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Elden Ring Lore - Marika's Godhood Explained
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ส.ค. 2024
- I believe Marika is the one Shaman that actually ascended from the Bonny Village horrors. I believe Marika is a Jar...... not literally but something similar at least. Her body cracks when she shatters the Elden Ring. She is the vessel for the Elden Ring just as the Great Jars are vessels for their innards. She is a Shaman which means she can interact with the spirit world. The Great Runes that make up the Elden Ring are individual personalities that posses their holder. She and her people were hunted down and stuffed into great jars to ascend..... what if Marika did?
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Music: Kyle Preston - The Mystics
Something no one’s brought up (that I’ve seen):
It’s heavily implied that the spirit tuner at the round table hold, Rodericka, is a Shaman (even of Shaman nobility); she has pale skin and golden hair, and was called to the lands between for an unknown reason, peculiar as she is tarnished and wasn’t guided by grace. She has a natural aptitude for spirit tuning and communing with spirits too.
Her men were all captured and used for Godrick’s grafting (if they’re all Shaman, then the Grafted Scions are possible due to their blood).
She befriends Master Hewg, who is reluctant to help her at first but softens when he notes ‘her eyes remind him of a spirit tuner he was fond of long ago.’
Theory: Rodericka is a relative (Shaman-bloodline) of Marika. She was drawn to the Lands Between because of her connection to Marika’s soul (outside the golden order connection everyone else has). She reminds Master Hewg of Marika herself, someone he once know and entrusted him to make a sword to kill a god (herself); that Master Hewg is an original Hornsent and kept alive by Marika through her grace (which starts to crumble when we burn the Erdtree, thus is mind starts to fade and fail).
It would be poetic too, that Master Hewg and Rodericka become friends / foster family, as the rift between the Hornsent and Queen Marika started this entire thing in the first place. Very similar to the Hoslow pot connection which I think is 100% accurate!
Edit: Marika 💁♀️💫 - not Merika 🇺🇸 🦅
Also forgot to mention: rare ghost gloveworts (8, 9, and 10) are found on all of the Shaman ships on the Cerulean Coast and (I think) are the only gloveworts found not near a gravesite (which I think adds to the connection of Shaman being spirit tuners)
Thats super big brain! That make a lot of sense!
Dude. I think you’re on to something.
Wow!
The Grafted Scions are most likely descendants of Marika (the golden lineage), so I suspect that's why they can be grafted. They have shaman blood; same as Godrick and Godefroy.
@@TheChocoboWhisperer That actually supports this theory. Better ingredients, better pizza. Elden John's.
It was Jarika all along
Jorah loux
@@grapeape325 Jadagon of the Golden Order.
Alexanjar?
Jorgit the fell.
@@grapeape325Jorah Mormont, Warrior!
_All vessels are destined to one day break, but the great Alexander lived like a warrior til his last!_
Hail Alexander! 🖖🍯
"I turned myself into a jar Radagon!"
Funniest sh*t I've ever seen
Jar MAAAAAAAARIKA 🤤
Jarika and Jardagon
"I'm something of a jar myself."
Marika being the one successful saint is such a crazy/twisted take on the already messed up Divine Child from Sekiro. Monks experimented on a ton of kids killing them all in the process until they finally created the Divine Child.
Yes, i was thinking the same xD
Rykard fed himself to the serpent. Elden Ring has so many instances of many bodies fusing into one.
Holy shit that suddenly makes sense why he would be able to do that
@@mikeekim8567additionally, all the corpses he consumes fused into him and the sword he pulls out. It has to be his bloodline from Marika
yeah he got those genetics from Marikas bloodline , trough Radagon
@@2wyzegaming97and Tanith eating Rykard adds a who knew meaning.
If Marisa started out as the Shaman in a jar with bits of flesh from other beings, maybe that’s why so many of her kids are “cursed”. Mogh came from bits of Hornsent DNA/spirit melding with her, Messmer came about by a bit of snake in the stew, etc. Radagon came about as maybe another Shaman/Numen in her pot.
No radagon would be from the giants
This is it right here.
You can find a massive dead snake with a chunk taken out of it in Bonny village.
This is the answer
Just realized. Maybe Numen are what Shamen become once they use the gate of divinity, or what they become once they are in the pots? And this is why they are seldom born?
@peterdunlop7691 holy shit wait....the black knife assassin's come from the same stock....dude maybe they mean like stock as in soup? So the same jar?
Another lore video I saw said a high ranking hornsent cursed all Marina’s children AFTER she “betrayed” them.
this isnt a perspective I expected for who marika is, but it made a lot of sense while listening and is definitly something to consider in context for the greater picture in the lands between
there is a lot to consider yet. i mean lands of shadow are way more unedited historywise than rest of the map due to lack of golden propaganda , so i wonder how many interesting connections we gonna make on the timeline.
One glaring issue: The Elden Ring existed before Marika.
Maybe they were trying to find a “human” host instead of a dragon, so they were experimenting on the shamans until they found one that could hold the Elden Ring
It might also that they just wanted a host for some god (not the elden beast). And marika choose the elden ring because she wanted revenge on the hornsent.
Places like Uhl Palace Ruins, Ancient Ruins of Rauh, lotta statues of elden john.
They may suggest thoese "Outer Gods" like Rot and formless mother, maybe not so "Outer" at all.
At least they would exist before that golden beast, possibility of being indigenous even. You just never know cuz they are long lost history.
Being the vessel for the Elden ring being alike a jar is good observation. But her developing the Elden ring within herself is unrestricted speculation. We’ve been told what the Elden ring is, it was a golden star the greater will sent to the lands between that became the Elden ring and enacted the metaphysical laws of the lands. That’s why when you best radagon, your final battle is with the Elden beast, the manifestation of the ring itself. Prior Elden rings existed too, and we can infer they might be related to other outer gods.
Placidusax (old lord) barley surviving his ordeal with Bayle allowed new order to be established and that's when Marika seized her chance at "godhood".
Marika being a fusion of beings would make sense with her Radagon counterpart. It would also explain how her and Radagon were able to have children despite being of one body. Maybe the Hornsent succeeded in creating a saint with Marika, but she "betrayed" them by using countless of their souls to fuel the gate of communion and ascend to godhood, in part because she hates them for what they did to her and her people.
Doesn't explain how Miquella effectively does the same thing without turning himself into a jar.
@detdeet he used Mohg's body, which by Hornsent standards is of saintly divinity and Rahdan's Lord soul. A holy vessel with a Lord's soul is pretty good trading. Both are also of Shaman heritage. The plot is plotting.
@@maybemablemaples2144he didn’t use Mogh to create Trina though.
@@skeletorgames8641marika is an amalgam of beings, her child all have traits of things that were chopped and put in the jar, that is what I think
And as some other youtuber said: "Jars are like Crucible." As Marika's womb is a crucible of life.
@@gilvanmessem5335 ill add to her crucible of life 😂
@@gilvanmessem5335 I just realized, in the endgame cut scene, we see a rune that looks exactly like the death brand in the same spot her womb would be. Kinda interesting.
@@curtisfarley6558 I think that's the Rune used for the Duskborn ending. Really, any of the three repairing runes can be put there. I guess its metaphorical for that specific rune's age being "birthed" into existence.
@@Soluswithyou ah so which ever mending rune you use, will show there? Still intriguing; I never knew
don't forget about Erdtree births. the rebirth of souls through the Erdtree. I believe the tree was her "womb" until she shattered the Elden Ring and the seeds of the minor erdtrees flew. Once the minute trees started growing, the dead collecting jars stopped delivering souls to the Erdtree, delivering them to the minor trees instead.
This has led to horrible stagnation as no new, or very few births happen in the Lands Between now.
The Hornsent sent used jars to torture and kill innocent people in hopes of a miracle. Erdtree society used jars as automated collection of the dead for delivery to the trees,with the goal of eventual rebirth. This is why Godwyn was buried at the roots of the Erdtree, his "mother" wanted him resurrected.
My thoughts on this have been that every time a soul is reborn, it's more and more Numan like. Slowly over time Merika is weeding out all non-Numen as revenge for what happened in Shaman Village. If true, then any of the demigods could be reborn powerful spirits/souls defeated by the Golden Order.
A perfect example is Melena. She's clearly the Gloam-Eyed Queen reborn. She even asks what it's like to born of a mother because she born via Erdtree birth.
The fact that we are a tarnished of no renown. And that we just apparently rose out of the erdtree itself and we are noted as having a connection to the spirits one of fond admiration
Is it possible we the Tarnished are to Marika, what Millicent is to Malenia?
Maybe thats why we can use the rune of rebirth without flaws, why we see grace, why the spirits like us, and why Torrent chose us
i saw a theory we are demigod that comes from a walking mausoleum, it makes the noises of the them right at the start of the game
@@tylerd4884yup and it might as well be fact as any other theories just don't have anywhere near enough proof. It makes too much sense for it not to be.
After playing the DLC I've been pondering the idea that our Tarnished is the Lands Between equivalent of the Divine Beast Dancing Lion. Everything in the Shadow Realms seems to reflect that which exists in the Lands Between. Romina is the reflection of Malenia, but instead of rejecting her rotten offshoots she accepts them. Radahn and Miquella are reflections of Renalla/Marika/Godfrey/Radagon union through their bloodlines and symbolism. Messmer is a reflection of Radagon---red of hair, self-loathing, and fanatical.
The Divine Beast is similar to Tarnished in that the Hornsent call upon its spirit from another world, which animates the keepers who act as the avatar of the Divine beast. Our Tarnished is imbued with grace, resurrected, and functions as an avatar for US the player. In the same way the lion dancer is being puppeted by the keepers, we puppet our Tarnished and use them to enact Divine retribution to the rebellious demigods, "the strumpets vile progeny".
Dunno of I'm all in on this take but it was fun to think about. Empyrian Grandam also thinks we're the keepers which felt thematically resonant with how our Tarnished are viewed by the finger readers in The Lands Between.
“Shaman souls melded into one” Marika is the emperor of mankind
😁
That too was exactly where my mind went
I believe Marika was doing everything to escape her original fate as a Shaman, which would've involved her being subjected to the horrors of being fused with external sources. She likely made a vow in Shaman Village involving revenge against the Hornsent for what they did to her people.
The Fell God was feared by the Hornsent, so I believe Marika used her power to lead them into slaying the Fire Giants, earning their trust by committing genocide and initiating the Age of the Erdtree... becoming a God shortly before this, I assume. She killed 2 birds with 1 stone: 1) Gained the favor of the Hornsent/Crucible, and 2) Eliminated a power that could have destroyed her Erdtree. She would then use the Crucible/Hornsent and her Lord Godfrey to conquer the Lands Between, systematically eliminating any potential threats to her Order, but once none were left, she banished the Crucible and sent them away without grace so they could never return and simply spread the good word of God... lol.
She clearly had no loyalties to Godfrey as a lover since she is referred to as a "Strumpet" by the hornsent and had many bastard children. I even believe she had an affair with Radagon, leading into the conception of Messmer and Melina before he ever went to fight Rennala and the Carians. That could easily explain how Messmer is seen as "Radahn's elder brother" alongside Gaius.
Once Marika took Radagon as her Consort, I believe she began openly persecuting the Hornsent since this would've been the exact time the Crucible/Godfrey were long gone, and every last major player is taken off the board (Carians, Stormhawk King, Morne soldier and his allies, Fire Giants, and others).
Also, I'm 90% certain when Marika sent Messmer into the Realm of Shadow with the rest of the lands she removed from TLB, she had him take all of the blame and made it seem he acted on his own, which is ultimately why the Serpent is seen as a "traitor" or "blasphemous".
(This is huge speculation territory) Because of her crimes, I do believe the Law of Causality and Regression came into play. Her committing genocide and likely earning the ire of the Fell God led into the conception of Radagon as a curse upon her, which I believe is a twisted reflection of Marika because of the path he follows to eventually earn her favor... and forces her to succumb to her original fate. Radagon seems to have done everything in his life to usurp Marika and become a "complete" being. He likely knew what she was by the time he initiated his plans and became the Champion of the Golden Order. And think about it... All of her children with Radagon are cursed. Her children with Godfrey were either human or hornsent... which aren't cursed.
The Black Knife Assassins who were supposedly "close" to Marika at some point were likely loyal to her until they realized she had become a monster, arguably even worse than the Hornsent, and chose to betray her by forming an alliance with Ranni and Rykard and murdering Godwyn on the condition that the Age of the Erdtree would come to an end, which we know Ranni's end goal involved.
I do not believe Marika housed the Elden Ring, but instead wore it as a crown and necklace, similar to Miquella's Circlet of Light which is said to basically be another object that would've helped him establish his Age of Compassion. Therefore, it is likely the Elden Ring took the form of a crown as well.
There's a lot of implications involving Radagon's connection with Alchemy, and it all leads to a solid theory that he wanted to become his own Magnum Opus. Radagon was NEVER part of Marika until he forced himself to become one with her and attempted to fuse the Elden Ring into their conjoined body to become "complete", which was his greatest desire that we know of. The time-frame of this event is confusing (as is the entire time-line in general), but it likely happened after the Night of the Black Knives, where Marika would've been vulnerable if Godwyn's death led to her despair. Radagon would've begun assimilating her, and Marika around this point would've tasked Hewg to create a weapon that could slay a God. Then before Radagon's plan could come to fruition, Marika would have shattered the Elden Ring.
Boom, Marika and Radagon's arc (sloppily) explained.
The Elden Ring is literally inside her broken body though….the game even states she embodies it.
@@maiafay We see her wearing a crown and necklace. Also it clearly wasnt inside her body when she and Radagon were struggling over it.
Only when we see the Elden Ring shattered and during the Radagon fight do we not see her wearing the crown.
I thought something similar when I they accused her of betrayal along with the Numen lore. The Hornsent were creating a god.
yeah, i'll integrate this to my belief system
Very agnostic of you
So Marika is a philosopher stone like Hohenheim from Full Metal Alchemist
Insane
Rebis yea
Her and radagon are literally the Red King and White Queen, and the meat that goes into the jars is also red and white.
@@irisachternaam 🤯
Boom! This is exactly how I’ve been slowly coming around to think of Marika too - someone who knew what destiny awaited a Shaman in Hornsent society, learned a rite (from the Grandmother?) AND/OR made a pact (with Metyr?) AND/OR wished upon a falling star (the Elden Beast?), and was reborn as the personification of deified/distilled "maternal love" aka. one of the most complicated emotions out there. That kind of multi-faceted power in a (justifiably) wrathful God-vessel would define her power, her reign, her era… And also explain her behavior. Even as a God, she’s helpless to the outside forces that exert control over her decisions i.e. The Greater Will, Fire Giant’s Curse, Omen Curse, Nox Schism.
I think a lot of the jars were used by the hornsent along with their willing devotees to make the gateway
@@emeraldpichu1 that's an interesting theory. Whatever they did to create the gateway, we see it replicated in the eternal cities and something similar in rykards arena.
If you look closely at the story trailer, you can see when Marika is holding up the rune strands at the divinity gate, they are all threads connected to the bodies around the divinity gate. Almost a lot like how the shaman flesh held together the flesh inside the living jars.
The jars, and to an extent how the crucible is described, seem very similar to the japanese/chinese sorcerous practice of kodoku, putting insects or spirits into a small container until one of them absorbs the strength of the others.
I thought the same thing!
:0
The elden beast may be the 'insect' spirit of the kodoku ritual and feasts on the souls Marika provides. Which is why it comes out to fight us
Maybe Marika in becoming a "Saint" inherited the strength of everything put inside her Jar? I wonder how powerful she must've been in reality then
Plot twist: our Tarnished is an empty vessel possessed by Marika. We ARE Marika.
That would be awesome
Interesting theory, but one thing I noticed is that it isn't the shamans who become gods or deities in the hornsent culture, the ascetics are noted to be failed gods and they are hornsent. We know godhood involves climbing the tower and using the divine gate. The divine gate is filled (and maybe formed) with corpses.
I'm leaning more toward the idea that the shaman jars are human sacrifices for the divine gate.
The Shamans are specifically being made into "saints", which seems to be subordinate to a god. The ascetics aspired to be "tutelary deities" , which just means they were trying to become protector deities or maybe local gods, as opposed to a completed divinity like what Marika and Miquella ascended to through the Divine gate. Maybe the ascetics and tutelary deities all failed to fully ascend. Maybe sainthood through jar-melding is a required step, and the Divine gate fully integrates the seperate spirits and bodies into a single god.
@@icarusablaze1831 yeah that seems likely. My initial theory was marika usurped the order - that hornsent candidates were supposed to become gods with the saints being used as a sacrifice. But it is completely possible that the ideal was to merge the candidate and the jar saint rather than just sacrifice them.
It makes me wonder about the ascetics though, did they not go for jar saints back then or did they use the aforementioned sacrificial method? Or was marika the first successful jar saint?
@@paorousama Good question. Their clothing description says that "In order to ascend from their mortal flesh into tutelary deities of the land, they heighten their spirituality through severe ascetic training." So I'm thinking the curseblades and the tutelary deities we find around the place followed an alternate path to ascension that only results in becoming a tutelary deity of the land. I imagine they meditated, trained in extreme environments, deprived themselves of basic human needs, and sparred with each other. They seem to be Buddhist monks viewed through the lens of a warrior culture.
Marika might've been the first successful attempt. Maybe the right mix of "ingredients" is needed to produce a saint capable of becoming a god. Maybe it's something like man (Radagon), woman (Marika), and a beast (serpent). There is that dead snake in Bonny village which could be a clue that animals are being added into the mix. It's also line up with the illustration of the Rebus which has a dragon/serpent beneath the two-headed figure. If this is correct, it could explain why some of the demigods are born with Beastial traits like Messmer, and why she'd want to keep him hidden away so as to not expose the truth about her "impure" blood. This is entirely speculation.
"Kindness of gold without order" to me sounds like grace. One definition of grace by my understanding is forgiveness/kindness, without the expectation of recognition or reciprocation, (to me a form of Order). Radagon and Marika might be two different Shaman with the same goal of revenge, or simply the two main aspects of Marikas world view. Marika is the half that believes grace to be paramount, whereas Radagon believes Order, reciprocation, eye-for-eye is most important. The shattering was Marika becoming disillusioned by the Order that gave her power after repeatedly disappointing her and continuing to haunt her, thus returning to the core belief that grace (kindness without order) is paramount, seeing that Order is hypocritical by nature. She granted grace back to those she banished (tarnished, the people of her one true Lord) not in hopes of forgiveness, but inner peace. She was then killed/imprisoned by Radagon as he awaits his demise at the hands of Marikas faithful, those guided by her kindness and forgiveness, (grace). Idk where to go from here, or how our tarnished can be seen as kind or forgiving but the description of the Minor Erdtree spell clicked with me since I'd been looking into grace definitions. Feel free to poke holes.
I think you’re on to something. I think this also explains why Marika participated in Ranni’s plot. They both want to take any outside influence away from the Lands Between so that it can flourish and evolve naturally, without order being imposed upon it.
One thing to keep in mind bout the similarities - we can see from ranni & miquella that great runes are tied to the flesh. When ranni kills her flesh, she discards her great rune, and when miquella discards the last of his body, his great rune breaks. perhaps this is why marika says "let us be shattered, mine other half" because in order to shatter the elden ring, which consists of runes, she has to shatter her flesh. It would also then follow that the only ones who are able to brandish great runes are those who descend from shamans (the demigods & the tarnished)
It was souls ALL ALONG. DARK SOULS 4 BABBYYYYY
Her bed chamber also resembles the half of a jar and the blanket is shaped in such a way that it looks almost as if it's spilling out of a jar.
It's also interesting that this is where we get the dialog about Marika talking about "Mine other self" or her other half in Radagon.
We're hearing about her other half in a place where we see half a jar with it's innards spilled out.
And the drapes above the bed look curiously (exactly) like the shroud over the the Land of Shadow
Just wanted to say that the couch-thing in the bedchamber is actually an ancient astronomical observation tool. Its why you see starlight shards whenever you find them in that wild. The Greater Will did, after all, come from the stars.
@@barfrost007No, the Greater Will did not 'come from the stars.' The stars came from the Greater Will...
@@Shotzeethegamer From what I've seen, it was my understanding that the Greater Will and the other "outer gods" effectively "came from the stars" a la the Cthulu mythos.
@@barfrost007 The game verbatim states that is not the case. And the Greater Will is not an outer god. It is THEE God.
It fits so well with the theme of the hornsent trying to reach the heavens with their spirals. "The spiral is a normalized Crucible current that, one day, will form a column that stretches to the gods."When i read the spira incantation description I knew it had to be a reference to the tower of Babel which, as we know, is destined to fall for its hubris.
The hornsent are a people obsessed with divinity, trying to become or make saints and gods, to such an extent that they will cultivate horns on their bodies, even if it leads to their twisting and consequently death. "Tangled horns are a symbol of spirituality, but most young born bearing the oversized horns meet a frightfully early demise. These fetishes are made to memorialize them." Those who survive and then fail the extremely strict standards become curseblades, doomed to self-flagilate for their failures. "These entities wield the Curseblade's Cirque in both hands, a backhand blade with wave-like cutting edges, sharpened into points that incite blood loss. Long ago, this was employed by the ascetics who strove to become tutelary deities as a ritualistic object in their self-flagellating dances".They commit atrocity and self destructive behaviour for this purpose; to make, become or reach the gods.The divine tower seems littered with corpses; who's to say the hornsent didn't reach the heavens, carrying with them their best "saints", and try to exalt one of them to godhood?
It also adds up with how the hornsent consider Marika to have been a "betrayer".
Also adds up with how marika has been consistently portrayed as a rebis.
As far as I'm concerned, the symbolism of the hornsent finally getting what they want and it destroying them is too good for it not to be the case. I'm fairly certain marika became a goddess using hornsent methods/as a result of hornsent torture. Whether she was ever in a jar is a different story; after all, they were making saints with the jars, not necessarily gods. The images of her removing from the viscera golden threads to make the first runes definitely suggests to me she was removing runes from the bodies of these saints; after all runes are native to the shaman people (celebrant cycle and festive grease are both offshoots of the original shaman culture imo). She's probably a jar metaphorically, which is entirely in line with the base game (she's the vessel of the elden ring), but i dont think she was ever in one. The theory also needs to account for
a) when she met with the fingers
b) when she gave birth to Mesmer
c) the fact that the crusade she sends him on, and consequently the genocide of the hornsent, is WAYYYY later in the timeline than a lot of us are used to thinking about
d) when she cloaked the land of shadows (I like to think this was the original betrayal, and then the crusade was just salt on the wound/ a useful way of getting rid of mesmer)
and other stuff
but this is definitely very compelling
What if every saint the hornsent “made” was a physical representation of the Elden Ring, each saint representing an element of it. And the betrayal of Marika was killing all of these saints and take the whole Elden Ring for herself, thus becoming a god instead of a saint.
If you look closely in the radagon fight intro cinematic, when he reaches for the hammer, his arm is literally a warrior jar arm. watch the forearm closely next time you fight him!
Disagree with that one chief, I just looked at a side by side comparison and while it's a teensy bit similar, it lacks the exact same coloration and shape of pieces that make it up. He's cracking like that because Marika was shattering the elden ring and Radagon was attempting to fix it and his body was breaking from it
Yeah and if you look closely, his head is a jar!
🤡
I’ve been on a similar line of thinking, I mostly agree. Every faction has its own way of consolidating power, of ascending up the ranks as they grow more powerful, and it’s almost always through sacrifice or grafting. Radahn eats his fallen opponents, the erdtree is powered by the dead and buried being absorbed by the roots, the several jar ceremonies consolidate warriors into greater and greater vessels as they add worthy candidates (you can see Alexander consuming radahn after that battle), Ryker feeds himself to the snake and then feeds on the competing champions he lures to the volcano to consolidate their power with his, Godfrey grafts others to himself to power up, there’s all kinds of blood sacrifices with mohg, the dragons and the dragon cult have their own practice of eating the fallen, and even the tarnished starts from nothing and only climbs the ladder as fallen opponents drop runes, great runes, and get absorbed and level up the tarnished. No matter what, the crucible of life isn’t just survival of the fittest, it’s about adding the fallen onto the victors as well.
“Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices.”
Nobody is actually immortal in Eldon ring or even all powerful, they just get really really strong and really really hard to kill as you get further up the ladder. Especially with the rune of death being stolen and disrupting the balance of life and death. That’s my real takeaway from the whole world. Everybody bleeds, everybody can die, and attempting to cheat fate, cheat death, or cheat birth, all these things being done to “pursue order” instead of letting things happen naturally and by chance, that’s the cardinal sin in the game. There’s no infallible greater will, none of the gods actually know better than anybody else, and eternal life would be a prison if anybody did ever achieve it. The whole arms race of trying to become the most powerful or achieve godhood, it’s always a mistake. Nothing should be eternal or all powerful, there needs to be a life and death cycle or the wheels will fall off and doom the entire world. There’s literally piles of bodies reaching up to the heavens and piling up by the eternal cities. By the end of the game, the Eldon lord doesn’t just sit on the throne alone, there’s nobody left to rule over as well.
@@JebtonLT yeah it's definitely a theme in this game. Even the ancestor spirit worshipers did something similar. I feel like it's a take on evolution and how the competition for power caused such practices to force evolution. Something like that anyway with the DNA spirals among other symbolism
Marika obviously killed A LOT of people to get her level of power.
Bingo. This seems like a variation of the main theme of the Dark Souls games as well. Imposing Order (not accepting the natural laws of the universe) leads to stagnation leads to decay. I do think Elden Ring shows an evolution of the concept in Ranni’s ending tho. In DS, the best ending is to let the natural cycle take over again by embracing the dark. In ER, Ranni gives us the opportunity to banish outside influence and order from the Lands Between. Thus restoring the natural cycle of birth, death, and evolution.
@@tyzombie89 I still don’t feel great about ranni’s ending because I feel like she is only fighting for free will and to be free from influence. I don’t get the impression that she’s trying to undo any of the rot, death root, or any of the unbalance the golden order is leaving behind after maintaining their unnatural hold for so long. she’s just trying to get her independence and go on her own private vacation while the rest of the world fends for itself. Death is still disrupted in her ending, and she’s still cheating fate and death with her disembodied soul and several other soulless demigods spreading like a plague left behind.
I don’t think there is a “good” ending, the frenzied flame apocalypse might actually reset the world but even that seems to replace the two fingers spiritual monopoly with the three fingers monopoly. So that would inevitably lead right back to a wildly out of balance world just favoring madness instead of the golden order. The dung eaters curse would eventually choke out the spiritual effects of the golden order by disrupting their traditional burial cycle, and we already know that the tarnished doesn’t see reality clearly because we see signs of grace and other golden order visions like the erdtree that aren’t visible to others, so I’m not convinced the dung eater is actually as disfigured as we perceive him. The golden order finds him appalling because they see him breaking their hold on common souls as mutilation, and his curse does seem to target the womb in a way that prevents further births from being steered to the golden order, but I don’t know if that would be as painful for natural born omen as it would be for his initial victims. But again, that’s trying to impose a new order based on cheating birth and death, and who knows what complications will come from that. Basically, I think everybody fails in some way and there’s not a perfect ending, just less awful endings made all the more complicated by trying to parse deep rooted golden order propaganda and unreliable narrators.
@@JebtonLT Ranni is definitely fighting for her own independence, but she also explicitly states: “As it is now, life, and souls, and order are bound tightly together, but I would have them at great remove.” I think this is evidence that she’s fighting for more than just herself and that she also wants the Lands Between to be free from an outside order imposed upon them. Yeah she’s not going to right every injustice, but she is going to let the chips fall where they may. I think there’s something respectable about that.
One thing I noticed today, on the black knife set it says "The assassins that carried out the deeds of the Night of the Black Knives were all women, and rumored to be Numen who had close ties with Marika herself. " Could some of the shamans have escaped or perhaps been reincarnated into the Erdtree realm?
Well they're bodiless....
@@adamsirin7249 wym mean bruh is that stated or contextualized
@@lucidsoliddale6877 If you look closely, they've got no faces under the hood. And they don't bleed.
@@adamsirin7249they do have faces just not distinct and they do bleed wtf
@@MarlicJr no they don't. And you can't proc bleed on them
I had the same thoughts as soon as it was made clear that Marika's people were capable of melding things together. Great video! I didn't understand why it took like 3 weeks for someone to make a video on this when it is very obvious. Now it makes sense why Empyreans has to come from the lines of Marika/Radagon, and has to be female (Miquella's sex is always made ambiguous).
I think you are really onto something here! The melding of a great number of bodies and their spirits seems to be an essential element to the attempts of each civilization to create something divine. The divine gate itself is made up of bodies, fresh as seen in the story trailer, later burnt into ashen husks by the time we arrive, as though fired in a kiln - maybe their spirits were essentially baked into marika’s body as she became a god and gained her clay-like flesh?
You can also see the twisted bodies making up the core of the spiral columns of the tower where the masonry has begun to crumble away. This trope exists elsewhere too: In Rykards cavern, twisted & spiraling bodies make up the pillars that surround the snake god; In Nokron, masses of burnt bodies are bursting out of the buildings and alleyways. I don’t think this is merely a stylistic choice, the models for all these masses of bodies are similar, burnt and frozen in the poses of their final moments, terrified and reaching out for something. In the volcano, these sacrifices were clearly in worship of the snake deity, devouring and conjoining their souls into itself like it did with rykard. In Nokron, an attempt was made to create a god or a lord of their own, maybe consuming the souls of all those writhing bodies in the process? A further point to that being the finger-slayer blade being formed of a spinal column & twisted flesh, similarly to how radagons body was formed into the blade of the elden beast. There is clearly a connection between mass sacrifice, the conjoining of souls, and godhood.
A point i want to clarify from the video tho: The timeline of marika becoming a god & the proceeding genocide against the hornsent mentioned is a bit off. The crusade started long after the erdtree and scadutree were grown, as marikas army were the forces of the erdtree who agreed to journey there & were given grace by her as a reward, & the fire knights came from the elites & nobles of leyndell. This means that Marika maintained a peaceful connection with the hornsent long enough to found her civilization in leyndell and nurture it to rival that of the hornsent and the tower. That is a looooong revenge arc lol.
I also think her return to the shaman village was after she ascended to godhood, as the wording of “all the wamrth of gold, without the order” implies she was already a vessel for the elden ring and her vision of the golden order. I also think, perhaps, she was never placed in a jar at all - The “seduction from which gold arose” mentioned in the story trailer, before we see the imagery of the blood-drenched divine gate, is I think hinting that she avoided her fate in a jar by seducing the hornsent nobility, eventually convincing them of her plan to become a god. In secret, of course, she did this for revenge, but I think it would be miyazaki-esque for her to have knowingly abandoned her people in the process. The fresh bodies of the story trailer also make me think this may have been an advancement on the jarring practice & not her using an ancient practice to become a god ~ like Nokron, I think the hornsent were maybe seeking to create their own replacement of placidusaxx & his unknown god.
Also… she stole some golden soul-thread from a dead snakes eye before ascending…. Maybe the gloam eyed queen (placidusaxx’s god???) was a snake? & there is the giant snakeskin outside of bonny village…
Ok that is all! Thanks for inspiring me to write down my own crazy thoughts… i really think the connection with the jars, souls, and marika’s literal clay vessel of a body is suuuuper important!!! 🫨🫨🫨
You continue to make Marika sympathetic and i love it. I like it more that she was in the just ritual but wasn’t aware and got the benefit of it.
I never noticed the item description called Godfrey a demigod too. This opens things. Marika didn’t birth Godfrey.
One extra point, though. I haven't finished the video but wanted to say that, aren't the Black Knife Assassins also Numen/Shaman women? They were even employed by none other than Ranni in the assassination of Godwyn. In other words, some shaman women survived and actually made their way out of the Lands of Shadow, grouping together. Strange that they would end up killing one carrying their own blood, isn't it? This is one of the points I least understand from the story.
@@GreyBandanna numen doesn't necessarily mean shaman tho. There could have been other numen to exist outside marikas village. Also, I've often associated the numen with the nox; the same people who made the finger slayer blade, and were banished underground by the greater will. This connection makes them likely enemies to the golden order.
It could be just like us humans, there's blacks, white, Latino, Asian. We might be similar but there are still differences between our ethnicity. Numen are more associated with the nox so they don't necessarily have to be the same as shamans. Marika lived in the shadow land where death washed up. Numen and nox lived underground in the lands between.
Marika being akin to a jar fits a theory I’m working on that revolves around Radagon; the basis of the theory is that, as per the Secret Rite Scroll, Radagon was the Lord that ushered in Marika’s godhood but she killed him and took his soul to ascend to godhood (the opposite of what Miquella later did). The Lord requires a vessel and I think Marika became Radagon’s vessel in a very literal way. What you say about her becoming a jar fits with that theory; the only part I’m struggling with is how Radagon might relate to that period of time.
He’s an aspect that marika discarded to become a god that was her faith
@@ryanlozano9086 yeah kind of like miquella abandoning his love creating st Trina. I'm not sold on it because he didn't show up in the history until after they defeated the giants. It's one of the better working theories tho.
@@curtisfarley6558 Iunno, could work. One of the first tasks she has in the Lands Between as god is genocide a race of people with odd worshipping practices that seem to be otherwise unto themselves, and enslave their descendants (the trolls). Sound familiar? Seems to me it can be seen as Marika literally perpetrated the same cruelty upon the giants that the hornsent did upon her and the shamans. I doubt this would've escaped her notice, so its entirely possible that she would discard he faith (Radagon) because she found the Greater Will (which gave her godhood) to be unworthy of said faith. It'd also explain why Radagon was such a devoted adherent to the Golden Order.
Also, for funsies, one of the hallmarks of the Crucible is a reddish tinged gold, likely in reference to Orichalcum, which was a copper-gold alloy in the ancient world said to have magical properties. In Elden Ring, the act of purifying things using gold removes this reddish "taint", resulting in the vibrant yellow we see. Marika's hair is golden, but Radagon's, her other half, is red.
@@barfrost007 I'm aware of the alchemy connections as well. One of the theories I heard was that once marika became vessel to the elden ring, radagon was manifested at the same time. The dlc trailer seems to hint at this, as we see marika changing into radagon at the gate of divinity. Maybe the physical marika was already gone, and radagon was all that was left of her physical body?
@@curtisfarley6558 see this is the thing; St Trina existed already as Miquella’s “other half” and he discarded her, Marika and Radagon seem to be the other way around. If Marika had discarded Radagon then surely he’d be walking around on his own and we wouldn’t suddenly have him rock up with a cosmos defining secret of being Marika just out of nowhere? My gut tells me that the Hornsent Grandam is part of it somehow but I can’t work out how it all fits together yet. It’s early days as a theory lol
This was a great video, It really *feels* like you're on to something here.
It is interesting to note that Tarnished Eater Anastasia wields a blade exactly the same as the Greater Potentates of Bonny Village, and she eats Tarnished while dressed as a Finger Maiden. Is she trying to imbue herself with bodies similarly to how the jars are used so she may ascend? Maybe she eats "countless Tarnished" to become a Finger Maiden. If so, that might explain something about not only Finger Maidens and how they are made, but also why they are burned in the Giant's forge as kindling. Hyetta becomes a Finger Maiden for the Three Fingers after eating frenzied eyes, too, so cannibalism seems to be the prevailing rule of the day. Radahn eats friend and foe alike to stave off the Scarlet Rot. Rykard let himself be eaten, then eats his own champions as the Snake, and when we defeat him Tanith eats him to help him find "purchase within" her. We eat dragon hearts to gain their powers, then transform into magma wyrms. Eating Bayle's heart dooms the consumer to BECOME Bayle, and Bayle cannibalizes drake and dragon alike. The Lands Between are like the Hell's Kitchen of Darwinism.
The roundness of the jar would surely explain rump but hole try pickle
Something I would like to tack on here is that the reason that the horn sent did this to the Shaman people because they were trying to learn how to combine life forms to emulate the crucible- they noticed the shamans could merge and started stuffing them in jars. This is a small part of my theory on madness and frenzy in hornsent culture
Great video man, warrior blood must truly run in thy veins
timelines are important. we have to remember than Rellanna came to the Land of Shadows with Messmer, and that she's Carian Royalty. That means Messmer's invasion took place AFTER the Tarnished were cast out, after Radagon's marriage to Rennala. This is all Long after Merika had ascended to godhood.
That means all of that blood and gore around the Pillars of Divinity was caused by the Hornsent, not Merika.
Let's assume somehow that Merika was the first Jar to ascend. The Hornsent would have seen her as a miracle, and likely have aided her ascention to godhood by creating the pillars and potentially aiding her against the Gloam-Eyed Queen.
That would mean the "betrayal" the story trailer mentioned was most likely that the Hornsent's "saint" was not beholden to them. Instead, she was actively hostile towards them. Ignoring them at first, before decimating their civilization and sealing it in the Land of Shadows.
Finally someone caught on the clues; been talking about it for almost 2 weeks now on various videos and discords.
"All vessels are destined to one day break" - Alexander
Marika didn't just manifest the Elden Ring. She went and met Metyr and made a deal with the Greater Will and they made a plan. She then used the divine gateway, departed, then returned with an army once she'd acquired that power.
The only issue with this statement is that it's heavily implied that the entire time and before the golden order was established Metyr hadn't communed with the greater will in ages.
I think the elden ring was in placidusax..and that is what Marika is stealing the ring from in ascension.
My question is the rite thar Miquella used should have been the same as Marika..what Lord came back in a vessel to bring forth Marika as a God? I don't understand how Miquella would have this condition and not Marika.
Metyr had the elden ring in its eyes. We see her grab it from metyr in the trailer
I assumed she was seduced by Metyr to become the elden rings vessel but was betrayed when she found out it was a trap *the seduction and the betrayal*
But Metyr has a wound that could be tied to the Fingerslayer blade and the Nox connection to Marika and how they earned the ire of the greater will
@@sk8legendz hm. The head marika plunders looks like a snake like thing. I at least thought it was placidusax but they are a Lord and not a God, so I’m not sure if he even had the ring within him.
Although they should be empyrean because they are both male and female with heads
@@Bbmag23 look at Metyrs head it's a single finger and has a single pale eye. With wrinkled flesh around it. Compare it to the trailer
Honestly. Did not even pay any mind to this theory. It came about after I beat. Metyr And was reading the item description of one of its remembrance items specifically the weapon made of its head which. Mentioned it having an eye. And both being connected to the greater will I. Assumed, perhaps this was where the elder ring came from in the trailer. Upon Further inspection and comparison the details and the lore connections matched up perfectly
Metyr probably got sent to the lands between with the elden ring to establish the rules of the universe and Marikas original sin was taking the elden ring sort of like Eve taking the apple
9:08 just remembered when you find alexander after rahdans fight and he tells you he was broken but could put himself back together so long as the innards are strong. Mmmmmmm
I think Marika was never subject to the jar ritual. She was angry what the hornsent did to her people and used her ability to meld people (their souls) in the cinematic trailer where she is pulling golden threads out of what appear to be corpses to active the divine gateway. The divine arena we fight in is littered with the corpses of her 'sin', they were all old and dusty when we get there but it's definitely the same place as in the trailer, not the 'other side' of the gateway. We see Marika pulling mass amounts of life together and forges it into the elden ring in the same place as the crucible energy, the point in the lands between closest to the divine outer realm. Also unrelated but I think st Trina saying miquela would be a 'caged divinity' makes me think that divinity comes with a very high, if not certainty, of being used by an outer God so Marika may have unwittingly become a caged divinity for her chance at revenge/justice to the hornsent, giving reason to shatter the elden ring.
Great video though. I love speculation on the long story format from software gives us.
Anyone else notice as the tarnished we can do the main things shaken can meld with other beings talk to spirits I just think that’s interesting
there is also a theory floating around that the tarnished themselves is a demigod / child of marika. [ watch?v=Wmjo72GiLRk ] which would explain a lot of things.
We are gifted the powers from others. Specifically, we are gifted by Marika and some of her eldest offspring. Ranni gives us the spirit caller bell. Melina gives us the power to turn runes into strength. And Merika gives us the runes, fragments of her divine power spread to the eyes of her followers.
We were given the power needed to kill Marika from Marika herself.
@@Ortorin This is what I think. Grace = kindness of gold without order mentioned in her minor Erdtree incantation. Her last wish and effort was to offer great kindness to the tarnished and awesome power so she could end herself. Not for forgiveness, not for recognition, but for the virtue of ending herself and all the sin she wrought, inner peace through one last act of grace, something that did not make sense to Radagon. He saw things as eye-for-eye.
I've also come to the conclusion that Marika was the only successful attempt of the sainthood ritual. And the betrayal was that the hornsent basically created Marika/Radagon. Yes I do think radagon was there from the start. He's the non shaman part of that particular jar combo. He is the human part and Marika is the divine. And for whatever reason their specific combo was successful
What if The Great Rune was the only one of the runes that existed at first? It's not like the dragons were known for controlling life-and-death or any of the other really powerful parts of the Elden Ring. So, Merika becomes a saint and powerful enough to steal The Great Rune from the dragons. Then, she goes with the finger mother and retrieves the other "aspects of the world," the other runes.
With her specific ability as a shaman saint, Merika could merge the different runes that govern the Laws of Nature into her Great Rune. When she returns, she is a complete god, but still traumatized by her past. She then breaks the Rune of Death away from her Great Rune and seals it to start her Golden Order.
The true "original sin" wasn't the making of Merika the saint. That was horrific, but it can be excused through religious ignorance and good intentions causing bad to happen. No, Merika, as a complete god, rejected her divine position in favor of holding on to her "material self," her people, and her lands. She perverted the Laws of Nature to suit her will, and all the suffering we see comes from that.
She was forced into sainthood. She achieved great power and then ascended to godhood. But she never overcame her trauma and her attachments to her people. So, Merika sinned, and the whole world paid the price.
Great video as always!
I think that Marika as a jar represents the embodiment of human emotions i.e fear, joy, resistance, etc. Her children are therefore an extension of these emotions be it defective or otherwise. Her story basically paint the picture of how our emotions turn to dictate our actions in real life.
I also think her story tells how we cannot cheat death no matter how much we try. For instance she shutters the Elden ring after the death of Godwyn, which in my opinion is because she thought she had sealed away death.
I've read many many posts about this theory, and while I think it has some gaps, it's the one I like the most.
One of the things that bothers me a bit though is the use of the word SAINT. I believe words are not chosen lightly in from software games, and why would they choose the word saint specifically for that? Being that the most prominent uses of the word come from
* Jarred people
* Saint Trina
* Saint of the Bud
That's it. I have no clue about anything, just wanted to point that out!
Hearing that theory really got me excited, there are so many good points you bring up. However there are a couple of things that I feel undermines it. Provided that this practice seemingly started mostly as a genocidal practice from the Hornsents towards the Shamans, it feels off that the Hornsent would "risk" making a God out of a Shaman. Of course, we have no idea how much they understood the process but still.
Moreover, that quote from the Hornsent ghost that goes something like "Get in the Jar. You will achieve nigh sainthood.". Why would he use the word "nigh" if they believe this process could birth sainthood itself, he clearly dismissed the idea that the result of that specific Jar he was filling, would achieve sainthood. The whole process and that specific quote makes it seem to me to be more a case of genocidal methods with dogmatic flavors.
But my mind is doomed for tonight. These "problems" are far from definitive and I do believe the Jar theory to be filled with potential... Seeing myself out, cheers!
U ONTO SOMETHING BRO
I'VE SUBSCRIBED
Thats pretty interesting, remember the similarities: Crucible where all life blended together, Shaman pots (life blending together), The gate of divinity (bunch of corpses blending together)...
It makes sense in some way, that Marica can give birth to Omens (hornsent?) if one of the creatures she was fussed with was a hornsent. The dna is there, but not hers.
No. Marika children were cursed
You know it’s a good video when you address questions the audience is developing as they watch said video. Love this theory.
Slaps lid of pot
This baby can hold so many gods
Numen were of the same '"stock" as Marika. Stock can be both the base of a soup, and also the part of a plant onto which a bud or scion is grafted.
Or tribe/family,bloodline.
What a great observation
@@umitencho but i don't recall any other familial relations in the game being referenced that way
Its just english bro lol
@@xbox70333 in the 16th Century, there were villages in parts of Europe basically forced to cultivate stock flowers in a quest for the most vibrant colors. In England around the middle ages, stock plants were valued and accepted as payment, believing they possessed healing properties. So yeah it's very much "just english bro"
I think there's a lot of merit to this line of thought. The beastmen of Farum Azula makes pots just to crack them and use the shards as shields - a micro version of a pot-god cracking itself causing great runes to be created. follow-up question: what does it mean to create a mending rune in this inerpretation? How does placidusax fit in? Are outer god just people who want their say on whats put in the jar?
I'm more curious about the potential implication of Marika's relation to the dancers of Ranah found by the Cerulean Coast who presumably came to these lands in the stone coffins that house the Putrescence-- that I believe are the progenitors to the silver tears. Maybe it's THAT quality in particular that allows their flesh to congeal and meld so harmoniously with others.
When you alter the Dancer's Dress through Boc, it turns the original Red version into a Black variant with ornate Golden jewelry eerily reminiscent of Marika's signature Black-Gold dress. Also the Dancing Blade of Ranah weapon that you get from defeating the Dancer in the Souther Nameless Mausoleum shares the same curved spiral helix motif seen with the Fingerslayer Blade found in Nokron, as well as the Sacred Relic Sword.
Lastly.... if Marika's people arrived here in giant stone coffins.... are the Lands Between... the Spirit World? or something Between the land of the material and the land of the spirits? I would love to hear your thoughts on these potential connections in the future.
Marika being something like a jar can also explain how she and Radagon are one. It could be that, when she ascended to godhood at the divine gate, chose a soul of a consort and a host body for the consort, she chose the strongest warrior she knew and picked her own body as a host.
if you pause at 13:46, you can clearly see that the rune on the shaman foreheads is a piece of the whole, i wonder if it also appears within the old elden rune symbol as well. this game really likes its echoes within echoes
Do you think Roderika is descended from the Shamans? With her affinity for Spirit Tuning, and her people all being grafted by Godrick? Blonde hair?
That's a great observation - I would bet you are correct.
CrestfallenShaman
I like this theory a lot but how do you reconcile the Elden Beast which is essentially the Elden Ring (and which also came way before Marika)? And what is "the seduction"? Also how would the Fingers factor in? (I hope I didn't miss anything if you already touched upon these points)
If marika really is in a jar, then perhaps the fingers are the potentates putting more people goop in? Lol. I enjoy speculation, and he's on to something for sure, just needs alot of polishing
@@curtisfarley6558 I thought that the Fingers might have seduced Marila with the promise of power which could explain why she is the only shaman to ascend. But still not sure what the significance of all the snake stuff is (the snake skin in Bonny Village) and whether it had something to do with the seduction (it could fit with biblical symbolism and also why Messmer has the Base Serpent within him)
@@AdamPW I'm not sure tbh. I think this world is loosely modeled of yigdrasill; it has two world serpents, and I believe that they are probably the oldest "deities" worshiped in the lands between. If placidusax is the elden lord of an ancient time, then it stands to reason that snakes evolved before the beastmen (God skins being referred to as primordial humans). One word serpent is the one that ate rykard, the other, I assume, is messmers other parent. I think marika betrayed a scale less snake in the dlc trailer. Idk just waiting for tarnished archeologists to give me that jaw dropping lore connection.
There is a set of Finger Ruins right outside Marika's home village.
@@curtisfarley6558 While that goes probably too far I wonder whether Marika or the other Shamans have any connection to the Rauh ruins? They also feature a statue of a Goddess who could look similar to them. Maybe they could be showing Romina but from the text the ruins seem to be much much older (Hornsent scholars were researching the ruins). I really wonder what is up with the Rauh ruins. They seem to somehow stretch through all of the Lands Between.
I also wonder what exactly Marika's original sin is? Is it the Hornsent genocide? Is it the acceptance of Godhood through somehow impure means?
Wow I like this theory a lot. Marika has always been the main character but this takes it to a whole new level
My guess is marika become sainthood first via meld with Elden beast ie the rune system first. The hornsent got wind of this and got jealous/try to copy her ‘sainthood’, so capturing Shamans and tested on jars. Before she created the golden order, she got Melina and Mesmer but he’s cursed, and return to shaman village because wanted to treat Mesmer curse, just to find the hornsent butchered everyone. Pissed off, ordered Mesmer to destroy the hornsent. And create the golden order with Godfrey , which then cursed by hornsent so that mogh and morgot becomes omen creatures
alright, now this is something to really think about
Absolute madness! You're a genius!
Marika's story is quite jarring.
I kind of like your theory but there are a couple of holes in it, for starters the Elden Ring is the Elden Beast and it arrived in the lands between before Marika was even a god; We also know of a previous Elden Lord that wasn't Marika's consort. We also know that Marika became a god in the doors of divinity like Miquella does in the dlc.
Also the translation of shaman isn't really proper, the Japanese word originally use in the game is the word for Shintoist priestess, the ones that are usually depicted in anime as taking care of a temple/holy site and the word that was translated into saint can also be translated into purifying or getting ride of impurities. In the Japanese fandom the current theory is that priestesses were put into the jars with criminals/bad people to cleanse their sins so they could become pure. Marika's treason is that she didn't want to be stuff into a jar, for the hornsent this is treason.
could it be that radagon was one of the warriors stuffed into the jar with marika?
To add, your conclusion can answer why the Demigods in the Wandering Mausoleum’s are soulless - they are demigods who never received Great Runes or whatever it is that Marika divests of herself to the Demigods we do face
The connection of the self mending jars, and Marika/Raddagons crumbling stone body was not something I had considered, but that was a detail that originally bothered me.
Some of the revelations in this video (and even further connections in the comments) is truely mind blowing. The idea that all of the tarnished are in themselves stuffed in jars is a bit out there, but I think it serves as a thought experiment.
That said, I dont think ALL of the Shamans were put to the jar so to speak. "spirited away" in the broadest of terms meant they were taken else where, some to the jar factories, but I think others may have been lead out of the realm of shadows before Marika sealed it away, either by Marika herself automatically elevating them to royalty in her new order, or others that may have smartened up to flee the lands between entirely-
@doug3318 in a comment pointed out that Rodericka being a spirit tuner may signal that her lot were related to the shamans and by extension Marika, hence my buy in.
I think the Marika being the first successful jar saint is a solid theory. Max Derrat made the same point and noted that red flesh and white flesh mushrooms "are used as flesh in jar items" red representing radagon and white representing marika, white queen red king, prima materia. This may also confirm marika and radagon were one from the beginning
Its crazy how well that relates to elden ring mushroom theory
Sort of off-topic but I think your mention of the Giant corpses and their bodies being used to form the lands is reminiscent of Ymir in Norse mythology and how creators wild use primordial entities to form living lands. The conception of life from death completes the circle. Great video.
I'd like to add another bit that just struck me when I was roaming listlessly.
In the area under shadow keep you can find a unique "innard amalgam" that summons a very particular attack. The ground turns sticky with red goo and it applies _hemorrhage._ I think this whole "stuffing people into pots" thing also helped draw the attention of the Formless Mother to the Lands Between.
When looking at the Roundrock item, I couldn't help but wonder if it was somehow analogous to the very world itself (being globe-like). My brain made a wild assumption that by becoming the "god" of a land you quite literally BECOME the world itself. Imagine that as Marika ascended to Godhood it wasn't what was anticipated. You just existed everywhere, in everything. When people breathe air, they're breathing you. When people walk on paths, they're stepping on you. When ritualists stab a trident or prong into the air, they're stabbing you.
Elden Ring's premise is basically Lurianic Kaballah, and the Tarnished is the Kaballist. The shattering and the gathering of esoteric shards of the divine order is central to Kaballah
If her turning to stone is possibly associated with immortality, maybe she was the perfect recreation of the eternal dragons
Why would marika allow the practice of jarring in her golden order if she hated it. Thats whats throwing me for a loop. Maybe over sight on lore detail
I theorize that she somehow betrayed her own people to get power, hence "her confession" mentioned in the braid item. To me, she seems power-hungry (she removed the rune of death so as not to die; and refused to put it back despite Godwyn's fate) so she would be fine with the base-game jars being made of strong warriors.
The idea that to create a god it takes the coalescence of untold millions (the divine gates, and the erdtree, as all life returns to its roots) and that their characters and ambitions affect the outcome makes a lot of sense with the overarching themes of religion and how they are created, and how our tarnished represents the deciding factor in choosing the fate of the lands between, usually through a religion or philosophy
This is the only lore video I’ve seen that I felt truly mind blown over
Damn this is why this game would make for a great movie or movie’s. Same for the dark souls series.
Ooo cool theory. Could probably apply the theory that the golden Erdtree is just a spiritual manifestation/illusion of the first Erdtree before the first burning. The remaining part of first tree still visible under the golden illusion. Also why the gate to the tree is regular wood, not gold.
"Wearing your scars as a badge of honor." This kind of reminds me of how Marika's missing braid never grew back. She left that piece of herself in her village and that scar never healed and became a constant reminder of the tragedy in her past. Though it might also indicate that she is not physical anymore after her ascension, her body is not changing naturally, her hair doesn't grow. Her visual representation is a memory of her body, it's like a living statue, that cannot grow.
Also, I think the Elden Ring itself is metaphysical in the sense that it refers to the cycle. A cycle of gods and lords, societies rising and falling, it's a metaphysical circle, an ouroboros (funny how the snake becomes the enemy of Marika since the snake also symbolises this neverending cycle). When Marika breaks the ring, she essentially breaks the cycle. Much like Ranni is trying to, explaining why they might have worked together on the NBK.
The elden lord dragon also never regrew his heads
Love your content! Keep it coming!!
Marika's is basically a philosopher's stone. Elden Ring themes is probably about the material, process, and fundament of the philosopher's stone. Radagoon is Marika's sulfur base side(red king). Marika herself is her salt base side(white queen). Godfrey and the renowned tarnish is mostly represent a lesser metal or material. The tarnish is the Mercury that cover all metal. To make a philosopher's stone, you need organic, metal, gas, liquid, poison(acid), flame, body, and spirit. Still sf games are Cryptid.
I think the Shadow of the Erdtree actually kinda revealed who the massive giant corpses are (the ones bigger than fire giants). Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword's description has a section that reads "Greatsword of ancient meteoric ore, ending in a sharp point. Fashioned from an excavated shard of an arrowhead that once was a part of the old gods' arsenal." The Ancient Meteoric Ore Greatsword is a Colossal Greatsword and just a shard of the arrow head. It isn't exactly spelled out but it is the straightest line to draw. We can no with some confidence call those massive skeletons "The Old Gods"
I think you're definitely onto something. Several people have made videos about the terrible secrets of the shaman village, but have avoided asking some pretty conspicuous questions. What would success "creating a saint' would look like? If everyone else from the shaman village was jar'd, why wasn't Marika put into one too? This feels like a pretty likely answer to both questions.
The word Shaman is a fairly inexact translation, I forget which content creator mentioned this, but a more precise translation of the Japanese may be helpful in refining theory further.
A thing few people seem to talk about yet is that the putresence is something like a forerunner to the mimic tears. Mimic tears tries to imitate life, but putrescence is like an ooze left behind by dead bodies in the giant "coffins". I'd like to think these in sci-fi terms were seed ships and the putrescence is what was left after a long journey through space. It is basically a mass of dna, a thing that mixes all sorts of life like the crucible and the crucible and spirals are deeply connected. dna can be also seen as a double helix sort of like spirals.
The Nox are connected to Marika's race so to say and thus with Shamans too. I think the Numen and Nox and Shaman came about and emerged from the big coffins/space ships that held genetic information. Maybe all life was or a lot of it. Shamans coming from this proto-dna ooze would explain why they can somehow merge together again into a big blob or how grafting can work too.
To be fair Diallos even failed at protecting Jarburg. I mean the fact he dies doing it is for the best. I wouldn't trust his incompetence to guard a pantry let alone anymore lives to his care.
Marika learned how to be a saint via the Hornsent’s jar ritual, then turned it against them: she slaughtered the entire race and built the Gate of Divinity from the bodies of Hornsent, as a mega-jar that allowed her to transcend sainthood and become a God. She just needed a bigger jar with more bodies.
It makes you wonder if all the life found in the Lands-Between, were beings that spilled out from this jar after Marika and Messmer burned many away.
This actually explains something that I have had in my head since the game came out: All the tarnished in the intro: Hoarah Loux: Chieftain of the badlands, The ever brilliant Goldmask, Fia the Deathbed companion, the Loathsome DungEater, Gideon the AllKnowing and a little Tarnished of no renown but with a powerful determination... Those all ARE DEAD and got called "by grace" across the fog (the jar???), to the lands between (inside the jar???). What if... the lands between is a spirit world created by Marika "inside" the jar the hornsent shoved her into, together with the dead remains of those notable "tarnished" (notable dead persons)? This idea as you said explain nothing or everything, we don't know but the implications are HUGE. Maybe the "tarnished" being exiled from the Lands Between was just Marika not using them anymore as her "creation" in the jar was complete and so she expeled their spirit, with the promise of one day calling them back when needed?
The elden ring is literally the Javascript that the world runs on
3:56 In the related quest, Jar Bairn in Jarburg asks if we’re their Potentate, and afaik it’s the only other use of that word in the game apart from this, so it kinda checks out
Looks like godrick was the most important demigod of all, and had no idea.
This is a great video! However, I don’t think Marika created the Elden ring as there is evidence that there was an Elden ring by the pictures from Farm Azula. Placidusax was the consort to the previous God presumably the vessel of an older version of the ring. My opinion is Merica copied a lot from what time had before and made it her own.
I mentioned this theory and boy do I get pushback, lol. But everything here makes sense. She seems to have a two body problem that she passes along to only some of her children. It seems perhaps being crammed in with multiple people would affect the finished product: herself. And her people being the descendants of the Nueman who came from another world in the stone coffins makes sense too. I love the Stone coffin Fissure. It’s so eerie and atmosphere.
I also ascribe to the theory the Tarnished was one of those demigods slain during the night of the black knives. It is the only way we as “tarnished” can just run around and kill demigods like nothing. And there was a video that went into the sounds during the intro and isolated the walking mausoleum bell, cry, and stomp when the tarnished of no renown is introduced.
Marika of the saint jar and Radagon of the champion jar, sitting in the erdtree k i s s i n g 😂😂😂
I dont believe it was Demigods attached to the Great Runes so much as well... Aspects of The Crucible and by that I mean if everything was once melded together that means the Spirits would have been melded with Concepts themselves and Ascension is the act of merging with and abandoning Everything and Everyone at the same time which is fucking mind boggling. Kinda like Schroedinger's Cat both merging with and seperating the Lands Between itself. Gwyn of Sunlight affected the Natural Order in a similar fashion, almost coming off as metaphysical cherrypicking. The rest I completely agree with especially in the Regards of said Demigods, after Marika became the Vessel though. If that makes sense
@@0malleyAlleyc4t good insights
The black that leaves Radagon at the end. Is the same kind that leaves the tower at the end of the DLC cutscene
you know you may have a point on the fact maybe merika was the only one to truly become a saint,it would not be thge first time fromsoft has used a kill the many to create the perfect idea in one of there games,sekiro as the prime example