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they could be used as Mediums for him to be present anywhere at any given moment once Fia brings him back. Kind of like the Parasite Eve, or more modern day warframe using transference to possess any cadaver at any given time.
Can i just ask one thing? Why did you guys want Godwyn so bad? I have studied the lore over and over and even though it seems like it m the eclipse was referencing Godwyn of you go back over it with the new information from the DLC is clear that the root of the true death was actually referring to Radahn and his state if undead with the rot and his mind gone and being unable to kill him themselves. We also got a full Godwyn storyline, they only question truly left unanswered was well none. He was chosen because he was the pinnacle of everything that is the Golden Order even despite not being labeled the strongest Demigod. We also got an entire Godwyn storyline as well as an ending through Fia. Yes, it absolutely would have been awesome to kill him since we kill literally every single one of her other children not outside of that like we got everything for him. So why the powerful obsession? And it's not just you by any means i mean the community as whole is obsessed with him and i just don't understand why. I feel like everyone's not looking at what's right in their face and it's the best nature of Elden Ring that makes it hard to see things when they're right in front of us but sometimes the answers are very simple in the lore. Sometimes somebody just got killed because they lost or got smoked in the night, cough cough. Know what i mean?
14:14 there is actually a type of fish that attached itself to things like whales and sharks that has teeth like this. i latches on with suction and the teeth dig into the flesh insuring it doesnt let go. the name is something like Remora
@@TheMundaneFlowerthat clarifies what it is, but not why it is... It is in fact invisible to the player view, so maybe it was in progress of the dlc as new boss model but then was cut before finishing and that arm was fore some attacks. The Unfinished model found it's place there... Doesn't make much sense to spend work into remodeling and then hiding it from any possible player experience
Crazy theory: what if Godrick was planning on grafting a piece of Godwyn onto himself but decided against it after seeing what he became and that's why the corpse is buried under Stormveil because Godrick tossed him there when he decided not to graft him?
I was actually thinking the exact same thing. That would also beg the question of just how long did it take for Godwyn's body parts to start showing deathroot signs(Symptoms?)
They first buried Godwyn at the Erdtree's roots. But when they saw that it caused deathroot, they built the wandering mausoleums so that the other dead gods wouldn't cause similar problems. Godrick probably stole the piece before they buried Godwyn. Maybe he learned of deathroot before he started grafting with it, and that convinced him not to.
I think he stole Godwyn's great rune. He's outright called cowardly and it seems well within his character to do so. I could be wrong but aren't all the other runes possessed by Mar-agon's children? Godrick is of distant lineage and is desperate to prove his lordhood, what better way than to have a sacred rune bestowed only upon the god's direct descendants, and how easy would it be to take from a dead man? But that rune came with a price.
It's also what they do in many buddhist cultures (Japanese included). Relics - usually ashes -of venerable monks were used to consecrate stupas/Pagodas. The ashes were usually divided amongst the monk's disciples for this purpose and would be used in multiple stupa. The Japanese text and Rogiers description as "relic" fits the cultural context of the writers.
Don't forget the blood stain in Stormveil Castle that shows Rogier being struck with deathroot next to Godwyn's face. We may not find collectible deathroot near Godwyn's faces, but Rogier's infliction shows us deathroot is indeed present.
That is a good point, but that could also be said about literally every inch of the map though. Since deathblight can be proced anywhere. Id say it's moreso shows that those things are alive and have actual power to do stuff around them. Causing deathblight buildup in some way. Going towards the whole millicent relation. Being a sort of offshoot, "child" of godwyn via a severed peice. Having some powers of death as well.
@@fireking0531 yeah, I don't think so though. This is the only instance of a bloodstain revealing an NPC that's been inflicted by deathblight in the game. I think that makes this much more significant, lorewise.
On the topic of Rogier, what or who even attacked him to begin with? I don't recall encountering anything that spewed deathroot down by the Stormveil castle face. And the face itself doesn't seem to react to anything the Tarnished does in a hostile or defensive manner, despite hit splatters occurring when it's struck.
Godwyns aquatic form makes some sense to me if you consider the implications of the Uhl lore. For a long time, I was trying to sort out why Gideon calls Mogh’s dynasty a “revival” and why it’s constantly being reffered as “new” meaning he wasn’t the founder. The ancient dynasty stuff have a heavy theme of water or the ocean because they are built on top of the Ainsel/Siofra rivers which we can only enter from “Wells”. Not to mention the claymen who use bubble sorceries and harpoons. You get the idea. He builds his dynasty on top of the Uld so I was trying to see what I could find. What’s interesting is that the ruins are built on top of the Ainsel/Siofra Rivers that are described to originate where Godwyn is found, conviently in the Greatree Roots as well. I also found it interesting that apart from the Elden Beast, Godwyn is closest thing to a water deity in this game and I started to play with the idea that the Uhl king or whatever could be what Godwyn is morphing into. We know the Uhl Statues always depict a bald figure with a giant beard with some intricate stonework focused on a few places, suggesting something else mixed with the hair. Well, if you look close at the Prince of Death under the Erdtree, Godwyn’s merman form is actually bald(his head tilted to the side) and the blonde hair he inherited from Marika grow under his face suggesting a beard with the tendrils mixed with the hair. He’s also just as skinny. The only exception is the legs but strangely almost all of these statues are purposely cut in half, from the torso. It fits together more when you have many instances in this game where Godwyn is a source of water(Stormveil Husk and the Story Trailer) Going back to Mogh, it’s curious that he calls his dynasty “Moghwyn” which plays with the naming convention after “Godwyn” or maybe the Godwyn Dynasty.
Interesting observation about the dynastic revival. Although I do think it holds some water (haha) to consider Godwyn potentially ruling the waters while Godfrey ruled the land, (and the dlc emphasised the distinction of being landbound or able to fly) perhaps the dynasty it refers to is about one of those old civilisations sealed away. There's the "god of rot" associated with the lake of rot and I highly suspect a "god of silver" was also there, associated with the 'silver dewdrop' where the mimics come from. Both the rot and the silver seem to be primarily liquid, similar to Mohg/Formless Mother's accursed blood and their lake of blood. Mohg had an affinity for the blood since his childhood, if that were different maybe he would've revived a dynasty of rot or silver. What bothers me is not knowing if those carved tablets were made there long ago or if Mohg brought them to bolster his dynastic larp... And those statues you mentioned also still puzzle me to no end
you are literally one of the only people ive ever seen also catch the mohgwyn thing. i think this points to mohg being the first born twin , morgott the second , and godwyn is the youngest child of them all. Unless im wrong , i think we can speculate that he was literally , the "golden boy" you know the type. the baby of the family, the asshole shit head who can do whatever they want without consequence. idk man when i start to think of this as a real family it makes alot more sense. godwyn got it all , the right to rule by 'birthright' because marika wanted to pretend her other children didnt exist. the cloests thing we have to relate to is rape babies. the omen twins were born of unwanted desires , and its probably pretty ahrd to even look at them. i think the way mohg was even able to be used by other outter gods was this denial of motherly love. it wasnt their fault they were born with the same 'affliction' as the people who harmed her, it wasnt their fault they were born of a terrible act. and the wanting to call himself mohgwyn i think is proof of this dynamic
I'm inclined to believe that the aquatic theme comes from Death being associated with water and rivers. This is supported by the Tibia Mariners, who are described as ancient in the Tibia cookbook, meaning that they may be as old as death birds. Further evidence of this from the DLC specifically is a form of giant coffin water burial as seen in Charo's Hidden Grave, the Cerulean Coast, and the Fissure
@@aristobrat4987on the omen thing, it’s even deeper than just unwanted desires manifesting. It’s like the Greater Will forced Mogh and Morgott to be born with crucible attributes as almost a forced reminder of Marika’s original sin and betrayal of The Hornsent in retaliation to her people being Jarred up.
The fact that they used the same word for "offshoot" to describe the cadavers seems really interesting to me after you consider that these death knights are basically planting and growing new Godwyns as if he was a tree Also their circular crowns remind me of an eclipse or a sun besides just the centipede mark
Deathroot is likely the equivalent of the Golden seeds and Aeonian buds[This is where milicent and her sister likely came from] we see in caelid, if that is the case then one could say that the death knights are guarding a blooming bud and early stage new Godwyn. I been thinking this very crack pot theory that this new bodies of Godwyn will work similar to how Darian and Devin function as one soul and multiple bodies. Where the soul comes from well that's likely to come from the eclipse plan [That plan was likely a contingency plan if Ranni ever won and Age of stars came to be as the new order, a last F u to Ranni by Miquella]
Imagine being able to complete these offshoots, and fighting them as unique minibosses. Goldwynd the deathborn, and Godwane the thunderscaled, what if godrick was an offshoot of godwyn all along.
I like this theory. My guess is that they are trying to give their master a “true death” by bringing a piece of him to the roots of the Erdtree. After all, they were his personal guards when he was alive. They don’t have any specific affiliation to him as the Prince of Death, the way that Fia does. And I also think that their crowns are meant to evoke the Eclipse. I still wish that we got more Godwyn than this, but for FromSoft, this is actually a pretty substantial bit of context.
Godrick stealing a piece of godwyn and hiding it below stormveil could explain why we find a third death knight, dead, in the third catacomb. They expected to find it in the land of shadow, with the other two pieces. Not knowing that it was stolen and kept in the lands between, which they couldn’t return to. As for why the two cadavers in the land of shadow don’t sprout deathroot, the tablet on top of the suppressing pillar says that ‘all manner of death wash up here, only to be suppressed’. Maybe that has something to do with it?
I was waiting for the dead Death Knight to be mentioned in the video and it never came. I think that there's a lot of implications that it could have and you probably hit it right on the head. There's also the Medallion Talismans that each of the Knights had. The first two tell us that there is primordial life energy inside. Maybe it would have been enough collective Erdtree Amber to actually revive him. The third knight also happened to be heading in the direction of Jori, who is probably who killed him, given the Hornsents' animosity towards The Erdtree.
that makes absolute sense. while watching this video i got the idea maybe the roots got cleansed while digging their way to the shadow lands. and yeah that makes perfect sense id guess. it might also have cleansed godwyn in a way?
Nice. Thats what I always though about godwyn at Stormveil. Godrick took a piece of godwyn to graft to himself and it didnt work so he buried the piece under his castle and it grew into what we see now. Same for the death knights in SOTE - They maybe took some remembrance or peice of godwyn and it grew into what we see today.
I didn't consider that maybe it was the knights themselves that took pieces of Godwyn, mostly because it says they are searching for the pieces, but its totally possible. Maybe they had the pieces but then they were lost once the land of shadow was hidden?
@@ZayftheScholar Very possible. With so much of the godwyn story unexplained there can be so many outcomes here. Thank for the video and nice Japanese pronunciation btw. ....
I remember someone (I think it was Lokey) that talked about how the arm that Godrick holds up in the 2016 e3 announcement trailer might be Godwins, and that when he realized that it was tainted he threw it down into the depths of Stormwind, just like you said. Very cool!
I think cadaver surrogate is a surrogate in the sense that they are trying to grow something inside of them. It reminds me of how Mohg's body is effectively a cadaver surrogate for Radahn's soul. Maybe the death knights and Miquella had intentions of placing Radahn's soul into these husks. However, Miquella may have discovered that he needed a fully dead demigod corpse to resurrect Radahn, not one that is only dead in soul. This would line up with the golden epitaph sword description, which has Miquella wishing for Godwyn to "die a true death.", so that he can use Godwyn's corpse to bring back Radahn. When he realized thst wasnt possible, he changed his plans and charmed Mohg, knowing that a tarnished seeking to become elden lord would kill him.
Also, the spiked arm of the cadaver surrogate looks very similar to the arms of the basilisk enemy. It could be a coincidence, or maybe it's a reflection of the form of one of the outer gods?
I think the Erdtree is malfunctioning and can't process that only Godwyn's body is alive, so it mutates it in order to revive it, and his different bodies go through different mutations based on the environment they are in.
I was listening to someone describe The Golden Order, the Elden Ring itself, the Erdtree, etc, as kind of like computer programs with their own scripts. And Marika and crew (children, spouses) are ALL trying to rewrite and glitch out the game, haha. Taking out the Rune of Death was likened to enabling a cheat. But the thing is, messing with any of it will likely cause performance issues or bugs! When I thought about the world of the game like a game itself, it really opened my eyes and made the head-scratchy stuff make a lot more sense. Or makes it easier to accept as just irl glitches.
i absolutely agree with your conclusion that the faces grew from different parts of godwin especially because rogier refers to the one under stormveil as a relic which were often body parts of saints or other important figures to the faith.
Look into Lhutel the Headless A headless mausoleum knight brandishing the symbol of the eclipse, SHE imbues her weapon with death lightning for fights and uses the Spectral Lance ash of war, which is an occult ash. Lhutel is also seen guarding key graves, and would almost definitely have known the death knights
I believe the "Death" Lhutel enchants her spear with isn't lightning. It seems to be the same death-blight inducing Holy damage buff that the Eclipse Shotel's Skill creates. Also based on appearance ive come to assume that the Dung-Eater Puppet's, "curses", also cause death-blight and Holy damage, but i have nothing more than appearance to back this theory
The thing is the knights we fight aren't the ones who put the pieces of Godwyn there; otherwise there'd be no point of them going on a quest to find them. This feels more like the Egyptian myth of Osiris' resurrection: there his scattered body had to be recombined to come back to life. If pieces of Godwyn were lost in his murder, bits of flesh cut away as three knives dug in, they may have been carried to the Lands of Shadow by the normal tides of death (whatever it is that causes all manners of death to wash up there). His knights would then have needed to go questing to recover them. It's interesting the DLC actually gives us an explanation for the creation of death root and how Godwyn influenced the tree. Since he is Shaman through Marika, his flesh blends well with others, so as the Erdtree absorbed him so did he fuse with the tree, becoming part plant. That's how his eyes turn up on the Erdtree's roots, because they're actually his roots. And as fragments of plants can regrow into new clones, these "surrogates" in the world are accidents where those lost scraps of flesh blended with other plants and began regrowing him in other places.
I feel like the use of the unique term "Wakemi" used for both "offshoots" and "Corpse Surrogates" would indicate that they are technically the same thing. These "Corpse Surrogates" being essentially the Malenia "daughters" but for Godwyn. These are his "sons", but since he is bereft of soul, they are just corpses without the blight, and no mind. A lot of people seem to think that Godwyn being soulless means he's comatose, or a mindless zombie, but I think the fact that he'll defend Fia if she's present and attacked(up until the mending rune is formed) indicates that while without what would constitute "humanity", he is not incapable of thought. I'd say that because of the lack of soul, his "sons" have no blueprint to form in to the same being, and as such just become bodies resembling their "father". I would posit that these "sons" being referred to as "surrogates" indicates that as pieces of Godwyn, just as Millicent and her sisters are pieces of Malenia, if the main body were to be destroyed, through the roots of the erdtree, the husks would be the new hosts of deathblight and the "mind" of Godwyn.
Is not Godwyn, is only a corpse but the corpse grow something of a mind, a dead and rotten mind , is like the replicants of nier, originally empty bodies until they grow up true souls and minds for themselves
I was thinking about this too. If we accept Tarnished Archaeologist's take that people in the Lands Between are... semi-plants? It makes sense that an "offshoot" or "separated piece" of a being, especially a divine one, could continue to grow independently of the original. If we continue with the plant analogy, Godwyn's corpse might not have been fully infected with deathblight, and the three dealthblightless pieces of him might have been removed from the original corpse in an attempt to regrow Godwyn in a healthier state.
So I watched another video proposing that the "cadaver surrogate" were extra bodies that Godwyn could resurrect into if his main body were to be destroyed by the Golden Order. That's why they're isn't Death Root at those sights because Godwyn isn't actually there yet.
This makes sense, they're shunned by the Golden Order and even in the new "order" (or lack of) there's still the likes of Gurranq and D and his brother weeding it all out, so this is how they serve and ensure their master is "safe"
Maybe they aren't growing because of the deathroot, but actually, much like potatoes, they're growing and sprouting out in search of deathroot. FYI, when potatoes are away from the soil for too long they'll grow obscene roots in search of the closest nutrients.
One thing to consider about the devolution of Godwyn's corpse, it's literal devolution. The first life was aquatic and his body is reverting to that earlier archaic stage. As for why, perhaps it's due to Godwyn only retaining the older subconscious primal consciousness within his body after the higher body function were eliminated with the soul. Given demigods are magical, the body is slowly changing to match the internal reality. After all we know from Fia's quest there's enough left in Godwyn to dream and as they say in Lovecraft's works and Mass Effect 2, even a dead god's dreams have power.
it’s my assumption that fia is the surrogate of godwyn and ranni’s hallowbrands made whole, gestated within fia like a surrogate mother would. Fia is one of the tarnished who came from a distant land to the lands between, thus the death knights were probably looking for fia/ waiting for her next to the manifestations of godwyn, which likely spread through the roots of the scadutree, which are probably the same as the great tree roots
One important thing is the use of IRL tree grafting imagery/references as metaphors for parts of the story. Trees can be cloned, grafted, cross-grafted using scions (cut sprigs) and buds in a process that involves wounding and repair. The Stormveil Godwyn (called Scion of the Golden Bough - literally a twig cut from Marika/Erdtree) is a dead/failed Scion. That twig did not survive being cut, and could not be used to propogate Godwyn via cloning/graft/bud graft with Miquella's Haligtree. Probably why there are broken Miquella and Godwn statues (the ones from the Precipice of Anticipation) all around to symbolize that failure.
Before the DLC came out, my theory was that the cadaver surrogate beneath Stormveil was actually a shed skin from an earlier form of Godwyn’s metamorphosis. I also drew a tenuous connection to the real world Turritopsis dohrnii, the so called immortal jellyfish. I likened death root to the jellyfish’s polyps.
That's an amazing idea. I love the idea that its a referance to the immortal jellyfish. Itd also go along with both the "surrogate" and "severed peice" thing since it's technically a "substitute skin" and also a peice of godwyn that got taken off of him.
A tangent, but that should relate to the ghosts of children in Elden Ring being jellyfishes. Could it be that when Godwyn died, he died when he was an infant? Demigod-wise, of course. Which might be the reason he made friends with dragons. It’s fun to think about, tho.
In the south of Castle Ensis there is a tower with a grave that says something like: "The heart of the Lands Between. Where all forms of Death converge here, only to be suppressed." Maybe that's why there is no Deathroot signs in the Lands of Shadow, there have been supressed in someway
I find it very interesting that death basically means water/ocean. Some people say the dlc basically is underwater as it is in death. Which would explain the ship coffins in a way. But perhaps this could also explain why there is no death root in the dlc areas because it’s basically already dead and so in the “afterlife” death can’t spread anymore ?
Agree. Even the jellyfish in this game are all spirits. Godwyn's lower body looks like a fish. There's some lore here about death and water that we still dont fully understand.
Still water grows parasites and death a sign or stagnation. Flowing water is a sign of purity and change. Why anytime we fight death in the game the water looks gross and dirty.
The idea of the "wakemi" being pieces of Godwyn that are growing independently into new beings actually makes a lot of sense, given what we learned about Marika's shaman/miko people in the DLC. What if, like Marika, her descendants' flesh is also capable of being mashed together from multiple to for a new, singular being? It might then stand to reason that dividing the flesh of a shaman (or a shaman's direct descendant) might allow that severed flesh to take on its own form.
Ohhhh I get it. Marika is a tree. Or Numen's rather are trees. When you cut a shoot off a tree, it can grow into a full tree all on its own, and if you graft to a tree, it can support and provide nutrients to that new growth. And it seems all of Marika's children specifically retain that property. Radagon's children inherent Demi-godhood because he's part of the same tree, but he's not literally the same tree as Marika. Millicent and the Godwyn corpses are sprouts that have been cut off and been allowed to grow. And they have a desire to return or form in a way similar to the main tree. The reason why they need Godwyn's offshoot corpses, is they can't get to the main 'tree' of Godwyn, because he's underground. They're hoping that essentially a 'Milicent' of Godwyn will be enough to craft a rune for the age of duskborn. Basically they're dumb and wrong.
it's more or less why Godrick is able to do his grafting, since he is of Marika's blood he inherited the ability to combine other flesh that the shaman had
So the grandmother in the shaman village is not a carving of a woman, but perhaps literally marikas dead mother/grandmother... What if Marika IS the Erd tree? Radagon is just wearing what's left of Marika after ascending at the divine gate, as Radagon is highly hinted to be a fragment of Marika much like Saint trina to Miquella.
@@jimbo2553 Yeah my assumption is Marika had to give up her physical form to create the Erdtree. Like the one at the bottom of the Haligtree. She's seen as a motherly figure by the Land Between, which might actually literally be true in the case of erdtree rebirth. Her body being the vessel that dead souls go through to be reborn again. There are echos of Marika at the different churches though, so maybe that's untrue, OR she needed someone to carry her soul like Miquella at the final boss, or us with Melina and the Ranni Doll. Then again maybe she was never at the churches of Marika, and just had the ability to talk through her statues and stakes of Marika.
Godwyns corpse is not in the roots of the main earth tree in deeproot. If you stand in front of the body in deeproot, switch maps to upper layer and you see you are close to a minor earth tree north of lyndell. Going there on the upper map you will find a rotten minor earth tree with undead guards...
Except the Erd Tree is stupidly massive. If you've ever had the questionable pleasure of shovel duty, you'll know that roots dont just just conviniently grow downwards. And Godwyn is latching on like a Parasite
@@elseggs6504Obviously it's connected to the roots of the Erdtree, the Erdtree's roots spread all across the continent. A lot of people are assuming that Godwyn's corpse was brought to that specific location because of its position directly under the Erdtree, but @TheCheshireTree is saying that clearly isn't true.
The Golden seeds and a few other item descriptions mention that the minor erdtrees didn't exist until after the Elden Ring was shattered, because everyone thought the Erdtree would last forever and wouldn't need to reproduce. Then when Marika shattered the ring, the Erdtree felt threatened, sent seeds everywhere, and some of those grew into Minor Erdtrees. The Elden Ring didn't get shattered until after the Night of Black Knives and Godwyn died. While it's true that Godwyn's body is closer to that minor Erdtree than it is to the main Erdtree's trunk. I feel like one explanation is that if you switch between maps at the main Erdtree. There's no ground there. Just roots going down jnto the void. There is ground where we find Godwyn's body. Where Godwyn is buried is close enough to the Erdtree and has a bunch of its roots, which as pointed out are everywhere. And seem entangled with the roots of the minor erdtrees. But, like, ultimately, Godwyn has to have died before any of the minor erdtrees even existed. So he couldn't have been deliberately buried under one. If anything, maybe someone planted a minor erdtree where he was already buried.
Something interesting that no one seems to touch on is Godwyn's greater influence on the land of shadow, specifically the divine beast. The Hornsent divine beast warriors and sculpted keepers channel the divine beast when fighting. The lion dance specifically seems to be the most significant channelling ritual, with the dancing lions able to channel the greatest portion of the divine beast's power. We see with the lion in Belurat that the sculpted keepers have little to no power alone, they gain their strength through channelling. But the second lion, in Rauh, channels Deathblight and summons Basilisks. I can only conclude from this that Godwyn's influence seeems to be affecting even divine beings.
Great video, you got me thinking about Alexander the great, he was kinda a golden child, being a king's son and professional warrior at the very young age who conquered so much, yet died in his prime, not in the battle, but from a sudden illness that is rumored to be an assassination. His corpse was also used by his generals to usurp the power. Some wiki quotes: "Alexander's body was laid in a gold anthropoid sarcophagus that was filled with honey, which was in turn placed in a gold casket. more likely, the successors may have seen possession of the body as a symbol of legitimacy, since burying the prior king was a royal prerogative. Alexander had no obvious or legitimate heir, his son Alexander IV by Roxane being born after Alexander's death. According to Diodorus, Alexander's companions asked him on his deathbed to whom he bequeathed his kingdom; his laconic reply was "tôi kratistôi"-"to the strongest"." Marika is the one who started Empire, but Godwyn is the actual heir to the golden order throne and the shithole that become of the lands between happened because of his sudden death. Godfrey says that crown is warranted by strength, Godwyn is also a mighty warrior, beating and befriending one of the strongest ancient dragons, yet his alive successor Godrick is a joke. He is right when he says that he is a Lord of all that is golden, he should have rights to the throne, but his blood is weak and he got too many competitors including his family, as every king does.
Idea for the next DLC or sequel to Elden Ring: use the death rune (it is already complete with its missing fragment) into Godwyn's dead body and give him a complete/true death and he returns as a chieftain called Godwyn king of those who Live in death.
@@axemiprozam6977his body is still alive it’s his soul that’s dead. It’s not possible for him to come back. Otherwise Miquella wouldn’t have failed to bring him back
It feels like his body is trying to transform into the death basilisks, those big eyed things you in catacombs. The webbed features, sharp lamprey like teeth, the webbed spines. These are all features of those creatures
I find it to be more like his body is trying to transform into a type of sea-creature. Sharp Teeth, Webbed Spines/Feet, or the slits for eyes. Or at least I Think the way they handled Godwyn has a correlation with the sea, which in Japanese mythology, there's a pretty big correlation with the Sea and Immortality. i dunno what all they're gonna do with him, but from should dive into his lore in a possible future dlc.
One thing that could be cool for a new DLC would be a Godwin focused one. Just to tie it all back, the way I would do it is this: Godwin’s soul is looking to reunite with his body. His followers take a piece of his body to a crucible to reform it. After some bosses, we reach the head and are transported back to the Night of Black Knives and fight a boss there. When we return, Godwin reunited with his fish body has gone crazy and want to spread death through all life to return to the great sea beyond death (in reality is an outer god). We fight Godwin in his fish body and slay him, finally granting the death he craves. “Ah, death. At long last. Such sweet release”
A Godwyn DLC would be amazing, and I honestly believe it must be in the works. They wouldn't be giving us so many breadcrumbs spread across the entire base game and dlc if they weren't planning to di something with it. He's absolutely as key to the lore as Miquella, if not more. Also, I ABSOLUTELY agree that the fish influences are coming from an outer god. I think it saw the soulless vessel of a demigod (I would argue an Empyrean) and was like "It's free real estate"
I think there’s a strong resemblance between the aquatic Godwyn corpses’ eye slits and the flesh Marika pulled the golden threads from in the DLC trailer
Body surogate to me is that the Erdtree burial copies his corpses over and over again without finding a soul (which is dead) with it, like a bug or an AI that tries to replicate a human but without getting it right and start over and over again.
I really enjoy Elden ring and Dark Souls lore because it's like an archeology dig site. We get little pieces and glimpses into a lost civilization or history, one that isn't wholely preserved. And as we dig deeper and wider. We learn more and more and there's things that were half truth that are now full truths and or have deeper meaning. Love it. I want more.
id call it a love-hate-relationship. i already know we will never get a full picture of everything no matter how much we dig. and thats whats pissing me off like crazy xD
If, by that point, they were intentionally preparing for the Age of Duskborn, his body may have been transplanted further to create more of Those Who Live in Death.
Not gonna lie I felt the same way, and with how the story and DLC feel. I wouldn’t be surprised or upset if we keep going back in time to earlier periods. Like what if after Elden ring 2 (and it’s DLC) and a possible 3rd installment we finally realize we’re playing the story in a backwards timeline from the end to the beginning of the greater will showing up. I think that be most interesting the 3rd game would be earliest timeline wise and the current game would be the present time
I took the closed eyes and lack of death root to mean that he had newly spread there. He's described as being like a plant, and if you've cared for perennial plants, you see that over time your plants will spread but their new growth is always less impressive than the old growth. I assume that, once the eyes are open (a common theme in ER), he'll start growing death root. I think that we see his bits growing around corpse laiden areas because, like all plants, they tend to spread where they can flourish.
@@feshpince7181 it could be that they just haven't grown in yet. It's a metaphorical "closed eye" that ER goes for, sometimes the eye is closed, sometimes they're blind, sometimes they're sealed, sometimes they're just gone, but in the end, a wide, open eye means full control, and the lack thereof indicates a loss of control or power.
Yo i just gotta say props on not only your first sponsor but a goid choice of sponsor. I cant speak for the quality but that was the first time i was actually interested in the product being pushed and didnt just skip right past. Also love the lore vids i am a huge souls fan and although i get my plat trophys and do multiple play through i rarely go through every item description and npc interaction to make these connections. I do however really enjoy learning more about all the deep stories woven into these games so ty please keep doing what your doing!
Great video! Have you ever thought about making video talking about the possible pieces of land from the shadowlands and the lands between? Cause if you put the map for the dlc on top of the main game map you can see where the shadowlands used to located before they were separated. Like where exactly was farum azula before it was in the sky? Where was the eternal city of the nox’s located before they were put underground? Where was enir ilim before the separation? All these sounds like they would make great future videos to talk about to bring out more thoughts and theories on the lore of elden ring. Just a thought. W
There are thorny vines all over Stormveil and they spread out from the corpse underneath, it's the same kind that show up in locations with Deathroot. They are so invasive that parts of the walls are collapsing and being filled with them. It may be that the Deathroot itself hasnt quite sprouted yet but the carrier of the deathroot has already spread.
Two speculations: 1. Godwyn is spreading his death root so aggressively because he's looking for his missing body parts. Kind of like a Headless Horseman situation. 2. The cadavers might be called "surrogates" because they may be more than just body parts at this point. If we think of deathroot as a one giant system connected to Godwyn, then his separated pieces might start growing independently and eventually mature into something completely different (an offshoot like Milicent). Different physiological features (tentacles, spiky arms) somewhat indicate that already.
My impression of the body beneath Stormveil is that it was the site of his murder, and the formation is like an echo of the event, and that Godrick went to Stormveil because of the growth's presence there in the hopes of grafting himself with a piece of Godwyn to make himself more powerful in connection with the Golden Lineage
This is an absolutely great find. When I first heard “Cadaver Surrogate,” i got the impression that they were looking for Godwyn’s replacement of sorts. With the connection that you found, my initial impression seems to be correct in that you could say they are looking for his “offshoot.” Those spikes on his arms look like underdeveloped fins. Godwyn’s aquatic chimeric mutation is truly baffling. They can’t just leave this open ended. Also, his soul is “dead” but his body is still alive. I wonder what the implications of this is; does this mean he still has a subconsciousness? Souls in Demon Souls/Dark Souls offer lucidity but the bodies can function instinctively without souls, and that seems to be what’s going on with Godwyn. Souls in those games seem to be independent of the person, except in the cases of ghosts which doesn’t seem possible in Souls lore and always seemed like a plot hole. So is Elden Ring working on similar logic or are they going by the more standard religious view of souls?
I’m thinking since the grandem said all of marika’s children would be cursed, I wonder if the death’s blight wasn’t a byproduct of ranni’s plot, but rather something godwyn was cursed with from the get go. After all, there’s a death blight affinity divine beast in the Rauh Ruins
It's possible parts of Godwyn were severed from his body at the time of his death. Two made it to the Land of Shadow and one ended up below Stormviel (possibly taken there by Godrick to try to graft on to himself). These pieces then grew into the forms we find them in.
I heard a really interesting theory once that We are actually Godwyn’s hidden twin. All of Marika’s kids seem to come in pairs, with opposing curses, and since Godwyn’s curse was “Undeath” which didn’t activate until he was “Dead”, it would make sense for his Twin’s curse to be “Life”. Not only is it clear from in game dialogue that normally Grace doesn’t make you as immortal as we seem to be, but tarnished dying happens all the time and usually sticks. People remark on it as a fear. And yet our deaths are canon, as is our apparent deathlessness. This would also explain why other people that come into direct contact with Godwyn’s faces get killed and turned undead, or just messed up beyond repair (Rogier), and yet we can walk all over his gross faces and Godwyn doesn’t even seem to care. He’s totally fine with us. Likewise, unlike all the other “Tarnished” that grace returns to, we aren’t a corpse on the opening, our body isn’t even decayed. If anything we just look asleep. But “Life” eternal is supposed to be Marika’s thing, so it’s possible we were seen as a dirty little secret, and hence was put somewhere as a back up measure incase we were needed. Somewhere like a Chapel of “Anticipation”.
Interesting theory for sure but I have to disagree on the "twins/in pairs" part. They are 2 sets of three and one set of four. There can't be a twin for each, because one will always be left over except for Miquella, Malenia, Messmer and Melina ofc. Their opposites are quite obvious. But even then, Only Miquella and Malenia are confirmed twins, while Radahn, Ranni and Rykard are not even implied to be twins or triplets at all
@@TeatimeToad Messmer/GloamEyedQueen, Godwyn/??????, Morgott/Mohg, Radahn/Rykard, Ranni/The unborn egg (hence why Rennala is talking to it like it’s her, it’s her twin), and Miquella/Malaenia. If the theory holds true. Melina is likely an offshoot of the Gloam Eyed Queen, similar to how Millicent is to Malaenia. Hence why they both wear the traveler garb, just like ALL of the offshoots.
@ZhongliArchonofSwag 1. Nothing implies Radahn and Rykard to be twins or even be connected. Hell, Ranni is more connected to each of them then they are to each other, so that's just straight up not true. 2. There is no proof that there is a demigod???? In the Umbral egg, the main theory is that Rannis Rune might be hidden there but nothing implies it's a demigod. 3. Melina is connected to the gloan eyes queen, yes, but more evidently is a Marika Radagon child, with Her and Messmer being confirmed Siblings. Your "connection via twins" hold no weight and those points are just huge, unconfirmed stretches with no proof that you treat as fact. As I said, I get what the theory is implying but most of these connections are just straight up not true
@@TeatimeToad Actually I believe that Radahn is the only one whose portrait is hung in Volcano manor, with neither Renalla nor Ranni’s portraits being found there. Likewise that’s just the theory that suggested that. My argument would be that Radagons children not being Demigods until he was re-assimilated back into Marika may have also meant that they bypassed whatever trend Marika had going on. None of those three had curses either, as the main children all did. At least that we know. And I always heard Ranni’s rune is in the moon…? You can see it up there, if you look. Messmer and Melina are not confirmed siblings. Messmer’s sister had a “vision of flame” and Melina is indeed an offshoot of that same girl that would have had that vision, and like Milicent would have had a watered down version of that same curse. As an aside how is Ranni especially connected to Rykard? Aside from them both committing blasphemy and falling on the Fingers hit list, (and thus being swamped in the hand spiders) I don’t think they have much tying them directly.
@@Neuviletteiudexofmemes Ranni tasked Rykard with the duty to fight maliketh for her in case the black knife plot didn't work. She placed a huge amount of trust to Pre Serpent Rykard. There are multiple things linking Ranni and Rykard while Radahns only connection to Ranni is the holding of the Stars, and to Rykard the only connection is the Painting
The lamprey teeth makes me think of that one Zullie video where she points out that the fingerprint things(pustules or something?) "cause something to wriggle within" and there's a theory that the lamprey things are basically chest bursters.
It makes sense that deathroot is specifically the result of the erdtree trying and failing to rebirth godwyn, he's essentially a glitch in the erdtree system. Instead of being reborn, the erdtree is just endlessly replicating his cells, which is spreading deathroot everywhere the erdtree touches. As for the spikes on the surrogate's arm, those are exactly what fish bones look like on a rotting corpse, so i think its just adding to the motif that he's become a rotting aquatic creature. Rot is probably the largest theme in elden ring, with all the motifs about bodies, fungus, and mold. Stagnant water is associated with curses, as before germ theory existed, people knew that stagnant water, especially with dead bodies in it, carried disease. Godwyn, in half dying and spreading through the erdtree, has become the greatest curse of all.
What do you mean there's no death root in stormveil? The knights have throns in their armor and shields, the walls are crumbling from thron damage, thorns have infested the walls, nestling themselves in old damage in the walls making the holes bigger like a festering disease. Stormveil is definitely affected and afflicted by the death root.
@@dtr0q10 yeah, that's why i mentioned armor, shields and the walls. those are the places i noticed it. I find it weird how he said what he said in the video tho
He mentions that Stormveil was designed and finished early on in development so perhaps "deathblight" was only a mechanic at the time and the thorns were the original blight's appearance. Only after the deathblight was fleshed out and expanded on did they move towards the maggot-and-fly-wing aesthetic and going back to completely remodel the castle was too tall an order. Alternative: If we presume the offshoots develop independently of the main body this COULD be deathblight, but another variant of it.
I’d like to point out that Stormveil does have deathroot. The walls of the South are being eaten away by thorny tendrils, as are the exile knights. These are death root
@AuUntaris Thorns are creeping up on Rogier and D's corpse. It's associated with deathblight. You could insinuate that The Guilty thorns and deathblight are of a similar nature.
@@Garl_Vinland are they the same kind of thorns? I remember looking at them and concluding they are not, but it's been a while. I think they look similar at a glance but the design is quite different when you look.
I love the idea that Godrick took a part of Godwyn's body with the intent of grafting it to himself and once the body part mutated, burried it deep under the castle instead.
That arm is nearly identical to the arm of a basilisk. Basilisks also share the same eyes (the false growth eyes atop their heads), and are also carriers of Death. It might not be a stretch to say that basilisks developed those false eyes *because* of Death. Their teeth aren't too dissimilar, either. But the fact these arms are closer to that of a basilisk might be suggesting a "progression" of sorts. Of course, they could have just used the basilisks asset and upscaled it, but then they could've just used a copy of Godwyn's arm itself.
The Ancient Dragonbolt Pot describes the 'residual power of relics' as 'a purely natural phenomenon.' By taking pieces of Godwyn's corpse (which are relics of Death itself) and laying them to rest at the deepest roots of the Scadutree, the Death Knights will spread Godwyn's influence and eventually ensure the Age of the Duskborn. After all, Death is like a flash of lightning in a storm: entirely natural.
Elden Ring 2 where Godwyn is the main antagonist and you fight all the Outer Gods would actually be pretty sick. They could go full lovecraftian like Bloodborne.
To me, the thing I love most about the different cadavers is that it seems to be building up to a conflict/story post-game. I'm not implying we're getting a sequel; just that the seeds of further plots are being sewn for next age in this universe. Will the cadavers be against one-another, or be a unified force? How would they react if theres an age of duskborn, or not? Too often, stories end with every loose end tied nicely, and thats just not how things work. This really adds to the feeling that this world is a real one, and will continue on past our player's story.
you make a note of the lack of deathroot around the Kadaver Surrogates, but I feel there's one flaw with your theory and that is the presence of Rogier becoming victim to deathblight in Stormveil, as we can see from his bloodstain next to the Surrogate.
I wonder if the aquatic transformations Godwyn's body is undergoing are maybe related to the idea of death washing up in the land of shadow. Maybe it's a metaphor that to never wash up on the shore is to stay in the 'ocean' of death, therefore Godwyn's body resembles that. I doubt there's a real connection with the ocean and death, but the wordplay feels weirdly connected.
heres my take: Godwyn was Miquella's first attempt at a lord, before Radahn. the black knives plot was meant to kill Godwyn to send him to the shadowlands, ranni tampered with the plot making it not work fully. "lord brother" is what Miquella calls Radahn, but also Godwyn in the Golden Epitaph. Miquella wanted Godwyn to die to be his lord, same as Radahn. When the plot failed Miquella tried to grant a true death to Godwyn through the Golden Epitaph, when that failed he tried to rebirth Godwyn's soul through the Eclipse, when all else failed he turned to his second option, Radahn. i believe the "cadaver surrogates" are just that, death replacements. I think Godwyn, perhaps subconciously but perhaps theres still SOMETHING of him in there, is still fighting against the Death, and is gathering corpses to make enough "death replacments" to be reborn, or perhaps each cadaver surrogate would be given life in the duskborn ending. also unrelated to Miquella but I believe all deathroot in the world (the mounds of corpses with eyes) have the possibility to grow large enough to become a cadaver surrogate and Godefroy likely transported the original piece that grew unto the corpse in stormveil, using it to experiment an create Grafting, likely being the reason he's locked in the evergaol despite being Golden Lineage. I also believe the "deathroot" items we get in game were original pieces of Godwyn still brimming with the power of the Rune of Death, perhaps the pieces carved out of his back in the cutscene.
It could even be like how a dead animals meat will twitch with muscle out of reaction or instinct right after death even though it’s already dead. Weird comparison but just a theory
I think the old finger crones were trying to replace Marika, with Ranni and have Godwyn as her lord. Ranni was aware of Miquella's goals, and basically tried to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, which was to take herself out of the picture and open the way for Miquella. In the end, when Marika and Miquella's plan failed, we become Marika's backup plan. Marika's Grace changes itself, after we get our hands on the ring, pointing us towards Ranni.
As you said, the word "Wakemi" (I dont speak Japanese, so i dont know if im saying nonsense rn) was also used by Millicent, so what if it had the same meaning here? like, What if after/some time Godwyn's soul died it created some sort of offspring (the Cadaver Surrogate) just like Malenia created Millicent and her sisters! And if the tarnished does the "age of the duskborn" ending, theese offspring "corpses" asceend to become something similar to what Millicent and her sisters would become if Malenia became The goddes of rot, like some sort of death angels that would assist Godwyn and be his new bodyguards? (Also, im sorry for any grammar errors, english is my second language)
You are right! They didn't guard Godwyn. The knights had one job... I never noticed how the "two centipede" symbol at the 4:09 mark parallels the ouroboros symbol With the cannibalistic themes throughout Soulsborne, I would think deathroot spreads from creatures eating Godwyn's corpses or eating plants that have grown in the soil next to him. By "consuming" Godwyn's corpse, the plants "house" the principal of death within them. Like jars. I really think of the "Talisman of Lord's Bestowal" and why would Godfrey need to act "stoically" when accepting the Erdtree sap? The sap is made out of the corpses of his fallen soliders, from the process of Erdtree Burial. Godfrey is symbolically "consuming/cannibalising" his own men under the orders of the Erdtree. I looked up the etymology of "surrogate" and have ideas, but my comments can be long winded 😅😂. Nice video👍 very informative
This actually points me towards the process of propagating plants from cuttings, like pothos. A separated piece of a plant can be coaxed into growing new roots and forming into an entirely new plant… maybe a cutting from Godwyn’s body regenerates the rest of a body first, and then only starts putting off new deathroot once it’s fully developed?
Great video. Perhaps the pieces of Godwyn stopped growing after the veil was cast? Another thing about Godwyn's story that bugs me, is that he has his own religion/Order...he still has faithful followers with no one (that we know of) leading them. Surely, he recruited these people while he was still alive? Which leads me to believe he worked with Ranni, she would bounce to the stars leaving him to literally become a part of the earth...let me know how crazy this is 👌
my take on the distribution of death root is biological: Godwyn's death root is reminiscent of Lichen and i think the roots were placed strategically to hold the landmasses together; why were they separated? meteoric impact and possible tectonic plate shift - i also suspect a magnetic axis shift occurred between East and West axis but that's for another day. Lichen are a tri-body being, according to latest finds it's a life form comprised of three, fungi, yeast and algae. Lichen can live without taking root, e.g. need for soil; Lichen can hold mountains together and live in the cracks and veins of stones, where they can also combust, i read Mt Rushmore needs to be de-Lichen's regularly or it'll crumble. so surrogate bodies were there before, post "Night of the Death Knives" impact (a night that features earthly ritual magic rites and chance {?} cosmic events coinciding) the roots were distributed to assure the lands-between don't drift apart. maybe a "death root" is seeded whenever the earth got "poked"⚡ with a 'destination' death rune. as for the why of all this i am still cooking, 50% of my head cannon is people just explained natural disasters away with myth and people did magic shit that coincided with cosmic shit that lead to atomic reactions that exSeeded hexpectations, like they wanted to kill Godwyn but more happened than anticipated/planned.
p.s. i also think BKA had Godwyn taken to Underground for the kill, a space switch like Ordina Gaol; in the "Gaol realm", the BKA are invisible without Sentry torch.
I was actually looking at the main body of Godwyn in Deeproot while watching this video, and on his right upper arm there are those "strange spikes" you point out, which I believe are actually aquatic fins (fittingly), so I think they are meant to be the same thing in the surrogate cadavers/separated corpses. Great video by the way, this was fantastic and I appreciate the translations a lot! Many people wanted Godwyn to be far more central to the narrative of Shadow of the Erdtree and its main plotline, but I'm honestly happy with what we got and glad they took the time to expound upon his lore a fair bit and delineate what was going on with these surrogate cadavers, even if the translation perhaps created an unnecessary layer of vagueness to the already highly ambiguous style of storytelling that pervades Elden Ring. Videos like this help a lot to elucidate things, so thanks again and well done!
It seems to me that their is an association between the tibia mariners and these offshoots/godwyn. The tibia mariners of course representing Charon and his boat who guides souls across the River Styx. But what happens when one cannot fully cross. What happens when the body remains to fester in the water. I believe that these offshoots are the result. Corpses that have adapted to their new aquatic environment.
Godwyn’s body has always reminded me of a Great One from Bloodborne, Aquatic and able to exist on multiple planes of reality, I’ve heard a theory some of the endings to Elden Ring lead to Fromsofts other games, Frenzied flame being Dark Souls, Age of the Stars being Bloodborne, Duskborn being Demon souls, if you played those games I’m sure the theory has started to make sense, maybe it’s related to that.
I really don't like this "all From games are in the same universe" stuff. Everybody seems to want all media to be one big amorphous blob. Just let things stand on their own
I wonder if the reason deathroot doesn't spread in the Lands of Shadows is because of what the Suppressing Pillar tells us. That all manner of death washes down there only to be suppressed. Maybe something to do with the nature of the Lands of Shadows just doesn't allow Godwin's fragments to spread as much as they did in the Lands Between. Another thing to could lead to that is that, unlike the Erdtree, the Scadutree is dying. It's not spreading much, it's just decaying, so the roots themselves wouldn't carry, let's call it, "life essence" from corpses to feed itself as much as a brilliant, mature tree would. If Godwin's deathroot does indeed spread via roots, it makes sense that a still aging tree would help it spread. It parallels well with what Count Ymir tells us about how diseased the world is at its roots and to fix it, you'd need to uproot it and plant anew. The Erdtree (and the Elden Ring by association) carries Marika's and past Lords mistakes and sins as long as it exists. Godwyn is one of them and would only stop spreading if the Erdtree would be removed in its entirety, cutting the main source of "nutriments" to the corpse and therefore, isolating it to never infect anything ever again in the case that it is completely undying.
The DLC is so weirdly disconnected from the base game that I hesitate to go further than consider its lore inspired by the original. It's a different place with different rules. I can only take the death knight lore at face value: that they thought they could serve their master by spreading him through the shadow tree, but it lacks the life force to form deathroot. We do get some living dead here though, on the plateau south of the hinterlands.
because the DLC takes place in between the events of the main game, it's like the ranni quest but instead of being part of the main ending it's a side quest, there's a reason why Ansbach say before dying that you become the new elden lord despite already beating the main game, Godwyn is dead in the current events of the story.
@@chito2701 Yeah, a side quest with almost no implications for the main game. It likely had to be this way to avoid having to retcon any parts of the already convoluted story.
Godwyn being in the dlc also serves as a timeline reference, I believe Godwyn is used a timeline reference often, if that's the case, the Realm of Shadow would've been sealed soon before the shattering, and also Farum Azula would disconnect after his death
quoting this explanation from "ninhongojouzodesune". wakemi isn't a novel word made up by miyazaki and fromsoft, it's a common word in japanese fantasy. A "bunshin" or "wakemi" is a common thing in Japanese fiction. The person is referred to as the "hontai" ("main body") while a bunshin ("split body") is an extension of their being which has a separate body. There's a wide range of what these actually are: Ninja "bunshin" are illusions used to trick enemies, while sorcerers and such can make actual copies of themselves, and gods can make bunshin that are completely independent (the main character turning out to be a "bunshin" of the evil final boss villain, for example). It can also be used as a metaphor (someone who really loves their car could call it their bunshin) tl;dr It's a thing that's a separate thing from the person yet is still the same person.
A good translation for Wakemi would actually be an Aspect, in the same vein as Bolverk is an Aspect of Odin, or better yet, Alduin is an Wakemi of Akatosh, this concept is pretty Common in norse mythology, or even yet, an Emanation, emanation is a really common concept in theology that everyone sort of knows intuitively what it is but nobody can really point to a definition
Godwin's corpse is like a mushroom spreading through the roots of the tree, maybe with the help of pieces of his body. The dlc is disconnected from the main body so maybe this can help us date when maria veiled the dlc : after Godwin's death
I think Miquella was talking to Godwyn in that memory, I think Radahn was plan B. Also for some reason i feel like Miquellas extra spectral arms in the final fight have something to do with Godwyn...
I mean he was called Godwyn the golden, perhaps Miquella wanted to imitate him. Would make sense as he was the perfect older Brother without a cursed Body and an adult, which miquella did want to achieve (among other things)
My opinion is that Godwyn was Plan A not in place of Radahn, but of Mohg. He wanted to put Radahn in Godwyn's body after giving them both a true death, but when the eclipse didn't work and Godwyn remained half-dead he sort to use Mohg's body instead as he's his full-blooded brother.
It could be possible that these cadavers were people who once were really close to Godwyn. We often say that when someone are so close to us, they are a part of us. Just as Millicent is really close to Malenia, the wakemi of Godwyn could be his maiden, a consort or even offspring. This is speculation but there is nothing in the lore that would contradict this for now. Then, in the lands between, instead of death, people would return to the erdtree roots and continue the cycle of life, this might be the reason why some of the cadavers are found in the catacombs, and now the knights duty is to protect Godwyn’s wakemi since they failed to protect him. It could be hard to argue that the cadavers are pieces of Godwyn’s body because they would be growing death roots like he does, and assuming that these cadavers are of people close to Godwyn we could explain why there are multiple with full bodies and suffer a similar but not the exact fate of Godwyn. Wakemi could be a word for a kind of close or familiar relationship to the demigods, and if the word was translated to surrogate maybe the cadavers are people impregnated with the seed of Godwyn?
Always feels good to see a video/post about Godwyn that's not filled with some weird "we deserve a Godwyn fight" entitlement. I vibe with your content a lot, it's great keep it up !
@@GristlyRook9605 imo we deserve nothing. We play as a good for nothing nameless tarnished, feeling powerless, at loss for words, with questions, is absolutely the way it should go and the way jt has since demon souls or even King's Field
In all honesty, reviving godwyn in any way fucks the lore entirely. It would completely destroy the concept of destined death. Maliketh and Ranni would both be taken down as well. So no, It's good we didn't get a Godwynn fight.
@@codsamy23 no we asked for penetrator armor in demon souls and they gave it and sure my tarnished may be a maidenless wretch but I am not and paid 100$ on this game so far and for another dlc with godwyn I would pay another 60
@@TeatimeToad you would put another soul in Godwyns body this letting us and giving us a reason to fight godwyns husk we know it can be done because of sote
Regarding "offshoot" look up the horticulture term "cutting" as in "Propogation by cutting". It can be illegal to steal pieces of very rare or valuable plants from someone. The stolen pieces do not always produce an identical plant as expected. So much depends on the soil and other conditions (even the presence of disease).
I didn't expect much of Godwyn in the DLC at first. Because he was super dead. His death is a tragic event that cannot be undone even by Marika or anyone else and why the story happen so having him coming back in any form would just ruin the main game story. But having a bit more of him in the DLC was a quite refreshing. Those death knight died themself so they could serve their master in death, like the headless knights that protect the wandering mausoleum. I only think it is just simple that Godwyn influence also reached Land of Shadow and they are just protecting the part that has grown the most. I always on the assumption that the deathroot is a cancer of the land between, it will keep spreading everywhere, even to Farum and of course to the Shadow Lands. The only way to stop it is to evolve him into the full curse mark with Fia quest. But the lack of actual "deathroot" around his corpse is still a strange part.
Duskborn Dlc confirmed, these knights were just teasers for the next expansion, Duskborn, Revival Of Godwyn, it’ll be perfect for expanding on Deathblight weapons and skills
Godwyn's body should've been the final boss, not Radahn. Miyazaki could've easily written lore that would accommodate the idea of his body going out of control cos of a failed Eclipse.
With several such detailed, unused bodyparts of Godwyn, it really makes me think we we're robbed of a really sick bossfight..! I need another DLC I think
My thought was that Godrick took the relic for the sake of grafting. not the visage itself of course but to learn of a way to make dead body parts live again, which makes sense considering Godwyn´s deathblight brought for Those Who Live in Death. Considering the Scions and himself it´s clear he succeeded. But that´s just speculation on my part since there´s also the other grafted dude who´s name spelling i can never remember
It seems that the Death Knights took a part of Godwyn's body and brought them to different catacombs to grow them until the age of duskborn begins, effectively giving Godwyn immediate influence in different places, including the realm of shadow. Maybe once the age of the duskborn begins, all of the "surrogates" will also awaken, creating deathroot of their own. It's strange though because the item description says "they quested to find their transfigured master's cadaver surrogate," but a more accurate wording would be "they quested to CREATE their transfigured master's surrogateS." This would mean the Death Knights are doing the exact same thing Godrick did, but Godrick did it by accident because he wanted to graft a part of Godwyn, and they're doing it on purpose because they want to use the parts of Godwyn to create more Godwyns.
The spread of deathroot may be caused by the lingering effects of the rune of death. As such the true body being the one that was exposed to it is the only one with the effect. Also, perhaps the timeline was inverted, he was placed at the base of the tree and when they noticed the effects of the deathroot spreading they carved off some currently uninfected parts to be brought elsewhere. This could also explain the concept of surrogacy as perhaps it would have been better for Fia to lay with the new body grown from the uninfected flesh rather than the tainted original.
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they could be used as Mediums for him to be present anywhere at any given moment once Fia brings him back. Kind of like the Parasite Eve, or more modern day warframe using transference to possess any cadaver at any given time.
"Severed pieces" may be a better term 🤔
Can i just ask one thing? Why did you guys want Godwyn so bad? I have studied the lore over and over and even though it seems like it m the eclipse was referencing Godwyn of you go back over it with the new information from the DLC is clear that the root of the true death was actually referring to Radahn and his state if undead with the rot and his mind gone and being unable to kill him themselves. We also got a full Godwyn storyline, they only question truly left unanswered was well none. He was chosen because he was the pinnacle of everything that is the Golden Order even despite not being labeled the strongest Demigod. We also got an entire Godwyn storyline as well as an ending through Fia. Yes, it absolutely would have been awesome to kill him since we kill literally every single one of her other children not outside of that like we got everything for him. So why the powerful obsession? And it's not just you by any means i mean the community as whole is obsessed with him and i just don't understand why. I feel like everyone's not looking at what's right in their face and it's the best nature of Elden Ring that makes it hard to see things when they're right in front of us but sometimes the answers are very simple in the lore. Sometimes somebody just got killed because they lost or got smoked in the night, cough cough. Know what i mean?
14:14 there is actually a type of fish that attached itself to things like whales and sharks that has teeth like this. i latches on with suction and the teeth dig into the flesh insuring it doesnt let go. the name is something like Remora
@@TheMundaneFlowerthat clarifies what it is, but not why it is... It is in fact invisible to the player view, so maybe it was in progress of the dlc as new boss model but then was cut before finishing and that arm was fore some attacks. The Unfinished model found it's place there... Doesn't make much sense to spend work into remodeling and then hiding it from any possible player experience
Crazy theory: what if Godrick was planning on grafting a piece of Godwyn onto himself but decided against it after seeing what he became and that's why the corpse is buried under Stormveil because Godrick tossed him there when he decided not to graft him?
???? That's fascinating if you came up with that.
I was actually thinking the exact same thing.
That would also beg the question of just how long did it take for Godwyn's body parts to start showing deathroot signs(Symptoms?)
My thoughts too, I don’t think it would beneath Godrick to try to graft the piece regardless of the state it was in though, he was pretty down bad
that makes sense wow
They first buried Godwyn at the Erdtree's roots. But when they saw that it caused deathroot, they built the wandering mausoleums so that the other dead gods wouldn't cause similar problems.
Godrick probably stole the piece before they buried Godwyn.
Maybe he learned of deathroot before he started grafting with it, and that convinced him not to.
I am convinced that Godwins followers were literall gamers starved for more of his lore.
We are all Death Knights in that sense. 💀
@@ZayftheScholar At last... our prayers were lacking...😢
the lore is so meta
Most dedicated lore hunters
They're all the Faith builds that were complaining that they didn't get any lightning weapons in the base game.
His body is separated into Holy relics just as the remains of our Saints are Holy. Godrick robbing the capital is like a bishop robbing the Vatican.
Wanted to say the same.
Furta Sacra
Heresy is but a contrivance
I think he stole Godwyn's great rune. He's outright called cowardly and it seems well within his character to do so. I could be wrong but aren't all the other runes possessed by Mar-agon's children? Godrick is of distant lineage and is desperate to prove his lordhood, what better way than to have a sacred rune bestowed only upon the god's direct descendants, and how easy would it be to take from a dead man? But that rune came with a price.
It's also what they do in many buddhist cultures (Japanese included). Relics - usually ashes -of venerable monks were used to consecrate stupas/Pagodas. The ashes were usually divided amongst the monk's disciples for this purpose and would be used in multiple stupa.
The Japanese text and Rogiers description as "relic" fits the cultural context of the writers.
Don't forget the blood stain in Stormveil Castle that shows Rogier being struck with deathroot next to Godwyn's face. We may not find collectible deathroot near Godwyn's faces, but Rogier's infliction shows us deathroot is indeed present.
That is a good point, but that could also be said about literally every inch of the map though. Since deathblight can be proced anywhere.
Id say it's moreso shows that those things are alive and have actual power to do stuff around them. Causing deathblight buildup in some way. Going towards the whole millicent relation. Being a sort of offshoot, "child" of godwyn via a severed peice. Having some powers of death as well.
@@fireking0531 yeah, I don't think so though. This is the only instance of a bloodstain revealing an NPC that's been inflicted by deathblight in the game. I think that makes this much more significant, lorewise.
On the topic of Rogier, what or who even attacked him to begin with? I don't recall encountering anything that spewed deathroot down by the Stormveil castle face. And the face itself doesn't seem to react to anything the Tarnished does in a hostile or defensive manner, despite hit splatters occurring when it's struck.
There is a pustule talisman at that spot too I believe....
Also the Marred Shields of the Exile Soldiers which have deathroot on them
Godwyns aquatic form makes some sense to me if you consider the implications of the Uhl lore. For a long time, I was trying to sort out why Gideon calls Mogh’s dynasty a “revival” and why it’s constantly being reffered as “new” meaning he wasn’t the founder. The ancient dynasty stuff have a heavy theme of water or the ocean because they are built on top of the Ainsel/Siofra rivers which we can only enter from “Wells”. Not to mention the claymen who use bubble sorceries and harpoons. You get the idea. He builds his dynasty on top of the Uld so I was trying to see what I could find. What’s interesting is that the ruins are built on top of the Ainsel/Siofra Rivers that are described to originate where Godwyn is found, conviently in the Greatree Roots as well. I also found it interesting that apart from the Elden Beast, Godwyn is closest thing to a water deity in this game and I started to play with the idea that the Uhl king or whatever could be what Godwyn is morphing into. We know the Uhl Statues always depict a bald figure with a giant beard with some intricate stonework focused on a few places, suggesting something else mixed with the hair. Well, if you look close at the Prince of Death under the Erdtree, Godwyn’s merman form is actually bald(his head tilted to the side) and the blonde hair he inherited from Marika grow under his face suggesting a beard with the tendrils mixed with the hair. He’s also just as skinny. The only exception is the legs but strangely almost all of these statues are purposely cut in half, from the torso. It fits together more when you have many instances in this game where Godwyn is a source of water(Stormveil Husk and the Story Trailer) Going back to Mogh, it’s curious that he calls his dynasty “Moghwyn” which plays with the naming convention after “Godwyn” or maybe the Godwyn Dynasty.
A good, crazy theory. Commenting so I can come back and see other people's opinions on this!
Interesting observation about the dynastic revival. Although I do think it holds some water (haha) to consider Godwyn potentially ruling the waters while Godfrey ruled the land, (and the dlc emphasised the distinction of being landbound or able to fly) perhaps the dynasty it refers to is about one of those old civilisations sealed away. There's the "god of rot" associated with the lake of rot and I highly suspect a "god of silver" was also there, associated with the 'silver dewdrop' where the mimics come from. Both the rot and the silver seem to be primarily liquid, similar to Mohg/Formless Mother's accursed blood and their lake of blood. Mohg had an affinity for the blood since his childhood, if that were different maybe he would've revived a dynasty of rot or silver. What bothers me is not knowing if those carved tablets were made there long ago or if Mohg brought them to bolster his dynastic larp... And those statues you mentioned also still puzzle me to no end
you are literally one of the only people ive ever seen also catch the mohgwyn thing. i think this points to mohg being the first born twin , morgott the second , and godwyn is the youngest child of them all. Unless im wrong , i think we can speculate that he was literally , the "golden boy" you know the type. the baby of the family, the asshole shit head who can do whatever they want without consequence. idk man when i start to think of this as a real family it makes alot more sense. godwyn got it all , the right to rule by 'birthright' because marika wanted to pretend her other children didnt exist. the cloests thing we have to relate to is rape babies. the omen twins were born of unwanted desires , and its probably pretty ahrd to even look at them. i think the way mohg was even able to be used by other outter gods was this denial of motherly love. it wasnt their fault they were born with the same 'affliction' as the people who harmed her, it wasnt their fault they were born of a terrible act. and the wanting to call himself mohgwyn i think is proof of this dynamic
I'm inclined to believe that the aquatic theme comes from Death being associated with water and rivers. This is supported by the Tibia Mariners, who are described as ancient in the Tibia cookbook, meaning that they may be as old as death birds. Further evidence of this from the DLC specifically is a form of giant coffin water burial as seen in Charo's Hidden Grave, the Cerulean Coast, and the Fissure
@@aristobrat4987on the omen thing, it’s even deeper than just unwanted desires manifesting. It’s like the Greater Will forced Mogh and Morgott to be born with crucible attributes as almost a forced reminder of Marika’s original sin and betrayal of The Hornsent in retaliation to her people being Jarred up.
The fact that they used the same word for "offshoot" to describe the cadavers seems really interesting to me after you consider that these death knights are basically planting and growing new Godwyns as if he was a tree
Also their circular crowns remind me of an eclipse or a sun besides just the centipede mark
Deathroot is likely the equivalent of the Golden seeds and Aeonian buds[This is where milicent and her sister likely came from] we see in caelid, if that is the case then one could say that the death knights are guarding a blooming bud and early stage new Godwyn.
I been thinking this very crack pot theory that this new bodies of Godwyn will work similar to how Darian and Devin function as one soul and multiple bodies. Where the soul comes from well that's likely to come from the eclipse plan [That plan was likely a contingency plan if Ranni ever won and Age of stars came to be as the new order, a last F u to Ranni by Miquella]
Imagine being able to complete these offshoots, and fighting them as unique minibosses. Goldwynd the deathborn, and Godwane the thunderscaled, what if godrick was an offshoot of godwyn all along.
I like this theory. My guess is that they are trying to give their master a “true death” by bringing a piece of him to the roots of the Erdtree.
After all, they were his personal guards when he was alive. They don’t have any specific affiliation to him as the Prince of Death, the way that Fia does. And I also think that their crowns are meant to evoke the Eclipse.
I still wish that we got more Godwyn than this, but for FromSoft, this is actually a pretty substantial bit of context.
Again with the grafting theme!
Screw you for revealing both the teeth underneath and the hand and arm. Cause I really DO love sleeping at night.
Smfh now we all gonna wake up middle of the night to find a evidence for the theory just made up 😔😔😔
Lol
Like me now you will treasure those things all the more... in memory
Godrick stealing a piece of godwyn and hiding it below stormveil could explain why we find a third death knight, dead, in the third catacomb. They expected to find it in the land of shadow, with the other two pieces. Not knowing that it was stolen and kept in the lands between, which they couldn’t return to.
As for why the two cadavers in the land of shadow don’t sprout deathroot, the tablet on top of the suppressing pillar says that ‘all manner of death wash up here, only to be suppressed’. Maybe that has something to do with it?
I never thought about the tablet like that.. that would explain the minimal death blight, besides the few mini bosses and dungeons.
I was waiting for the dead Death Knight to be mentioned in the video and it never came. I think that there's a lot of implications that it could have and you probably hit it right on the head. There's also the Medallion Talismans that each of the Knights had. The first two tell us that there is primordial life energy inside. Maybe it would have been enough collective Erdtree Amber to actually revive him. The third knight also happened to be heading in the direction of Jori, who is probably who killed him, given the Hornsents' animosity towards The Erdtree.
that makes absolute sense. while watching this video i got the idea maybe the roots got cleansed while digging their way to the shadow lands. and yeah that makes perfect sense id guess. it might also have cleansed godwyn in a way?
Nice. Thats what I always though about godwyn at Stormveil.
Godrick took a piece of godwyn to graft to himself and it didnt work so he buried the piece under his castle and it grew into what we see now. Same for the death knights in SOTE - They maybe took some remembrance or peice of godwyn and it grew into what we see today.
I didn't consider that maybe it was the knights themselves that took pieces of Godwyn, mostly because it says they are searching for the pieces, but its totally possible. Maybe they had the pieces but then they were lost once the land of shadow was hidden?
@@ZayftheScholar Very possible. With so much of the godwyn story unexplained there can be so many outcomes here. Thank for the video and nice Japanese pronunciation btw. ....
In other words everybody was looting godwyn but non got what they wanted
I remember someone (I think it was Lokey) that talked about how the arm that Godrick holds up in the 2016 e3 announcement trailer might be Godwins, and that when he realized that it was tainted he threw it down into the depths of Stormwind, just like you said. Very cool!
Nah because even if godrick was the runt he still had shaman blood so the grafting would've worked
Seeing his corpse in the shadow lands actually scared the shit outta me both times. 😂
After dealing with the nightmare that was Fog Rift, I get jumpscared by fucking Godwyn.. I remember saying “how tf are you here?!?”
Fr, like..I didn't think much of his soul being killed but now looking further into it, it's definitely really really really bad💀
It’s always unnerving, regardless of where it is
It gave me a good jumpscare too. The second time wasn't as bad, but I was still very caught off guard.
I appreciate you reading the Japanese translation with correct pronunciation
I think cadaver surrogate is a surrogate in the sense that they are trying to grow something inside of them. It reminds me of how Mohg's body is effectively a cadaver surrogate for Radahn's soul.
Maybe the death knights and Miquella had intentions of placing Radahn's soul into these husks. However, Miquella may have discovered that he needed a fully dead demigod corpse to resurrect Radahn, not one that is only dead in soul. This would line up with the golden epitaph sword description, which has Miquella wishing for Godwyn to "die a true death.", so that he can use Godwyn's corpse to bring back Radahn. When he realized thst wasnt possible, he changed his plans and charmed Mohg, knowing that a tarnished seeking to become elden lord would kill him.
Also, the spiked arm of the cadaver surrogate looks very similar to the arms of the basilisk enemy. It could be a coincidence, or maybe it's a reflection of the form of one of the outer gods?
That makes a lot of sense.
so if the body still alive maybe some outer gods gonna take control godwyn body?
I think the Erdtree is malfunctioning and can't process that only Godwyn's body is alive, so it mutates it in order to revive it, and his different bodies go through different mutations based on the environment they are in.
I was listening to someone describe The Golden Order, the Elden Ring itself, the Erdtree, etc, as kind of like computer programs with their own scripts. And Marika and crew (children, spouses) are ALL trying to rewrite and glitch out the game, haha. Taking out the Rune of Death was likened to enabling a cheat. But the thing is, messing with any of it will likely cause performance issues or bugs! When I thought about the world of the game like a game itself, it really opened my eyes and made the head-scratchy stuff make a lot more sense. Or makes it easier to accept as just irl glitches.
My point is, your wording is spot on.
So frenzied flame is straight up a virus to crash the system completely?
@@palazzo1113 Real life also mutates glitches aren't just game exclusive though they have different name to differentiate between.
mushroom
i absolutely agree with your conclusion that the faces grew from different parts of godwin especially because rogier refers to the one under stormveil as a relic which were often body parts of saints or other important figures to the faith.
Look into Lhutel the Headless
A headless mausoleum knight brandishing the symbol of the eclipse, SHE imbues her weapon with death lightning for fights and uses the Spectral Lance ash of war, which is an occult ash.
Lhutel is also seen guarding key graves, and would almost definitely have known the death knights
my favourite spirit ash
I believe the "Death" Lhutel enchants her spear with isn't lightning. It seems to be the same death-blight inducing Holy damage buff that the Eclipse Shotel's Skill creates. Also based on appearance ive come to assume that the Dung-Eater Puppet's, "curses", also cause death-blight and Holy damage, but i have nothing more than appearance to back this theory
The thing is the knights we fight aren't the ones who put the pieces of Godwyn there; otherwise there'd be no point of them going on a quest to find them. This feels more like the Egyptian myth of Osiris' resurrection: there his scattered body had to be recombined to come back to life. If pieces of Godwyn were lost in his murder, bits of flesh cut away as three knives dug in, they may have been carried to the Lands of Shadow by the normal tides of death (whatever it is that causes all manners of death to wash up there). His knights would then have needed to go questing to recover them.
It's interesting the DLC actually gives us an explanation for the creation of death root and how Godwyn influenced the tree. Since he is Shaman through Marika, his flesh blends well with others, so as the Erdtree absorbed him so did he fuse with the tree, becoming part plant. That's how his eyes turn up on the Erdtree's roots, because they're actually his roots. And as fragments of plants can regrow into new clones, these "surrogates" in the world are accidents where those lost scraps of flesh blended with other plants and began regrowing him in other places.
13:39 maybe Godrick wanted to graft parts of Godwin's body to himself, but halted due to deathblight
And he threw the piece or pieces of Godwyn into the deepest parts of Stormviel in hopes that it would somehow stop.
6:52 I did NOT expect him to read the Japanese in Japanese, I thought he was just gonna translate it, way more effort than I anticipated good stuff
I feel like the use of the unique term "Wakemi" used for both "offshoots" and "Corpse Surrogates" would indicate that they are technically the same thing. These "Corpse Surrogates" being essentially the Malenia "daughters" but for Godwyn. These are his "sons", but since he is bereft of soul, they are just corpses without the blight, and no mind.
A lot of people seem to think that Godwyn being soulless means he's comatose, or a mindless zombie, but I think the fact that he'll defend Fia if she's present and attacked(up until the mending rune is formed) indicates that while without what would constitute "humanity", he is not incapable of thought. I'd say that because of the lack of soul, his "sons" have no blueprint to form in to the same being, and as such just become bodies resembling their "father". I would posit that these "sons" being referred to as "surrogates" indicates that as pieces of Godwyn, just as Millicent and her sisters are pieces of Malenia, if the main body were to be destroyed, through the roots of the erdtree, the husks would be the new hosts of deathblight and the "mind" of Godwyn.
Is not Godwyn, is only a corpse but the corpse grow something of a mind, a dead and rotten mind , is like the replicants of nier, originally empty bodies until they grow up true souls and minds for themselves
There's a word in horticulture that works as a fitting translation for this use case, and we're avoiding it for its other connotations. Clone.
I was thinking about this too. If we accept Tarnished Archaeologist's take that people in the Lands Between are... semi-plants? It makes sense that an "offshoot" or "separated piece" of a being, especially a divine one, could continue to grow independently of the original. If we continue with the plant analogy, Godwyn's corpse might not have been fully infected with deathblight, and the three dealthblightless pieces of him might have been removed from the original corpse in an attempt to regrow Godwyn in a healthier state.
So I watched another video proposing that the "cadaver surrogate" were extra bodies that Godwyn could resurrect into if his main body were to be destroyed by the Golden Order. That's why they're isn't Death Root at those sights because Godwyn isn't actually there yet.
This makes sense, they're shunned by the Golden Order and even in the new "order" (or lack of) there's still the likes of Gurranq and D and his brother weeding it all out, so this is how they serve and ensure their master is "safe"
So it's like D and his brother...
Maybe they aren't growing because of the deathroot, but actually, much like potatoes, they're growing and sprouting out in search of deathroot.
FYI, when potatoes are away from the soil for too long they'll grow obscene roots in search of the closest nutrients.
One thing to consider about the devolution of Godwyn's corpse, it's literal devolution. The first life was aquatic and his body is reverting to that earlier archaic stage. As for why, perhaps it's due to Godwyn only retaining the older subconscious primal consciousness within his body after the higher body function were eliminated with the soul. Given demigods are magical, the body is slowly changing to match the internal reality. After all we know from Fia's quest there's enough left in Godwyn to dream and as they say in Lovecraft's works and Mass Effect 2, even a dead god's dreams have power.
it’s my assumption that fia is the surrogate of godwyn and ranni’s hallowbrands made whole, gestated within fia like a surrogate mother would. Fia is one of the tarnished who came from a distant land to the lands between, thus the death knights were probably looking for fia/ waiting for her next to the manifestations of godwyn, which likely spread through the roots of the scadutree, which are probably the same as the great tree roots
One important thing is the use of IRL tree grafting imagery/references as metaphors for parts of the story. Trees can be cloned, grafted, cross-grafted using scions (cut sprigs) and buds in a process that involves wounding and repair. The Stormveil Godwyn (called Scion of the Golden Bough - literally a twig cut from Marika/Erdtree) is a dead/failed Scion. That twig did not survive being cut, and could not be used to propogate Godwyn via cloning/graft/bud graft with Miquella's Haligtree. Probably why there are broken Miquella and Godwn statues (the ones from the Precipice of Anticipation) all around to symbolize that failure.
Before the DLC came out, my theory was that the cadaver surrogate beneath Stormveil was actually a shed skin from an earlier form of Godwyn’s metamorphosis. I also drew a tenuous connection to the real world Turritopsis dohrnii, the so called immortal jellyfish. I likened death root to the jellyfish’s polyps.
I like it. I will have to add "Turritopsis dohrnii" into my daily vocabulary. 🪼
That's an amazing idea. I love the idea that its a referance to the immortal jellyfish. Itd also go along with both the "surrogate" and "severed peice" thing since it's technically a "substitute skin" and also a peice of godwyn that got taken off of him.
A tangent, but that should relate to the ghosts of children in Elden Ring being jellyfishes. Could it be that when Godwyn died, he died when he was an infant? Demigod-wise, of course. Which might be the reason he made friends with dragons. It’s fun to think about, tho.
A Japanese scientist was the one who discovered their immortality too
In the south of Castle Ensis there is a tower with a grave that says something like:
"The heart of the Lands Between.
Where all forms of Death converge here, only to be suppressed."
Maybe that's why there is no Deathroot signs in the Lands of Shadow, there have been supressed in someway
I find it very interesting that death basically means water/ocean. Some people say the dlc basically is underwater as it is in death. Which would explain the ship coffins in a way. But perhaps this could also explain why there is no death root in the dlc areas because it’s basically already dead and so in the “afterlife” death can’t spread anymore ?
Agree. Even the jellyfish in this game are all spirits. Godwyn's lower body looks like a fish.
There's some lore here about death and water that we still dont fully understand.
The DLC is a part of the lands between that Marika banished into another realm.
Tibia Mariners seemingly act like dead Charons
Still water grows parasites and death a sign or stagnation. Flowing water is a sign of purity and change. Why anytime we fight death in the game the water looks gross and dirty.
A bottomless curse, a bottomless sea...
The idea of the "wakemi" being pieces of Godwyn that are growing independently into new beings actually makes a lot of sense, given what we learned about Marika's shaman/miko people in the DLC.
What if, like Marika, her descendants' flesh is also capable of being mashed together from multiple to for a new, singular being? It might then stand to reason that dividing the flesh of a shaman (or a shaman's direct descendant) might allow that severed flesh to take on its own form.
First time I choose not to skip ad and guy just flexed on me for not being maidenless, great vid btw
I'm just glad you weren't KO'd by the realization that somehow I'm not maidenless... 😂
Ohhhh I get it. Marika is a tree. Or Numen's rather are trees.
When you cut a shoot off a tree, it can grow into a full tree all on its own, and if you graft to a tree, it can support and provide nutrients to that new growth. And it seems all of Marika's children specifically retain that property. Radagon's children inherent Demi-godhood because he's part of the same tree, but he's not literally the same tree as Marika.
Millicent and the Godwyn corpses are sprouts that have been cut off and been allowed to grow. And they have a desire to return or form in a way similar to the main tree.
The reason why they need Godwyn's offshoot corpses, is they can't get to the main 'tree' of Godwyn, because he's underground.
They're hoping that essentially a 'Milicent' of Godwyn will be enough to craft a rune for the age of duskborn. Basically they're dumb and wrong.
"numens are trees" its crazy how well this works
it's more or less why Godrick is able to do his grafting, since he is of Marika's blood he inherited the ability to combine other flesh that the shaman had
Not just trees - Scions.
So the grandmother in the shaman village is not a carving of a woman, but perhaps literally marikas dead mother/grandmother...
What if Marika IS the Erd tree? Radagon is just wearing what's left of Marika after ascending at the divine gate, as Radagon is highly hinted to be a fragment of Marika much like Saint trina to Miquella.
@@jimbo2553 Yeah my assumption is Marika had to give up her physical form to create the Erdtree. Like the one at the bottom of the Haligtree.
She's seen as a motherly figure by the Land Between, which might actually literally be true in the case of erdtree rebirth. Her body being the vessel that dead souls go through to be reborn again.
There are echos of Marika at the different churches though, so maybe that's untrue, OR she needed someone to carry her soul like Miquella at the final boss, or us with Melina and the Ranni Doll.
Then again maybe she was never at the churches of Marika, and just had the ability to talk through her statues and stakes of Marika.
Maybe it is time to revisit Godricks model, and see if he has anything grafted on to him that might've belonged to Godwyn
That's a good idea, actually!
Godwyns corpse is not in the roots of the main earth tree in deeproot. If you stand in front of the body in deeproot, switch maps to upper layer and you see you are close to a minor earth tree north of lyndell.
Going there on the upper map you will find a rotten minor earth tree with undead guards...
Isn't that the tree guarded by a cloaked Omen that cast Fia's mist, along a bunch of other cloaked commoners?
Except the Erd Tree is stupidly massive. If you've ever had the questionable pleasure of shovel duty, you'll know that roots dont just just conviniently grow downwards. And Godwyn is latching on like a Parasite
@@elseggs6504Obviously it's connected to the roots of the Erdtree, the Erdtree's roots spread all across the continent.
A lot of people are assuming that Godwyn's corpse was brought to that specific location because of its position directly under the Erdtree, but @TheCheshireTree is saying that clearly isn't true.
The Golden seeds and a few other item descriptions mention that the minor erdtrees didn't exist until after the Elden Ring was shattered, because everyone thought the Erdtree would last forever and wouldn't need to reproduce. Then when Marika shattered the ring, the Erdtree felt threatened, sent seeds everywhere, and some of those grew into Minor Erdtrees.
The Elden Ring didn't get shattered until after the Night of Black Knives and Godwyn died.
While it's true that Godwyn's body is closer to that minor Erdtree than it is to the main Erdtree's trunk. I feel like one explanation is that if you switch between maps at the main Erdtree. There's no ground there. Just roots going down jnto the void. There is ground where we find Godwyn's body.
Where Godwyn is buried is close enough to the Erdtree and has a bunch of its roots, which as pointed out are everywhere. And seem entangled with the roots of the minor erdtrees.
But, like, ultimately, Godwyn has to have died before any of the minor erdtrees even existed. So he couldn't have been deliberately buried under one. If anything, maybe someone planted a minor erdtree where he was already buried.
@@warcoderExactly
Something interesting that no one seems to touch on is Godwyn's greater influence on the land of shadow, specifically the divine beast.
The Hornsent divine beast warriors and sculpted keepers channel the divine beast when fighting.
The lion dance specifically seems to be the most significant channelling ritual, with the dancing lions able to channel the greatest portion of the divine beast's power.
We see with the lion in Belurat that the sculpted keepers have little to no power alone, they gain their strength through channelling.
But the second lion, in Rauh, channels Deathblight and summons Basilisks.
I can only conclude from this that Godwyn's influence seeems to be affecting even divine beings.
Great video, you got me thinking about Alexander the great, he was kinda a golden child, being a king's son and professional warrior at the very young age who conquered so much, yet died in his prime, not in the battle, but from a sudden illness that is rumored to be an assassination. His corpse was also used by his generals to usurp the power.
Some wiki quotes:
"Alexander's body was laid in a gold anthropoid sarcophagus that was filled with honey, which was in turn placed in a gold casket.
more likely, the successors may have seen possession of the body as a symbol of legitimacy, since burying the prior king was a royal prerogative.
Alexander had no obvious or legitimate heir, his son Alexander IV by Roxane being born after Alexander's death.
According to Diodorus, Alexander's companions asked him on his deathbed to whom he bequeathed his kingdom; his laconic reply was "tôi kratistôi"-"to the strongest"."
Marika is the one who started Empire, but Godwyn is the actual heir to the golden order throne and the shithole that become of the lands between happened because of his sudden death.
Godfrey says that crown is warranted by strength, Godwyn is also a mighty warrior, beating and befriending one of the strongest ancient dragons, yet his alive successor Godrick is a joke. He is right when he says that he is a Lord of all that is golden, he should have rights to the throne, but his blood is weak and he got too many competitors including his family, as every king does.
If there's one thing my video proves it's that Godwyn was there to lend us a hand in the DLC. 🫲 I'll see myself out.
Idea for the next DLC or sequel to Elden Ring: use the death rune (it is already complete with its missing fragment) into Godwyn's dead body and give him a complete/true death and he returns as a chieftain called Godwyn king of those who Live in death.
@@axemiprozam6977his body is still alive it’s his soul that’s dead. It’s not possible for him to come back. Otherwise Miquella wouldn’t have failed to bring him back
@@shaneweasl That's why I have the idea of using the death rune, as Maliketh used it.
or to ensure a hopeful 2nd dlc fingers crossed
@@shaneweasl except that the eclipse can "grant life to soulless bones". Godwyn can be revived.
It feels like his body is trying to transform into the death basilisks, those big eyed things you in catacombs. The webbed features, sharp lamprey like teeth, the webbed spines. These are all features of those creatures
I find it to be more like his body is trying to transform into a type of sea-creature.
Sharp Teeth, Webbed Spines/Feet, or the slits for eyes.
Or at least I Think the way they handled Godwyn has a correlation with the sea, which in Japanese mythology, there's a pretty big correlation with the Sea and Immortality. i dunno what all they're gonna do with him, but from should dive into his lore in a possible future dlc.
One thing that could be cool for a new DLC would be a Godwin focused one. Just to tie it all back, the way I would do it is this:
Godwin’s soul is looking to reunite with his body. His followers take a piece of his body to a crucible to reform it. After some bosses, we reach the head and are transported back to the Night of Black Knives and fight a boss there. When we return, Godwin reunited with his fish body has gone crazy and want to spread death through all life to return to the great sea beyond death (in reality is an outer god). We fight Godwin in his fish body and slay him, finally granting the death he craves. “Ah, death. At long last. Such sweet release”
A Godwyn DLC would be amazing, and I honestly believe it must be in the works. They wouldn't be giving us so many breadcrumbs spread across the entire base game and dlc if they weren't planning to di something with it. He's absolutely as key to the lore as Miquella, if not more.
Also, I ABSOLUTELY agree that the fish influences are coming from an outer god. I think it saw the soulless vessel of a demigod (I would argue an Empyrean) and was like "It's free real estate"
I think there’s a strong resemblance between the aquatic Godwyn corpses’ eye slits and the flesh Marika pulled the golden threads from in the DLC trailer
Body surogate to me is that the Erdtree burial copies his corpses over and over again without finding a soul (which is dead) with it, like a bug or an AI that tries to replicate a human but without getting it right and start over and over again.
I really enjoy Elden ring and Dark Souls lore because it's like an archeology dig site. We get little pieces and glimpses into a lost civilization or history, one that isn't wholely preserved. And as we dig deeper and wider. We learn more and more and there's things that were half truth that are now full truths and or have deeper meaning. Love it. I want more.
id call it a love-hate-relationship. i already know we will never get a full picture of everything no matter how much we dig. and thats whats pissing me off like crazy xD
If, by that point, they were intentionally preparing for the Age of Duskborn, his body may have been transplanted further to create more of Those Who Live in Death.
They saved Godwynn for Elden Ring 2.
Not gonna lie I felt the same way, and with how the story and DLC feel. I wouldn’t be surprised or upset if we keep going back in time to earlier periods. Like what if after Elden ring 2 (and it’s DLC) and a possible 3rd installment we finally realize we’re playing the story in a backwards timeline from the end to the beginning of the greater will showing up. I think that be most interesting the 3rd game would be earliest timeline wise and the current game would be the present time
I took the closed eyes and lack of death root to mean that he had newly spread there. He's described as being like a plant, and if you've cared for perennial plants, you see that over time your plants will spread but their new growth is always less impressive than the old growth. I assume that, once the eyes are open (a common theme in ER), he'll start growing death root. I think that we see his bits growing around corpse laiden areas because, like all plants, they tend to spread where they can flourish.
His eyes aren't closed, they literally lack eyeballs. The only one with eyeballs in the sockets is the main corpse.
@@feshpince7181 it could be that they just haven't grown in yet. It's a metaphorical "closed eye" that ER goes for, sometimes the eye is closed, sometimes they're blind, sometimes they're sealed, sometimes they're just gone, but in the end, a wide, open eye means full control, and the lack thereof indicates a loss of control or power.
Yo i just gotta say props on not only your first sponsor but a goid choice of sponsor. I cant speak for the quality but that was the first time i was actually interested in the product being pushed and didnt just skip right past. Also love the lore vids i am a huge souls fan and although i get my plat trophys and do multiple play through i rarely go through every item description and npc interaction to make these connections. I do however really enjoy learning more about all the deep stories woven into these games so ty please keep doing what your doing!
15:26 reminds me of crab's leg, but who knows? Maybe im just hungry.
Great video!
Have you ever thought about making video talking about the possible pieces of land from the shadowlands and the lands between? Cause if you put the map for the dlc on top of the main game map you can see where the shadowlands used to located before they were separated.
Like where exactly was farum azula before it was in the sky?
Where was the eternal city of the nox’s located before they were put underground?
Where was enir ilim before the separation?
All these sounds like they would make great future videos to talk about to bring out more thoughts and theories on the lore of elden ring.
Just a thought.
W
Here's Zayf once again, giving us what Miyazaki deprived us of
There are thorny vines all over Stormveil and they spread out from the corpse underneath, it's the same kind that show up in locations with Deathroot. They are so invasive that parts of the walls are collapsing and being filled with them. It may be that the Deathroot itself hasnt quite sprouted yet but the carrier of the deathroot has already spread.
Two speculations:
1. Godwyn is spreading his death root so aggressively because he's looking for his missing body parts. Kind of like a Headless Horseman situation.
2. The cadavers might be called "surrogates" because they may be more than just body parts at this point. If we think of deathroot as a one giant system connected to Godwyn, then his separated pieces might start growing independently and eventually mature into something completely different (an offshoot like Milicent). Different physiological features (tentacles, spiky arms) somewhat indicate that already.
My impression of the body beneath Stormveil is that it was the site of his murder, and the formation is like an echo of the event, and that Godrick went to Stormveil because of the growth's presence there in the hopes of grafting himself with a piece of Godwyn to make himself more powerful in connection with the Golden Lineage
This is an absolutely great find. When I first heard “Cadaver Surrogate,” i got the impression that they were looking for Godwyn’s replacement of sorts. With the connection that you found, my initial impression seems to be correct in that you could say they are looking for his “offshoot.”
Those spikes on his arms look like underdeveloped fins. Godwyn’s aquatic chimeric mutation is truly baffling. They can’t just leave this open ended.
Also, his soul is “dead” but his body is still alive. I wonder what the implications of this is; does this mean he still has a subconsciousness? Souls in Demon Souls/Dark Souls offer lucidity but the bodies can function instinctively without souls, and that seems to be what’s going on with Godwyn. Souls in those games seem to be independent of the person, except in the cases of ghosts which doesn’t seem possible in Souls lore and always seemed like a plot hole. So is Elden Ring working on similar logic or are they going by the more standard religious view of souls?
I’m thinking since the grandem said all of marika’s children would be cursed, I wonder if the death’s blight wasn’t a byproduct of ranni’s plot, but rather something godwyn was cursed with from the get go. After all, there’s a death blight affinity divine beast in the Rauh Ruins
I was literally just thinking about how the death knight cape isn't on the player set.
This is the one true disappointment I have with the DLC. It's a crime that they denied us such a cool cape.
It's possible parts of Godwyn were severed from his body at the time of his death. Two made it to the Land of Shadow and one ended up below Stormviel (possibly taken there by Godrick to try to graft on to himself). These pieces then grew into the forms we find them in.
I heard a really interesting theory once that We are actually Godwyn’s hidden twin. All of Marika’s kids seem to come in pairs, with opposing curses, and since Godwyn’s curse was “Undeath” which didn’t activate until he was “Dead”, it would make sense for his Twin’s curse to be “Life”.
Not only is it clear from in game dialogue that normally Grace doesn’t make you as immortal as we seem to be, but tarnished dying happens all the time and usually sticks. People remark on it as a fear.
And yet our deaths are canon, as is our apparent deathlessness.
This would also explain why other people that come into direct contact with Godwyn’s faces get killed and turned undead, or just messed up beyond repair (Rogier), and yet we can walk all over his gross faces and Godwyn doesn’t even seem to care. He’s totally fine with us.
Likewise, unlike all the other “Tarnished” that grace returns to, we aren’t a corpse on the opening, our body isn’t even decayed. If anything we just look asleep.
But “Life” eternal is supposed to be Marika’s thing, so it’s possible we were seen as a dirty little secret, and hence was put somewhere as a back up measure incase we were needed.
Somewhere like a Chapel of “Anticipation”.
Interesting theory for sure but I have to disagree on the "twins/in pairs" part. They are 2 sets of three and one set of four. There can't be a twin for each, because one will always be left over except for Miquella, Malenia, Messmer and Melina ofc. Their opposites are quite obvious. But even then, Only Miquella and Malenia are confirmed twins, while Radahn, Ranni and Rykard are not even implied to be twins or triplets at all
@@TeatimeToad Messmer/GloamEyedQueen, Godwyn/??????, Morgott/Mohg, Radahn/Rykard, Ranni/The unborn egg (hence why Rennala is talking to it like it’s her, it’s her twin), and Miquella/Malaenia.
If the theory holds true.
Melina is likely an offshoot of the Gloam Eyed Queen, similar to how Millicent is to Malaenia. Hence why they both wear the traveler garb, just like ALL of the offshoots.
@ZhongliArchonofSwag 1. Nothing implies Radahn and Rykard to be twins or even be connected. Hell, Ranni is more connected to each of them then they are to each other, so that's just straight up not true. 2. There is no proof that there is a demigod???? In the Umbral egg, the main theory is that Rannis Rune might be hidden there but nothing implies it's a demigod. 3. Melina is connected to the gloan eyes queen, yes, but more evidently is a Marika Radagon child, with Her and Messmer being confirmed Siblings. Your "connection via twins" hold no weight and those points are just huge, unconfirmed stretches with no proof that you treat as fact. As I said, I get what the theory is implying but most of these connections are just straight up not true
@@TeatimeToad Actually I believe that Radahn is the only one whose portrait is hung in Volcano manor, with neither Renalla nor Ranni’s portraits being found there.
Likewise that’s just the theory that suggested that.
My argument would be that Radagons children not being Demigods until he was re-assimilated back into Marika may have also meant that they bypassed whatever trend Marika had going on. None of those three had curses either, as the main children all did. At least that we know.
And I always heard Ranni’s rune is in the moon…? You can see it up there, if you look.
Messmer and Melina are not confirmed siblings. Messmer’s sister had a “vision of flame” and Melina is indeed an offshoot of that same girl that would have had that vision, and like Milicent would have had a watered down version of that same curse.
As an aside how is Ranni especially connected to Rykard? Aside from them both committing blasphemy and falling on the Fingers hit list, (and thus being swamped in the hand spiders) I don’t think they have much tying them directly.
@@Neuviletteiudexofmemes Ranni tasked Rykard with the duty to fight maliketh for her in case the black knife plot didn't work. She placed a huge amount of trust to Pre Serpent Rykard. There are multiple things linking Ranni and Rykard while Radahns only connection to Ranni is the holding of the Stars, and to Rykard the only connection is the Painting
The lamprey teeth makes me think of that one Zullie video where she points out that the fingerprint things(pustules or something?) "cause something to wriggle within" and there's a theory that the lamprey things are basically chest bursters.
It makes sense that deathroot is specifically the result of the erdtree trying and failing to rebirth godwyn, he's essentially a glitch in the erdtree system. Instead of being reborn, the erdtree is just endlessly replicating his cells, which is spreading deathroot everywhere the erdtree touches. As for the spikes on the surrogate's arm, those are exactly what fish bones look like on a rotting corpse, so i think its just adding to the motif that he's become a rotting aquatic creature.
Rot is probably the largest theme in elden ring, with all the motifs about bodies, fungus, and mold. Stagnant water is associated with curses, as before germ theory existed, people knew that stagnant water, especially with dead bodies in it, carried disease. Godwyn, in half dying and spreading through the erdtree, has become the greatest curse of all.
What do you mean there's no death root in stormveil? The knights have throns in their armor and shields, the walls are crumbling from thron damage, thorns have infested the walls, nestling themselves in old damage in the walls making the holes bigger like a festering disease. Stormveil is definitely affected and afflicted by the death root.
Moreover, marred leather shield description hints that thorns come from something hidden deep within the castle
@@dtr0q10 yeah, that's why i mentioned armor, shields and the walls. those are the places i noticed it. I find it weird how he said what he said in the video tho
He mentions that Stormveil was designed and finished early on in development so perhaps "deathblight" was only a mechanic at the time and the thorns were the original blight's appearance. Only after the deathblight was fleshed out and expanded on did they move towards the maggot-and-fly-wing aesthetic and going back to completely remodel the castle was too tall an order. Alternative: If we presume the offshoots develop independently of the main body this COULD be deathblight, but another variant of it.
I’d like to point out that Stormveil does have deathroot. The walls of the South are being eaten away by thorny tendrils, as are the exile knights. These are death root
@AuUntaris Thorns are creeping up on Rogier and D's corpse. It's associated with deathblight. You could insinuate that The Guilty thorns and deathblight are of a similar nature.
@@Garl_Vinland are they the same kind of thorns? I remember looking at them and concluding they are not, but it's been a while. I think they look similar at a glance but the design is quite different when you look.
@@Wveth yeah the “thorns” on death root are fly wings. Almost looks like there are flies coming out of it
@AuUntaris There are thorns on the roots.
I love the idea that Godrick took a part of Godwyn's body with the intent of grafting it to himself and once the body part mutated, burried it deep under the castle instead.
That arm is nearly identical to the arm of a basilisk. Basilisks also share the same eyes (the false growth eyes atop their heads), and are also carriers of Death. It might not be a stretch to say that basilisks developed those false eyes *because* of Death. Their teeth aren't too dissimilar, either.
But the fact these arms are closer to that of a basilisk might be suggesting a "progression" of sorts. Of course, they could have just used the basilisks asset and upscaled it, but then they could've just used a copy of Godwyn's arm itself.
The Ancient Dragonbolt Pot describes the 'residual power of relics' as 'a purely natural phenomenon.' By taking pieces of Godwyn's corpse (which are relics of Death itself) and laying them to rest at the deepest roots of the Scadutree, the Death Knights will spread Godwyn's influence and eventually ensure the Age of the Duskborn. After all, Death is like a flash of lightning in a storm: entirely natural.
Deathblight is not natural death being burned in Ghostflame or Destined Death is
love all your lore findings, unreal how you make these links
Appreciate you alinithon361!
The thorny brambles on the arm make sense to me given the nature of the Scadutree. Its avatar is all about thorns.
Elden Ring 2 where Godwyn is the main antagonist and you fight all the Outer Gods would actually be pretty sick. They could go full lovecraftian like Bloodborne.
But would not make any sense lorewise
@@TeatimeToad exactly
To me, the thing I love most about the different cadavers is that it seems to be building up to a conflict/story post-game. I'm not implying we're getting a sequel; just that the seeds of further plots are being sewn for next age in this universe. Will the cadavers be against one-another, or be a unified force? How would they react if theres an age of duskborn, or not? Too often, stories end with every loose end tied nicely, and thats just not how things work. This really adds to the feeling that this world is a real one, and will continue on past our player's story.
I feel like Godwyn was meant to be a big part of the DLC, but got cut out.
you make a note of the lack of deathroot around the Kadaver Surrogates, but I feel there's one flaw with your theory and that is the presence of Rogier becoming victim to deathblight in Stormveil, as we can see from his bloodstain next to the Surrogate.
Maybe it's part of Miquella attemp or ritual to revive godwyn with the eclipse.
I wonder if the aquatic transformations Godwyn's body is undergoing are maybe related to the idea of death washing up in the land of shadow. Maybe it's a metaphor that to never wash up on the shore is to stay in the 'ocean' of death, therefore Godwyn's body resembles that. I doubt there's a real connection with the ocean and death, but the wordplay feels weirdly connected.
heres my take:
Godwyn was Miquella's first attempt at a lord, before Radahn.
the black knives plot was meant to kill Godwyn to send him to the shadowlands, ranni tampered with the plot making it not work fully.
"lord brother" is what Miquella calls Radahn, but also Godwyn in the Golden Epitaph. Miquella wanted Godwyn to die to be his lord, same as Radahn. When the plot failed Miquella tried to grant a true death to Godwyn through the Golden Epitaph, when that failed he tried to rebirth Godwyn's soul through the Eclipse, when all else failed he turned to his second option, Radahn.
i believe the "cadaver surrogates" are just that, death replacements. I think Godwyn, perhaps subconciously but perhaps theres still SOMETHING of him in there, is still fighting against the Death, and is gathering corpses to make enough "death replacments" to be reborn, or perhaps each cadaver surrogate would be given life in the duskborn ending.
also unrelated to Miquella but I believe all deathroot in the world (the mounds of corpses with eyes) have the possibility to grow large enough to become a cadaver surrogate and Godefroy likely transported the original piece that grew unto the corpse in stormveil, using it to experiment an create Grafting, likely being the reason he's locked in the evergaol despite being Golden Lineage.
I also believe the "deathroot" items we get in game were original pieces of Godwyn still brimming with the power of the Rune of Death, perhaps the pieces carved out of his back in the cutscene.
It could even be like how a dead animals meat will twitch with muscle out of reaction or instinct right after death even though it’s already dead. Weird comparison but just a theory
damn you were cooking in the first half
I think the old finger crones were trying to replace Marika, with Ranni and have Godwyn as her lord. Ranni was aware of Miquella's goals, and basically tried to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, which was to take herself out of the picture and open the way for Miquella. In the end, when Marika and Miquella's plan failed, we become Marika's backup plan. Marika's Grace changes itself, after we get our hands on the ring, pointing us towards Ranni.
As you said, the word "Wakemi" (I dont speak Japanese, so i dont know if im saying nonsense rn) was also used by Millicent, so what if it had the same meaning here?
like, What if after/some time Godwyn's soul died it created some sort of offspring (the Cadaver Surrogate) just like Malenia created Millicent and her sisters! And if the tarnished does the "age of the duskborn" ending, theese offspring "corpses" asceend to become something similar to what Millicent and her sisters would become if Malenia became The goddes of rot, like some sort of death angels that would assist Godwyn and be his new bodyguards?
(Also, im sorry for any grammar errors, english is my second language)
You are right! They didn't guard Godwyn. The knights had one job...
I never noticed how the "two centipede" symbol at the 4:09 mark parallels the ouroboros symbol
With the cannibalistic themes throughout Soulsborne, I would think deathroot spreads from creatures eating Godwyn's corpses or eating plants that have grown in the soil next to him. By "consuming" Godwyn's corpse, the plants "house" the principal of death within them. Like jars.
I really think of the "Talisman of Lord's Bestowal" and why would Godfrey need to act "stoically" when accepting the Erdtree sap? The sap is made out of the corpses of his fallen soliders, from the process of Erdtree Burial. Godfrey is symbolically "consuming/cannibalising" his own men under the orders of the Erdtree.
I looked up the etymology of "surrogate" and have ideas, but my comments can be long winded 😅😂.
Nice video👍 very informative
This actually points me towards the process of propagating plants from cuttings, like pothos. A separated piece of a plant can be coaxed into growing new roots and forming into an entirely new plant… maybe a cutting from Godwyn’s body regenerates the rest of a body first, and then only starts putting off new deathroot once it’s fully developed?
Great video. Perhaps the pieces of Godwyn stopped growing after the veil was cast? Another thing about Godwyn's story that bugs me, is that he has his own religion/Order...he still has faithful followers with no one (that we know of) leading them. Surely, he recruited these people while he was still alive? Which leads me to believe he worked with Ranni, she would bounce to the stars leaving him to literally become a part of the earth...let me know how crazy this is 👌
really crazy, since ranni simply was a manipulator that used godwyn to acheive her purpose
my take on the distribution of death root is biological:
Godwyn's death root is reminiscent of Lichen and i think the roots were placed strategically to hold the landmasses together;
why were they separated? meteoric impact and possible tectonic plate shift - i also suspect a magnetic axis shift occurred between East and West axis but that's for another day.
Lichen are a tri-body being, according to latest finds it's a life form comprised of three, fungi, yeast and algae.
Lichen can live without taking root, e.g. need for soil;
Lichen can hold mountains together and live in the cracks and veins of stones, where they can also combust, i read Mt Rushmore needs to be de-Lichen's regularly or it'll crumble.
so surrogate bodies were there before, post "Night of the Death Knives" impact (a night that features earthly ritual magic rites and chance {?} cosmic events coinciding) the roots were distributed to assure the lands-between don't drift apart.
maybe a "death root" is seeded whenever the earth got "poked"⚡ with a 'destination' death rune.
as for the why of all this i am still cooking, 50% of my head cannon is
people just explained natural disasters away with myth
and
people did magic shit that coincided with cosmic shit that lead to atomic reactions that exSeeded hexpectations, like
they wanted to kill Godwyn but more happened than anticipated/planned.
p.s. i also think BKA had Godwyn taken to Underground for the kill, a space switch like Ordina Gaol; in the "Gaol realm", the BKA are invisible without Sentry torch.
I was actually looking at the main body of Godwyn in Deeproot while watching this video, and on his right upper arm there are those "strange spikes" you point out, which I believe are actually aquatic fins (fittingly), so I think they are meant to be the same thing in the surrogate cadavers/separated corpses.
Great video by the way, this was fantastic and I appreciate the translations a lot! Many people wanted Godwyn to be far more central to the narrative of Shadow of the Erdtree and its main plotline, but I'm honestly happy with what we got and glad they took the time to expound upon his lore a fair bit and delineate what was going on with these surrogate cadavers, even if the translation perhaps created an unnecessary layer of vagueness to the already highly ambiguous style of storytelling that pervades Elden Ring. Videos like this help a lot to elucidate things, so thanks again and well done!
Bro got a thesaurus out
Eh, that's just how I write, apologies if it's a bit excessive.
@@spiralistichope9216 tubular
It seems to me that their is an association between the tibia mariners and these offshoots/godwyn.
The tibia mariners of course representing Charon and his boat who guides souls across the River Styx.
But what happens when one cannot fully cross.
What happens when the body remains to fester in the water.
I believe that these offshoots are the result.
Corpses that have adapted to their new aquatic environment.
Godwyn’s body has always reminded me of a Great One from Bloodborne, Aquatic and able to exist on multiple planes of reality, I’ve heard a theory some of the endings to Elden Ring lead to Fromsofts other games,
Frenzied flame being Dark Souls, Age of the Stars being Bloodborne, Duskborn being Demon souls, if you played those games I’m sure the theory has started to make sense, maybe it’s related to that.
I really don't like this "all From games are in the same universe" stuff. Everybody seems to want all media to be one big amorphous blob. Just let things stand on their own
I wonder if the reason deathroot doesn't spread in the Lands of Shadows is because of what the Suppressing Pillar tells us.
That all manner of death washes down there only to be suppressed. Maybe something to do with the nature of the Lands of Shadows just doesn't allow Godwin's fragments to spread as much as they did in the Lands Between.
Another thing to could lead to that is that, unlike the Erdtree, the Scadutree is dying. It's not spreading much, it's just decaying, so the roots themselves wouldn't carry, let's call it, "life essence" from corpses to feed itself as much as a brilliant, mature tree would.
If Godwin's deathroot does indeed spread via roots, it makes sense that a still aging tree would help it spread.
It parallels well with what Count Ymir tells us about how diseased the world is at its roots and to fix it, you'd need to uproot it and plant anew.
The Erdtree (and the Elden Ring by association) carries Marika's and past Lords mistakes and sins as long as it exists. Godwyn is one of them and would only stop spreading if the Erdtree would be removed in its entirety, cutting the main source of "nutriments" to the corpse and therefore, isolating it to never infect anything ever again in the case that it is completely undying.
The DLC is so weirdly disconnected from the base game that I hesitate to go further than consider its lore inspired by the original. It's a different place with different rules. I can only take the death knight lore at face value: that they thought they could serve their master by spreading him through the shadow tree, but it lacks the life force to form deathroot.
We do get some living dead here though, on the plateau south of the hinterlands.
It's almost like the DS2/DS1 disconnect
because the DLC takes place in between the events of the main game, it's like the ranni quest but instead of being part of the main ending it's a side quest, there's a reason why Ansbach say before dying that you become the new elden lord despite already beating the main game, Godwyn is dead in the current events of the story.
@@chito2701 Yeah, a side quest with almost no implications for the main game. It likely had to be this way to avoid having to retcon any parts of the already convoluted story.
Godwyn being in the dlc also serves as a timeline reference, I believe Godwyn is used a timeline reference often, if that's the case, the Realm of Shadow would've been sealed soon before the shattering, and also Farum Azula would disconnect after his death
quoting this explanation from "ninhongojouzodesune". wakemi isn't a novel word made up by miyazaki and fromsoft, it's a common word in japanese fantasy.
A "bunshin" or "wakemi" is a common thing in Japanese fiction. The person is referred to as the "hontai" ("main body") while a bunshin ("split body") is an extension of their being which has a separate body. There's a wide range of what these actually are: Ninja "bunshin" are illusions used to trick enemies, while sorcerers and such can make actual copies of themselves, and gods can make bunshin that are completely independent (the main character turning out to be a "bunshin" of the evil final boss villain, for example). It can also be used as a metaphor (someone who really loves their car could call it their bunshin) tl;dr It's a thing that's a separate thing from the person yet is still the same person.
A good translation for Wakemi would actually be an Aspect, in the same vein as Bolverk is an Aspect of Odin, or better yet, Alduin is an Wakemi of Akatosh, this concept is pretty Common in norse mythology, or even yet, an Emanation, emanation is a really common concept in theology that everyone sort of knows intuitively what it is but nobody can really point to a definition
Godwin's corpse is like a mushroom spreading through the roots of the tree, maybe with the help of pieces of his body.
The dlc is disconnected from the main body so maybe this can help us date when maria veiled the dlc : after Godwin's death
I think Miquella was talking to Godwyn in that memory, I think Radahn was plan B. Also for some reason i feel like Miquellas extra spectral arms in the final fight have something to do with Godwyn...
I mean he was called Godwyn the golden, perhaps Miquella wanted to imitate him. Would make sense as he was the perfect older Brother without a cursed Body and an adult, which miquella did want to achieve (among other things)
I too, am still in Godwyn denial. 💀
That's a ocean wide stretch.. stop doing that sht. He wasn't plan a. Miquella couldn't resurrect because he had no soul @@ZayftheScholar
My opinion is that Godwyn was Plan A not in place of Radahn, but of Mohg. He wanted to put Radahn in Godwyn's body after giving them both a true death, but when the eclipse didn't work and Godwyn remained half-dead he sort to use Mohg's body instead as he's his full-blooded brother.
I had this thought as well
It could be possible that these cadavers were people who once were really close to Godwyn. We often say that when someone are so close to us, they are a part of us. Just as Millicent is really close to Malenia, the wakemi of Godwyn could be his maiden, a consort or even offspring. This is speculation but there is nothing in the lore that would contradict this for now. Then, in the lands between, instead of death, people would return to the erdtree roots and continue the cycle of life, this might be the reason why some of the cadavers are found in the catacombs, and now the knights duty is to protect Godwyn’s wakemi since they failed to protect him.
It could be hard to argue that the cadavers are pieces of Godwyn’s body because they would be growing death roots like he does, and assuming that these cadavers are of people close to Godwyn we could explain why there are multiple with full bodies and suffer a similar but not the exact fate of Godwyn.
Wakemi could be a word for a kind of close or familiar relationship to the demigods, and if the word was translated to surrogate maybe the cadavers are people impregnated with the seed of Godwyn?
Always feels good to see a video/post about Godwyn that's not filled with some weird "we deserve a Godwyn fight" entitlement. I vibe with your content a lot, it's great keep it up !
But we do deserve a form of Godwyn
@@GristlyRook9605 imo we deserve nothing. We play as a good for nothing nameless tarnished, feeling powerless, at loss for words, with questions, is absolutely the way it should go and the way jt has since demon souls or even King's Field
In all honesty, reviving godwyn in any way fucks the lore entirely. It would completely destroy the concept of destined death. Maliketh and Ranni would both be taken down as well. So no, It's good we didn't get a Godwynn fight.
@@codsamy23 no we asked for penetrator armor in demon souls and they gave it and sure my tarnished may be a maidenless wretch but I am not and paid 100$ on this game so far and for another dlc with godwyn I would pay another 60
@@TeatimeToad you would put another soul in Godwyns body this letting us and giving us a reason to fight godwyns husk we know it can be done because of sote
Regarding "offshoot" look up the horticulture term "cutting" as in "Propogation by cutting". It can be illegal to steal pieces of very rare or valuable plants from someone. The stolen pieces do not always produce an identical plant as expected. So much depends on the soil and other conditions (even the presence of disease).
I didn't expect much of Godwyn in the DLC at first. Because he was super dead. His death is a tragic event that cannot be undone even by Marika or anyone else and why the story happen so having him coming back in any form would just ruin the main game story. But having a bit more of him in the DLC was a quite refreshing. Those death knight died themself so they could serve their master in death, like the headless knights that protect the wandering mausoleum. I only think it is just simple that Godwyn influence also reached Land of Shadow and they are just protecting the part that has grown the most.
I always on the assumption that the deathroot is a cancer of the land between, it will keep spreading everywhere, even to Farum and of course to the Shadow Lands. The only way to stop it is to evolve him into the full curse mark with Fia quest. But the lack of actual "deathroot" around his corpse is still a strange part.
Age of the Duskborn does the exact opposite of stopping Deathroot
Duskborn Dlc confirmed, these knights were just teasers for the next expansion, Duskborn, Revival Of Godwyn, it’ll be perfect for expanding on Deathblight weapons and skills
Godwyn's body should've been the final boss, not Radahn. Miyazaki could've easily written lore that would accommodate the idea of his body going out of control cos of a failed Eclipse.
With several such detailed, unused bodyparts of Godwyn, it really makes me think we we're robbed of a really sick bossfight..! I need another DLC I think
8:00 miyazaki is japanese shakespear?
7:01 first time listener. Fully wasn’t expecting fluent Japanese 😂 awesome though! Great video
2:15 ← the video starts here, you're welcome
Your punctuation is atrocious.
My thought was that Godrick took the relic for the sake of grafting. not the visage itself of course but to learn of a way to make dead body parts live again, which makes sense considering Godwyn´s deathblight brought for Those Who Live in Death. Considering the Scions and himself it´s clear he succeeded. But that´s just speculation on my part since there´s also the other grafted dude who´s name spelling i can never remember
I think Godwyn is the Nameless King from Dark Souls 3
It seems that the Death Knights took a part of Godwyn's body and brought them to different catacombs to grow them until the age of duskborn begins, effectively giving Godwyn immediate influence in different places, including the realm of shadow. Maybe once the age of the duskborn begins, all of the "surrogates" will also awaken, creating deathroot of their own.
It's strange though because the item description says "they quested to find their transfigured master's cadaver surrogate," but a more accurate wording would be "they quested to CREATE their transfigured master's surrogateS."
This would mean the Death Knights are doing the exact same thing Godrick did, but Godrick did it by accident because he wanted to graft a part of Godwyn, and they're doing it on purpose because they want to use the parts of Godwyn to create more Godwyns.
The spread of deathroot may be caused by the lingering effects of the rune of death. As such the true body being the one that was exposed to it is the only one with the effect.
Also, perhaps the timeline was inverted, he was placed at the base of the tree and when they noticed the effects of the deathroot spreading they carved off some currently uninfected parts to be brought elsewhere. This could also explain the concept of surrogacy as perhaps it would have been better for Fia to lay with the new body grown from the uninfected flesh rather than the tainted original.