out projections of themselves?)... I'm unsure. It might be a result of Marika herself "being" the Elden Ring, and just as pieces/runes of the Elden Ring can be removed, so too can aspects of Marika be removed. There's so many theories, but I think a video on "the various aspects of Marika" from someone even more in touch with the lore than myself would be a treat to see!
Love it, had similar ideas to you on this. Melina is a part of Marika, GEQ is an earlier version/aspect of Marika during the Crucible age. Radagon could be an aspect of Marika that received the fire giant's curse and was broken away before rejoining and managing to become a deity by the latter part of the shattering (which we kill to achieve the 'God slain' message).
Melina does seem to be a tough cookie. We just dont get much info. Some strong relationship to Marika is only sensible but really getting clear on it is tough. Maybe ill do a video on her someday
I would like to share my own theory on Melina : Agtjake I think made a theory that the Gloam Eyed queen might be the embodioment of the rune of death,which we could use as an anchor,we know both Ranni and Melina have a connection to Torrent,as they both know him and suprise Ranni will only appear to you in the church of ellah after you take Torrent from Melina,and would claim she knew Torrent's old master,also,Ranni's spirit face is identical Melina's face,and if you put them side by side you'll notice it right away,then you have the Theories(more likley facts) that Marika wanted to end the golden order,and that she helped Ranni steal the Rune of Death,and since the Black knight Assasins seem related to Marika,this pretty much tells us the following : Marika,wanting to defey the Greater will and get rid of it's influnce,helped Ranni steal the Rune of Death,and before she was imprisoned in the Erdtree she fused part of her and Ranni's soul with a third part of The Rune of Death that they stole,reincarnating The Gloam Eyed queen as Melina (explaining why she knows a lot about what Marika said,and Ranni's spirit face being identical to her face,and still make Marika her mother,Just not by normal means)and her purpose was to find someone who will change the lands betwean,and destroy the Golden Order,guied them through their Journey and rekindle the flame for them,First she thought it was Bernal,which could explain her being Burned and bodyless,as she either sacrificed her self to save bernal or tried to rekindle the flame which faild,either way she created an astral body for herself after her phsiycal one was burned,or it could be Ranni that created that astral body,or it could be a memory of her Ranni part since Ranni's body seems burned when we fined it,either way she continued her search to find someone who was eligbel to become a lord,and found us the player.
This also explains why she becomes like that in the Flame of Freinzy ending,death was unseald and she didn't rekindle the flame leaving her alive,awakining the gloam Eyed queen again.
@@ahmadabusamra9785 Most of that sounds plausible to me, though a bit over complicated. My personal philosophy on trying to piece together the lore is make sure not only do the events line up, but it’s only a satisfactory theory of each action makes sense with what each actor’s motivation is. What would be their reason for being cryptic about certain bits of information? Do those actions actually help their goals? Why would other characters react to Marika’s secret like that? Why would Ranni’s vassals follow her? That sort of thing. So I think your theory checks out from that angle at least. It’s a part of the lore building I often find people forgot to consider…
The formless mother also had a little bit of reference in an item that states that the omen were once loved and cherished also it said that their blood was very important to this
They're probably spirits that don't have some permanent physical form, but do exist, and can impart their powers to mortal beings or imbue objects with their energy
I think the outer gods are similar to real life organisms like Pando (The Trembling Giant) or something like armillaria, they’re mega organisms that have unique ways of interacting with the world of Elden Ring, anthropomorphized to a degree by the citizens of the world. They’re intelligent but also completely inhuman in their nature, using the world as it’s feeding ground. They fight amongst each other, but are uncaring beyond achieving their goals. I guess that doesn’t work for all the outer gods, but I think it’s slightly true.
The best evidence of outer gods being real in my opinion is the elden ring/beast itself and Gowry.
Do they really exist? Yes: both as a narrative element and as characters in a world where fantasy is the rule instead of any supposed naturalism. It is important to notice the terms God and Outer God are not defined in the universe of ER, therefore I think those characters are not submitted to the same criteria one would use to define supernatural/imaginary beings in our material reality and cultural context.
Also, in hermeticism it is believed all gods and deities are dependant and defined by the collective mind and do not exist in an metaphysical vacuum, this due to the said law of mentalism - "All is Mind", a premise of hermeticism.
I like Ziostorm’s Fungi Theory, given that statement I’d assume that the Greater Will acts as a sort of Mycelium that spreads Gold throughout the Lands Between. The Rot God could be Poison or Things that are Poisonous itself but seeing as how FromSoft uses Insects to represent Decay and Rebirth (Termites in King’s Field, Centipedes in Sekiro, etc) I feel the Scarlet Rot represent the act of Stagnation though rather loosely. The Formless Mother being Blood is a rather obvious point but I would say “Forlorn” rather than “Cursed” Blood as things Around Mohgwyn Mausoleum are all covered in Blood. The Moon in particular is my favorite given FromSoft’s constant motifs and the resounding amounts of folklore and Mythos that it’s pulled from, case in point, Moonlight. Back in the KF games, Day-Light was Highly Important and I think only One area had Constant Day-Light. The Illusion of Anor Londo was in itself Day-Light disguised by “The Dark Sun” who was attributed to The Dark Moon (an entire Age of this Dark Moon is the most Chosen by the Community in now Elden Ring). I theorize that The Moon in Elden Ring pertains to the Real Life equivalent of The Mysteries, given how Alchemy is a heavily used motif in Elden Ring. Though I don’t believe that The Moon itself is the Mysteries, It could be pertaining to its Revealers or the Knowledge of said revelation. In Layman’s, The Moon acts as Illumination both symbolically and literally
If we wanna talk about Alchemy in Elden Ring, I was going through an audiobook version of the Principles of Hegelian Alchemy and one line (which I will paraphrase for brevity) mentions the coupling of the "Eagle and the Lion" and how both shall remain so until the chamber they guard is breached or outer forces "privily enter" their chamber, at which point "the Eagle shall rend and consume the Lion in this combination"; reminded me of the setup for the Godfrey/Hoarah Loux boss fight and now I want to comb through the text for any other lines that might be referenced/interpreted as boss fights.
The reason I view the fight as an interpretation of this passage is due to the sheer amount of Eagle/Hawk imagery associated with the Loux bloodline and the fact that Godfrey literally has a Lion on his back which he rends from his body and presumably absorbs into his being. Just my two cents on something I thought was cool.
Symbolism within Symbolism is really the overall experience within FromSoft storytelling and it really shines through in Elden Ring. I assume the Mythos that was created for it served as a catalyst for how many Auspicious traits can you attribute to an entity or in this case, Demigod.
it's a fun thought exercise outside of 'real life'. what is a god and what is the nature of their existence. this comes up in Dungeons and Dragons too because they grant spells, and are similar in ER. how much power and to what extent do they have wants and needs? or are they just reacting to the environment like some super powered amoeba?
0:29
Ah that's right, I had forgotten that lil' tidbit. You'd think, after hearing it so many times I'd remember...
/s
5:25 making whole, the fabric of society...
At 08:38 This may explain why we find Mohg at the underground temple, in Leyndell, that is where he first met the Formless mother. Also, Mohg's spear/trident reminds me of the three fingers.
No, just a visage of Mohg put there by Morgott to stop trespassers from reaching the three fingers. Not at all related.
@@KingoftheApes
Ok, may I ask where did you get that information?
They are real but not present in the physical world, or at least not in the same plane of existence we inhabit, hence the need for Empyreans
That does seem to be a direction that I ended up going w things. Well except the Rot God seems pretty in our physical world
Elden Ring could be an absolutely sick anime.
What if the oracle envoys aren't on miquellas haligtree for miquella but for malenia as she is the Goddess of rot after the second blooming of the scarlet aonia
I had figured that the Gods in Elden Ring were birthed from the creation of concepts. It also seems that the worship of any given God increases their power and influence over the world. Though it seems the 3 deities you chose to lore dive into have the greatest connection or control of the world.
Would this include the insectoid creatures that worship the god of rot? Seems kinda unfair if you could just spawn brainwashed bug zealots from your swampy soup of rot
@@KhenWolf Yes plus I think they spawn as contorted or transformed victims of the Scarlet Rot’s slime, ooze, or whatever the hell you want to call that fluid. There is even a relic the Kindred worship that was originally a piece of their god, the scorpion stinger dagger. The Fell God has the kiln of its flames and is technically a part of every Fire Giant. As for the Greater Will it is literally the dominant religion of the majority of the people living in The Lands Between.
I can get behinf the outer gods being lovecraftisn entitites that are real in some way (maybe physically or other dimensionally or etc) but they’re like in some sort of limited state or slumber and need champions (representative god, lord, shadow, communicators (2/3 fingers), and so on) in order to enact their will upon the world, like they’re incapable of directly influencing the world unless they have mediums to work through
One thing that's a little weird to me is the black flame and the godskins. it says the black flame can kill gods, is that really referring to the outer gods? The frenzy flame is ultimately capable of melting everything back into the one great, which the outer gods were a part of at the birth of the universe, but outer gods seem to affect fundamental parts of reality, killing them seems to have pretty world ending consequences. rot is a fundamental part of life, its the decay of all things, physical or otherwise, that remain stagnant. The golden order is becoming stagnant, that's why Radahn is so susceptible to rot. my point is, were there outer gods in the past that have already been killed by the black flame and the godskins? it says they make their robes from gods so they're clearly killing something. If they hypothetically were to kill the god of rot, it would seemingly change reality, so if they've done something like this in the past, the implications seem pretty wild, depending on what gods they've killed, or maybe a true outer god has never been killed. hopefully the DLC gives us some insight into the gloam eyed queen and the apostles, cuz I just think this is such an interesting facet of the lore
Good video. My biggest problem with gods in elden ring is it seems too simple to be a god or demi god. What really makes Marika a god? Its stated many times. But what feats does she do or power does she show to be a god? Malikith and Godfrey defeat most of her enemies. Radagon makes incantations and leads an army. Marika got married and had some children idk what makes her a god.
Gods do not need to fight. Hera was a goddess despite being motherly, not a warrior.
Because she is the host of the elden ring, she is able to affect the logic of the world. For example, she took out Destined Death from the Ring and by doing this, she altered how the world works. She is also able to curse Hewg to do her bidding, taking grace away from people on a whim, she certanly has power ower people.
@@dantoki6371 besides locking Hughes to his anvil do we really know she did any of that though? She shattered the elden ring idk how she would do that if its inside of her and the runes inside of her are always the same regardless of how many demi god great runes you collect. We don't know of she or the greater will took grace from Godfrey. The gloam eyed queen seemed to have destined death before Marika or took it from Marika and I've always seen it as malikith defeating her was removing destined death from the elden ring.
@@kylekremer7240 The demigods posess only the shards of the ER, if you look at their respective runes they are made out of little shards and the demigods who carry them are called shard bearers for that reason. Within marika the Ring is also fractured and those shards that are missing from it are the ones posessed by the demigods.
Yes, we know that she did take away Godfrey's and his warrior's graces, as Melina recites her words:
-"My Lord, and thy warriors. I divest each of thee of thy grace."
-"Then, after thy death, I will give back what I once claimed.". So yeah, it was her.
Also the Greater Will doesn't really benefits from this move at all.
I don't think the Gloam E.Q. had the rune, but her black flame's godslaying aspect relied on it, because at the time Destined Death was part of the ER, therfore it was a part of the rule/logic of the world and sealing it away made it weaker.
Enia says that "The forbidden shadow, plucked from the Golden Order upon its creation..."
So "plucking" Destined Death, has happened at the same time, when the Golden Order get's established and that Order is Marika's order and the founding principle of it is: "Marika is the one true god." So most likely she was already the vessel of the ER and she takes out the Rune and gives it to Malekith to seal it away.
In Maliketh's boss room there's an ER symbol made out of more runes than we see on the current one, so it seem like you can take out the runes.
@@dantoki6371 plucking can also mean culling a renaged shard bearer. I saw the runes in Marika as the elden beasts control over her. I guess yes she took the grace from Godfrey im just unsure about who is guiding grace because my guidance was still there during my frenzy flame ending which Marika obviously didn't want. I just think we can't have for sure knowledge about a lot of these things because clearly someone in game is lying to the player. There could be multiple sources lying actually because many things conflict with each other. The only thing I for sure know Marika did was have children I think lol. The grace thing with Godfrey coukda been the greater will and she took credit for it hard to know for sure.
Without having watched all of the video, we do meet the three fingers and the Elden Beast, both physical manifestations of their respective gods. They're not the gods themselves, but they do manifest parts of their powers. I'm uncertain where to place the two fingers in a similar fashion because it seems they're more like tools rather than direct vessels or representations.
The two fingers are essentially angels or envoys.
Also i see a lot if people not mentioning that Marikavabd Radagon are like Loki, one oersob that can be both as it says on the Japanese dialogue
Idk how this is even an argument as the game makes it clear that they exist
These are eldritch gods; beings of explicitly excessive, unfathomable magnitude & motivation. Our brains cannot handle the truths we would need to learn in order to understand them. But they are also explicitly material and correlate to giant hunks of space rock. Connecting super eldritch horror to it's corresponding space rock might be a good move (moon, the extra moon, the sun, the blood stars, the primal current etc)
For what it's worth, I am pretty sure you can connect the flame of Frenzy to the pyrite hunk in the concecrated snowfields mine.
Not the case, the Outer Gods are more in line with manifestation of concepts. The Greater Will specifically is part of a complete God, it's very concept of order, his other half and opposite being the Frenzied Flame.
Not every dark fantasy divine entity needs to be a Lovecraft wannabe. The Outer Gods of Elden Ring are clearly supernatural and with very specific desires for the mortals
@@odd-eyes6363 "his" lol?
@@odd-eyes6363 for what it's worth, I think you are likely part right. The large order pantheon we see represented in the eye of the fire god we see during phase 2 of the fire Giants fight likely had a thing for Order being balanced out by a thing for Chaos. But beyond that, I think you are wildly misreading & projecting without evidence.
With regard to the god of Rot, the fairy and the Blue Swordsman may be allusions to the Siofra and Ainsel rivers, Siofra meaning “fairy” and Ainsel meaning “my own self” a typical answer given when a fae asks for your name. The river being the “curved flowing sword” that seals in the Rot because after all, standing water stagnates and leads to rot, while flowing water doesn’t.
George RR Martin likes mythology that’s also literal, so it could be meant as a metaphorical explanation for why the Rot doesn’t spread beyond Caelid while also literally being a story about a great swordsman. Or it could be that the river “sealing” the rot inspired the actual swordsman, who was able to teach Melania how to control her own rot through mastery of his flowing style, which he learned from the “blue fairy.”
I think a really interesting philosophical case could be made on whether or not the outer gods exist. Given its obvious Nietzschean inspiration, I feel like there's a lot there aside from the lore that could be gleaned.
I really want to know what happened to Farum Azula, the Ancient Dragons had a God on there own. Was that God no Outer God. And I also believe that Farum Azula was destroyed on the Same day the Elden Beast landed on earth
Tht would be an interesting timeline for the events, and as I mentioned in my other Outer God video, its hard to tell whether what they worshipped was an Outer God or not
The Elden Ring, in it's previus form, is depicted in Farum Azula (Malekith's boss room).
So the elden beast cannot come after Farum's existance. Then there is Placidusax who was an Elden Lord and without the ER to exist, it would be a bit strange to be that, so most likely his God was someone like Marika, a vessel to the Elden Ring.
@@dantoki6371 probably his God/Empyrean was the Gloam Eyed Queen ?? That is the Only Empyrean I can imagine existing at the Time of Farum Azulas Glory before its Downfall
Does anyone know if the Rot God, Malenia, the swordsman with the flowing blade, and that whole section of Elden Ring's lore has a story it seems to be taking inspiration from? Because I just drew a bunch of parallels with another game, and I'm wondering if both of them borrowed themes and ideas from the same source, or if it's a massive coincidence.
God of Death is Godwyn the very moment his Soul died during the Night of Black knifes.
all forms of magic, fire frost holy sorcery incantation necromancy like the mimics dragons, creatures twisted from deforming and reforming of reality, a heaven of sorts now existing as a form of hell
It's almost like they don't really care about the world? Like the gods are just parts of a universal constant that the people of the lands between keep using and tapping into because they are fed up of the greater will (who is different in my eyes)
I like the theory about the greater will being an amalgamation but who's will creates the greater will?
Your mom jk
Guys, are the outer gods just aspects of the Demi-gods? Like, the demi gods' godly "forms" (note these outer gods are all Formless, ie Formless Mother etc.) It's intentionally vague of course (which I love) but the Rot God and Malenia, the Greater will and MANY candidates (Morgott, Marika, Radagon) Mohg and the Formless Mother, Rykard and the God Devouring serpent, Ranni and the Moon. There's more too this but dissecting it all would take a whole video.
Greater Will is a giant Vibe Check
I don't know if they're real but I love that they're at war with the stars
in the Kings field Dark souks series you dont see much if tge original 5 factions from the war tyat started it all
You can literally see the face of the Fell Flame God in the Fire Giant’s chest. Do you need more proof than that?
the god of the dragons = GW before blessing the humans
Those fingers came from somewhere.. from hands of many-handed gods who spread their fingers across the universe? Lol
My crazy theory is that Outer Gods are divine forces not contained within the order of the time (i.e., not represented by a rune in the Elden Ring). I don't think they're all out in space or in another dimension or anything. They're always present (unless sealed), they're just outside of the order. This is in line with the idea that the Greater Will is a collective consciousness, because it would represent the amalgam of forces that are seen by the people as divine.
If theyre not ‘somewhere else’ and just outside the order, then are they just hiding in the lands between? Or what
The Formless Mother is very Reminiscent of Oedon from Bloodborne
The Greater Will is never mentioned as a Outer God.
But yes is mentioned as a Creator by its worst enemy
And are these outer gods in the room with us right now?
You’ll see some of the outer gods in the DLC
I don't think Hyetta/Irina count yet. Hyetta does not wildly proclaim that she has taken Irina's body like Shabriri had with Yura, and Irina's body remains where the Misbegotten killed her even as you meet Hyetta and progress her questline. On the flip side, it seems that receiving Irina's Letter and triggering her death is a necessary step in initiating Hyetta's quest. And Edgar does drop a Shabriri Grape upon defeat. But even now the game does have more content and DLC in store, and maybe we'll see an update to their quest's details along the line. For now, I don't think they are the same body like Yura, just a curious case of placeholder.
I thought Irina’s body disappears after Hyetta’s quest starts
@@MadLuigi it doesn't actually. It stays there even after finishing Hyetta's quest, and examining Irina's like usual will say 'she's dead' even when the former disappears. Also, it always struck me as odd, while their lines about being blind do line up, receiving grapes from other people would imply Hyetta has been on the road for much longer than the time between receiving Irina's letter to trigger her death & meeting the doppleganger at the start of Liurnia.
Another odd thing is why Edgar would specifically drop a Shabriri grape. Seems like a crowbar move to forcefully link an otherwise plain revenge story with generic madness to the Frenzy Flame & its flavor of madness.
Fromsoft could have easily dispelled any doubt with these inconsistencies by simply making Irina's body disappeaer. But it's 1.04 now, and they've fixed a lot of quests but left this out for some reason.
@@PaszerDye If great despair can open to the influence of the Flame of Frenzy then Edgar losing his daughter due to his stubborn refusal to help her might be just enough grief for him to slip into the grasp of Frenzy. I
You did not mention Scorpion's rotten sting dagger - the tail of the God of Rot.
the lands between or reality crossroads a nexus or point between all other realms order, blood, fire, madness, gods ,demigod nature gods other wheres and whens
I think the Outer Gods are just ideological concepts. Like the Greater Will is all about order and hierarchy while the Rot God represents stagnation and decay.
That’s an interesting idea but there is still physical influences from said outer gods so they can’t just be ideological
@@jeremiahooms4716 Im saying they’re more like ideological concepts with sentience. Like if a being embodied order what would they be like. Plus ideology already has a really tangible influence on how the world works.
The elden ring and the erdtree are most certainly real so...
This at least is factual
To think a mere human can defeat and seal an outer god!!! the blind swordsman must be insanely strong lol… I hope we can fight him in a new DLC or something
About the Rot god, what if after the blind swordsman defeated him he cursed his young student with rot?
I mean... we kill the Elden Beast. Doesn't seem unreasonable someone before us was strong enough to beat the Scarlet Scorpion.
And no, Malenia was born with Rot.
@@vojtik135 We’re a tarnished destined to become elden lord, so I think we’re somewhat special lol… it’s not fair to compare a mere human to us + afaik the blind swordsman is the only character in elden lore (besides us) who defeated an outer god not even the demi-gods have done it
Yeah you’re right, I forgot she was born with the curse
A huge amount of GRRM’s works all feature Lovecraftian entities. It’s one of his biggest inspirations. I don’t think looking beyond surface value here is necessary. It’s not like ASoIaF where (most) of the Gods are very obviously not real.
The Frenzied Flame and the Greater Will are one and the same.
Change my mind.
i mean when one literally manifests on the chest of a creature it can be assumed its real
You left me speechless with the investigation around the blind swordsman. How you managed to find even his clothes and sword. Bravo.
I think the outer gods are real but the frenzy flame is as miriel would say a contrivance of the greater will
yes
In Greek mythology, Zeus understood that it was humanity that was responsible for the Gods' power; and he was worried that the less humanity believed in and worshipped the gods, the more their power would wane, and they would become mere shades in the ether.
For some reason I feel sad regarding Marika. Not sure why.
There is a thing, a statement - Placidusax was the ELDEN Lord before the Erdtree, before Elden ring, before Elden beast was sent to the Lands between and Placidusax had his own God, so the question is - can there be Elden lord without Elden ring?
Elden can mean "servant" aswell as "old" and "fire" depending what language it's being compared to. I think Servant is an accurate translation here. "Servant Lord" - serving as a representative for the outer god, and or of the people.
Elden Beast same thing. It's a servent of the Greater will.
Elden Ring is the standout one, but it could be something "for the servants"
@@snowtsukasa6662 i dont think so, Elden beast is the vassal, the Elden lord is the champion of the outer god, Godfrey was an Elden lord, Radagon too, so as Placidusax - so he is not vassal, but a native creature of this world, empowered by the power of his god, not an alien like Elden beast or Astel. So there can be Elden lord without Elden ring, or there was once another Elden ring but made out of different vassal, cause current Elden ring is literally Elden beast.
Elden Ring is a material that can stand on its own. Doesn't mean it draws inspiration from things, then we can use the material from the inspiration to prove something in elden ring. Elden Ring and Breserk are two different materials. One does not dictate the other. Use Elden Ring material to formulate Elden Ring theories.
Plus, you said regarding your theory of the formless mother that it is a "natural phenomena" whilst saying it "existing in another dimension". Then doesn't that contradict on itself? It's like saying natural phenomenons can disprove/prove supernatural phenomenons which is philosophically impossible. Same logic as with Elden Ring and Breserk being two different materials.
I think there are key aspects to the relationship between Mohg and Morgott. Despite his clearly blasphemous actions, Mohg is culling and/or recruiting tarnished warriors for his mostly unattainable ambitions. Morgott actively wishes to pursue and hunt the tarnished, much like the bloody fingers do. He doesn’t consider Mohg a “wilful traitor”, after all.
Cant say someones a traitor when they were never with
Just like in our universe, the idea behind "gods" is hidden behind mankind's philosophical discourse regarding laws that govern the universe. Interesting points of view are presented by Greek mythology, philosophy and Christian angelology.
Aristotle quoting Thales of Milo says: "Gods are everywhere. World is filled with gods". What he meant by that is an idea that gods aren't some human-like titans but rather intelligent forces of nature. Having their own personality, they govern some aspects of the world by fulfilling their roles. Naturally, they're nowhere to be found because they're not tangible. They're not some kind of spirits like in the modern sense of this word (as something that can scare the crap out of you). Instead, Greek philosophers used the word "logos", which means "a word", "law" or an "order". Basically, ancients wanted to explain why things work the way they work, thus they came up with a concept of intelligent laws that govern the reality.
In an analogous way, Christian angelology approached the issue of subcreation. God, while being the ultimate, absolute Logos of all, was also willing to give some of the power to His messengers. Thus, some of angels are capable of governing the laws of the universe. It's the same as J. R. R. Tolkien described in Silmarillion: there are maiar and valar - spiritual entities that are in some sense living embodiments of the logos, at least a part of it.
With this in mind, outer gods in Elden Ring are like valar. They can alter parts of the universe... or destroy them if they wish to do so. Only that they need some sort of physical gateway, hence the reason why outer gods use humans. Outer gods are nowhere to be found because they're simply intelligent parts of the very fabric of the universe. They don't come in shapes and forms akin to living beings. It's more like they're living programs behind the universe's functionality.
Well formless mother does, the rot god does, and the greater will obviously does lol
There is a video 4 months ago that gives a different understanding of what OUTER means in the title Outer god... It just means outside the current order... And that this games unsurprisingly draws from Japanese culture Shintoism where the Kami are merely personifications of naturalistic laws and forces...
In the case of the blind swordsman, it doesn't say that he sealed away an outer god, just a god.
The word God is used rather loosely in Elden Ring with Marika, someone of a mortal race "The Numens" being called a god or Malenia being referred to as "Goddess of Rot".
I believe that the blind swordsman did not seal away an outer god but rather the outer god of rots proxy, it's version of Marika.
Uh, actually yes he did seal away an Outer God.
The Scorpion Stinger dagger that the Children of Rot worship which inflicts Scarlet Rot, says that it was crafted from the relic of a sealed Outer God.
The map fragment for the lake of rot which inflicts Scarlet Rot also says that the divine essence of an Outer God is sealed away within the lake.
So yea, the Outer God of Rot did get very much sealed away by the Swordsman.
It's not used loosely at all, she was chosen for Godhood, as said by enya(?) " she is a God in thruth".
There's Outer Gods, Gods and demigods
Demigods are born from gods, as we see in game, all demigods(9), only 3 candidates for Godhood(Ranni, Mickey and Maly)... double check your notes...
@@agristoteles I don't take notes, I'm not a lore expert. I'm just a guy who likes the lore and likes to question popular beliefs or accepted narratives. The idea I was getting at was that godhood isn't flushed out or given a concrete definition. Is a god someone who possesses omnipotence? Is it someone who is worshipped as a divine figure? Is it a celestial being? We can slay a god, does that make us a god? If Marika can be controlled or sealed by another entity then is she truly a god or just a vessel for godlike power? Im questioning whether or not the term God in Elden Ring means what we think it means, Marika is clearly not a god in the Abrahamic definition of what God is and since we never see an outer god we have no idea what scale they exist on to even compare them to any real world definition of godhood. We are simply told that Marika is a god and that is never questioned. I simply am questioning and scrutinizing things we are told by the game and Elden Ring lore theorists. I might be wrong, I never claimed anything was I said was fact.
@@ColourizeTheStreets my notes are fextra, yours too, all the info is there, faster access...
Why do you wanna subject their world under our world rules? That's not how theories work, we use their reality to understand , not ours, ours makes no sense to even us...
It's is flushed out, you just want to see what you want from the lore and not everything...
The Gloam eyed queen for example, her crew had the power to slay gods, but it was just part of the natural order, they weren't more than humans, except her, she is said to be an Empyrean, so a another possible candidate for Godhood...
Also, why limit to the lamest god out there?
I'm not a lore expert, just a guy with mostly good memory and am a bit fond of lore discussions...
We use the info we have from lore and try to fill the holes with our thoughts, but our thoughts should never replace parts of the lore, otherwise is flawed.
For one of thr questions, someone who kills a god is only a gossamer, nothing more, there's no evidence that enyone ever went thru that
Empyrean ARE humans. Gods and Demigods ARE humans. At least, in the Age of Marika.
Humans as we mean them are a varied existence in Elden Ring setting. Omens and Misbegotten are all born out of Humans. Demihumans... Well, most likely as well.
The overwhelming domination of "baseline humans" in our Age might be the result of the Golden Order guiding the world in this direction BUT being unable to completely stop other stuff from leaking through.
Numes are just another type of Humans. The player can be one. It's a basic set of aesthetic in the character creation.
Giants... Well, they are probably another thing. But so are Dragons. Humans aren't the only race in the world, they just dominate the current one.
Gods and Demigods aren't separated from their own species, they are influenced by the divine powers of the setting.
Hell, Placidusax is called Elden Ring. This implies that it had its own Goddess or God, that there were Demigod-ish Dragons around, once in the remote past
One thing to note about the outer god Rot is that it is implied to have taken the form of a great scorpion. The Scorpion Stinger dagger was said to have been "crafted from the relic of a sealed outer god," just as the Wing of Astel is said to have been crafted from a relic of the Astel itself.
And Secred Relic Sword is "wrought from the remains of a god who should have lived a life eternal". And when we kill Elden Beast we get the message "God Slain".
The "god" label isn't exclusive to outer gods, it also seems to apply to their vassals/embodiments.
Does no one else see a resemblance between the greater will, Marika, a golden tree to which souls return to and the holy trinity of Christianity?
The outer gods are just playing fifth dimensional monopoly and the Greater Will rage quit
I think most likely the whole story is about various gods, primordial essences with consciousness that cannot directly enter the world, attempting to influence the lands between. I think the lands between is literally between the realm of the gods. The player basically decides which god gets to gain ascendancy.
The question is less "are they real" as they must be real in some way to even have influence but more are they how their followers represent them to be.
I don't buy the idea of the Greater Will being a product of the collective consciousness as an underlying narrative, especially with the case of the Omens, is this intercession of the Golden Order making pre-extant things bad because it differs from its preferred nature of reality. I think the theme is the Golden Order asserts itself as a natural order when in reality it is a disruption. People talk about the Catholic Church in regards to Folk Religions in the same way.
I think the lore of the game is leading you to sense there is a greater natural order, one Miquella discovers and attempts to correct with his organic looking Haligtree, which must be returned to and that extending the Golden Order is just about satisfying some snob's vain self-glorification which is reminiscent of Gwyn and the whole DS lore.
so outer gods are like the regular god?
Outer Gods are more ghastly than our real world gods. They tend to be less like creator gods and more chaos gods that just destroy things and try to convert people to their following.
Unless you think Mohg is yanking blood from the air directly, they're real.
I doubt she's truly formless as well. However, an idea to contradict that would be, with the formless mother being formless, she uses the blood of her followers as her physical form. You are drawing blood from each and every one of her followers with the spells related to her. It makes just enough sense with her being a god that uses blood as a medium who shows herself to beings with cursed blood. They are all united as one family, never cursed and alone, in the formless mother's veins.
I can definitely see elden ring's version of athiests using your alternative reasoning lmao
Personally I don't believe the outer gods aren't actually real because well simply I find that far less interesting than them being actual beings in a power struggle and using us like pawns. That being said I'll try my hand at playing devil's advocate here.
The outer gods can be 'gods' in the same sense as the sun was treated as our god, or the moon, or the Nile, ect. Great natural phenomena that we knew existed even back then for obvious reasons but did not understand so we anthropomorphised them much like people who don't understand animals do.
Beings with extreme power such as empyreans or close ties to older races like giants or numen, may be connected to these primordial forces of nature more easily, tapping into it perhaps without even trying to. Which to them is being touched by a god, but in reality could just be them tapping into a force of energy that they do not understand. Which could be why the more inbred offspring have a higher likelihood of being able to tap into that power (those being empyreans, I mean you can't be more in bred than making a kid with yourself. Whether Radagon was his own separate being prior or not.)
The Lake of Rot for example could be literally be the "Sealed Rot God" sealed by the Siofra river carving away at stone and causing it to fall underneath the earth. Or The blind swordsman 'defeating' the rot may actually be more symbolic, in the essence that he kept himself moving or the opposite of stagnation, which perhaps cured him of scarlot rot that he may of gotten before, which would give reason why he tried to teach Malenia it. Because it cured him.
Or Ranni's Darkmoon could literally just be her mental image or visual connection to the primeval current. The frienzied flame could be the physical manifestation of entropy or the big crunch. Hell even the greater will could just be the energy that causes time and space to go forward, or fate/causality. Hence why shattering the elden ring literally brought the world to a standstill and they needed destined death just to get shit moving again.
Creatures like the elden beast could literally just be far more advanced races than even the giants/numen, or the Astel's. Being creatures that are far closer to being perfect 'channelers' of those primordial energy sources.
The Gods could literally just be Elden Ring's Law's of Physics manifestations, just beings in that world have the capability of shaping them or using them to a degree. Imagine the religions that would be born in our world if some of us had the power to channel solar energy with our hands?
At least that's my take on it. I don't believe this, but it's a fun thought experiment that I'm certain someone else could do far better.
What of dark soul and elden ring is connect and the frezlay flame ending is the real one since dark soul is about you making a new flame and after you the player in dark soul you decide not to light a new flame and in elden ring in the frezlay flame ending it stated you leave the the land in between maybe to go to the dark doul land
I feel like this is kind of a no brained. They don’t appear because the outer gods don’t have/need physical forms
I always liked the theory (not my theory) that the Lands Between is the painting that the painter girl makes at the end of DS3. I don't know as though it's true, as the Lands Between isn't particularly cold, dark or gentle, and it isn't called Ash, but it's still interesting. You could connect each of the outer gods to gods in Dark Souls. The Greater Will is Gwynevere, since they have heavy gold themes, Gwynevere has a habit of abandoning places, and is invested in keeping the status quo. The Frenzied Flame is the Flame of Chaos from Izalith. The Formless Mother could be Rosaria, since she also has a red color pallet and is referred to as a "mother". The Deathbird God could be Velka since she is connected to birds and has connections to death. The Fell God could be Flann or some other fire god, and the Scarlet Rot is obviously the rot that afflicts every painting. The rot God could be someone like Friede who just really wants the world to rot completely.
Yes dude yes ! I'm so glad I'm not the only one thinking of these entities in a more legit way than just these basically greek persongods walking around. That's just not how gods have existed for a great deal of human history
Hearing the name "Greater Will" immediately made me think of things like Kabbalah and then even the Tao. This unknowable thing that isn't unknowable because it's "Lovecraftian" it's unknowable because real "gods" are unknowable. I didn't even know about the fundamentalist spell descriptions but that tells me these "outer gods" are immense great truths that can only be somewhat known in layers. These are stories Miyazaki is pulled to so of course he'd want to explore it in one of the most anticipated games of the times
Anyway love your stuff pal I've been considering putting out a video basically giving an occult-historical analysis of Elden Ring's more interesting lore but video editing is a nightmare
technically the Greater Will is never called an Outer God.
Indeed, but why shouldn't It be?
It forces the world into a form of its design, It doesn't physically exist in the world, orders lesser beings around and all things that show parallel to the other OGs, even having a "Starborn being" as its highest representative
The name and its envoys (the cause of the fingerprints marking the fingerprint armor) all hint at The Greater Will being an outer god though.
Never did I think we'd get to "Elden Ring: Is god real?" with this game
Oh boy, again with the Berserk references thing. Man, it’s obvious that Miyazaki only took aesthetic inspiration from that manga for some things in his games. However, not one thematic element has ever been taken from Berserk for Fromsoftware games. You can try to argue about the depressing atmosphere, which would be ridiculous because Berserk did not invent pessimistic themes in storytelling.
Whatever force, god, or essence that the regal ancestral spirit stuff is associated with is super fascinating. To me it's almost like this neautral primordial force that wants to create life and exist naturally and in harmony with everything. Also this force or essence of life seems to be completely unrelated to the golden order, it's almost like it's the true natural force or "god" of the planet and it's goal is to just naturally breed life and nature which inevitably gets corrupted by outside gods and/or possibly the golden order as well. Basically the world would probably be peaceful and mostly nature, animals and loving spiritual tribal like people who live simple lives. Basically like many Native Americans tribes or the Navi from Avatar
No, it's a video game
Your a party pooper :(
Full on flu type diarrhea all over the party
I think the outer gods are just manifestations of those that use its power
Formless Mother fits this disc, but its a harder case for the Rot God or Frenzied Flame imo
No, bro, they’re not. It’s a video game
The greater will came to my house at 3am (GONE WRONG!!!) 🥶🥶
I know I'm not the first person to think this but maybe the fingers that control , and the greater will is the player...
No they are in a video game so not real 🙄 😒 😐 😑 😤 😳 🙄 😒 😐 😑 😤 😳 🙄 😒 😐 😑 😤
the video game is real :P
lol, that's real inside of the video game of course xD
Quite a philosophical quandary you have there 🤔
@@daunted2322 or is it
I don’t think elden ring has any actually gods ,just individuals so strong that they get the label of gods
I agree about the "gods", but the "outer gods" seem pretty 'legit' tbh. What is a god anyway?
in beserk the veil of Angel's and demons are truly pulled from your eyes when you realize that what you can consider as good and evil can be complex enough to be irrelevant to what is considered an angel or a demon, in the eyes of mere mortals that is a god and some of these gods cannot manifest into a physical realm. they use chosen empyreans to take the place of their vassal for their out god via the greater will or the blood star. or the flame of frenzy.. the idea is that they are so powerful but cannot manifest into a physical realm, this itselfs takes rebirth. which is what makes me think explains how empyreans are chosen in the first place
Yeah the distinction of ‘god’ for say marika is fuzzy. But as I present in the vid, the Outer Gods do seem to be somethin special
To me it's pretty clear the difference.
The OG are these abstract or ephemereal beings, made of concept and ideas, or at best some physical otherwordly form (like, let's say, literal Stars in the sky at ages of lightspeed from each other).
"Gods" are the human representative of them. They are the chosen Ones to lead their will into the world, to be their Heralds.
Demigods is anyone related to the God of their Age.
Empyreans are humans, probably Demigods or at least important and powerful people, worthy of/chosen by a OG. This may manifest in different ways, but the core concept is someone that's not Empyrean shouldn't be able to become a God.
We can imagine a lot about Marika past... But we just don't know It.
My take is that before the Age of the Erdtree, Marika was part of her own generation of Empyreans, probably of a more varied source than a single family, and that she lead the Greater Will agenda. A possible target to the defeat was a giant equivalent of the Empyrean (they "carry the Fell God" within themselves) and the Gloam-Eyed Queen.