The DLC making it so the Golden Order is a result of an extended game of whispers - based on outdated information and corrupted by Marika's biases and desire for vengeance - of the Greater Will's desires is kinda hilarious in a way
@@deejones0071 Count Ymir also reveals that because "we are made of stardust" we are also descendants of and part of the Greater Will. The only difference is that the Elden Beast is to the creatures of The Lands Between what the Sun is to us creatures of Earth. So I think the Greater Will truly is the collective laws of physics and of man. It's very much a Berserk idea in that way. That there is no higher power out there, only the collective will of the people and certain "special" people who acquire enough power to influence the people around them and the world for better or worse.
@@deejones0071 Worse than that since Marika had to abandon her flesh & humanity to become a god it more or less just takes over Marika but with her memories forcing order everywhere. Remember godhood is a prison. The level of control over her probably varied. Finally fading away as she learned to resist it & shattered when Godwyn dies. Only to realize she became the exact same monster that existed before her as a god. Then shattering the ring.
Please, never feel stupid. Your videos provide an excellent jumping off point for thoughtful discussion. We learn about our worlds by interacting with them. Mistakes are made, and from them we learn and grow.
I agree 100% I may not agree with your conclusion or how you interpreted evidence to reach that conclusion, but I've never thought of you or your content as stupid. Your videos (that I've seen) are well thought out and well researched. Sometimes the questions you've asked don't have a definitive answer. FromSoft games are known for providing few definitive answers. You do great work with the material they provide.
Surely a stupid person would never stop to consider, "wait, what if my founding assumptions are all wrong? What happens to the topic if those ideas just aren't true?"
I prefer this take on ER lore. To me, it's almost like a biblical tale.... something rich in metaphor and unclear on specific timeframes, or how certain events ACTUALLY happened. But it also has a 'canon' story to it that's more or less implied to be a fully cogent and tangible truth. It's just one that none of the people reading it can ever fully understand. You know only what God wants you to know. What you access from your mortal, sinful place in the universe is but a fraction of what ever was, is, or will be. Because of that, there are all of these denominations, institutional and intellectual forces in the world... all of them built upon some fundamental presumptions about what the text is communicating to us. Or perhaps what the practical meaning of it is, how to best apply it and move forward with it. In doing so, many presumptions are taken on faith. And a rational framework emerges, one that aims to explain why we suffer and what we must do. But the map is not the territory. And because of that, institutions large enough to run nations have risen and collapsed. I guess their understanding was still incomplete. One thing I notice, and maybe this is getting too close to the real world but... not only are their separate denominations, but entire different religions taking readings of the text. And they fight constantly over which is right, because nobody knows the full answer. However, it makes sense that people fight over this in the real world - everyone involved believes the fate of our race hinges on us getting it right. That's something I can completely understand as a basic matter of possessing human empathy and rationale. It is the root of so much tragedy, but I do not know how to stop people from being people. What I can't understand is doing it in a video game world. We can have conflicting reads on text and subtext here and nothing is lost. The truth is, everyone is getting it wrong in the sense that there probably isn't a singular right that is remotely comprehensive enough to bury further questioning. Elden Ring gets a lot more interesting to think and talk about when you stop presuming there is a correct, ultimate explanation and start realizing there are many possible explanations, and that by design of the work, you will never have an understanding of it all that is complete enough to form a singular, absolute truth of it. That's for the creator to think about. The greatest joy of the game's storytelling is that by removing our ability to see the 'canonical' storyline directly, we can essentially pull a near infinite amount of stories from it. Again, it's a lot like the Bible. If ever you think you've figured all of it out, you missed the point... there are things referenced in that book, that aren't meant to be understood by humans in a fully concrete way. It paints you pictures of many things... pieces of truths, the full extent of which are implicitly not comprehensible by mortals. And I think some lore-interpreters for this game mistakenly believe they can mantle a full understanding of divinity by becoming historians.
22:18 "For that to be true, the two fingers would have to either be insane, babbling nonsense-" It is so interesting watching this after the DLC, as you made so many interesting observations that get directly elaborated on, or answered. Would love to see you make an addendum to this video, discussing the new evidence.
@@HopeiThis worst main boss in the game for sure. I definitely love getting one hit on him and then chasing him across the arena for the next 5 minutes.
The Normal Will hopefully takes inspiration from Marika and shatter that Ring already. Then again, not sure if we want a Shattering Slapping War as follow up
I always liked the separation of the Greater Will and the Golden Order. We need more fantasy stories where Religious institutions are actually mistaken about what their deities want. Elder Scrolls explores some of that too.
I really like the idea that The Greater Will is not hands on, and that Marika and Radagon are much more at fault for the wars in the lands between. Just like in real life, all wars are created by the assumption of some greater good by the aggressor, but that greater good is more of an enabler than an active force, regardless of its own sapience or lack thereof.
the greater will existed before marika and the golden order and so did the ring/beast, so i agree with u that marika is responsible for her actions. ofc the greater will through the ring and the power it gives definitely had some influence on her, just like money, power and fame would to a normal human in the real world but that doesn't take away from one's accountability. that being said, i think marika had way more free will and was way more responsible for her actions when she was an empyrean and did all the horrible things that she did cuz it appears that after ascending to godhood her and her other part have distinct roles embedded to them, causality and regression.
The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment.
I always imagined that The Greater Will was physically somewhere in outer space, since the Elden Beast was sent to the lands between in a golden star, and so even if it is enormously powerful, it still has to rely on third parties to enact its will such as the Two Fingers and the Elden Beast. One theory I always found really interesting is that the Two Fingers have gone rogue, and since they are The Greater Will's only form of communication it has no way of directly interacting with the lands between. Multiple characters mention that the two fingers are no longer working the way they were intended to, they also have their own church outside of the golden order, and when you give Corhyn the assassins prayer book he considers it heresy, despite being from the Two Fingers
@@thomasdevlin5825I feel like the Greater Will doesn't have a physical form, or embodies the cosmos in some way, which not only explains its name, but still explains the need for vassals and representatives
@@Practicallypreposterousit could really go either way. This world doesn't seem to be a place where gods can instantly transport themselves to a new location. In Ranni's ending you undertake a long journey. Vassals and envoys could be needed because the Greater Will is physically located so far away
I have not played Elden Ring. Being able to say "I may be wrong" and looking at new evidence, is a good trait in life. I respect people that can say that. I also enjoy your videos on games that I have played. You provide thought, analysis, and a perspective that I don't have. Thank you for your content.
As an archaeology student I've always seen fromsoft tory-telling as close as you can get to replicate how a historical investigation would go. Relying too much in just documental evidence will get you so far, there biases, is incomplete and doesn't present the full picture. Thats why I also see value in other elements: diference in architecture, clothing, iconography, real life inspirations, even the burial practises differences tell a story in this game. The scope to understand the lore is so wide and open to interpretation that, in a similar way to real life historial investigaton, is only the work of many people working toghether that this mess can be untangled. that's way things like not fully be able to explain things like what the greater will really is in a single video is not something to be ashamed
@@DanielGarcia-rx3kt I have and I really like his approach, probably personal bias. But it's not perfect representation of how archaeology investigation would go, although is a really good work in that regard
Elden Ring's environmental storytelling is what makes it so special among everything in gaming history, and I'm quite literally tweaking over the fact that very little people find appreciation in it.
Though the DLC throws a wrench into this, because Metyr Mother of Fingers that spawned the Two Fingers their remembrance states that even with its connection to the cosmos it hasn’t received a message in sometime. So if the Mother of Finger isn’t getting a response then I doubt the Two Fingers are either. That means the Two Fingers are winging it and just trying their best to act out the Greater Will’s influence to the best of their ability, but in reality they don’t know. Though amazing video! I am not gonna deny that the Greater Will is sentient though it has completely abandoned the Lands Between and the Land of Shadow
I love these videos! One thing that I am unclear on re the Two Fingers: later, when something doesn't go as planned (the thorns preventing access to the Erdtree), the Fingers call the GW, and Enia implies that it might take years. This makes it sound like the Fingers don't actually know if the GW is pleased with us specifically, and we don't even know how long it has been since they've actually spoken, and it might just be the case that we are fulfilling whatever the Fingers understand the GW's standing orders to be. It feels like that was supposed to be a reveal that hey, no, there's nobody actually there driving the bus; this could also help explain why the GW needs vassals at all. It's just an interesting thing to consider. I absolutely agree with the idea that we are supposed to read the GW as sentient- even if it is, in fact, not- personifying concepts themselves is a fromsoft trope at this point.
That's the fun fact. They probably fully believe that this is what the GW wants and they think to know that she's pleased and she bless our mission. A very good plot point, the wise and superior Fingers don't know nothing after all.
They probably only get a few transmissions every other millennia And the rest is interpretation In a society ruled by order that's enough because there won't be anything changing, because why would it? Why fix something if it is (presumably) already well oiled? And there it is, a system that worked But oh no here comes the shattering. A fast changing of times, too fast for the two fingers and the greater will And thus the two fingers as the "next in line" made the decisions and credited the greater will
Marika came up with this plan back when she stripped Godfrey and the other Tarnished of their grace. I think Marika had planned for Radagon's unwillingness to be deposed or how much power she had given him. Imo the GW didn't really care until the disorder and chaos overtook the land. Since the Two Fingers communicate using light, I think the amount of time it will take to get a response is supposed to show how far away the GW is from the Lands Between. I believe the TF we interact with in the Roundtable Hold are Marika's TF specifically, and they're trying to maintain the status quo with her in power and the Erdtree intact.
That happens because the Two Fingers were fooled by Marika. This whole time the TF assumed it was the Greater Will who gave grace back to the Tarnished, so they could restore the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord. So, why would the Erdtree block the path for them if the Greater Will is the one who wanted the Tarnished to brandish the Elden Ring? That does not make sense, right? That´s because it wasn´t the Greater Will who gave the Tarnished their grace back. It was Marika all along. It´s Marika who wants us to brandish the Elden Ring, burn the Erdtree and create a new Order. When the TF know that the Erdtree is blocked and the only way in is burning it down, they panick and desperetly try to communicate with the Greater Will.... but it seems they can´t anymore. Becasue the Greater Will abandoned The Lands Between a long time ago. And the only ones who protect what´s left of their precious Golden Order are Morgott and Radagon.
@@pantonpg "Kono Marika Da!" I'm not sure she's doing this fully concious of herself or even if there is One herself right now, but yeah, she was the one behind the return of the tarnished, not the GW.
I'm glad I found this video because I've been losing this channel but this is the main criticism I was thinking of during the Marika video. In my opinion it would take many moons for the greater will to even get a status update on how its vassal is doing in the same way the 2 fingers needs so much time to hear the greater will.
In Regards to the Greater Will giving Marika/Radagon the "tools" to make the Golden Order, I think something important to remember is that going off the concept that the Greater will is the embodiment of order, It probably gave those tools to make any type of society because it doesn’t really care as long as order exists in some form. additionally, that could also be why it was so angered or displeased with the shattering war, as a Chaotic event such as that is in direct opposition to its fundamental principles.
It didn't care about the war. It was fine with all the previous wars and génócìdés committed in its name. It was only mad because its puppet Marika stopped allowing herself to be its toy.
@@altermirror4063 It's unclear if Placidudax's god was connected to the Great Will, though. Given the faint remnants of gold on his scales it could be the case, but he could also have become gold because of his association with Godwyn.
Super important what you said about believing the Narrator (i.e the item descriptions)! People get downright paranoid about not trusting what's in front of them in this game sometimes, and some foundation is necessary. After all, what's the point of trying to figure out the lore if you don't believe in anything? I think it's super healthy to always take definitive statements in item descriptions at face value - if a description wants us to be uncertain, it will use uncertain language.
There is definitely a contrarian bent to a lot of people's interpretations that just leads to them inventing nonsense basically from whole-cloth to justify why everything we read *must* be a lie.
Examples? Since I don't remember items that say they are seperate. I only remember dialouge that says that, which comes from people that don't know the full context. So it would be nice if you could remind me.@@dgalloway107
@@dgalloway107 Where exactly? Because I can't remember a single item that does lie to the player about Radagon and Marika. It never mentions that Radagon = Marika because it's never relevant to said item.
'The Fingers must be crazy or deceiving us.' Ymir's questline be like 'correct'. Good video, can't wait to see more theories about this now that the DLC has been out for awhile.
even Sir Gideon knew what was up before the dlc he truly is all knowing if you don't know what i meant check the Lord's Divine Fortification description
What I find interesting about the Elden Beast. Notice the big scar on its belly ? There's a theory that since the beast came with the Elden Ring it's somewhat linked to it and so when trying to fracture it the Beast retaliate because it was getting smashed. There's also an attack of the elden beast that crucifies you to a rune and pierces you with dozens of spears so it makes sense if the Beast punished Marika even if it wasnt from a direct order and more from an act of self defense
the elden ring is the elden beast, the scar on it's belly is because of the fracture of the ring. the ring ofc is inside marika/radagon, that's why when ragagon loses the beast comes out to fight us. i think the beast through radagon is indeed responsible for crucifying marika. i think marika wanted a new order and a new lord to change the current order but radagon wants things to go back to what they used to be, that's why he attacks us to take our shards and do exactly that. we know marika shattered the ring because of godwyn but i don't know for sure why she wants a new order and what shape she wants it to take.
@Lee-km7qq Marika is the vessel of the Elden Ring, that also is the Elden Beast, but there is something more. The connection between the vessel and the Elden Ring is not just the same between a cup and the tea, because we can see Marika's/Radagon's body shattering when she smashed the Elden Ring (The story trailer). So you can say is a being shattering itself and then be punished by itself while the other itself is trying to fix itself. Mr.Miyazaki, even less please.
They're one and the same. I thought the scar was from the ring being taken from its body long ago, much like Marika became the literal vessel for it later.
@@themaniae4803 I'm still confused about that. There's evidence that Radagon was once an independent being, and he merged with Marika due to her kind able to "melt with flesh harmoniously". But why? What on earth does Radagon get out of literally becoming one with Marika?
I think your first point tells us more than you say. The 3 fingers state that the greater will made a mistake. For something to be a mistake it needs more than to be bad or in error. There needs to be intention and specifically that intention needs to be failed. From that alone we know that the greater will must be intelligent and aware. At least enough to make mistakes in the first place. 2 asteroids colliding isn't a mistake it's just an event a mistake would be trying to land on an astroid and crashing into it instead. Both might result in the destruction of colliding objects but that is only a mistake if you care about whether or not the objects are destroyed. An unthinking uncaring thing cannot make nor recognize mistakes. Presuming we trust the 3 fingers anyway
The best part? It's only fingers that have a better grasp what the truth is, it just has a messed up solution which could be as wrong as that of the two fingers
not necessarily true, someone like the 3 fingers and the chaos can say life is a mistake, that doesn't mean life was made by someone or with intentions. i can definitely see someone with a nihilistic perspective say that. i personally don't know if the greater will is sentient or not but one would assume that in a high fantasy setting like this with space gods and all that it would xD i highly doubt though that the greater will gives a fuck other than having a sort of order imposed.
@@metalface_villain "not necessarily true, someone like the 3 fingers and the chaos can say life is a mistake, that doesn't mean life was made by someone or with intentions." But the fact that it's called a "mistake" by the 3 fingers implies the 3 fingers are intelligent, and therefore the two fingers and the greater will probably are, as well.
@@metalface_villain Yep, is fully a Nihilist vision in the worst way. "Life is pain so burn everything." Quite funny after what Shabriri did to the merchants. Also, yeah, GW don't give a total sh*t about what is the order. Malenia, AFTER the Rot, was chosen as an Empyrean, and even with a chance of a Rot Goddess with the Elden Ring, GW did nothing.
Also, after burning the Erdtree, the Two Fingers make a specific pose, and the Finger Reader tells you it's communicating with the Greater Will. If we take the Finger Reader's word for it, an attempt to communicate implies a belief in the possibility of a response, which suggests an intellect or at least sentience.
I’m sure someone has mentioned it already, but the remembrance for the optional DLC boss, Metyr, and the descriptions of the items you get from it adds so much to this topic
I wish we knew more about her. She's the first envoy of GW, and the mother of Two Fingers, but then where did Three Fingers come from? And where did GW go? It abandoned Metyr and the lands between, but why?
In the DLC we have learned that mother of fingers was abandoned by the greater will a long time ago, therefore two fingers were only pretending to be it's messengers :
That's not how I perceived it. It's not pretending, it genuinely thinks it's still getting info directly from GW. It doesn't know that it's getting the info from its mother, Metyr, who is aware GW is gone and yet continues to act as its envoy, making it up as she goes based on what she *_thinks_* is what GW wants.
i think the greater will is dualistic in nature, much like many other characters in the story. grace/order are but one half of the nature of the greater will, while chaos/frenzy is the other half of this same force. this force is not bifurcated in some long forgot conflict, but rather the connection between the two have been perceptually obscured for the denizens of the lands between.
Considering that the frenzy flame is yellow, I don't think this is all that far off. To a greater extent, I genuinely feel as though many aspects of reality that don't fit into the world under the Golden Order could have been removed like the Rune of Death, turning into the outer gods without anything to influence. After all, once the rune of death is finally able to affect the world again after taking Godwyn's body as its shell and it starts to reshape the world in its image just like the rot infecting Caelid and the Haligtree, or the way that Frenzy and the formless mother seemingly alter the people they influence Trememdous facts about reality that hurt, that you don't want to have to acknowledge, but none the less very real and very important. Things get strange if you cut them out, and if they remain seperate then horrible things happen when they make their own independent contact with the world again.
I think it's worth noting that not only do Gold Mask and Mikela but also Marika herself are talked about as researching the Golden Order in order to understand it better. If Marika made up the Golden order from whole cloth why would she need to research it? Why is it implied all three of these characters found something that dismayed them once they found it? Here's to hoping we get more answers in the DLC
Honestly it's good to get a fresh perspective on the lore of elden ring coming from more of a meta-physics angle rather than pure in-game lore. You've brought up ideas that even other lore-tubers have yet to bring up that make a lot of sense (IE the Greater Will as an Eldritch being of pure order, being repelled by the discord in the Lands Between).
Item descriptions often provide context for where their information comes from, for example, in the elden stars description is starts by saying "It is said that..." Meaning this information is information passed down and not objective fact. I generally assume unless there's a preface or qualifier like this in the description, that the item descriptions are objectively true and that's how I personally make the distinction between objective and subject info within item descriptions
I agree wholeheartedly. I was thinking during the video that knowing that the Elden Beast is only thought by the people of the Lands Between to be consciously sent by the Greater Will is still good information. It potentially not being true doesn’t diminish its value since we are learning about common beliefs of the people there and that informs how we in turn interpret their thoughts and actions.
Turns out the two fingers might be communicating with Metyr who was the one who once communicated directly with the Greater Will but has not received a message in a long time.
I think an interesting detail about the Mending Runes is that the source of all three of them are Tarnished: People who have, either directly or indirectly, been removed from the Golden Order, but called upon when things have gotten dire. People who are bringing new ideas to a flawed Order, from their experiences of having to live outside of it. I'm deeply curious as to whether Miquella will be bringing his own, new ending to Elden Ring with the DLC, and what shape that'll take. From what little we know about him, he seems at this point in his life to be fairly dismissive of the Golden Order. It couldn't cure his sister, he's sheltering a bunch of things viewed as malign by the Order in his treehouse, that he was specifically building as a new, alternative tree to the Erdtree, and he's fully divested himself of the body and Grace he was entitled to by birth, in pursuit of something in the Lands of Shadow, which from descriptions seems to be a sort of... oubliette that Marika and/or the Golden Order used for things they didn't want around. Very curious indeed.
*SPOILERS FOR DLC* He was trying to get a different age of compassion to the age of order, and you stop him. So in a sense yes he is trying to make a new ending, but you cut it off in favor of your own ending as Elden lord.
I think there is an important linguistic point that has been overlooked in this debate. A will is by definition personal. If the Greater Will is impersonal, then it is by definition not a will.
It can also be a very primitive drive or desire. I believe there can be an unconscious or subconscious "will" that a conscious being can discovery, but "will" might not be the best word to describe that. It's definitley mysterious or imperceptibly great or possibly unknowable.
@@pillarmenn1936 In Japanese the word used for "Will" is "意志", which can mean will, intent, and determination. It's never used for things that aren't sentient as far as I can see. So no, as far as Japanese is concerned: the Greater Will IS sentient. In fact, we see plenty of examples in the game of the Greater Will spying on people (Iji's helm), controlling people (Blaidd, Ranni), making choices (abandoning the Demigods to instead call the Tarnished), etc. It's very difficult to argue that it's not sentient imo.
It is very likely that Marika discovered something that changed her mind on obedience to the Greater Will. There's a bonfire in game where Melina relates Marika declaring her intent to study the Greater Will much closer and sometime after that, she does an almost complete 180 in terms of her own Golden Order from trying to build it up, crush all competitors and make it as strong as possible, to actively betraying it and trying to tear it down. She essentially allows Ranni to steal a piece of destined death and kill Godwyn the Golden. She banishes Godfrey the first Elden Lord and master of the tarnished and basically tells them to become really strong and come back some day emboldened with the flame of ambition. She sends Melina out to find the "chosen" tarnished to assist in this. She IS Radagon, so her then denying the tarnished entry into the Erdtree forcing them to burn it could be another effort to basically destroy the own order she created and, of course, she herself shatters the Elden Ring. What she learned is not completely clear, but the change in behavior could not be more clear. She goes from one extreme to the polar opposite extreme. From doing everything possible to ensure the Golden Order's primacy and superiority over all other factions or ideologies to wanting to the exact opposite of subverting it however she can. After whatever she learned she then devotes all of her efforts to tear down what she had spent her entire life creating, even at the cost of basically the lives of all of her offspring (save perhaps Ranni and/or Miquella?) and her own life as well. I think it is likely that her study of the Greater Will turned up something that disgusted her or some way that she herself had been deceived and/or lied to. I suspect that the Erdtree is a parasite, feeding on everything that returns to it in order to make the Greater Will ever stronger. It is beautiful...and feeding on the entire world over the centuries.
I’m not sure what she discovered but she clearly came to some conclusion. But you are wrong in one respect (in my view anyways for what that counts) radagon and marika are the same person but Radagon is the half that wishes to save the current order marika is the one who broke it that’s why she is impaled and crucified while radagon can whip the hammer out and go bonk bonk But then we must also ask ourselves what if she discovered nothing? What if she found the Elden beast and order and all of it have no real will or purpose and all of the blasphemy she committed in the past was all for not? What if that’s what shadow of the Erdtree will shed light on? What if that’s why miqeulla is doing what he’s doing? This is why I love and hate Elden ring we have a ring of possible and answers but no concrete center, no anchoring rune we can know anything from all we know is that radagon and marika are one and the only philosopher who would know more is wiggling his fam finger at the sky while his apprentice cries in a corner
Parasite theory was always my favorite interpretation of the Erdtree. Isn't their lore about souls who die get absorbed into the Erdtree? Not to mention in the final boss arena, we see tons of Erdtrees in the distance, implying that the Greater Will has more of them in other realms, sending them out like probes. Another cool interpretation IMO is that we the player are the Greater Will, the two fingers being metaphorical for the fingers we use to manipulate the controller and thus the Tarnished. It makes sense, our will is the only one that matters in this world.
The gold imo is kind of like the one ring from Tolkien. It corrupts and consumes anyone who tries to take it over for power. Just look at Marika at the end of the game. It’s just an empty shell. That’s no longer whoever the real Marika was. It’s just like how sorcerers get consumed who try to study the primal current of Star magic. Everyone in this game tries to use something to gain power and they pay the price for it.
I think of the parasitic interpretation to be the one that makes the most sense for me. Power parasite and corrupts and do everything it can to grow stronger and stay alive for as long as possible through whatever means, even it that means being flexible and betraying itself, like it did with the "heretics from the Carian family". If order cannot prevail trough strength, it will redefine itself to prevail through laws. This is what a lifeform looking to survive anything will do : adapt in whatever way it can to overcome any threats. And what better thing to do for a parasite that is just looking to feed from as many worlds as possible ?
Radagon and Marika are not the same person. They share a body, yes, but clearly have different motivations and personalities. The most clear example of this is Marika trying to shatter the Elden Ring while Radagon was the one trying to repair it, according to the description of Marika's Hammer. The Tarnished's return and slaying of the Elden Beast was always what Marika wanted, seeing as how she sent Godfrey away on purpose, and wanted her demigod children to claim their places as gods, lords, what have you. It would make no sense for her to block off the Erdtree, especially when Melina is almost certainly her daughter, and Melina herself was created for the purpose of getting into the Erdtree. Radagon, on the other hand, has been described by Queen Marika herself as a "leal hound of the Golden Order," meaning that she views him as more or less a fanatical dog. His title ingame isn't "Radagon, Second Elden Lord," it's "Radagon of the Golden Order." We never see any sign of Marika developing Golden Order fundamentalist incantations, but we know Radagon personally developed the spell Radagon's Rings of Light as a gift to his son Miquella. In other words, Radagon is consistently characterized as someone whose very identity revolves around the Golden Order. A loyal and dogmatic servant who is even considered a fundamentalist of the Order. It makes perfect sense for someone like Radagon to seal off the Erdtree, because anyone looking to mend the Elden Ring would likely destroy the current form of the Golden Order and create a new one. He doesn't want the world to change - he wants the world to remain stagnant and dead, as long as the Golden Order in its current form is preserved.
It should be taken into account that there is a distinct possibility that there is no Greater Will at all. It could be that everything that has happened that was attributed to the Greater Will is nothing more than happenstance, and that the "Greater Will" is equivalent to Divine Providence in the sense that it is an established cause of events that the majority of people in the Lands Between believe is a thing that can cause things to happen. The Greater Will's abandonment of the Lands Between is just another way of saying 'things suck now, nobody wants to take responsibility for it, so it must be because the Greater Will abandoned us'. There never was a Greater Will present; The land was simply in a Golden Age of prosperity and it was easy to believe it was because a higher power was responsible for all the good things happening. Hands manipulate, that is their physical function in our anatomy. So, the Fingers are manipulators, and I think they are largely responsible for the state of things, perpetuating belief in a thing that does not even actually exist. Combine that with the selfish ambitions of a bunch of bickering demigods and you get the world as it is. All of the so-called Outer Gods could very well be nothing more than natural forces in this universe that individuals learn how to harness and utilize, then start attributing their own biases onto those forces of nature and develop cults around them.
This is my reading as well. It makes me think WAAY back to when Elden Ring was first announced and I read a blurb describing the game along the lines of "the Ambition of humanity".
Feedback is always good Don't confuse it with destructive criticism You make good compelling arguments with the knowledge you have Love your videos keep doing what your doing
Ah man, Ymir’s quest line in the DLC sheds some light on your final point about the two fingers’ dialogue as evidence for the nature of the greater will
Reacting early @2:10 and I've got two thoughts: first, the name, "The Greater Will," implies, well, a will, an entity with wants and goals and some sort of thought, even if it's not in a form we well recognize/understand. It's plausible that that's a misunderstanding on the part of mortals, but that just leads me into point two: Marika can be responsible for shaping the Golden Order but also not be a petulant child in breaking it. She can have either grown to think better of/regret her past choices, or have been fully convinced that she wasn't the one making those decisions and believe herself to be rejecting a higher power, not realizing that that was always in her own power. Either way, she actually still paints the picture of someone who has come to reject their past as mistaken and misguided and seeking to redress those crimes as she is able.
I look forward to seeing what information on the Golden Order the DLC gives us. I get the feeling Miquella has some pretty damning information on the religion considering the lengths he's gone to to distance himself from it and gain access to the place that Marika is (supposedly) from. Messmer being excluded from the original pantheon of demi-gods despite clearly being a child of Marika himself will also be interesting.
Here's a couple of important questions to consider when contemplating the nature of the Greater Will 1. In a scenario where the player defeats Radagon but then dies to the Elden Beast, what would happen next? Would the Elden Beast repair the seal on the Erdtree? Would it return to Radagon and wait for the next challenger? Would it leave the Erdtree and try to return to the Greater Will, or perhaps just rampage until someone defeated it? 2. How far does the scope of the Elden Ring's influence extend? We know it extends across The Lands Between, but we also know other lands exist in this world, like the Land of Reeds or the places across the sea that Marika sent Godfrey and his men. If the rules defined by the Elden Ring govern the natural order of things across the world, and the Shattering War happened centuries ago, then why has no outside nation attempted to take advantage of the civil war stalemate and seize the Elden Ring for themselves? (Keep in mind, the truth about needing to burn the thorns to enter the Erdtree didn't become public knowledge until the player attempts to enter the Erdtree with two Great Runes, so no foreign nation would be aware that only someone with Grace could claim the Elden Ring). Sure, the reputations of the demigods could have scared many of them off, but over that much time, it's hard to believe that no foreign power would try to launch an assault on The Lands Between, or even offer an alliance and military support to one of the demigods to help them win the war.
Well, as for the first one, I would imagine it would simply take the repair rune the player character has and fixed the elden ring. After that, who knows.
My brain added to your lines regarding the fingers. 'they could by insane or lying manipulators' and we've neved seen that in a fromsoft game *spin camera to Frampt & Kaathe*
Dont feel bad brett! Elden ring is hugely about interpretation and bringing ideas to the table and talking about stuff is what the souls-kiro-bourne-ring community is all about! Yours are among my favorite lore videos to watch and i think your community appreciates the honesty to address areas you missed or misunderstood. Keep at it man🤙
FatBrett! Forget not that you enter the Elden Ring fandom and community showcasing your singular perspective, your impression of the game. And thag the reason so many “smart” people are quick and wanting to add their own understanding, is that they’ve had *two years* thus far of comparing and contrasting their own beliefs with everyone else who has made videos! There have been countless minute discoveries and connections that shape the whole of certain characters, things that are impossible for one person alone to find and understand completely! I also find that taking all descriptions including “it is said” to be true is generally good for appreciation of Elden Ring’s story. The moment you start to pick and choose reduces the impact and authenticity of *all* beautiful little stories about the world, like Lansseax having a human form, the legend of the Blue Dancer, the fundamental nature of Destined Death, and so on. For me, personally, it’s easier to appreciate the whole when you reconcile *all* those implied connections to fill in the context of the Lands Between’s history. I really liked your thorough explanation of the Greater Will as it appears narratively! Keep up the good work!
You don't have to call them "Stupid Mistakes". These explorations are amazing and helps us all suss out whats going on (even if we aren't 100% correct). One thing to consider: Marika is *not* an agent of Order. She has nothing to do with the Golden Order at all. She, in fact, has rebelled against the influence of the GW since day 1. Radagon, OTOH, is the architect and creator of The Golden Order. He implemented it by force, after the Greater Will made him Consort to Queen Marika. Looking at its design, the Golden Order is this mesh latticework that appears almost like a cage or fence. This is to represent the dogmatism and the rigidity that defines the Golden Order. And when Golden Order Fundamentalism wasn't enough to stop The Shattering, he would seal Marika inside of the Erdtree (Golden Order magic is seen bolstering the brambles when we approach before its burned), and then attempt to repair the Elden Ring with what remained in her broken body.
Hmmm... Since day 1! Seems unlikely given the fact that she became its champion, killing and conquering for the sake of the promised Order. Somewhere down the line though a disagreement grew, the inner conflict of which birth two separate sides of Marika, one seeking too further the growth & agenda of the Order, the other being Marika herself who defy's the GW; hence becoming a fell God. I agree with everything else, good analysis. The most remarkable thing to me though, is how 1 became 2? & was it in part this weird incest why Malenia & Miquella came out with issues?
@@painsuzerain6087 well some of the sources are spoilers for the DLC so im gonna hold off on spoiling those. Radagon being the architect of the golden order is in his name: Radagon of the Golden Order, as well as his school of Golden Order Fundamentalism (fundamental meaning foundational). Further, the symbol of the Golden Order is the hatchmark golden symbol, which also featured on statues of Radagon, as well as is containing the Elden Ring during the final fight with Radagon (and even empowering the Brambles at the Erdtree.) Another interpretation is that perhaps Marika *created* the Golden Order, but Radagon was such a GW bootlicker and Order obsessed (again he created the fundamentalist study here), that when Marika spurned the Golden Order, he was there to champion it in her stead, ad he embodied the Order so fully that it was as if he *was* the order.
Radagon wasn't the first consort of Marika, so this is unlikely. While we can alter the ER by adding a mending rune to it, it's not clear that an Elden Lord is even supposed to do that. The Fingers want us to just go to Marika with the Shards and become her consort, like in the the Age of Fracture ending. In the other enings, yeah we can modify the ER, but Marika, by that time is pretty much just a dead vessel, so there is no one to stop us. In Rannis ending it is her, Marika's successor the one who takes the ER and we don't even touch it. Melina at the Erdtree Church is able to recount Marika's words about her wanting to understand and search the depths of the Golden Order. "Through understanding of the proper way, our faith, our grace, is increased.". It sounds like she expected this understanig to be a prosperous thing for them. She doesn't sound like someone who is against anything at this point.
As long as there is order that's what the greater will likes. Actually, this has been a common sentiment in the lore community for sometime if I recall....
In theories, I like to believe that, mistakes are not mistakes, but new ideas. I love your previous video on this topic. I love your idea of true nature of things. It also help me see things differently and made me much more acceptance to daily human interactions.
Regarding who punished Marika: The elden beast has a grab attack in which the player is held aloft on a rune (exactly like Marika) and pierced by innumerable golden light spikes. Still not clear on the red spear but it's something 🤷🏻♂️
My thoughts about the three fingers is that they are the most honest out of all, what we know is that they communicate via their fingerprints, they can't change those and they are pretty much repeating themselves all the time and well they go straight to the point, Burn everything with the yellow Chaos Flame, the only other one is hayetta who tells us what their fingerprints say, in order to communicate with the two fingers the message has to go through the two finger themselves since they share what they greater will says and from what we saw they aren't actually communicating at the moment or since who knows when they haven't talked and the the message has to come through another individual that being the finger reader.
About the mistake the three fingers are talking about : The mistake is the gift of life. Elden Ring's origin, according to the 3 finger's dialogue, seems to be pretty akin to the lord of Dark Souls (which is partially why I believe that what is being told here is NOT a lie) : The world was gray and unchanging and uniform, with neither life nor death, nor anything, really. The gift of life, that came from the fracture (from the Fire, in Dark Souls), created all those variances : life and death, order and chaos, etc... all the good but also all the bad : death, pain, despair... The battle between the factions (or the cosmic gods, really) of Elden Ring is nothing more than philosophy, with each faction representing a point of view and clashing with the others, in a battle to determine which one is "right". The 3 fingers probably came to be because order existed, as they represent pure chaos. No matter what, they're the absolute antithesis to the order. Order seeks to build, organize and control, therefore the chaos seeks to destroy everything in a senseless chaos. It's kind of a yin-yang dynamic. And just like the order seeks to maintain itself "alive", chaos seeks to make everything melt away and fuse again together. When there is absolutely nothing, there is no chaos but there is no order either. Chaos does not care for self-preservation, which is why it is called madness : because it goes against everything that life is about. That's probably also why the madness incantations can be just as harmful to you as they are to your enemies.
The separation of Marika and Radagon is the most crucial point to understand what the Greater Will is I think. So we have Marika, who becomes the "vessel" of the Greater Will and uses the Elden Ring to create her personnal vision of order (since she takes the rune of death out of it and locks it away). She then charges Maliketh to look after the rune of death and punishes him with a monstruous fate when he fails to protect it, kinda showing us she doesn't really give a fuck about her "shadow" given to her by the Greater Will / Two fingers. Since the Elden Ring was supposedly sent to the world by the Greater Will, it is safe to assume that the original state of the Elden Ring was the one the Greater Will wished it was used in. Thus, Marika taking out some parts of it seems to already be suspicious and probably the start of her rebellion. But, since the Greater Will has no one else "compatible enough" to carry out his bidings, he basically lets it slide for a while seeing that Marika's Golden Order is actually bringing a form of order and stability to the world. Marika creates the Erdtree out of the crucible and marries Godfrey, gets him to kill the giants, killing two birds with one stone by bending the crucible to her order and eliminating her fiercest competition. At one point during or after that, the Greater Will nerfs Godfrey by slapping a shadow on his shoulder just to be safe until he and his army are of no use to her anymore. The next step of going "whoops! No grace? Too bad, guess you will have to exile with your most loyal soldiers and leave me to rule... alone... See ya!" is only logical at that point. I would say it was probably also motivated by the fact that 2 thirds of the children from this marriage were sporting proof of the Crucible's influence, which is a big no-no if the goal is for the Erdtree to be the new symbol of the order. Lock the deformed children and send the father with defective DNA away, problem solved. Other things happen, persecussions, fuck ups and genocides aplenty, all in the name of the Golden Order, until the whole unification conquests come to a grinding halt while facing Raya Lucaria and the Carian Nobles. That's when the Greater Will probably goes "You know what, I think it's time I intervene because you are not doing too well right now". Thus, in similar fashion as the Rot with Malenia (since Malenia does everything she can to go against the Rot in an unwinable battle for the control of her body), the Greater Will basically hijacks Marika's body and shapes it to become Radagon and go conquer Raya Lucaria through the same type of diplomacy Marika used with Godfrey. We now have a Greater Will controled Radagon seducing Rennala, ending a never ending war and recruiting their forces. Making another batch of children in the process, this time all of them being actually pure of the influence of the Crucible, absolute win all around. And then, since the Greater Will doesn't understand how humans work except the whole "make them fuck to create other humans just in case", he thinks it's a good idea to make Radagon go back to Leyndell and see if he cannot make even better children by somehow using both Marika and Radagon at the same time. This backfires HEAVILY since Renalla loses her mind, her children see this and, since it is proven they are a tight-knit kind of family and you can clearly see in game that Ranni cares about her mother, it plants the seeds of rebellion into Ranni's mind. Meanwhile, the Greater Will, having not clue what the risks of incest are, manages to create of pair of Empyrean by making a god fucking itself. Great success!!! Except that Empyreans are apparently beacons for outer gods to posess since the Rot snatches Malenia at spawn and Miquella doesn't go past infancy stage. Fuck... There is also Melina but I think it's more like a shard of Marika or something more than a real child. But, anyway, everything is going great! Both the position of God and Elden Lord are occupied by the same person, the Greater Will has a "Radagon body snatcher" button in case Marika ever fucks up again and he has replacements "just in case, even if the are kind of fucked up but they will do. But, wait, what is the daughter from the brutally divorced librarian doing? AH FUCK! Here comes Ranni, who says "fuck this shit and fuck the Greater Will in particular" and commits a 50/50 suicide with unwilling participant Godwyn, first child of Marika, all around good boy and the only one who wasn't either sick, completely depraved, a reminder of the crucible or litterally stopping the stars just because he liked his horse so much. Not only does that shit SEVERELY undermines the Golden Order power, it also and most importantly affects Marika A LOT, who takes control of her body long enough to break the Elden Ring in a final act of defiance towards the Greater Will. Unhappy outer god punishes Marika so she is tortured while he has no use of Radagon, and the whole plan becomes an absolute shit-show. And we arrive at what the three fingers said "The Greater Will made a mistake". That mistake was Marika. Marika who, from day one, took an important part out of the Elden Ring. Marika who told Maliketh to sit down and munch on death root after his mistake and so without remlrse. Marika who married a barbarian who followed the Crucible that the Greater Will had to restrain before sending him away. Marika who struggled to conquer Raya Lucaria, forcing the Greater Will to intervene and create Radagon. Marika who, seeing her oldest and most perfect son die (which is the worst case scenario that wasn't supposed to ever happen) by the hands of another child she probably had against her will or at the very least while not being in control of her own body, finally loses the last of her marbles and shatter the Elden Ring. Well, not necesarilly Marika but the idea that the Greater Will could just order humans around, even taking control of their bodies when things didn't go fast enough for it's taste, without expecting any deviation or repercussions from his plan. The mistake of the Greater Will was expecting perfect order from flawed individuals. It's not that the Greater Will doesn't think or doesn't care. It's just that he does not understand how humans work. Perfect Order can never hope to understand Chaos. I'm still unsure if the recall of the tarnished is from the Greater Will or Marika herself. Would be a nice last middle finger to the outer god to basically call back your ex-husband who was so strong and popular that you had to handicap him by fear of what he could do.
So, there's a concept that exists in cosmic horror that few people really delve into because it's hard to wrap your head around. Cosmic forces could just 'intersect' with reality, without necessarily fully noticing that it's doing so. If the Greater Will is a sentient and engaged entity, it could just be a screaming cosmic mind that only really influences the world in passing. It COULD be communicated with, but only in so much as you can interface with a computer. The Elden Ring itself is the physical representation of the laws of reality, so perhaps the Greater Will is the 'console' that is used by any given being to alter, interact with, or in Merika's case damage, parts of how conceptual reality functions.
I think Goldmask's Mending Rune gives solid evidence that a lot of the BS happening is simply due to Marika and other gods: "The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment." So all the mistreatment of Omen, the in-fighting, "blasphemous" things, etc. can pretty much be blamed on the representatives of the Golden Order and not the Greater Will itself. I think its only influence is the Elden Beast and whatever force allows it into people's heads.
I disagree with this reading bcs the treatment of the omen is exactly the kind of flaw goldmask is attempting to remove by removing the interference of fickle gods such as Marika
Your videos are a sick jumping off point for a lot of deep thinking and conversation and thats why im here for them. I often disagree with you but the endeavor you took to dive so deep is foundational for any thought i had at all on the matter at hand.
I sometimes wonder if people have been misinterpreting that description on the Elden Stars thing. Was it the Elden Beast that became the Elden Ring, or was it the golden star that bore it? Because when we see the Elden Beast, it’s definitely not the Elden Ring. The Ring was right there inside Marika/Radagon, and the Beast grabbed it up along with their corpse to make that sword. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the star to have become the Ring?
It's ironic how the Greater Will never directly communicated with literally anyone, not Marika or even its own daughter, Metyr. The fingers were busy consulting something that was beyond the microcosm and communication was never directly established. The spear that pierces Marika imprisoned her within the Erdtree, and made it so none could enter the Erdtree was all Radagon's doing in his illustrious attempt to mend the Elden Ring and restore the Golden Order. All those wars and genocide and sealing away Destined Death? That was Marika establishing her vision of a world without suffering and what she had to do in order to achieve something like that.
I think you've overlooked a key detail. The Tranished's guidance and immortality. These come from the Greater Will. And no matter what ending you choose, it never revokes these. It has revoked it for many others, but never you. Another lesser detail I think you should reconsider is Dungeater and Goldmask. Despite how vastly different they are, their heraldry is shockingly similar. A Sun. A great light inspired both men onto their paths to creating their mendings runes. They weren't just random Tarnished. Something directed them both.
We now know that the Greater Will is gone. Metyr, Two Fingers, and the Elden Beast are acting independently, thinking they're acting on behalf of GW but in reality are just making it up, blindly going off of what they *_think_* GW wants.
Considering the cosmic nature of the Greater Will, I'm not sure if we can know what its true nature is. The people in the Lands Between and even the two fingers think they know, but we see that the Two Fingers seem to be making stuff up as they go and when they aren't sure what they do anymore they panic and try to communicate which will take an unknowable amount of time. We can either guess that it just really takes a long time to communicate with the GW, that the GW has actually abandoned the Lands Between and that the Two Fingers just don't want to believe it, or that the Two Fingers are buying time to figure out what to do next. I'm not sure what exactly they're doing, and I'm not sure we can know for sure, but I do think that it adds to the cosmic mystery of the GW. People want to say they understand the GW, but I'm not sure anyone in the Lands Between can truly understand it. Maybe getting close to understanding it is what led Marika to shatter the Elden Ring like she did. To me it seems that the developers do want us to believe that the GW is a being that we can understand, but then when we learn about the Elden Beast and see what it is, we have to question that notion, what on earth kind of being could create the beast and send it here, is it something that we can ever truly understand?
I do believe the greater will will accept any kind of order as long as one exists The Golden Order was formed by the plucking of Destined Death, probably as Marika's answer to the Gloam eyed queen's attack on her demigod children and attempt to take the throne as an Empyrean I think the Golden Order's aversion to death is built on a more emotional root than their Fundamentalism dictates, since they incorporated so much into the order before and after In Marika's own words, she decided to study the depths of the Order. Given the term she uses this was probably after Death was banished. She would understand what cosmic thing they are actually dealling with And what she found was so maddening she decided to shatter the whole thing at the cost of herself and possibly the world Or maybe she answer she found with Radagon is that the best thing for the world was for nobody to sit on the throne, for no rule to take place, for Order to be forever out of reach Maybe that's why she collaborated with Ranni if that was the case (Maliketh says she betrayed him and I can only think of the stealing of Death as something he would consider a betrayal)
1:40 Marika, godfrey and radagon definitely are responsible for the genocides that happen in the lands between, Marika tells godfrey to put the giants to the sword and the greater will does not actually tell her to do it she just does it on her own. plus in the shadow of the erd tree trailer mentions seduction and betrayal while showing marika standing in front of a literal corpse mountain so marika has no problem getting people killed.
Radagon is a little less guilty because, if you think, his war ended with a wedding and diplomacy and the open of the GO to magic, even if Star destiny now is a taboo. And, funny thing about the Giant War, probably Marika Herself ""slayed"" the God of Giants and then cursed the last one. That Corpses mountain in dlc trailer maybe could be the Crucible and not just corpses, but we see later a genocidal war in the land of shadow so yeah, she still is an *sshole.
the dlc reveal that the mother of fingers was long broken really fights against the chapter of the Two Fingers "[The Two Fingers must be insane or manipulative.]" insane. absolutely insane
Everything that happened in the story is suspect now because. Spoilers: The greater will hasn't communicated once with the mother or any of it's children including the two fingers.
I personally believe that the Greater Will is a true Lovecraftian deity. it is therefore endowed with intelligence but reasons through canons and concepts that are completely foreign to us (it is therefore a cross between a chaotic force and an intelligent individual). at the same time this would explain why it needs so many channels to communicate (the two fingers, marika, the elden beast...). furthermore one wonders why such a powerful and conscious entity does not act directly on the world. if you see the Greater Will as a Lovecraftian deity this problem is quickly solved. there are various possibilities: - it is, like many gods in the Lovecraft mythos, stuck in a sort of higher or detached plane of existence from which it can only influence the world (this is also suggested by other deities in the game, the formless mother, for example, can " appear" to Mohg only via portals) - it is so different and alien in his ways of acting and reasoning that it cannot help but use intermediaries - it has a problem similar to that of the Combine in Half Life, that is, it is too powerful and therefore what happens on the "planet" of the game is only one of the countless cosmic events on which he is acting and he doesn't care what happens on just one of these (Sorry for bad english 🙃)
So, from the evidence available in the game and DLC, my interpretation is this: -The Greater Will created the universe, and by extension all life, by sundering the One Great and triggering the Big Bang. -The Greater Will is intelligent, but hands-off; it keeps its intervention in the universe to a minimum. -After life developed naturally on the world of the Lands Between, the GW sent two envoys to stabilize the world and jump-start civilization: Metyr and the Elden Beast/Ring -The GW communicated with its envoys early on to direct their efforts, but once the ball was rolling it cut off communication to let the world develop on its own. -The Elden Beast accepted this, and continued to play its role as embodiment of the natural laws of the world, allowing gods and lords to claim stewardship of the Elden Ring and manipulate its constituent runes as they saw fit, only acting of it own accord when it perceived a potential threat to itself, and thus to Order generally. -Metyr, on the other hand, was extremely distressed at losing contact with the GW, and seems to have gone "mad," passing off her own inscrutable motives as directives from the GW and passing this fault along to her children, the Two Fingers. -Metyr, through her Two Fingers, directed Marika toward godhood as a way to get revenge on the Hornsent. Why she would do this is unclear, though I speculate it may have been part of some bizarre, desperate plan to attract the GW's attention somehow. So the Greater Will hasn't necessarily "abandoned" the world per se. It very well may be actively observing still. It just can't or won't interfere with its development anymore.
I think the answer is likely a middle ground The Greater Will is a sentient entity with its own goals and consciousness. Its just that its goals are not nessicairly complex or nuanced ones. It wants order. Whos order? Not its problem, it gives you the tools and lets you go at it yourself, as long as there is order its satisfied with whatever you're doing. The Greater Will is likely not an "outer god" either. In the Japanese text it is spoken of and described as something more akin to the Christan God. Whereas the Outer Gods are described as something more similar to the Kami of Japanese mythology. Implying the "God hierarchy" goes: Greater will -> Outer Gods -> Gods Envoys (The Fingers, Elden Beast, Deathbirds) -> Mortal Gods (Marika, Placi's god etc.)
I really appreciate all the videos you make. I think that your research is impeccable. Your interpretations are very interesting and informative. Frankly your video on Oden from God of war Ragnarok is one of my favorite villain analysis of all time and absolutely going to inform a big bad for my DV campaign at some point :-)
Excellent video that addresses most of the disagreements I had with the previous one. It is my belief that the Greater Will is very much sentient in some shape or form, there is too much evidence to suggest otherwise. But like the Great Ones of Bloodborne or God in Demon Souls, what it actually is and wants is divorced from what people ascribe to it. It is representative of the divide between organized religion and the beings they worship. There very well may be a God in the universe, but that does not mean that every act humanity commits in their name or say is their will is indeed true. We are small beings in a huge, unknowable existence, a theme Fromsoft loves to delve into. That's why I pin most of the blame on the Golden Order's faults with Marika, Radagon, and the Two Fingers. We know that there have been different Orders under the Elden Ring. We know that different Orders are still possible. Thus, the Golden Order itself cannot be wholly the design of the Greater Will, even if it lays at the center of that ideology. The Two Fingers come across to me as prophets and interpreters, but we know that this connection is arduous and infrequent at best, considering how long it takes to commune. Even if they aren't lying or have their own agenda, they like us might have an incomplete understanding of what they serve. That's more thematically interesting to me, at least. The Greater Will seems to be a creator-esque deity sharing similarities with the Great Ones of Bloodborne. It is sentient, it seems sympathetic in nature, it even tries to help humanity in its own way, but its goals, desires, and true nature are still alien to mortals. It cares for order, but what order that takes is malleable. The existence of prior Ages and Orders make that clear. How people choose to interpret the desires of the Greater Will, and how that influences the world at large, is what makes it interesting as a narrative device, far more than if it's another "God is actually evil" story.
The Greater Will is perhaps not evil, but indifferent. It cares not for suffering. It only cares that its influence spreads. That it has control. It's essentially authoritarian in nature. The Order of its subjects is malleable and subject to change, but it asserts its dominance by forcing Order at all. I would actually call that evil.
This was essentially my impression as well. The idea I had was that the various outer beings for whatever reason need/want to claim realms. So GW came across the realm and did the equivalent of putting your bag on a chair to claim it. It picked a champion (Marika), she got a general impression of the GW's specific vibes, and it plopped down the Elden Ring with no instruction manual. With its champion dominant it has everything it wants and kinda doesn't really care too much what happens from there. My assumption for why Marika turned against the GW is just that after she stood and the dominant force in the realm she started trying to get a greater understanding and realized that there weren't going to be any answers. The Elden Ring clearly runs on some kind of internal logic, but no one seems to really get what that is and everyone's just making assumptions. Still a mystery of how Marika and Radagon are a single person, and I'm thinking the ring had something to do with that since we don't see anything like it elsewhere (along the same lines of how being the Scarlet Rot's chosen is physically mutating Malenia). We get the impression that the 2fingers are just making wild shots in the dark and hoping they guess right and get some kind of positive reaction. The GW probably does have its own interests, but its unwilling to share with the rest of the class or answer any of the questions sent its way. So there Merika is tied to this great being that clearly has some sort of expectation, or at least an interest in meddling in her life, but that refuses to give her any answers. She needs to become consort with Radagon (breaking up one (maybe2) happy marriages up so they can keep the same person thing more on the DL) and then her final 2 children wind up being cursed because of more outer gods meddling and possibly trying to snipe the middle realms out from under the GW. So she tests the waters to see if she can get a reaction by meddling with their presumed plan of her eventually passing on the mantle to one of her children. It seems to me like Godwyn was the only real choice for a successor as a champion of the GW. Morgott and Mohg are out of the running for being Omen (and maybe being marked by a different outer power), Rykard was already eyeing that ancient snake religion, Ranni had beef with the GW about it/Marika wronging her mother, I admittedly don't have a great reason for Radahn being out of the running other than his vibe not matching, Malenia had been marked by the Scarlet Rot, and Miquella was similarly touched by a different being and seemingly wasn't all that stoked about the GW either (ex:making his own tree to replace the urd tree). So Marika made some move to initiate the night of black daggers in hopes of getting a response from the GW. And she clearly didn't get the result she wanted and just spiraled harder resulting in her shattering the Ring. It seems like that finally got some kind of rise out of the GW, hence why she got strung up and plopped on top of where the Elden Beast is. But the GW still isn't interested in explaining itself and doesn't get any more hands on. It seems to have either just washed its hands of the whole thing or is taking an extremely hands off approach. Likely its still getting whatever it is it wants out of the current arrangement, regardless of how much it sucks for everyone living in the realm. Likely its only direct involvement with everything happening during the game is to keep people away from the Elden Ring since its through that that it can possibly lose its claim over the realms in favor of one of the other outer beings, basically every ending other than the Age of Fracture.
Great video! The only real suggestion I have (and I completely forgot why I think this, so grains of salt all around) is that the Golden Order is specifically the order we had after Marika removed the rune of death from the Elden Ring. The Greater Will is a god of order, but Marika/Radagon is directly responsible for the Golden Order.
There is a way for the Greater Will to both have emotions and take actions, while also being an impersonal primal force of the universe. Ironically, the biggest and most obvious clue to it's true nature is the name, Greater Will. What kind of thing would be given that name? Sure, it could describe an immensely powerful being beyond human understanding, but the collective will of many individuals could also be called a Greater Will. The Greater Will is basically a more nuanced take on the Idea of Evil from Berserk, which is no surprise to see given how much Miyazaki draws inspiration from that manga.
I think I just became convinced that the character responsible for the item descriptions in the game is The Greater Will itself. I've heard it suggested that TGW is similar to an amalgamation of the desires and needs of the inhabitants of The Lands Between and I feel this fits with it being a remnant of The One Great in that it is connected to all living things since everything was once part of it in the past. Furthermore it would explain why the item descriptions use language like "it is said that..." because it only knows the general consensus and accepted knowledge of things, and even why the descriptions are vague or inconclusive; that's the most that is known by the people of the lands between. Perhaps this even explains why TGW did not respond when the Two Fingers of the Roundtable Hold sought guidance after the player discovers the Erd Tree is sealed; no one knew Radagon had barred entry. A bit of a tangent but, This could be why chaos repels TGW, dissenting opinions muddy the water and confuse TGW until it's too fractured and self-contradictory to have any meaning. This is where The Frenzied Flame comes in, a separate fracture of TOG that has resonated with the pain, suffering and insanity that has befell human kind. The fact that TFF's counterpart is the three fingers I feel is significant, not only is it a greater number of total digits that perhaps implies it is a larger part of TOG than even TGW; but it also includes a thumb which is stated to be what designates those who possess sapience. I might have never had this line of thought without your videos and I thank you for the opportunity to stoke my imagination.
Actually, the way the frenzied Flame talks about the GW and one great actually impiles they were always serprate things and the Greater will was able to break apart the ane great to create souls and life. This could actually imply the Greater Will actually predates life and existence itself and used the one great to make them. Its also probably not best to think the 3 and 2 fingers go together to make one hand as it would raise the question of what about the mutiple other 2 fingers that exist with in the land between
So three points I have plus an addendum: 1. The Greater Will being Law vs Sentient: There's a lot of space inbetween the two positions, for example the Greater Will could be as sentient as say the English Parliament. Perhaps it isn't a force of nature and has an agenda, but at the same time not be a singular being. We actually know very little about the Greater Will itself. 2. Characters and Item Descriptions are Honest and Accurate: While I agree that these are by and large honest, I read them as if a medieval society is trying to describe the experience of a UFO dropping down making contact and introducing them to incomprehensibly advanced technology. Which is to say, there is a certain degree of interpretation involved that could (not always) impact accuracy of statements. 3. The Two Fingers as Representatives of the Greater Will: Citing Enia after beating Morgot - "It may be thousands upon thousands of moons before the fingers again offer their guidance. My, oh, my. Whatever will you do..." It appears that there can be significant communication delay between the Two Fingers and the Greater Will, as such it is very possible that while the Two Fingers try their best to represent the Greater Will there can be long stretches of time where the Two Fingers have to use their own judgement and carry out what they *think* is the intent of the Greater Will. Addendum: My man, you are not stupid and your theories are valid and you are not misunderstanding anything! While I did type out three short counter-points, I can in no way claim that they are definitive and/or disprove anything you have said. There is a lot of missing information, and I expect even post-DLC there will be still lots of missing information. If any counter points I or others have raised help you refine and/or elaborate your theories all the better, but if not... toss 'em! Your videos are solid!
Have you seen The Tarnished Archeologist's videos? If not, check out his video on the two and three fingers. Rather than insane, the fingers are like religious scholars and preachers interpreting the will of the divine by observing the universe around them. Golden Order Fundamentalists teach fundamentals like the Law of Causality. All the talk of the Greater Will's feelings could just be metaphorical in the same way priests describe God's wrath. They interpret its will to be Order because that's how they see the world evolve around them. The Elden Beast/Ring could perhaps be some sort of supreme catalyst for causality, appearing to and effectively warping the nature of cause and effect by its very presence. It would only be natural to worship such a thing as the envoy of all Order. Even if coincidental, it's arrival could still be interpreted as providential. I think there's a very good case to be made for the Greater Will being an indifferent force of causality that is worshiped as God. The Fingers are just using their apparently enlightened position to shape society under the guidance of Metyr. Metyr is described as being the first meteor to come as an envoy of the Greater Will. What if this whole time Metyr and her many fingers have indeed just been manipulating the lands with an ever-changing religion that reveres concepts like Order? The fingers, so versed in the fundamentals of Order, use their power to manipulate reality on a local scale such that they appear to be (and are) very powerful. But when the Elden Beast/Ring came later, they didn't know what to do about it and panicked. The seemingly random abandonment of the Greater Will to some fingers but not others is, I think, the fingers being lost as to what to do next. We know at some point Metyr seems to seclude herself, leaving the rest of the fingers without a guiding force. Some have simply taken interpretation into their own hands, so to speak.
This is such a great video analysis and it just opens my persepectives even more. So I recommend you look into the videos of Vaati, Smough Town, Tarnished Archaeologist, Lokey, Ziostrom, Ratatoskyr, Miss Chalice, and many Elden Ring Lore theories To have you knowledge expand more.
I think another important note is that Placidusax's existence proves that the concept of an Elden Lord being paired with a God has existed throughout the history of the lands between, even before the erd tree ever existed. Which I think really goes to show the point of the Greater Will not caring about the exact form of the golden order, more just exerting influence through this generally applicable system of a Lord + a God ruling the lands
I think FatBrett's interpretation is correct, that the Greater Will created the Elden Ring with Modularity in mind, if you were the Vessel you could add or remove pieces if you wanted to, to create a civilization based on your own Ideals and beliefs
The rune at the end of Farum Azula has been puzzling me ever since the game came out, your explanation of it possibly being an expanded elden ring with new ideas is a really interesting one that got my brain gears spinning again, thanks for that On the topic of Marika being locked there I would exclude Radagon from the list of suspects, color is VERY important in Elden Ring and the Spear doesn't really match him (unless we want to consider the fact that his red hair is not just hair but some sign of power and the spear being a creation of said power, which now that I think about it could make sense and explain the emphasis the game puts on demigods having red hair but I dont have any evidence for that) and about the ending bit, dont worry about mistakes like that this is a very expansive story where you can come to a vastly different conclusions if you dont read the description of a shield, just as we all died to a different boss we all missed something and others will be there to explain it to us or leave a summon sign to help
Even because that spear was not simple Red, was Destined Death Red. And the EB itself use an attack that literally crucify us in the same way. And poor Radagon was punished too, even after tried to save everything.
I don’t think anybody has the full picture of what the hell the greater will is, which is what makes videos like this so fascinating, exploring different ideas and theories. Of course people are going to get stuff wrong, but that doesn’t make a video meritless, it’s interesting hearing speculation and new perspectives. Keep up the great work and stay curious!
Hey man, go easy on yourself. Nobody on this site, reddit, or any other platform has it all figured out; even big names like Smoughtown, Tarnished Archeologist, etc., have all had to make corrections, had their ideas debunked, or otherwise failed to give a holistic view of these things. Elden Ring is From's biggest most complicated piece to explore yet and we still don't even have the DLC which is incredibly important for these stories- imagine trying to recount the accurate history of Lordran without knowing about The Ringed City & humanity's role as slave knights or truly answering the mysteries of the Healing Church of Yarnahm while being unable to reference the events at The Fishing Hamlet - it's impossible. You're doing fantastic for what we have and even those older titles still have loose threads we'll likely never completley put to rest. Thank you for another fantastic and thought provoking video, honestly I've been of two minds on this subject for a long time but feel better with my leaning towards TGW being intelligent and emotional in some way at least now. Have a wonderful day my dude; looking forward to more great stuff from you.
I always had this weird idea that after marika broke the elden ring it was radagan following the belief of the greater will who punished himself and marika by locking themselves in the erdtree
I like your video man I'm happy you came to ask more questions and expand but I do believe you made a wonderful points in the first video thanks for doing these narrative breakdowns I love them ❤❤❤
3:50 - I'm sorry, but did that 3 fingers maiden just describe an allegory to the big bang? Because that's what it sounded like, and if that's the case... then she's not wrong...
I think it's pretty compelling that the greater will is some type of physical being. If you look at all of George RR Martin's writings, I think there may only be one instance where we have an actual confirmed literal God influencing the story. In all of his other stories, most of which are science fiction, the gods of said story are actually just people or physical beings that happen to have great power and use that power to affect change in the world or universe around them, oftentimes by influencing people through more subtle means like sending dreams and visions. So the way I see Eldon ring, this is just an extension of many of the same themes that George RR Martin has been using his entire writing career. Essentially, Elden Ring is a story about some very powerful space being influencing what is ostensibly a medieval society and thus the vocabulary we can use to describe these outer gods is limited by the understanding of a medieval society where technological advancement is relatively minimal because people have certain abilities that us in our world would call magical. However in George RR Martin's writings this wouldn't be magic, but really just abilities that some people have much the same way that some people are better at sports than others. It's also worth noting that George RR Martin wrote an essay where he talks about what he calls the furniture rules wherein he sees no difference between the genres of science fiction and fantasy. George argues that they are essentially one in the same and the only difference between the two is typically just the aesthetic. A person in a medieval society who can teleport would be in a fantasy story, but the ability to teleport might be seen as a science fiction trope. Essentially, the stories are all the same between fantasy and science fiction, but whether a story is considered fantasy or science fiction really just depends on what furniture is in the room at the time. Are there wooden tables rushes and horses or are there metal tables windows and spaceships?
Don't feel stupid! Your videos are phenomenal! Love your takes and in my own humble opinion, make the most sense to me as for the possible origins and state of things. Keep them coming!
After the DLC I'm beginning to realize that the greater will..... spoilers: Has had no effect whatsoever on the land's between neither Marika's rule or the two fingers it was all an illusion created by the mother of fingers a broken creation of the greater will who it hasn't communicated with in eons.
Nice video, as always. I really enjoy your channel, especially the god of war series, where your presentation of the Story was really eyeopening to me. When I saw your first eldenring video I was a little afraid. Eldenring / the soulsborne Saga as a whole is not only unique in its storytelling, themes and presentation of its lore, but there is already a big lore community, dedicated to understand every aspect of it. But, the way you explain certain aspects of the lore seem to suit your channel fine and are really enjoyable to watch. Im happy to see, that you face the challenge of the wonderful lore of eldenring with an open mind and your unique perspective. I didnt expected to see "big lore reveals" in These Videos of yours, and was suprised to see ur style of storytelling revealing the Inspirations of themes in eldenring. Thank you very much! (( I think, the narrator in the item descriptions is trustworthy, when it makes Statements. But whenever "it is said" / "some say" is used, more often than not, there is more to the Story. I still agree to your conclusion, its just a rule I use for my own Research ^^' ))
A great video! I am very happy to have found your channel! There is another excellent video called „the greater will doesn’t care about you“ (something along those lines). The main point is: any order, be it of rott, of gold, of despair or of compassion is fine with it. That’s why it chose Melenia as an emphyrian - only some demigods were chosen and she started (by accident) to create the order of rott in Caelid as the sage says. I think to say that it at least is the abstract concept of order it self is valid for the greater will. And I think it’s quite undisputed that Radegon sealed the entrance: one of the headpieces literally describes the pattern visible on the thorns as „his rune“.
This video may be revisited to include information obtained from the DLC. The Mother of Fingers and her relationship with Marika. Was it the alien who always acted as "The Great Will"? Could it have been the alien who seduced Marika with power? Was it with this power that Marika managed to survive the massacre of her people and gain the trust of her tormentors, allowing her to reach the Divine Gate? Would the betrayal committed by Marika have occurred before or after becoming a goddess? How many retaliatory massacres did she carry out against the Horned People? Were the bodies that covered the Gate from the Horns or from Marika's people?
I think the item descriptions come from Melina herself. She's sometimes misleading, but never lying. She asks that you take her to the tree, but seems to already know what needs to be done next.
6:30 i really like this take, I've always found the idea of "order" in elden ring to be interesting, and the fact it takes the greater will actively exerting some form of influence over lands to form "order" is a nice reference to the second law of thermodynamics. "The total amount of entropy in a closed system can never decrease (sometimes quoted as will increase over time)". Therefore, something outside of the closed system must come in to decrease entropy, to decrease chaos. And if the system was left to its own devices, then chaos would increase. We are seeing this within game as order has abandoned the lands between, and entropy is slowly increasing.
I don't think you should feel like your videos are incomplete. I actually really enjoy hearing different perspectives on these things, and I almost always leave your videos with a new perspective I never would've considered otherwise. At risk of sounding a little cynical, most lore guys either reiterate things said in other videos, or they stay as vague as possible to avoid sounding incorrect. To avoid speaking our thoughts in fear of being wrong wouldn't allow these discussions to happen. If we're never allowed to be wrong, we can never learn why we were wrong, and thus can't improve how we think. That said, I really hope you keep making videos about Elden Ring, and even other Fromsoft games and games with a similar kind of storytelling. I've really enjoyed your perspectives so far, and I'm looking at things in the story now in ways that I hadn't been before.
Interesting video and it was comprehensible enough to retain a lot of it while gaming. Issue was, I was fighting Mohg and had to pause you. Won the attempt I did but still, great stuff! The greater will's natural disgust of disorder, being the embodiment of order, coupled with a sense of self preservation really explains a lot about its crazy violent demands. (spoilers ahead for shadow of the erdtree) From what we learn from Metyr and Yuri's questline, Metyr, who birthed the two fingers, kinda went insane after she was attacked and thus all two fingers born after her are also insane. Yikes
Okay, let's start off with one thing: You are not an idiot for people challenging your way of thinking and presenting counterpoints. Obviously there are going to be people who are going to go to far, but in general the Souls Community is one big debate back and forth about what was written down in a FromSoftware Office and Stored away from our eyes. Challenge and Counter points are how we filter through things and come to our own conclusions. Secondly, I agree with you! I believe the Greater Will is the fundamental essence of order, but I also believe it is a sentient thing that has intent and desire. In FromSoft games these are not mutually exclusive things. Like the Dark, or the Fire, or so on. I also believe that these forces can be used in a corrupt way that twists them beyond what they are supposed to be. This is what I believe, and yeah I pull a lot of this from Hawkshaw and Vaati but I say it because I agree with them generally. Marika and the Greater Will are generally aligned. She acts 0on its behalf, and it granted her power to behave as such. It also has the Agency to choose who might next become a god in the form of Empyreans, like Ranni and Miquilla and Melania. But at the end of the day all the Greater Will Cares about is Order. It does not care what FORM that Order Takes, so long as it is ordered. As long as everything has its place, and nothing is to mix or mingle or overlap. As long as all is set in stone and divided by lines of gold, it does not care what is what. Only that it has its place. Marika is not absolved of Sin. She is shown to be a manipulative god, acting for her own ends and aligning with who she wills and destroying those who defy her. This is STILL Order, and as long as the Erdtree and the Greater Will are the subjects of worship the Greater Will does not care how it is worshiped. However something also Changed in Marika. Perhaps she had a change of heart, perhaps she found a truth she believed to be too awful to bear or too dark to ignore or who knows. And she defied the Greater Will and Shattered the Elden Ring. Against it's wishes, as it chose to Champion Radagon in Marika's stead. Radagon is a True Believer in the Greater Will. He believes that what is should be. He Tried to mend the Elden Ring himself, and was punished along side Marika for failing to do so. FromSoftware NEVER tells a simple story with a good guy and a bad guy. Only stories of suffering, trial, and uncertain triumphs. We will never know if Marika was an unwilling god in service to a callous Greater Will, made to lie, love, and languish on its behalf, or if she was a believer who became disenfranchised upon searching its depths. Marika, fundmentally, is the character whom if we were given even a second of true understanding. A word from her from her own lips without deception, we would be able to unravel all of this lore. until we do though, which will truthfully be never, We will never be able to truly unravel the mystery of Elden Ring.
edit: waning , ramblings of a crazy man i do believe the greater will is responsible for fracturing the greater will. as you said i think the mistake was the greater will splitting in order to achieve order, or possibly the creation of the elden ring which was like the physical manisfestation of order within the physical/mortal world, while the GW is the concept existing seperate from TLB. Radagon being it’s avatar. (shabriri is “chaos itself” perhaps the avatar of the frenzied flame. radagon sometimes opposes the GW, and shabriri isn’t completely chaotic, at least he can fake other emotions to achieve something, which could be a sign of him being slightly different from the FF itself) and i think even the name is a hint. maybe the “GW” is known as such because it’s “will” triumphs all other aspects of the one great , with the other “wills” being the outer gods. and i don’t think these outer gods come from somewhere unknown, rather they were made outer by their removal from the elden ring. for example rot, bleed, and giants flames are associated with gods, but could this be due to their connection with death ? i mean rot and bleed lead to death, and giantsflame can burn the erdtree , which all life must return to. i’m not saying marika necessarily created these outer gods, but i do think she possible empowered them by removing them from the elden ring. doing so she had made her order more “perfect” yet everything outside the order would have to deal with these now outer gods, who were no longer apart of the ring/supervision of the greater will. these other “wills” all seem to want to establish their own orders, like with mohg and malenia, but are overall less successful because they are “lesser” wills in comparison . (gowry being able to take multiple forms, like FF) the only outer god(s) that may be different are the ones associated with the moons/space i think the cosmos/primeval current may just be the pathway to, or the actual realm of these “gods” . that’s why the space gods are associated with knowledge, because you learn about the true nature of the gods. maybe this is why out the greater will punished the nox so severely, and dislike the liurnians/magic in general because they are smart enough to understand the greater wills true nature/intentions. after all, once you have knowledge of something, it becomes impossible to have faith. which the greater will relies on another random though but maybe this were what the numen are. the “new men” (maybe sent from space with rock dna like some people thing 🤔, after all they are made from stone, and earl my life in TLB comes from plant life, as we see in farum azula. could be another contrast) are the greater will’s attempt to restart society, under faith. the black knives being associated with the new nobility of the eternal cities . and consider that the black knives help ranni, but she betrays them in order to accomplish her ambitions. we know black knives come from the eternal cities, but it wouldn’t make sense for them to betray ranni making us the lord of night if they were aligned with the nox i have a lot more craziness to this “theory” but it’s quite literally just my fall into madness as i wait on this dlc lmao also i fully believe Radagon or Marika is daedicara… i need help
more braindump but if we assume GW is the closest thing to the one great, i don’t think it’s crazy to believe that its responsible for all life in TLB. that’s why it doesn’t have a problem with the crucible, because it created it. (maybe a root system with serval trees, from which the erdtree was later born. silurias spear never looked like a tree to me, but upside down it looks a lot like roots. crucible=roots?) afterwards it would’ve sent the beast along with the ring to maintain order . the elden beast doesn’t care about societies, it’s only made to protect and preserve the rings existence . after this i believe the GW takes off the training wheels and let’s the world run it’s course . not intervening unless something threatens the original design. ex: shabriri and the nox who are possible threats order itself as they completely go against it . this is why the GW is ok with a tarnished, and the mending runes also, gideon essentially confirms marika never intended for there to be true order after the shattering before we fight. that’s why the GW is pleased with us, because although it had given up on TLB after the shattering, we are the one hope. and the position marika is in is similar to the grab that elden beast uses on US , suggesting maybe it indeed locker her up after it was attacked. i don’t believe this was radagon, as the echoe of marika tells us that radagon and marika become one body (again?) immediately before she breaks the hammer . i believe that after radagon fails to mend the ring, elden beast takes action, possibly working with radagon. radar places the seal on the tree, and EB seals him/marika afterwards this could explain why radagon is freed once we enter. he’s given one last chance to maintain an ideal order, before he fails and the EB wields him in order to simply maintain order by whatever means. if this could be true , partially, it could make hyetta right in a strange messed up sense. from a cosmic standpoint , order and chaos are equal, yet complete order is much harder to maintain. that was it’s mistake, not knowing that even itself wasn’t capable of that. that said i do think marika is the ultimate “villain” with radagon being a kind of tragic hero in the crossfire. i think radagon prioritizes order, but believes in things being conjoined. i believe he truly loved rennala , yet ultimately is drawn to marika by some sort of duty. perhaps they need each other to maintain order . i think marika and radagon are in a mutual agreement where they both benefit seperate from the GW, while maintains the golden order. could be radagon isn’t like the GW completely and believes that some things don’t belong in order , ex: rot death bleeding, etc, and marika’s promise of the golden order makes him side with her. however he disagrees with the exclusion of everything outside of the “gold” like the crucible and things related to intelligence . this is why radagon leaves renalla despite loving her . liurnia is annexed and all the enemies of the erdtree are gone, however godfrey is a barbarian. i don’t think rada had a problem with this, as he could stay with his true love. but either marika threatened to again wage war with liurnia since she could now focus completely on liurnia, forcing radagon to betray his love, or she simply forced rada to keep his duty to the order and needed him to unite , requiring him to become her elden lord. i think the first is likely , as some japanese texts imply marika more as a snarky villain who looks down on radagon (maybe due to his lowk naivety) , and portrays radagon as a more caring figure, who wants what’s best for both his family and the order/TLB as a whole. wouldn’t be surprised if marika used this against him to bring him back this may be why rada goes on to teach miquella so much . because he wants him to do what he and marika couldn’t . miquella accepts all, yet establishes an order that’s prosperous for all. (ranni wants to get rid of the GW and the gods, so rada probably wouldn’t like that). two other things with somehow even less evidence , but maybe bernahls brother was vyke? his armor says he has what it takes to be a lord, possible because of his brother coming so close. that said , the og japanese is closer to “comrade” so ehh also, this could be a stretch but i thought abt a rough connection between daenarys (or mayb even robert baratheon now that i think abt it) and marika , and radagon and jon snow . am i crazy for that one ? i mean they really go into the theme of love and duty being the death of each other , most deff 😂😂 if ya have the time lmk watchu think @fatbrett
I love that the DLC says: "nah the fingers actually havent talked to the Greater Will in forever"
The DLC making it so the Golden Order is a result of an extended game of whispers - based on outdated information and corrupted by Marika's biases and desire for vengeance - of the Greater Will's desires is kinda hilarious in a way
@@deejones0071 Count Ymir also reveals that because "we are made of stardust" we are also descendants of and part of the Greater Will. The only difference is that the Elden Beast is to the creatures of The Lands Between what the Sun is to us creatures of Earth. So I think the Greater Will truly is the collective laws of physics and of man. It's very much a Berserk idea in that way. That there is no higher power out there, only the collective will of the people and certain "special" people who acquire enough power to influence the people around them and the world for better or worse.
@@deejones0071 Worse than that since Marika had to abandon her flesh & humanity to become a god it more or less just takes over Marika but with her memories forcing order everywhere.
Remember godhood is a prison.
The level of control over her probably varied. Finally fading away as she learned to resist it & shattered when Godwyn dies. Only to realize she became the exact same monster that existed before her as a god. Then shattering the ring.
@@deejones0071It’s so real and human that it’s definitely chuckle worthy 😅 😂
,😊
Please, never feel stupid.
Your videos provide an excellent jumping off point for thoughtful discussion. We learn about our worlds by interacting with them. Mistakes are made, and from them we learn and grow.
I agree 100%
I may not agree with your conclusion or how you interpreted evidence to reach that conclusion, but I've never thought of you or your content as stupid. Your videos (that I've seen) are well thought out and well researched. Sometimes the questions you've asked don't have a definitive answer. FromSoft games are known for providing few definitive answers. You do great work with the material they provide.
Surely a stupid person would never stop to consider, "wait, what if my founding assumptions are all wrong? What happens to the topic if those ideas just aren't true?"
@@Amigo21189 I can't help but RELATE to MINDS like YOURS
Making a choice by no means implies intelligence. Just look at the average voting public.
I prefer this take on ER lore.
To me, it's almost like a biblical tale.... something rich in metaphor and unclear on specific timeframes, or how certain events ACTUALLY happened. But it also has a 'canon' story to it that's more or less implied to be a fully cogent and tangible truth. It's just one that none of the people reading it can ever fully understand. You know only what God wants you to know. What you access from your mortal, sinful place in the universe is but a fraction of what ever was, is, or will be.
Because of that, there are all of these denominations, institutional and intellectual forces in the world... all of them built upon some fundamental presumptions about what the text is communicating to us. Or perhaps what the practical meaning of it is, how to best apply it and move forward with it. In doing so, many presumptions are taken on faith. And a rational framework emerges, one that aims to explain why we suffer and what we must do. But the map is not the territory. And because of that, institutions large enough to run nations have risen and collapsed. I guess their understanding was still incomplete.
One thing I notice, and maybe this is getting too close to the real world but... not only are their separate denominations, but entire different religions taking readings of the text. And they fight constantly over which is right, because nobody knows the full answer. However, it makes sense that people fight over this in the real world - everyone involved believes the fate of our race hinges on us getting it right. That's something I can completely understand as a basic matter of possessing human empathy and rationale. It is the root of so much tragedy, but I do not know how to stop people from being people.
What I can't understand is doing it in a video game world. We can have conflicting reads on text and subtext here and nothing is lost. The truth is, everyone is getting it wrong in the sense that there probably isn't a singular right that is remotely comprehensive enough to bury further questioning. Elden Ring gets a lot more interesting to think and talk about when you stop presuming there is a correct, ultimate explanation and start realizing there are many possible explanations, and that by design of the work, you will never have an understanding of it all that is complete enough to form a singular, absolute truth of it. That's for the creator to think about. The greatest joy of the game's storytelling is that by removing our ability to see the 'canonical' storyline directly, we can essentially pull a near infinite amount of stories from it. Again, it's a lot like the Bible. If ever you think you've figured all of it out, you missed the point... there are things referenced in that book, that aren't meant to be understood by humans in a fully concrete way. It paints you pictures of many things... pieces of truths, the full extent of which are implicitly not comprehensible by mortals. And I think some lore-interpreters for this game mistakenly believe they can mantle a full understanding of divinity by becoming historians.
22:18 "For that to be true, the two fingers would have to either be insane, babbling nonsense-"
It is so interesting watching this after the DLC, as you made so many interesting observations that get directly elaborated on, or answered. Would love to see you make an addendum to this video, discussing the new evidence.
Lol yup. We now know without a doubt that, yes, that is PRECISELY what Two Fingers has been doing.
Worm squid with sword and feet.
Feet ? 😏
Squidward?
Never thought about it like that before 🤯
Bacon, toast, hope & Prayer😊
(Suit up, and show up❤❤❤)
With more glitter than a Kesha video from 2010
the absolute roast of the elden beast out of nowhere was insane.
So relatable though, Elden Beast gave me the most trouble on my first play-through too!
@@HopeiThis worst main boss in the game for sure. I definitely love getting one hit on him and then chasing him across the arena for the next 5 minutes.
Shit take @@unclefatback
@@jeambeam3173 ???
@@unclefatbackhe’s just a fan boy pole rider who can’t handle an ounce of criticism towards his favourite game.
The Greater Will(Smith): “keep my COSMIC NATURE OUT YOUR F*CKING MOUTH” 🌌
Wow,......I totally plan to steal.this
The Normal Will hopefully takes inspiration from Marika and shatter that Ring already. Then again, not sure if we want a Shattering Slapping War as follow up
xDDD
Good one
Elden Ring 2, can't wait to play it! 😊
I always liked the separation of the Greater Will and the Golden Order. We need more fantasy stories where Religious institutions are actually mistaken about what their deities want. Elder Scrolls explores some of that too.
Same
man, the entire genre of cosmic horror is about humanity's misunderstanding of an unknowable universe
Literally bloodborne my dude 😂
Literally real life my dude
It’s an excellent parallel to real life.
I really like the idea that The Greater Will is not hands on, and that Marika and Radagon are much more at fault for the wars in the lands between. Just like in real life, all wars are created by the assumption of some greater good by the aggressor, but that greater good is more of an enabler than an active force, regardless of its own sapience or lack thereof.
the greater will existed before marika and the golden order and so did the ring/beast, so i agree with u that marika is responsible for her actions. ofc the greater will through the ring and the power it gives definitely had some influence on her, just like money, power and fame would to a normal human in the real world but that doesn't take away from one's accountability. that being said, i think marika had way more free will and was way more responsible for her actions when she was an empyrean and did all the horrible things that she did cuz it appears that after ascending to godhood her and her other part have distinct roles embedded to them, causality and regression.
The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment.
I always imagined that The Greater Will was physically somewhere in outer space, since the Elden Beast was sent to the lands between in a golden star, and so even if it is enormously powerful, it still has to rely on third parties to enact its will such as the Two Fingers and the Elden Beast.
One theory I always found really interesting is that the Two Fingers have gone rogue, and since they are The Greater Will's only form of communication it has no way of directly interacting with the lands between. Multiple characters mention that the two fingers are no longer working the way they were intended to, they also have their own church outside of the golden order, and when you give Corhyn the assassins prayer book he considers it heresy, despite being from the Two Fingers
@@thomasdevlin5825I feel like the Greater Will doesn't have a physical form, or embodies the cosmos in some way, which not only explains its name, but still explains the need for vassals and representatives
@@Practicallypreposterousit could really go either way. This world doesn't seem to be a place where gods can instantly transport themselves to a new location. In Ranni's ending you undertake a long journey. Vassals and envoys could be needed because the Greater Will is physically located so far away
I have not played Elden Ring. Being able to say "I may be wrong" and looking at new evidence, is a good trait in life. I respect people that can say that. I also enjoy your videos on games that I have played. You provide thought, analysis, and a perspective that I don't have. Thank you for your content.
Yep, he's cool. A lot of "open-minded" youtubers out there blocks you when you even just suggest something against what they say.
As an archaeology student I've always seen fromsoft tory-telling as close as you can get to replicate how a historical investigation would go. Relying too much in just documental evidence will get you so far, there biases, is incomplete and doesn't present the full picture. Thats why I also see value in other elements: diference in architecture, clothing, iconography, real life inspirations, even the burial practises differences tell a story in this game. The scope to understand the lore is so wide and open to interpretation that, in a similar way to real life historial investigaton, is only the work of many people working toghether that this mess can be untangled. that's way things like not fully be able to explain things like what the greater will really is in a single video is not something to be ashamed
Exactly this. Great post.
Really well said!
I'm hoping you've come across the channel of Tarnished Archaeologist lol
@@DanielGarcia-rx3kt I have and I really like his approach, probably personal bias. But it's not perfect representation of how archaeology investigation would go, although is a really good work in that regard
Elden Ring's environmental storytelling is what makes it so special among everything in gaming history, and I'm quite literally tweaking over the fact that very little people find appreciation in it.
Though the DLC throws a wrench into this, because Metyr Mother of Fingers that spawned the Two Fingers their remembrance states that even with its connection to the cosmos it hasn’t received a message in sometime. So if the Mother of Finger isn’t getting a response then I doubt the Two Fingers are either. That means the Two Fingers are winging it and just trying their best to act out the Greater Will’s influence to the best of their ability, but in reality they don’t know. Though amazing video! I am not gonna deny that the Greater Will is sentient though it has completely abandoned the Lands Between and the Land of Shadow
It's impossible to say. Maybe it was sentient, maybe it was not. All we know for certain is that it's gone.
I love these videos! One thing that I am unclear on re the Two Fingers: later, when something doesn't go as planned (the thorns preventing access to the Erdtree), the Fingers call the GW, and Enia implies that it might take years. This makes it sound like the Fingers don't actually know if the GW is pleased with us specifically, and we don't even know how long it has been since they've actually spoken, and it might just be the case that we are fulfilling whatever the Fingers understand the GW's standing orders to be. It feels like that was supposed to be a reveal that hey, no, there's nobody actually there driving the bus; this could also help explain why the GW needs vassals at all. It's just an interesting thing to consider.
I absolutely agree with the idea that we are supposed to read the GW as sentient- even if it is, in fact, not- personifying concepts themselves is a fromsoft trope at this point.
That's the fun fact. They probably fully believe that this is what the GW wants and they think to know that she's pleased and she bless our mission. A very good plot point, the wise and superior Fingers don't know nothing after all.
They probably only get a few transmissions every other millennia
And the rest is interpretation
In a society ruled by order that's enough because there won't be anything changing, because why would it? Why fix something if it is (presumably) already well oiled?
And there it is, a system that worked
But oh no here comes the shattering.
A fast changing of times, too fast for the two fingers and the greater will
And thus the two fingers as the "next in line" made the decisions and credited the greater will
Marika came up with this plan back when she stripped Godfrey and the other Tarnished of their grace. I think Marika had planned for Radagon's unwillingness to be deposed or how much power she had given him. Imo the GW didn't really care until the disorder and chaos overtook the land.
Since the Two Fingers communicate using light, I think the amount of time it will take to get a response is supposed to show how far away the GW is from the Lands Between. I believe the TF we interact with in the Roundtable Hold are Marika's TF specifically, and they're trying to maintain the status quo with her in power and the Erdtree intact.
That happens because the Two Fingers were fooled by Marika. This whole time the TF assumed it was the Greater Will who gave grace back to the Tarnished, so they could restore the Elden Ring and become Elden Lord. So, why would the Erdtree block the path for them if the Greater Will is the one who wanted the Tarnished to brandish the Elden Ring? That does not make sense, right?
That´s because it wasn´t the Greater Will who gave the Tarnished their grace back. It was Marika all along. It´s Marika who wants us to brandish the Elden Ring, burn the Erdtree and create a new Order.
When the TF know that the Erdtree is blocked and the only way in is burning it down, they panick and desperetly try to communicate with the Greater Will.... but it seems they can´t anymore. Becasue the Greater Will abandoned The Lands Between a long time ago. And the only ones who protect what´s left of their precious Golden Order are Morgott and Radagon.
@@pantonpg "Kono Marika Da!"
I'm not sure she's doing this fully concious of herself or even if there is One herself right now, but yeah, she was the one behind the return of the tarnished, not the GW.
The Morgott analysis is gonna go hard
You mean uncle Ruckus?
@r3dh0ll0w8 why does this make so much sense lmao
"morgott is gonna go hard"
@@r3dh0ll0w8glad I’m not the only one who thinks this
I'm glad I found this video because I've been losing this channel but this is the main criticism I was thinking of during the Marika video.
In my opinion it would take many moons for the greater will to even get a status update on how its vassal is doing in the same way the 2 fingers needs so much time to hear the greater will.
In Regards to the Greater Will giving Marika/Radagon the "tools" to make the Golden Order, I think something important to remember is that going off the concept that the Greater will is the embodiment of order, It probably gave those tools to make any type of society because it doesn’t really care as long as order exists in some form. additionally, that could also be why it was so angered or displeased with the shattering war, as a Chaotic event such as that is in direct opposition to its fundamental principles.
A society of bug eaters would be acceptable so long as it's orderly
@@knightsblight enforced by the Davos Beast, lmao
We know of at least one society that preceded Marika's yet had the Elden Ring: dragons, and their Elden Lord Placidusax.
It didn't care about the war. It was fine with all the previous wars and génócìdés committed in its name. It was only mad because its puppet Marika stopped allowing herself to be its toy.
@@altermirror4063 It's unclear if Placidudax's god was connected to the Great Will, though. Given the faint remnants of gold on his scales it could be the case, but he could also have become gold because of his association with Godwyn.
Super important what you said about believing the Narrator (i.e the item descriptions)! People get downright paranoid about not trusting what's in front of them in this game sometimes, and some foundation is necessary. After all, what's the point of trying to figure out the lore if you don't believe in anything?
I think it's super healthy to always take definitive statements in item descriptions at face value - if a description wants us to be uncertain, it will use uncertain language.
There is definitely a contrarian bent to a lot of people's interpretations that just leads to them inventing nonsense basically from whole-cloth to justify why everything we read *must* be a lie.
Except every description that involves Radagon and Marika literally lies to you lmao.
Examples? Since I don't remember items that say they are seperate. I only remember dialouge that says that, which comes from people that don't know the full context. So it would be nice if you could remind me.@@dgalloway107
@@dgalloway107 Where exactly? Because I can't remember a single item that does lie to the player about Radagon and Marika. It never mentions that Radagon = Marika because it's never relevant to said item.
That’s kind of what this video feels like too
Turns out two fingers were in fact making shit up lol
Yeah, senile old fingers
'The Fingers must be crazy or deceiving us.'
Ymir's questline be like 'correct'.
Good video, can't wait to see more theories about this now that the DLC has been out for awhile.
even Sir Gideon knew what was up before the dlc
he truly is all knowing
if you don't know what i meant
check the Lord's Divine Fortification description
It's a will that is greater
Greater than what?
@@patrickkinnear8625 lesser wills I guess
Yes
Which implies intelligence.
Or maybe it's just a guy named Will who has proclaimed himself greater than all other people named Will
What I find interesting about the Elden Beast. Notice the big scar on its belly ? There's a theory that since the beast came with the Elden Ring it's somewhat linked to it and so when trying to fracture it the Beast retaliate because it was getting smashed. There's also an attack of the elden beast that crucifies you to a rune and pierces you with dozens of spears so it makes sense if the Beast punished Marika even if it wasnt from a direct order and more from an act of self defense
the elden ring is the elden beast, the scar on it's belly is because of the fracture of the ring. the ring ofc is inside marika/radagon, that's why when ragagon loses the beast comes out to fight us. i think the beast through radagon is indeed responsible for crucifying marika. i think marika wanted a new order and a new lord to change the current order but radagon wants things to go back to what they used to be, that's why he attacks us to take our shards and do exactly that. we know marika shattered the ring because of godwyn but i don't know for sure why she wants a new order and what shape she wants it to take.
@Lee-km7qqno. it’s stated the elden beast is the elden ring so the wound is from marika shattering the elden ring
@Lee-km7qq Marika is the vessel of the Elden Ring, that also is the Elden Beast, but there is something more. The connection between the vessel and the Elden Ring is not just the same between a cup and the tea, because we can see Marika's/Radagon's body shattering when she smashed the Elden Ring (The story trailer). So you can say is a being shattering itself and then be punished by itself while the other itself is trying to fix itself. Mr.Miyazaki, even less please.
They're one and the same. I thought the scar was from the ring being taken from its body long ago, much like Marika became the literal vessel for it later.
@@themaniae4803 I'm still confused about that. There's evidence that Radagon was once an independent being, and he merged with Marika due to her kind able to "melt with flesh harmoniously". But why? What on earth does Radagon get out of literally becoming one with Marika?
I think your first point tells us more than you say. The 3 fingers state that the greater will made a mistake. For something to be a mistake it needs more than to be bad or in error. There needs to be intention and specifically that intention needs to be failed. From that alone we know that the greater will must be intelligent and aware. At least enough to make mistakes in the first place. 2 asteroids colliding isn't a mistake it's just an event a mistake would be trying to land on an astroid and crashing into it instead. Both might result in the destruction of colliding objects but that is only a mistake if you care about whether or not the objects are destroyed. An unthinking uncaring thing cannot make nor recognize mistakes.
Presuming we trust the 3 fingers anyway
The best part? It's only fingers that have a better grasp what the truth is, it just has a messed up solution which could be as wrong as that of the two fingers
not necessarily true, someone like the 3 fingers and the chaos can say life is a mistake, that doesn't mean life was made by someone or with intentions. i can definitely see someone with a nihilistic perspective say that. i personally don't know if the greater will is sentient or not but one would assume that in a high fantasy setting like this with space gods and all that it would xD i highly doubt though that the greater will gives a fuck other than having a sort of order imposed.
@@metalface_villain "not necessarily true, someone like the 3 fingers and the chaos can say life is a mistake, that doesn't mean life was made by someone or with intentions."
But the fact that it's called a "mistake" by the 3 fingers implies the 3 fingers are intelligent, and therefore the two fingers and the greater will probably are, as well.
@@metalface_villain Yep, is fully a Nihilist vision in the worst way. "Life is pain so burn everything." Quite funny after what Shabriri did to the merchants. Also, yeah, GW don't give a total sh*t about what is the order. Malenia, AFTER the Rot, was chosen as an Empyrean, and even with a chance of a Rot Goddess with the Elden Ring, GW did nothing.
Also, after burning the Erdtree, the Two Fingers make a specific pose, and the Finger Reader tells you it's communicating with the Greater Will. If we take the Finger Reader's word for it, an attempt to communicate implies a belief in the possibility of a response, which suggests an intellect or at least sentience.
I’m sure someone has mentioned it already, but the remembrance for the optional DLC boss, Metyr, and the descriptions of the items you get from it adds so much to this topic
I wish we knew more about her. She's the first envoy of GW, and the mother of Two Fingers, but then where did Three Fingers come from? And where did GW go? It abandoned Metyr and the lands between, but why?
In the DLC we have learned that mother of fingers was abandoned by the greater will a long time ago, therefore two fingers were only pretending to be it's messengers :
That's not how I perceived it. It's not pretending, it genuinely thinks it's still getting info directly from GW. It doesn't know that it's getting the info from its mother, Metyr, who is aware GW is gone and yet continues to act as its envoy, making it up as she goes based on what she *_thinks_* is what GW wants.
i think the greater will is dualistic in nature, much like many other characters in the story. grace/order are but one half of the nature of the greater will, while chaos/frenzy is the other half of this same force. this force is not bifurcated in some long forgot conflict, but rather the connection between the two have been perceptually obscured for the denizens of the lands between.
Reverse Sheogorath
@@BiteTheHookwho shegorath
@@mauricegreen5321Cheese eating monkey
Considering that the frenzy flame is yellow, I don't think this is all that far off. To a greater extent, I genuinely feel as though many aspects of reality that don't fit into the world under the Golden Order could have been removed like the Rune of Death, turning into the outer gods without anything to influence. After all, once the rune of death is finally able to affect the world again after taking Godwyn's body as its shell and it starts to reshape the world in its image just like the rot infecting Caelid and the Haligtree, or the way that Frenzy and the formless mother seemingly alter the people they influence Trememdous facts about reality that hurt, that you don't want to have to acknowledge, but none the less very real and very important. Things get strange if you cut them out, and if they remain seperate then horrible things happen when they make their own independent contact with the world again.
@@mauricegreen5321 Sheogorath is a character in the Elder Scrolls universe and is known as the god of madness and insanity.
I think it's worth noting that not only do Gold Mask and Mikela but also Marika herself are talked about as researching the Golden Order in order to understand it better. If Marika made up the Golden order from whole cloth why would she need to research it? Why is it implied all three of these characters found something that dismayed them once they found it?
Here's to hoping we get more answers in the DLC
Humans in real world invent politics and laws, but still study them.
Maybe Marika tries to fix her mistakes by objective analysis.
Honestly it's good to get a fresh perspective on the lore of elden ring coming from more of a meta-physics angle rather than pure in-game lore. You've brought up ideas that even other lore-tubers have yet to bring up that make a lot of sense (IE the Greater Will as an Eldritch being of pure order, being repelled by the discord in the Lands Between).
Item descriptions often provide context for where their information comes from, for example, in the elden stars description is starts by saying "It is said that..." Meaning this information is information passed down and not objective fact. I generally assume unless there's a preface or qualifier like this in the description, that the item descriptions are objectively true and that's how I personally make the distinction between objective and subject info within item descriptions
I agree wholeheartedly. I was thinking during the video that knowing that the Elden Beast is only thought by the people of the Lands Between to be consciously sent by the Greater Will is still good information. It potentially not being true doesn’t diminish its value since we are learning about common beliefs of the people there and that informs how we in turn interpret their thoughts and actions.
Turns out the two fingers might be communicating with Metyr who was the one who once communicated directly with the Greater Will but has not received a message in a long time.
No "might be", that's exactly what is going on. Two Fingers isn't aware that his mom is totally making it up.
I haven't seen the Jap translations yet to know for sure. That makes it less certain than things we know for sure; like Ranni being a piece of shit.
I think an interesting detail about the Mending Runes is that the source of all three of them are Tarnished: People who have, either directly or indirectly, been removed from the Golden Order, but called upon when things have gotten dire. People who are bringing new ideas to a flawed Order, from their experiences of having to live outside of it.
I'm deeply curious as to whether Miquella will be bringing his own, new ending to Elden Ring with the DLC, and what shape that'll take. From what little we know about him, he seems at this point in his life to be fairly dismissive of the Golden Order. It couldn't cure his sister, he's sheltering a bunch of things viewed as malign by the Order in his treehouse, that he was specifically building as a new, alternative tree to the Erdtree, and he's fully divested himself of the body and Grace he was entitled to by birth, in pursuit of something in the Lands of Shadow, which from descriptions seems to be a sort of... oubliette that Marika and/or the Golden Order used for things they didn't want around. Very curious indeed.
*SPOILERS FOR DLC*
He was trying to get a different age of compassion to the age of order, and you stop him. So in a sense yes he is trying to make a new ending, but you cut it off in favor of your own ending as Elden lord.
There are no new endings, unfortunately. The entire DLC is a glorified side quest.
@@T3AR_HD I think it's kinda funny how this one person keeps going around merking gods left and right.
@@WobblesandBean "Make a world not for gods, but for all men."
@@T3AR_HD it is impled that gold mask ending is canon one.
And we were guided by marika all this time
I think there is an important linguistic point that has been overlooked in this debate.
A will is by definition personal. If the Greater Will is impersonal, then it is by definition not a will.
Can we chalk that up to mistranslation or flowery wording? Cause that seems to be the case here if the Greater Will is indeed non sentient
It can also be a very primitive drive or desire. I believe there can be an unconscious or subconscious "will" that a conscious being can discovery, but "will" might not be the best word to describe that. It's definitley mysterious or imperceptibly great or possibly unknowable.
@@allenandrews2380 So an animal essentially. Similar to an insect.
@@allenandrews2380 A subconscious in the psychological sense also still implies personhood.
@@pillarmenn1936 In Japanese the word used for "Will" is "意志", which can mean will, intent, and determination. It's never used for things that aren't sentient as far as I can see. So no, as far as Japanese is concerned: the Greater Will IS sentient.
In fact, we see plenty of examples in the game of the Greater Will spying on people (Iji's helm), controlling people (Blaidd, Ranni), making choices (abandoning the Demigods to instead call the Tarnished), etc. It's very difficult to argue that it's not sentient imo.
It is very likely that Marika discovered something that changed her mind on obedience to the Greater Will. There's a bonfire in game where Melina relates Marika declaring her intent to study the Greater Will much closer and sometime after that, she does an almost complete 180 in terms of her own Golden Order from trying to build it up, crush all competitors and make it as strong as possible, to actively betraying it and trying to tear it down.
She essentially allows Ranni to steal a piece of destined death and kill Godwyn the Golden. She banishes Godfrey the first Elden Lord and master of the tarnished and basically tells them to become really strong and come back some day emboldened with the flame of ambition. She sends Melina out to find the "chosen" tarnished to assist in this. She IS Radagon, so her then denying the tarnished entry into the Erdtree forcing them to burn it could be another effort to basically destroy the own order she created and, of course, she herself shatters the Elden Ring.
What she learned is not completely clear, but the change in behavior could not be more clear. She goes from one extreme to the polar opposite extreme. From doing everything possible to ensure the Golden Order's primacy and superiority over all other factions or ideologies to wanting to the exact opposite of subverting it however she can. After whatever she learned she then devotes all of her efforts to tear down what she had spent her entire life creating, even at the cost of basically the lives of all of her offspring (save perhaps Ranni and/or Miquella?) and her own life as well.
I think it is likely that her study of the Greater Will turned up something that disgusted her or some way that she herself had been deceived and/or lied to. I suspect that the Erdtree is a parasite, feeding on everything that returns to it in order to make the Greater Will ever stronger. It is beautiful...and feeding on the entire world over the centuries.
I’m not sure what she discovered but she clearly came to some conclusion. But you are wrong in one respect (in my view anyways for what that counts) radagon and marika are the same person but Radagon is the half that wishes to save the current order marika is the one who broke it that’s why she is impaled and crucified while radagon can whip the hammer out and go bonk bonk
But then we must also ask ourselves what if she discovered nothing? What if she found the Elden beast and order and all of it have no real will or purpose and all of the blasphemy she committed in the past was all for not? What if that’s what shadow of the Erdtree will shed light on? What if that’s why miqeulla is doing what he’s doing?
This is why I love and hate Elden ring we have a ring of possible and answers but no concrete center, no anchoring rune we can know anything from all we know is that radagon and marika are one and the only philosopher who would know more is wiggling his fam finger at the sky while his apprentice cries in a corner
Parasite theory was always my favorite interpretation of the Erdtree. Isn't their lore about souls who die get absorbed into the Erdtree?
Not to mention in the final boss arena, we see tons of Erdtrees in the distance, implying that the Greater Will has more of them in other realms, sending them out like probes.
Another cool interpretation IMO is that we the player are the Greater Will, the two fingers being metaphorical for the fingers we use to manipulate the controller and thus the Tarnished. It makes sense, our will is the only one that matters in this world.
The gold imo is kind of like the one ring from Tolkien. It corrupts and consumes anyone who tries to take it over for power. Just look at Marika at the end of the game. It’s just an empty shell. That’s no longer whoever the real Marika was. It’s just like how sorcerers get consumed who try to study the primal current of Star magic. Everyone in this game tries to use something to gain power and they pay the price for it.
I think of the parasitic interpretation to be the one that makes the most sense for me. Power parasite and corrupts and do everything it can to grow stronger and stay alive for as long as possible through whatever means, even it that means being flexible and betraying itself, like it did with the "heretics from the Carian family".
If order cannot prevail trough strength, it will redefine itself to prevail through laws. This is what a lifeform looking to survive anything will do : adapt in whatever way it can to overcome any threats. And what better thing to do for a parasite that is just looking to feed from as many worlds as possible ?
Radagon and Marika are not the same person. They share a body, yes, but clearly have different motivations and personalities. The most clear example of this is Marika trying to shatter the Elden Ring while Radagon was the one trying to repair it, according to the description of Marika's Hammer.
The Tarnished's return and slaying of the Elden Beast was always what Marika wanted, seeing as how she sent Godfrey away on purpose, and wanted her demigod children to claim their places as gods, lords, what have you. It would make no sense for her to block off the Erdtree, especially when Melina is almost certainly her daughter, and Melina herself was created for the purpose of getting into the Erdtree.
Radagon, on the other hand, has been described by Queen Marika herself as a "leal hound of the Golden Order," meaning that she views him as more or less a fanatical dog. His title ingame isn't "Radagon, Second Elden Lord," it's "Radagon of the Golden Order." We never see any sign of Marika developing Golden Order fundamentalist incantations, but we know Radagon personally developed the spell Radagon's Rings of Light as a gift to his son Miquella.
In other words, Radagon is consistently characterized as someone whose very identity revolves around the Golden Order. A loyal and dogmatic servant who is even considered a fundamentalist of the Order. It makes perfect sense for someone like Radagon to seal off the Erdtree, because anyone looking to mend the Elden Ring would likely destroy the current form of the Golden Order and create a new one. He doesn't want the world to change - he wants the world to remain stagnant and dead, as long as the Golden Order in its current form is preserved.
I love how the DLC changes the nature of the Fingers drastically... but you still hit it on the head at 22:20
I feel like the introduction of Metyr and the revelations that follow point more towards a universal force sort of Greater Will
It should be taken into account that there is a distinct possibility that there is no Greater Will at all. It could be that everything that has happened that was attributed to the Greater Will is nothing more than happenstance, and that the "Greater Will" is equivalent to Divine Providence in the sense that it is an established cause of events that the majority of people in the Lands Between believe is a thing that can cause things to happen.
The Greater Will's abandonment of the Lands Between is just another way of saying 'things suck now, nobody wants to take responsibility for it, so it must be because the Greater Will abandoned us'. There never was a Greater Will present; The land was simply in a Golden Age of prosperity and it was easy to believe it was because a higher power was responsible for all the good things happening.
Hands manipulate, that is their physical function in our anatomy. So, the Fingers are manipulators, and I think they are largely responsible for the state of things, perpetuating belief in a thing that does not even actually exist. Combine that with the selfish ambitions of a bunch of bickering demigods and you get the world as it is.
All of the so-called Outer Gods could very well be nothing more than natural forces in this universe that individuals learn how to harness and utilize, then start attributing their own biases onto those forces of nature and develop cults around them.
This is my reading as well. It makes me think WAAY back to when Elden Ring was first announced and I read a blurb describing the game along the lines of "the Ambition of humanity".
Don’t bring your atheism into fantasy games pls
Feedback is always good
Don't confuse it with destructive criticism
You make good compelling arguments with the knowledge you have
Love your videos keep doing what your doing
Ah man, Ymir’s quest line in the DLC sheds some light on your final point about the two fingers’ dialogue as evidence for the nature of the greater will
Reacting early @2:10 and I've got two thoughts: first, the name, "The Greater Will," implies, well, a will, an entity with wants and goals and some sort of thought, even if it's not in a form we well recognize/understand. It's plausible that that's a misunderstanding on the part of mortals, but that just leads me into point two: Marika can be responsible for shaping the Golden Order but also not be a petulant child in breaking it. She can have either grown to think better of/regret her past choices, or have been fully convinced that she wasn't the one making those decisions and believe herself to be rejecting a higher power, not realizing that that was always in her own power. Either way, she actually still paints the picture of someone who has come to reject their past as mistaken and misguided and seeking to redress those crimes as she is able.
I look forward to seeing what information on the Golden Order the DLC gives us. I get the feeling Miquella has some pretty damning information on the religion considering the lengths he's gone to to distance himself from it and gain access to the place that Marika is (supposedly) from. Messmer being excluded from the original pantheon of demi-gods despite clearly being a child of Marika himself will also be interesting.
My man. This is gonna need a revisit with the new Metyr lore.
Here's a couple of important questions to consider when contemplating the nature of the Greater Will
1. In a scenario where the player defeats Radagon but then dies to the Elden Beast, what would happen next? Would the Elden Beast repair the seal on the Erdtree? Would it return to Radagon and wait for the next challenger? Would it leave the Erdtree and try to return to the Greater Will, or perhaps just rampage until someone defeated it?
2. How far does the scope of the Elden Ring's influence extend? We know it extends across The Lands Between, but we also know other lands exist in this world, like the Land of Reeds or the places across the sea that Marika sent Godfrey and his men. If the rules defined by the Elden Ring govern the natural order of things across the world, and the Shattering War happened centuries ago, then why has no outside nation attempted to take advantage of the civil war stalemate and seize the Elden Ring for themselves? (Keep in mind, the truth about needing to burn the thorns to enter the Erdtree didn't become public knowledge until the player attempts to enter the Erdtree with two Great Runes, so no foreign nation would be aware that only someone with Grace could claim the Elden Ring). Sure, the reputations of the demigods could have scared many of them off, but over that much time, it's hard to believe that no foreign power would try to launch an assault on The Lands Between, or even offer an alliance and military support to one of the demigods to help them win the war.
Well, as for the first one, I would imagine it would simply take the repair rune the player character has and fixed the elden ring. After that, who knows.
My brain added to your lines regarding the fingers.
'they could by insane or lying manipulators' and we've neved seen that in a fromsoft game *spin camera to Frampt & Kaathe*
The "all things yearn to converge" line is actually a mistranslation for "all things yearn to fall into place". So your theory makes sense
Dont feel bad brett! Elden ring is hugely about interpretation and bringing ideas to the table and talking about stuff is what the souls-kiro-bourne-ring community is all about!
Yours are among my favorite lore videos to watch and i think your community appreciates the honesty to address areas you missed or misunderstood.
Keep at it man🤙
No Glazing but love your content bro. just made something and was looking for something to watch to lol.
It’s not glazing when this man makes genuinely good content
@@Swampboiii This is true
FatBrett! Forget not that you enter the Elden Ring fandom and community showcasing your singular perspective, your impression of the game. And thag the reason so many “smart” people are quick and wanting to add their own understanding, is that they’ve had *two years* thus far of comparing and contrasting their own beliefs with everyone else who has made videos! There have been countless minute discoveries and connections that shape the whole of certain characters, things that are impossible for one person alone to find and understand completely!
I also find that taking all descriptions including “it is said” to be true is generally good for appreciation of Elden Ring’s story. The moment you start to pick and choose reduces the impact and authenticity of *all* beautiful little stories about the world, like Lansseax having a human form, the legend of the Blue Dancer, the fundamental nature of Destined Death, and so on. For me, personally, it’s easier to appreciate the whole when you reconcile *all* those implied connections to fill in the context of the Lands Between’s history.
I really liked your thorough explanation of the Greater Will as it appears narratively! Keep up the good work!
You don't have to call them "Stupid Mistakes". These explorations are amazing and helps us all suss out whats going on (even if we aren't 100% correct).
One thing to consider: Marika is *not* an agent of Order. She has nothing to do with the Golden Order at all. She, in fact, has rebelled against the influence of the GW since day 1. Radagon, OTOH, is the architect and creator of The Golden Order. He implemented it by force, after the Greater Will made him Consort to Queen Marika. Looking at its design, the Golden Order is this mesh latticework that appears almost like a cage or fence. This is to represent the dogmatism and the rigidity that defines the Golden Order. And when Golden Order Fundamentalism wasn't enough to stop The Shattering, he would seal Marika inside of the Erdtree (Golden Order magic is seen bolstering the brambles when we approach before its burned), and then attempt to repair the Elden Ring with what remained in her broken body.
what? where are u getting your sources for this?
Hmmm... Since day 1! Seems unlikely given the fact that she became its champion, killing and conquering for the sake of the promised Order. Somewhere down the line though a disagreement grew, the inner conflict of which birth two separate sides of Marika, one seeking too further the growth & agenda of the Order, the other being Marika herself who defy's the GW; hence becoming a fell God. I agree with everything else, good analysis.
The most remarkable thing to me though, is how 1 became 2? & was it in part this weird incest why Malenia & Miquella came out with issues?
@@painsuzerain6087 well some of the sources are spoilers for the DLC so im gonna hold off on spoiling those.
Radagon being the architect of the golden order is in his name: Radagon of the Golden Order, as well as his school of Golden Order Fundamentalism (fundamental meaning foundational).
Further, the symbol of the Golden Order is the hatchmark golden symbol, which also featured on statues of Radagon, as well as is containing the Elden Ring during the final fight with Radagon (and even empowering the Brambles at the Erdtree.)
Another interpretation is that perhaps Marika *created* the Golden Order, but Radagon was such a GW bootlicker and Order obsessed (again he created the fundamentalist study here), that when Marika spurned the Golden Order, he was there to champion it in her stead, ad he embodied the Order so fully that it was as if he *was* the order.
Radagon created Golden Order Fundamentalism but the actual Golden Order was created by Marika. Its founding principle is that she is the one true god.
Radagon wasn't the first consort of Marika, so this is unlikely.
While we can alter the ER by adding a mending rune to it, it's not clear that an Elden Lord is even supposed to do that.
The Fingers want us to just go to Marika with the Shards and become her consort, like in the the Age of Fracture ending.
In the other enings, yeah we can modify the ER, but Marika, by that time is pretty much just a dead vessel, so there is no one to stop us.
In Rannis ending it is her, Marika's successor the one who takes the ER and we don't even touch it.
Melina at the Erdtree Church is able to recount Marika's words about her wanting to understand and search the depths of the Golden Order. "Through understanding of the proper way, our faith, our grace, is increased.". It sounds like she expected this understanig to be a prosperous thing for them. She doesn't sound like someone who is against anything at this point.
As long as there is order that's what the greater will likes. Actually, this has been a common sentiment in the lore community for sometime if I recall....
In theories, I like to believe that, mistakes are not mistakes, but new ideas. I love your previous video on this topic. I love your idea of true nature of things. It also help me see things differently and made me much more acceptance to daily human interactions.
Regarding who punished Marika:
The elden beast has a grab attack in which the player is held aloft on a rune (exactly like Marika) and pierced by innumerable golden light spikes.
Still not clear on the red spear but it's something 🤷🏻♂️
My thoughts about the three fingers is that they are the most honest out of all, what we know is that they communicate via their fingerprints, they can't change those and they are pretty much repeating themselves all the time and well they go straight to the point, Burn everything with the yellow Chaos Flame, the only other one is hayetta who tells us what their fingerprints say, in order to communicate with the two fingers the message has to go through the two finger themselves since they share what they greater will says and from what we saw they aren't actually communicating at the moment or since who knows when they haven't talked and the the message has to come through another individual that being the finger reader.
I'm totally digging this Elden Ring kick you on. They're making me not mind the wait for the Final Fantasy video instead of agonizing over it.
About the mistake the three fingers are talking about : The mistake is the gift of life.
Elden Ring's origin, according to the 3 finger's dialogue, seems to be pretty akin to the lord of Dark Souls (which is partially why I believe that what is being told here is NOT a lie) : The world was gray and unchanging and uniform, with neither life nor death, nor anything, really.
The gift of life, that came from the fracture (from the Fire, in Dark Souls), created all those variances : life and death, order and chaos, etc... all the good but also all the bad : death, pain, despair...
The battle between the factions (or the cosmic gods, really) of Elden Ring is nothing more than philosophy, with each faction representing a point of view and clashing with the others, in a battle to determine which one is "right".
The 3 fingers probably came to be because order existed, as they represent pure chaos. No matter what, they're the absolute antithesis to the order. Order seeks to build, organize and control, therefore the chaos seeks to destroy everything in a senseless chaos. It's kind of a yin-yang dynamic.
And just like the order seeks to maintain itself "alive", chaos seeks to make everything melt away and fuse again together. When there is absolutely nothing, there is no chaos but there is no order either. Chaos does not care for self-preservation, which is why it is called madness : because it goes against everything that life is about. That's probably also why the madness incantations can be just as harmful to you as they are to your enemies.
The separation of Marika and Radagon is the most crucial point to understand what the Greater Will is I think.
So we have Marika, who becomes the "vessel" of the Greater Will and uses the Elden Ring to create her personnal vision of order (since she takes the rune of death out of it and locks it away). She then charges Maliketh to look after the rune of death and punishes him with a monstruous fate when he fails to protect it, kinda showing us she doesn't really give a fuck about her "shadow" given to her by the Greater Will / Two fingers.
Since the Elden Ring was supposedly sent to the world by the Greater Will, it is safe to assume that the original state of the Elden Ring was the one the Greater Will wished it was used in. Thus, Marika taking out some parts of it seems to already be suspicious and probably the start of her rebellion.
But, since the Greater Will has no one else "compatible enough" to carry out his bidings, he basically lets it slide for a while seeing that Marika's Golden Order is actually bringing a form of order and stability to the world. Marika creates the Erdtree out of the crucible and marries Godfrey, gets him to kill the giants, killing two birds with one stone by bending the crucible to her order and eliminating her fiercest competition. At one point during or after that, the Greater Will nerfs Godfrey by slapping a shadow on his shoulder just to be safe until he and his army are of no use to her anymore. The next step of going "whoops! No grace? Too bad, guess you will have to exile with your most loyal soldiers and leave me to rule... alone... See ya!" is only logical at that point. I would say it was probably also motivated by the fact that 2 thirds of the children from this marriage were sporting proof of the Crucible's influence, which is a big no-no if the goal is for the Erdtree to be the new symbol of the order. Lock the deformed children and send the father with defective DNA away, problem solved.
Other things happen, persecussions, fuck ups and genocides aplenty, all in the name of the Golden Order, until the whole unification conquests come to a grinding halt while facing Raya Lucaria and the Carian Nobles. That's when the Greater Will probably goes "You know what, I think it's time I intervene because you are not doing too well right now". Thus, in similar fashion as the Rot with Malenia (since Malenia does everything she can to go against the Rot in an unwinable battle for the control of her body), the Greater Will basically hijacks Marika's body and shapes it to become Radagon and go conquer Raya Lucaria through the same type of diplomacy Marika used with Godfrey.
We now have a Greater Will controled Radagon seducing Rennala, ending a never ending war and recruiting their forces. Making another batch of children in the process, this time all of them being actually pure of the influence of the Crucible, absolute win all around. And then, since the Greater Will doesn't understand how humans work except the whole "make them fuck to create other humans just in case", he thinks it's a good idea to make Radagon go back to Leyndell and see if he cannot make even better children by somehow using both Marika and Radagon at the same time.
This backfires HEAVILY since Renalla loses her mind, her children see this and, since it is proven they are a tight-knit kind of family and you can clearly see in game that Ranni cares about her mother, it plants the seeds of rebellion into Ranni's mind. Meanwhile, the Greater Will, having not clue what the risks of incest are, manages to create of pair of Empyrean by making a god fucking itself. Great success!!! Except that Empyreans are apparently beacons for outer gods to posess since the Rot snatches Malenia at spawn and Miquella doesn't go past infancy stage. Fuck... There is also Melina but I think it's more like a shard of Marika or something more than a real child.
But, anyway, everything is going great! Both the position of God and Elden Lord are occupied by the same person, the Greater Will has a "Radagon body snatcher" button in case Marika ever fucks up again and he has replacements "just in case, even if the are kind of fucked up but they will do. But, wait, what is the daughter from the brutally divorced librarian doing? AH FUCK!
Here comes Ranni, who says "fuck this shit and fuck the Greater Will in particular" and commits a 50/50 suicide with unwilling participant Godwyn, first child of Marika, all around good boy and the only one who wasn't either sick, completely depraved, a reminder of the crucible or litterally stopping the stars just because he liked his horse so much. Not only does that shit SEVERELY undermines the Golden Order power, it also and most importantly affects Marika A LOT, who takes control of her body long enough to break the Elden Ring in a final act of defiance towards the Greater Will. Unhappy outer god punishes Marika so she is tortured while he has no use of Radagon, and the whole plan becomes an absolute shit-show.
And we arrive at what the three fingers said "The Greater Will made a mistake". That mistake was Marika. Marika who, from day one, took an important part out of the Elden Ring. Marika who told Maliketh to sit down and munch on death root after his mistake and so without remlrse. Marika who married a barbarian who followed the Crucible that the Greater Will had to restrain before sending him away. Marika who struggled to conquer Raya Lucaria, forcing the Greater Will to intervene and create Radagon. Marika who, seeing her oldest and most perfect son die (which is the worst case scenario that wasn't supposed to ever happen) by the hands of another child she probably had against her will or at the very least while not being in control of her own body, finally loses the last of her marbles and shatter the Elden Ring.
Well, not necesarilly Marika but the idea that the Greater Will could just order humans around, even taking control of their bodies when things didn't go fast enough for it's taste, without expecting any deviation or repercussions from his plan. The mistake of the Greater Will was expecting perfect order from flawed individuals. It's not that the Greater Will doesn't think or doesn't care. It's just that he does not understand how humans work. Perfect Order can never hope to understand Chaos.
I'm still unsure if the recall of the tarnished is from the Greater Will or Marika herself. Would be a nice last middle finger to the outer god to basically call back your ex-husband who was so strong and popular that you had to handicap him by fear of what he could do.
So, there's a concept that exists in cosmic horror that few people really delve into because it's hard to wrap your head around.
Cosmic forces could just 'intersect' with reality, without necessarily fully noticing that it's doing so. If the Greater Will is a sentient and engaged entity, it could just be a screaming cosmic mind that only really influences the world in passing. It COULD be communicated with, but only in so much as you can interface with a computer. The Elden Ring itself is the physical representation of the laws of reality, so perhaps the Greater Will is the 'console' that is used by any given being to alter, interact with, or in Merika's case damage, parts of how conceptual reality functions.
I think Goldmask's Mending Rune gives solid evidence that a lot of the BS happening is simply due to Marika and other gods:
"The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment."
So all the mistreatment of Omen, the in-fighting, "blasphemous" things, etc. can pretty much be blamed on the representatives of the Golden Order and not the Greater Will itself. I think its only influence is the Elden Beast and whatever force allows it into people's heads.
Yet goldmask's ending keeps the shape of the order that persecutes the omen and undead,
I disagree with this reading bcs the treatment of the omen is exactly the kind of flaw goldmask is attempting to remove by removing the interference of fickle gods such as Marika
Goldmask really just fixed everything unbelievably easily
@@dgalloway107No it doesn’t? It Perfects the order.
Your videos are a sick jumping off point for a lot of deep thinking and conversation and thats why im here for them. I often disagree with you but the endeavor you took to dive so deep is foundational for any thought i had at all on the matter at hand.
I sometimes wonder if people have been misinterpreting that description on the Elden Stars thing. Was it the Elden Beast that became the Elden Ring, or was it the golden star that bore it? Because when we see the Elden Beast, it’s definitely not the Elden Ring. The Ring was right there inside Marika/Radagon, and the Beast grabbed it up along with their corpse to make that sword. Wouldn’t it make more sense for the star to have become the Ring?
It's ironic how the Greater Will never directly communicated with literally anyone, not Marika or even its own daughter, Metyr. The fingers were busy consulting something that was beyond the microcosm and communication was never directly established. The spear that pierces Marika imprisoned her within the Erdtree, and made it so none could enter the Erdtree was all Radagon's doing in his illustrious attempt to mend the Elden Ring and restore the Golden Order. All those wars and genocide and sealing away Destined Death? That was Marika establishing her vision of a world without suffering and what she had to do in order to achieve something like that.
It was also partly Marika taking out her pain and sorrow on those who hurt her in the past
I think you've overlooked a key detail. The Tranished's guidance and immortality. These come from the Greater Will. And no matter what ending you choose, it never revokes these. It has revoked it for many others, but never you.
Another lesser detail I think you should reconsider is Dungeater and Goldmask. Despite how vastly different they are, their heraldry is shockingly similar. A Sun. A great light inspired both men onto their paths to creating their mendings runes. They weren't just random Tarnished. Something directed them both.
We now know that the Greater Will is gone. Metyr, Two Fingers, and the Elden Beast are acting independently, thinking they're acting on behalf of GW but in reality are just making it up, blindly going off of what they *_think_* GW wants.
I watch this channel since I was in highschool. I love your depth and thoroughness you do with these analyses
Considering the cosmic nature of the Greater Will, I'm not sure if we can know what its true nature is. The people in the Lands Between and even the two fingers think they know, but we see that the Two Fingers seem to be making stuff up as they go and when they aren't sure what they do anymore they panic and try to communicate which will take an unknowable amount of time. We can either guess that it just really takes a long time to communicate with the GW, that the GW has actually abandoned the Lands Between and that the Two Fingers just don't want to believe it, or that the Two Fingers are buying time to figure out what to do next. I'm not sure what exactly they're doing, and I'm not sure we can know for sure, but I do think that it adds to the cosmic mystery of the GW. People want to say they understand the GW, but I'm not sure anyone in the Lands Between can truly understand it. Maybe getting close to understanding it is what led Marika to shatter the Elden Ring like she did. To me it seems that the developers do want us to believe that the GW is a being that we can understand, but then when we learn about the Elden Beast and see what it is, we have to question that notion, what on earth kind of being could create the beast and send it here, is it something that we can ever truly understand?
you've done well, Tarnished. Here is the Mending Rune of Literary Analysis.
I do believe the greater will will accept any kind of order as long as one exists
The Golden Order was formed by the plucking of Destined Death, probably as Marika's answer to the Gloam eyed queen's attack on her demigod children and attempt to take the throne as an Empyrean
I think the Golden Order's aversion to death is built on a more emotional root than their Fundamentalism dictates, since they incorporated so much into the order before and after
In Marika's own words, she decided to study the depths of the Order. Given the term she uses this was probably after Death was banished. She would understand what cosmic thing they are actually dealling with
And what she found was so maddening she decided to shatter the whole thing at the cost of herself and possibly the world
Or maybe she answer she found with Radagon is that the best thing for the world was for nobody to sit on the throne, for no rule to take place, for Order to be forever out of reach
Maybe that's why she collaborated with Ranni if that was the case (Maliketh says she betrayed him and I can only think of the stealing of Death as something he would consider a betrayal)
1:40 Marika, godfrey and radagon definitely are responsible for the genocides that happen in the lands between, Marika tells godfrey to put the giants to the sword and the greater will does not actually tell her to do it she just does it on her own. plus in the shadow of the erd tree trailer mentions seduction and betrayal while showing marika standing in front of a literal corpse mountain so marika has no problem getting people killed.
Radagon is a little less guilty because, if you think, his war ended with a wedding and diplomacy and the open of the GO to magic, even if Star destiny now is a taboo. And, funny thing about the Giant War, probably Marika Herself ""slayed"" the God of Giants and then cursed the last one.
That Corpses mountain in dlc trailer maybe could be the Crucible and not just corpses, but we see later a genocidal war in the land of shadow so yeah, she still is an *sshole.
the dlc reveal that the mother of fingers was long broken really fights against the chapter of the Two Fingers
"[The Two Fingers must be insane or manipulative.]"
insane. absolutely insane
Everything that happened in the story is suspect now because.
Spoilers:
The greater will hasn't communicated once with the mother or any of it's children including the two fingers.
I personally believe that the Greater Will is a true Lovecraftian deity. it is therefore endowed with intelligence but reasons through canons and concepts that are completely foreign to us (it is therefore a cross between a chaotic force and an intelligent individual).
at the same time this would explain why it needs so many channels to communicate (the two fingers, marika, the elden beast...).
furthermore one wonders why such a powerful and conscious entity does not act directly on the world. if you see the Greater Will as a Lovecraftian deity this problem is quickly solved. there are various possibilities:
- it is, like many gods in the Lovecraft mythos, stuck in a sort of higher or detached plane of existence from which it can only influence the world (this is also suggested by other deities in the game, the formless mother, for example, can " appear" to Mohg only via portals)
- it is so different and alien in his ways of acting and reasoning that it cannot help but use intermediaries
- it has a problem similar to that of the Combine in Half Life, that is, it is too powerful and therefore what happens on the "planet" of the game is only one of the countless cosmic events on which he is acting and he doesn't care what happens on just one of these
(Sorry for bad english 🙃)
So, from the evidence available in the game and DLC, my interpretation is this:
-The Greater Will created the universe, and by extension all life, by sundering the One Great and triggering the Big Bang.
-The Greater Will is intelligent, but hands-off; it keeps its intervention in the universe to a minimum.
-After life developed naturally on the world of the Lands Between, the GW sent two envoys to stabilize the world and jump-start civilization: Metyr and the Elden Beast/Ring
-The GW communicated with its envoys early on to direct their efforts, but once the ball was rolling it cut off communication to let the world develop on its own.
-The Elden Beast accepted this, and continued to play its role as embodiment of the natural laws of the world, allowing gods and lords to claim stewardship of the Elden Ring and manipulate its constituent runes as they saw fit, only acting of it own accord when it perceived a potential threat to itself, and thus to Order generally.
-Metyr, on the other hand, was extremely distressed at losing contact with the GW, and seems to have gone "mad," passing off her own inscrutable motives as directives from the GW and passing this fault along to her children, the Two Fingers.
-Metyr, through her Two Fingers, directed Marika toward godhood as a way to get revenge on the Hornsent. Why she would do this is unclear, though I speculate it may have been part of some bizarre, desperate plan to attract the GW's attention somehow.
So the Greater Will hasn't necessarily "abandoned" the world per se. It very well may be actively observing still. It just can't or won't interfere with its development anymore.
I think the answer is likely a middle ground
The Greater Will is a sentient entity with its own goals and consciousness. Its just that its goals are not nessicairly complex or nuanced ones.
It wants order. Whos order? Not its problem, it gives you the tools and lets you go at it yourself, as long as there is order its satisfied with whatever you're doing.
The Greater Will is likely not an "outer god" either. In the Japanese text it is spoken of and described as something more akin to the Christan God. Whereas the Outer Gods are described as something more similar to the Kami of Japanese mythology. Implying the "God hierarchy" goes:
Greater will -> Outer Gods -> Gods Envoys (The Fingers, Elden Beast, Deathbirds) -> Mortal Gods (Marika, Placi's god etc.)
I really appreciate all the videos you make. I think that your research is impeccable. Your interpretations are very interesting and informative. Frankly your video on Oden from God of war Ragnarok is one of my favorite villain analysis of all time and absolutely going to inform a big bad for my DV campaign at some point :-)
Excellent video that addresses most of the disagreements I had with the previous one.
It is my belief that the Greater Will is very much sentient in some shape or form, there is too much evidence to suggest otherwise. But like the Great Ones of Bloodborne or God in Demon Souls, what it actually is and wants is divorced from what people ascribe to it. It is representative of the divide between organized religion and the beings they worship. There very well may be a God in the universe, but that does not mean that every act humanity commits in their name or say is their will is indeed true. We are small beings in a huge, unknowable existence, a theme Fromsoft loves to delve into.
That's why I pin most of the blame on the Golden Order's faults with Marika, Radagon, and the Two Fingers. We know that there have been different Orders under the Elden Ring. We know that different Orders are still possible. Thus, the Golden Order itself cannot be wholly the design of the Greater Will, even if it lays at the center of that ideology. The Two Fingers come across to me as prophets and interpreters, but we know that this connection is arduous and infrequent at best, considering how long it takes to commune. Even if they aren't lying or have their own agenda, they like us might have an incomplete understanding of what they serve. That's more thematically interesting to me, at least.
The Greater Will seems to be a creator-esque deity sharing similarities with the Great Ones of Bloodborne. It is sentient, it seems sympathetic in nature, it even tries to help humanity in its own way, but its goals, desires, and true nature are still alien to mortals. It cares for order, but what order that takes is malleable. The existence of prior Ages and Orders make that clear. How people choose to interpret the desires of the Greater Will, and how that influences the world at large, is what makes it interesting as a narrative device, far more than if it's another "God is actually evil" story.
The Greater Will is perhaps not evil, but indifferent. It cares not for suffering. It only cares that its influence spreads. That it has control. It's essentially authoritarian in nature. The Order of its subjects is malleable and subject to change, but it asserts its dominance by forcing Order at all. I would actually call that evil.
This was essentially my impression as well. The idea I had was that the various outer beings for whatever reason need/want to claim realms. So GW came across the realm and did the equivalent of putting your bag on a chair to claim it. It picked a champion (Marika), she got a general impression of the GW's specific vibes, and it plopped down the Elden Ring with no instruction manual. With its champion dominant it has everything it wants and kinda doesn't really care too much what happens from there.
My assumption for why Marika turned against the GW is just that after she stood and the dominant force in the realm she started trying to get a greater understanding and realized that there weren't going to be any answers. The Elden Ring clearly runs on some kind of internal logic, but no one seems to really get what that is and everyone's just making assumptions. Still a mystery of how Marika and Radagon are a single person, and I'm thinking the ring had something to do with that since we don't see anything like it elsewhere (along the same lines of how being the Scarlet Rot's chosen is physically mutating Malenia). We get the impression that the 2fingers are just making wild shots in the dark and hoping they guess right and get some kind of positive reaction. The GW probably does have its own interests, but its unwilling to share with the rest of the class or answer any of the questions sent its way.
So there Merika is tied to this great being that clearly has some sort of expectation, or at least an interest in meddling in her life, but that refuses to give her any answers. She needs to become consort with Radagon (breaking up one (maybe2) happy marriages up so they can keep the same person thing more on the DL) and then her final 2 children wind up being cursed because of more outer gods meddling and possibly trying to snipe the middle realms out from under the GW. So she tests the waters to see if she can get a reaction by meddling with their presumed plan of her eventually passing on the mantle to one of her children.
It seems to me like Godwyn was the only real choice for a successor as a champion of the GW. Morgott and Mohg are out of the running for being Omen (and maybe being marked by a different outer power), Rykard was already eyeing that ancient snake religion, Ranni had beef with the GW about it/Marika wronging her mother, I admittedly don't have a great reason for Radahn being out of the running other than his vibe not matching, Malenia had been marked by the Scarlet Rot, and Miquella was similarly touched by a different being and seemingly wasn't all that stoked about the GW either (ex:making his own tree to replace the urd tree). So Marika made some move to initiate the night of black daggers in hopes of getting a response from the GW. And she clearly didn't get the result she wanted and just spiraled harder resulting in her shattering the Ring.
It seems like that finally got some kind of rise out of the GW, hence why she got strung up and plopped on top of where the Elden Beast is. But the GW still isn't interested in explaining itself and doesn't get any more hands on. It seems to have either just washed its hands of the whole thing or is taking an extremely hands off approach. Likely its still getting whatever it is it wants out of the current arrangement, regardless of how much it sucks for everyone living in the realm. Likely its only direct involvement with everything happening during the game is to keep people away from the Elden Ring since its through that that it can possibly lose its claim over the realms in favor of one of the other outer beings, basically every ending other than the Age of Fracture.
Great video!
The only real suggestion I have (and I completely forgot why I think this, so grains of salt all around) is that the Golden Order is specifically the order we had after Marika removed the rune of death from the Elden Ring. The Greater Will is a god of order, but Marika/Radagon is directly responsible for the Golden Order.
There is a way for the Greater Will to both have emotions and take actions, while also being an impersonal primal force of the universe. Ironically, the biggest and most obvious clue to it's true nature is the name, Greater Will. What kind of thing would be given that name? Sure, it could describe an immensely powerful being beyond human understanding, but the collective will of many individuals could also be called a Greater Will. The Greater Will is basically a more nuanced take on the Idea of Evil from Berserk, which is no surprise to see given how much Miyazaki draws inspiration from that manga.
I neeeeed you to make another one on this now that the dlc is out
I think I just became convinced that the character responsible for the item descriptions in the game is The Greater Will itself.
I've heard it suggested that TGW is similar to an amalgamation of the desires and needs of the inhabitants of The Lands Between and I feel this fits with it being a remnant of The One Great in that it is connected to all living things since everything was once part of it in the past. Furthermore it would explain why the item descriptions use language like "it is said that..." because it only knows the general consensus and accepted knowledge of things, and even why the descriptions are vague or inconclusive; that's the most that is known by the people of the lands between.
Perhaps this even explains why TGW did not respond when the Two Fingers of the Roundtable Hold sought guidance after the player discovers the Erd Tree is sealed; no one knew Radagon had barred entry.
A bit of a tangent but,
This could be why chaos repels TGW, dissenting opinions muddy the water and confuse TGW until it's too fractured and self-contradictory to have any meaning. This is where The Frenzied Flame comes in, a separate fracture of TOG that has resonated with the pain, suffering and insanity that has befell human kind. The fact that TFF's counterpart is the three fingers I feel is significant, not only is it a greater number of total digits that perhaps implies it is a larger part of TOG than even TGW; but it also includes a thumb which is stated to be what designates those who possess sapience.
I might have never had this line of thought without your videos and I thank you for the opportunity to stoke my imagination.
Actually, the way the frenzied Flame talks about the GW and one great actually impiles they were always serprate things and the Greater will was able to break apart the ane great to create souls and life.
This could actually imply the Greater Will actually predates life and existence itself and used the one great to make them.
Its also probably not best to think the 3 and 2 fingers go together to make one hand as it would raise the question of what about the mutiple other 2 fingers that exist with in the land between
So three points I have plus an addendum:
1. The Greater Will being Law vs Sentient:
There's a lot of space inbetween the two positions, for example the Greater Will could be as sentient as say the English Parliament. Perhaps it isn't a force of nature and has an agenda, but at the same time not be a singular being. We actually know very little about the Greater Will itself.
2. Characters and Item Descriptions are Honest and Accurate:
While I agree that these are by and large honest, I read them as if a medieval society is trying to describe the experience of a UFO dropping down making contact and introducing them to incomprehensibly advanced technology. Which is to say, there is a certain degree of interpretation involved that could (not always) impact accuracy of statements.
3. The Two Fingers as Representatives of the Greater Will:
Citing Enia after beating Morgot - "It may be thousands upon thousands of moons before the fingers again offer their guidance.
My, oh, my. Whatever will you do..."
It appears that there can be significant communication delay between the Two Fingers and the Greater Will, as such it is very possible that while the Two Fingers try their best to represent the Greater Will there can be long stretches of time where the Two Fingers have to use their own judgement and carry out what they *think* is the intent of the Greater Will.
Addendum:
My man, you are not stupid and your theories are valid and you are not misunderstanding anything!
While I did type out three short counter-points, I can in no way claim that they are definitive and/or disprove anything you have said. There is a lot of missing information, and I expect even post-DLC there will be still lots of missing information. If any counter points I or others have raised help you refine and/or elaborate your theories all the better, but if not... toss 'em! Your videos are solid!
Have you seen The Tarnished Archeologist's videos? If not, check out his video on the two and three fingers. Rather than insane, the fingers are like religious scholars and preachers interpreting the will of the divine by observing the universe around them. Golden Order Fundamentalists teach fundamentals like the Law of Causality. All the talk of the Greater Will's feelings could just be metaphorical in the same way priests describe God's wrath. They interpret its will to be Order because that's how they see the world evolve around them.
The Elden Beast/Ring could perhaps be some sort of supreme catalyst for causality, appearing to and effectively warping the nature of cause and effect by its very presence. It would only be natural to worship such a thing as the envoy of all Order. Even if coincidental, it's arrival could still be interpreted as providential.
I think there's a very good case to be made for the Greater Will being an indifferent force of causality that is worshiped as God. The Fingers are just using their apparently enlightened position to shape society under the guidance of Metyr. Metyr is described as being the first meteor to come as an envoy of the Greater Will. What if this whole time Metyr and her many fingers have indeed just been manipulating the lands with an ever-changing religion that reveres concepts like Order? The fingers, so versed in the fundamentals of Order, use their power to manipulate reality on a local scale such that they appear to be (and are) very powerful. But when the Elden Beast/Ring came later, they didn't know what to do about it and panicked. The seemingly random abandonment of the Greater Will to some fingers but not others is, I think, the fingers being lost as to what to do next. We know at some point Metyr seems to seclude herself, leaving the rest of the fingers without a guiding force. Some have simply taken interpretation into their own hands, so to speak.
This is such a great video analysis and it just opens my persepectives even more.
So I recommend you look into the videos of Vaati, Smough Town, Tarnished Archaeologist, Lokey, Ziostrom, Ratatoskyr, Miss Chalice, and many Elden Ring Lore theories
To have you knowledge expand more.
I think another important note is that Placidusax's existence proves that the concept of an Elden Lord being paired with a God has existed throughout the history of the lands between, even before the erd tree ever existed. Which I think really goes to show the point of the Greater Will not caring about the exact form of the golden order, more just exerting influence through this generally applicable system of a Lord + a God ruling the lands
I think FatBrett's interpretation is correct, that the Greater Will created the Elden Ring with Modularity in mind, if you were the Vessel you could add or remove pieces if you wanted to, to create a civilization based on your own Ideals and beliefs
The rune at the end of Farum Azula has been puzzling me ever since the game came out, your explanation of it possibly being an expanded elden ring with new ideas is a really interesting one that got my brain gears spinning again, thanks for that
On the topic of Marika being locked there I would exclude Radagon from the list of suspects, color is VERY important in Elden Ring and the Spear doesn't really match him (unless we want to consider the fact that his red hair is not just hair but some sign of power and the spear being a creation of said power, which now that I think about it could make sense and explain the emphasis the game puts on demigods having red hair but I dont have any evidence for that)
and about the ending bit, dont worry about mistakes like that
this is a very expansive story where you can come to a vastly different conclusions if you dont read the description of a shield, just as we all died to a different boss we all missed something and others will be there to explain it to us or leave a summon sign to help
Even because that spear was not simple Red, was Destined Death Red. And the EB itself use an attack that literally crucify us in the same way. And poor Radagon was punished too, even after tried to save everything.
I don’t think anybody has the full picture of what the hell the greater will is, which is what makes videos like this so fascinating, exploring different ideas and theories. Of course people are going to get stuff wrong, but that doesn’t make a video meritless, it’s interesting hearing speculation and new perspectives. Keep up the great work and stay curious!
Hey man, go easy on yourself. Nobody on this site, reddit, or any other platform has it all figured out; even big names like Smoughtown, Tarnished Archeologist, etc., have all had to make corrections, had their ideas debunked, or otherwise failed to give a holistic view of these things. Elden Ring is From's biggest most complicated piece to explore yet and we still don't even have the DLC which is incredibly important for these stories- imagine trying to recount the accurate history of Lordran without knowing about The Ringed City & humanity's role as slave knights or truly answering the mysteries of the Healing Church of Yarnahm while being unable to reference the events at The Fishing Hamlet - it's impossible. You're doing fantastic for what we have and even those older titles still have loose threads we'll likely never completley put to rest.
Thank you for another fantastic and thought provoking video, honestly I've been of two minds on this subject for a long time but feel better with my leaning towards TGW being intelligent and emotional in some way at least now.
Have a wonderful day my dude; looking forward to more great stuff from you.
FatBrett out here saving me from workday boredom 🔥🔥🔥
I always had this weird idea that after marika broke the elden ring it was radagan following the belief of the greater will who punished himself and marika by locking themselves in the erdtree
I like your video man I'm happy you came to ask more questions and expand but I do believe you made a wonderful points in the first video thanks for doing these narrative breakdowns I love them ❤❤❤
Even the name implies intelligence. It is a "will", not a "Greater Power or Greater Force".
Just look the idea of evil in Berzerk, if it has a "will" it can desire.
3:50 - I'm sorry, but did that 3 fingers maiden just describe an allegory to the big bang? Because that's what it sounded like, and if that's the case... then she's not wrong...
I think it's pretty compelling that the greater will is some type of physical being. If you look at all of George RR Martin's writings, I think there may only be one instance where we have an actual confirmed literal God influencing the story. In all of his other stories, most of which are science fiction, the gods of said story are actually just people or physical beings that happen to have great power and use that power to affect change in the world or universe around them, oftentimes by influencing people through more subtle means like sending dreams and visions. So the way I see Eldon ring, this is just an extension of many of the same themes that George RR Martin has been using his entire writing career. Essentially, Elden Ring is a story about some very powerful space being influencing what is ostensibly a medieval society and thus the vocabulary we can use to describe these outer gods is limited by the understanding of a medieval society where technological advancement is relatively minimal because people have certain abilities that us in our world would call magical. However in George RR Martin's writings this wouldn't be magic, but really just abilities that some people have much the same way that some people are better at sports than others. It's also worth noting that George RR Martin wrote an essay where he talks about what he calls the furniture rules wherein he sees no difference between the genres of science fiction and fantasy. George argues that they are essentially one in the same and the only difference between the two is typically just the aesthetic. A person in a medieval society who can teleport would be in a fantasy story, but the ability to teleport might be seen as a science fiction trope. Essentially, the stories are all the same between fantasy and science fiction, but whether a story is considered fantasy or science fiction really just depends on what furniture is in the room at the time. Are there wooden tables rushes and horses or are there metal tables windows and spaceships?
You’re one of the few TH-camrs you uploads I never miss and always look forward to!
Don't feel stupid! Your videos are phenomenal! Love your takes and in my own humble opinion, make the most sense to me as for the possible origins and state of things.
Keep them coming!
After the DLC I'm beginning to realize that the greater will..... spoilers:
Has had no effect whatsoever on the land's between neither Marika's rule or the two fingers it was all an illusion created by the mother of fingers a broken creation of the greater will who it hasn't communicated with in eons.
22:30 wait until bro sees the dlc
Nice video, as always.
I really enjoy your channel, especially the god of war series, where your presentation of the Story was really eyeopening to me.
When I saw your first eldenring video I was a little afraid. Eldenring / the soulsborne Saga as a whole is not only unique in its storytelling, themes and presentation of its lore, but there is already a big lore community, dedicated to understand every aspect of it.
But, the way you explain certain aspects of the lore seem to suit your channel fine and are really enjoyable to watch. Im happy to see, that you face the challenge of the wonderful lore of eldenring with an open mind and your unique perspective.
I didnt expected to see "big lore reveals" in These Videos of yours, and was suprised to see ur style of storytelling revealing the Inspirations of themes in eldenring.
Thank you very much!
(( I think, the narrator in the item descriptions is trustworthy, when it makes Statements. But whenever "it is said" / "some say" is used, more often than not, there is more to the Story. I still agree to your conclusion, its just a rule I use for my own Research ^^' ))
You have some of the best if not the best Elden ring analysis on the internet. Loved these videos
A great video! I am very happy to have found your channel!
There is another excellent video called „the greater will doesn’t care about you“ (something along those lines). The main point is: any order, be it of rott, of gold, of despair or of compassion is fine with it. That’s why it chose Melenia as an emphyrian - only some demigods were chosen and she started (by accident) to create the order of rott in Caelid as the sage says. I think to say that it at least is the abstract concept of order it self is valid for the greater will.
And I think it’s quite undisputed that Radegon sealed the entrance: one of the headpieces literally describes the pattern visible on the thorns as „his rune“.
This video may be revisited to include information obtained from the DLC. The Mother of Fingers and her relationship with Marika. Was it the alien who always acted as "The Great Will"? Could it have been the alien who seduced Marika with power? Was it with this power that Marika managed to survive the massacre of her people and gain the trust of her tormentors, allowing her to reach the Divine Gate? Would the betrayal committed by Marika have occurred before or after becoming a goddess? How many retaliatory massacres did she carry out against the Horned People? Were the bodies that covered the Gate from the Horns or from Marika's people?
I think the item descriptions come from Melina herself. She's sometimes misleading, but never lying. She asks that you take her to the tree, but seems to already know what needs to be done next.
6:30 i really like this take, I've always found the idea of "order" in elden ring to be interesting, and the fact it takes the greater will actively exerting some form of influence over lands to form "order" is a nice reference to the second law of thermodynamics.
"The total amount of entropy in a closed system can never decrease (sometimes quoted as will increase over time)". Therefore, something outside of the closed system must come in to decrease entropy, to decrease chaos. And if the system was left to its own devices, then chaos would increase. We are seeing this within game as order has abandoned the lands between, and entropy is slowly increasing.
I don't think you should feel like your videos are incomplete. I actually really enjoy hearing different perspectives on these things, and I almost always leave your videos with a new perspective I never would've considered otherwise. At risk of sounding a little cynical, most lore guys either reiterate things said in other videos, or they stay as vague as possible to avoid sounding incorrect. To avoid speaking our thoughts in fear of being wrong wouldn't allow these discussions to happen. If we're never allowed to be wrong, we can never learn why we were wrong, and thus can't improve how we think.
That said, I really hope you keep making videos about Elden Ring, and even other Fromsoft games and games with a similar kind of storytelling. I've really enjoyed your perspectives so far, and I'm looking at things in the story now in ways that I hadn't been before.
Interesting video and it was comprehensible enough to retain a lot of it while gaming. Issue was, I was fighting Mohg and had to pause you. Won the attempt I did but still, great stuff! The greater will's natural disgust of disorder, being the embodiment of order, coupled with a sense of self preservation really explains a lot about its crazy violent demands.
(spoilers ahead for shadow of the erdtree)
From what we learn from Metyr and Yuri's questline, Metyr, who birthed the two fingers, kinda went insane after she was attacked and thus all two fingers born after her are also insane. Yikes
Okay, let's start off with one thing: You are not an idiot for people challenging your way of thinking and presenting counterpoints. Obviously there are going to be people who are going to go to far, but in general the Souls Community is one big debate back and forth about what was written down in a FromSoftware Office and Stored away from our eyes. Challenge and Counter points are how we filter through things and come to our own conclusions.
Secondly, I agree with you! I believe the Greater Will is the fundamental essence of order, but I also believe it is a sentient thing that has intent and desire. In FromSoft games these are not mutually exclusive things. Like the Dark, or the Fire, or so on. I also believe that these forces can be used in a corrupt way that twists them beyond what they are supposed to be.
This is what I believe, and yeah I pull a lot of this from Hawkshaw and Vaati but I say it because I agree with them generally. Marika and the Greater Will are generally aligned. She acts 0on its behalf, and it granted her power to behave as such. It also has the Agency to choose who might next become a god in the form of Empyreans, like Ranni and Miquilla and Melania. But at the end of the day all the Greater Will Cares about is Order. It does not care what FORM that Order Takes, so long as it is ordered. As long as everything has its place, and nothing is to mix or mingle or overlap. As long as all is set in stone and divided by lines of gold, it does not care what is what. Only that it has its place.
Marika is not absolved of Sin. She is shown to be a manipulative god, acting for her own ends and aligning with who she wills and destroying those who defy her. This is STILL Order, and as long as the Erdtree and the Greater Will are the subjects of worship the Greater Will does not care how it is worshiped. However something also Changed in Marika. Perhaps she had a change of heart, perhaps she found a truth she believed to be too awful to bear or too dark to ignore or who knows. And she defied the Greater Will and Shattered the Elden Ring. Against it's wishes, as it chose to Champion Radagon in Marika's stead. Radagon is a True Believer in the Greater Will. He believes that what is should be. He Tried to mend the Elden Ring himself, and was punished along side Marika for failing to do so.
FromSoftware NEVER tells a simple story with a good guy and a bad guy. Only stories of suffering, trial, and uncertain triumphs. We will never know if Marika was an unwilling god in service to a callous Greater Will, made to lie, love, and languish on its behalf, or if she was a believer who became disenfranchised upon searching its depths. Marika, fundmentally, is the character whom if we were given even a second of true understanding. A word from her from her own lips without deception, we would be able to unravel all of this lore. until we do though, which will truthfully be never, We will never be able to truly unravel the mystery of Elden Ring.
aged like fine wine
edit: waning , ramblings of a crazy man
i do believe the greater will is responsible for fracturing the greater will. as you said i think the mistake was the greater will splitting in order to achieve order, or possibly the creation of the elden ring which was like the physical manisfestation of order within the physical/mortal world, while the GW is the concept existing seperate from TLB. Radagon being it’s avatar. (shabriri is “chaos itself” perhaps the avatar of the frenzied flame. radagon sometimes opposes the GW, and shabriri isn’t completely chaotic, at least he can fake other emotions to achieve something, which could be a sign of him being slightly different from the FF itself)
and i think even the name is a hint. maybe the “GW” is known as such because it’s “will” triumphs all other aspects of the one great , with the other “wills” being the outer gods.
and i don’t think these outer gods come from somewhere unknown, rather they were made outer by their removal from the elden ring. for example rot, bleed, and giants flames are associated with gods, but could this be due to their connection with death ? i mean rot and bleed lead to death, and giantsflame can burn the erdtree , which all life must return to. i’m not saying marika necessarily created these outer gods, but i do think she possible empowered them by removing them from the elden ring. doing so she had made her order more “perfect” yet everything outside the order would have to deal with these now outer gods, who were no longer apart of the ring/supervision of the greater will.
these other “wills” all seem to want to establish their own orders, like with mohg and malenia, but are overall less successful because they are “lesser” wills in comparison . (gowry being able to take multiple forms, like FF)
the only outer god(s) that may be different are the ones associated with the moons/space
i think the cosmos/primeval current may just be the pathway to, or the actual realm of these “gods” . that’s why the space gods are associated with knowledge, because you learn about the true nature of the gods. maybe this is why out the greater will punished the nox so severely, and dislike the liurnians/magic in general because they are smart enough to understand the greater wills true nature/intentions. after all, once you have knowledge of something, it becomes impossible to have faith. which the greater will relies on
another random though but maybe this were what the numen are. the “new men” (maybe sent from space with rock dna like some people thing 🤔, after all they are made from stone, and earl my life in TLB comes from plant life, as we see in farum azula. could be another contrast) are the greater will’s attempt to restart society, under faith. the black knives being associated with the new nobility of the eternal cities . and consider that the black knives help ranni, but she betrays them in order to accomplish her ambitions. we know black knives come from the eternal cities, but it wouldn’t make sense for them to betray ranni making us the lord of night if they were aligned with the nox
i have a lot more craziness to this “theory” but it’s quite literally just my fall into madness as i wait on this dlc lmao
also i fully believe Radagon or Marika is daedicara… i need help
more braindump but
if we assume GW is the closest thing to the one great, i don’t think it’s crazy to believe that its responsible for all life in TLB. that’s why it doesn’t have a problem with the crucible, because it created it. (maybe a root system with serval trees, from which the erdtree was later born. silurias spear never looked like a tree to me, but upside down it looks a lot like roots. crucible=roots?)
afterwards it would’ve sent the beast along with the ring to maintain order . the elden beast doesn’t care about societies, it’s only made to protect and preserve the rings existence .
after this i believe the GW takes off the training wheels and let’s the world run it’s course . not intervening unless something threatens the original design. ex: shabriri and the nox who are possible threats order itself as they completely go against it . this is why the GW is ok with a tarnished, and the mending runes
also, gideon essentially confirms marika never intended for there to be true order after the shattering before we fight. that’s why the GW is pleased with us, because although it had given up on TLB after the shattering, we are the one hope.
and the position marika is in is similar to the grab that elden beast uses on US , suggesting maybe it indeed locker her up after it was attacked. i don’t believe this was radagon, as the echoe of marika tells us that radagon and marika become one body (again?) immediately before she breaks the hammer .
i believe that after radagon fails to mend the ring, elden beast takes action, possibly working with radagon. radar places the seal on the tree, and EB seals him/marika afterwards
this could explain why radagon is freed once we enter. he’s given one last chance to maintain an ideal order, before he fails and the EB wields him in order to simply maintain order by whatever means.
if this could be true , partially, it could make hyetta right in a strange messed up sense. from a cosmic standpoint , order and chaos are equal, yet complete order is much harder to maintain. that was it’s mistake, not knowing that even itself wasn’t capable of that.
that said i do think marika is the ultimate “villain” with radagon being a kind of tragic hero in the crossfire. i think radagon prioritizes order, but believes in things being conjoined.
i believe he truly loved rennala , yet ultimately is drawn to marika by some sort of duty. perhaps they need each other to maintain order . i think marika and radagon are in a mutual agreement where they both benefit seperate from the GW, while maintains the golden order.
could be radagon isn’t like the GW completely and believes that some things don’t belong in order , ex: rot death bleeding, etc, and marika’s promise of the golden order makes him side with her. however he disagrees with the exclusion of everything outside of the “gold” like the crucible and things related to intelligence .
this is why radagon leaves renalla despite loving her . liurnia is annexed and all the enemies of the erdtree are gone, however godfrey is a barbarian. i don’t think rada had a problem with this, as he could stay with his true love. but either marika threatened to again wage war with liurnia since she could now focus completely on liurnia, forcing radagon to betray his love, or she simply forced rada to keep his duty to the order and needed him to unite , requiring him to become her elden lord. i think the first is likely , as some japanese texts imply marika more as a snarky villain who looks down on radagon (maybe due to his lowk naivety) , and portrays radagon as a more caring figure, who wants what’s best for both his family and the order/TLB as a whole. wouldn’t be surprised if marika used this against him to bring him back
this may be why rada goes on to teach miquella so much . because he wants him to do what he and marika couldn’t . miquella accepts all, yet establishes an order that’s prosperous for all. (ranni wants to get rid of the GW and the gods, so rada probably wouldn’t like that).
two other things with somehow even less evidence , but maybe bernahls brother was vyke? his armor says he has what it takes to be a lord, possible because of his brother coming so close. that said , the og japanese is closer to “comrade” so ehh
also, this could be a stretch but i thought abt a rough connection between daenarys (or mayb even robert baratheon now that i think abt it) and marika , and radagon and jon snow . am i crazy for that one ? i mean they really go into the theme of love and duty being the death of each other , most deff 😂😂 if ya have the time lmk watchu think @fatbrett