According to Miyazaki, Messmer's existence and the history of the Land of Shadow was written before development on the base game even started, still building off GRRM's writings. The idea the colosseums may once have foreshadowed the backstory of the DLC is both entirely possible and also somewhat staggering to think about, and then it's even more bizarre that they removed that little hint anyway.
Gotta love the fact that people thought the smouldering butterfly represented Melina at first, and then changed their minds to Messmer when the dlc trailer dropped, and then back to Melina when the dlc itself dropped with Messmer's Pyrefly and direct confirmation that Melina is a child of Marika
GRRM builds elaborate histories for his stories, even going so far as to call "Fire and Blood", a compendium of the Targaryen dynasty's history and the basis for "House of the Dragon", a "fake history book." Not surprised there's a whole history in the foundation of the game that both base game and DLC have barely touched upon.
yeah animation is great but unfortunately they forgort about normal target lock (big flying creatures, classic) and about well working hitboxes (classic again)
Just some insight about lion dance as a tradition, the dancer playing the hind of the lion is the more senior and adept one. It takes years of practice and more skill and stamina to make the body of the lion keep up with the movement of the head.
Fightning this thing is like fighting the Ulcerated Tree Spirit if it did 4 lines of cocaine and gave the camera a simultaneous seizure, heart attack and concussion
@@thunderryu0494 Unlock your camera on the boss who is constantly moving from one side of the screen to the other, and manually try to cover all this mess with your right stick, not forgetting to roll every few seconds. Sounds like a great idea, thanks Miyazaki-san.
Holy shit, the fact that under the Golden Order they recreated the great crusade in the colosseum for entertainment, just like the romans did as well. I love this game omg
on one hand, thats what the dummied out spawns in the arena seem to suggest, but on the other, Marika erased all traces of Messmer and his crusade from history in the Lands Between, so it seems unlikely she would allow such a representation of it.
@@zoid_on_youtube I can see her re-enacting the events but a re-written version of history that paints Messmer and the Hornsent as villains destroying each other. I can even guess that eventually Marika stopped doing that once it was expedient to do so, because as confirmed in game that the colosseums fell out of style and use once Godfrey was driven from the Lands Between. And that's when she really erased as much traces of Messmer and the crusade from her version of history. The erasure of history doesn't happen all at once, I can imagine it going over a prolonged period of time, and other events happening that would then cover up or at the very least obscure the truth. But like real life, even with the most concerted effort to erase history, some traces would still remain, even if the people no longer properly understood them. So either way, nothing is lore-breaking by thinking the way OP does.
@@theoutsider8745 thats a good point, although if it is true, they might not even have portrayed Messmer as a villain disconnected to Marika initially. The whole crusade was essentially Marikas wrathful vengeance for how the Hornsent treated the Shamans (which Marika herself was), she may have initially wanted the destruction of her mortal enemies to be viewed as a heroic act, and had it portrayed it as such in the colosseums. Then, years later when her mind on the matter was less angry, she realized it was ultimately pretty bad optics to celebrate a genocide, no matter how you try to whitewash it.
Dancers are definitely horned themselves. Item descriptions of the Horned Knight weapons state that Sculpted Keepers are elevated from within their ranks. Curseblades may also be dancers that don’t make the cut.
Curseblades are attempting to become "tutelary deities" according to Meera's ashes, not sculpted keepers. Said deities being the corpses we find the Revered Spirit Ashes in, according to their description.
My theory based on literally nothing other than the bags over their heads, the horns on the puppets are actually the ones that originally belonged to the dancers inside it. They cut them off for the puppet, and then it helps them act as if they ARE the puppet or something I guess.
@TheBl00D1u5t You can trip over Marika’s corpse in the back of the Radagon/Elden Beast arena. You gonna claim with a straight face that the lore & cinematics showing she and Radagon share a body are all false, or are you gonna stop being imbecilic and admit FROM is just lazy when it comes to making and placing their models? Lion Dancers are ex-Horned Knights, take it up with the in-game text.
There’s another dancing lion that also has a deathblight mode, and so it has 4 total modes it cycles through. (It also spawns basilisks so that’s…. fun) 4 people would definitely be a tight squeeze! It appears as though that they either don’t have have a universal set of elements amongst eachother or that we simply didn’t see (in the first encounter) and possibly still haven’t seen all elemental powers they can use!
I also appreciate how the hitbox for the boss is also just the two guys inside. Often I was attacking the middle of the lion, and doing no damage because I was hitting just the cloth of the costume and neither of the guys under it 😅
@SaHaRaSquad He's really dedicated as the sword as well. His costume is made of some extremely durable materials, and it's actually sharp. Really went the extra mile.
Just like in ancient Rome certain gladiator types symbolized certain group of people that the Roman empire faced during their wars and similarly the guardian lions and the gladiators probably meant to reanact the war between Messmer and the Hornsent.
I really like this theory, but the fact that Messmer's war on the hornsent was meant to be kept secret, to the point that the entire war takes place in what is essentially a pocket dimension, leads me to believe that they decided to remove this "clue" from the base game for consistency.
@@TheNoodleWizard Maybe that's just a long enough timeline kinda thing. Like, Messmer knows what a tarnished is just by looking at us, and the tarnished as a group weren't really a thing until the end of Godfrey's reign, and the giant arenas were built in Godfrey's hayday.
@@TheNoodleWizard Maybe, but because people consider the serpent, likely Messmer, a traitor to the Erdtree, they must know about him enough since he was present during Radahns earlier days. Maybe Marika labelled him as a traitor so she can wash her hands from the whole bussines with the Land of Shadow and blame the crusade on him.
@@dantoki6371 I agree, that's the most plausible theory. And I can see Marika had those gladiator fights reenact her version of the history of the events to bury the truth. Its really tragic for Messmer, not only was he abandoned but his true history was warped and used in a most horrible way, by his own mother no less.
They tortured and murdered Marika's people for stupid religious rituals on a genocidal scale, wiping them out and leaving Marika as the only survivor. Marika did a lot of wrong things, but the Hornsent got what was coming to them.
@@Knoloaify Not only that, but the jar ritual is outright contradictory to the Crucible that the Hornsent fetishized, since that's an artificial attempt to recreate what should be natural (it's literally Godrick's gimmick, but somehow way more unhinged and dumber). It seems that the reaosn why all of the original Divine Beast warriors stayed in Raum while not stepping in to help their Hornsent descendants may be due to how the Hornsent eventually modeled their culture after trying to ascend above the Crucible rather than living in tandem with it, hence why the Hornsent have so many weird and ineffective attempted ascension rituals that only make problems for everyone. Imagine becoming such colossal screwups that not even one's ancestral demigods think they're worthy of being saved and just let them get burned.
@@Knoloaify Yeah, while I'm sure the overwhelming majority of their individuals didn't deserve to be exterminated, as a civilisation they were clearly as bad or worse than Marika's Golden Order. Treating outsiders terribly? Shamans, check. Treating their own outcasts terribly? Man flies, double check. And that terrible treatment was particularly barbarous and horrific. Plus, by all accounts, at least the in-crowd under Marika's rule seemed to have lived pretty good lives, whereas the Hornsent children were dying of their own mutations all the time, apparently, and on the whole they didn't seem particularly prosperous.
I like how the second Lion Dancer implies that Deathblight is a natural weather pattern in the Realm of Shadow. "Tonight's forecast is cloudy with a chance of Blight, stay indoors to keep safe from raining Basilisks."
Keep in mind, these Lion Dancers and the Divine Beasts have existed WAY before Godwyn was even born, as he is the source of death blight, it wouldnt make sense that it's a common weather occurance in the land of Shadow, the second Lion Dancer having death blight as an option is something scary to think about, how did they manage to invoke something so foreign to them? How did Godwyns influence even manage to reach the land of shadow in the first place?
@vanquisher4700 It seems like a reoccurring theme in the DLC that a lot of the plagues of the modern, post-Shattering Lands Between have their roots in suppressed influences that came well before. Just like Malenia isn't the origin of Scarlet Rot but was cursed to become its avatar in the modern era, I could easily see Godwin just being the current, resurgent manifestation of Death Blight trying to reestablish itself after Marika disastrously tried to scrub the frickin' concept of death from reality.
I love the feeling, I have never noticed the lion and the snake matchup, but now it is as if we could see something mystical reiterate itself in different universes.
Cool concept, definitey one of the best soundtracks in the game, unfortunately not that fun to fight for me. Just felt like fighting the camera mroe than anything
Also not mentioned here is that a 2nd Dancing Lion appears as a Field boss in Rauh. It's mostly the same boss, but it can use Deathblight and can summon Basilisks from out of nowhere. Hope you'll wrap your head on how they are able to wield Death like that
I feel like that implies some kind of deathblight storm being a thing, since the other elements are storm based it wouldn’t make sense for deathblight to be there if it weren’t aswell
I imagine wielding death wasn't too abnormal until Marika detached the rune of Death, but that was a long time ago so only the ancient ones would have a real grasp on it
dlc was rushed and rewritten at the last second most likely. Explains the last boss and the lack of Godwyn/death lore. Not everything fits into 300IQ Miyazakis plan. The tower even puts emphasis on how "all kinds of death" end up there, but the one entity most related to death doesn't even get anything...
Those sword lions are absolutely the same species as the Divine Beast. Their face looks a little different because it's an old ass mask made from their skin lol
@Zopeee Their horns seem to have been cut which might make tgem weaker similar to the Omens and they have been enslaved for who knows how long which could also play a factor. So i can see it going both ways. Either way they are a far cry from the divine beasts worshipped.
The lions in basegame could well be emaciated and mistreated versions of them. After all, they've had their horns shorn off just like the Omens, and that's not a process that's easily survived.
I knew it was some kind of "puppet" boss but i wouldn't have guessed that it was literally just a couple of homies that were wrecking my shit that whole time
@@lag00n54 yes my friend i know, I was just thinking they were doing a Grotesque Fantasy Dancing Lion and not just an actual straight up normal one being worn by a couple of magic men
Ok that shot in the video of the colosseum fight with Messmer and the divine beast behind them is SICK, perfect visualization, and great vid, these lore tidbits are sooo coooool
@@DMBlade4 I noticed that souls games bosses can weirdly be VERY easy or VERY hard based on the person playing. Its not about skill level or anything. Its just like your brain has something that specifically connects with that boss. I've seen Pros/speedrunners struggle on bosses other 'noobs' or 'casuals' beat after a few tries on same builds. For me i thought Hoarah Loux was easy AF until i saw many people struggle on him, especially speedrunners and pros xD and im somewhat of a noob. But for some reason i was able to read all his attacks and dodge them effectivly on my first try. While i also got beat to shit by every dragon and burial watchdog. i just cant fight them properly. Either that or i just wrote the biggest brain gymnastics useless paragraph ever xD
Nah even if they used a real lion beast you could probably get his head as an headpiece. I mean we have a little octopus or even blaidds headpiece, and the game says (well its just a real good replica made to mimic their apperence...
I think it's incredibly cool that bother of them are modeled beneath the costume despite never being able to see then in game. A bit creepy to see this way though. This was probably my favorite boss of the DLC, it was so unique and also I love the music!
You can see the legs of them when they whirl in the air or rear up, but it's mostly obscured by the cloth and storm effects. Like smoke and mirrors, but instead cloth and clouds.
Hornsent lore was interesting to learn about; especially in relation to how awful they treated the Shamans/Numens. Bonney Village/Gaol, and specimen storage are gonna live in my head rent free. Horrifying stuff really lol
Its also nice how this explains why the Minor Erdtrees are stuffed with pots in the base game when you consider the whole reincarnation notion of the Golden Order.
@@Nachtmar3 to me it looked like Bonney Village was a slaughter house; while the shadowkeep had what almost looked like a hospital. Maybe the beginnings of what would become the gentlet version of jar making in the land between.
@@pockystyx4087 Ah you’re referring to the jar part, duh. I didn’t catch that for some reason. Yeah it gave off heavy blood borne research hall hospital vibes for me.
That’s where all the losing warriors went, and those losing warriors are who the jar summons. Pretty sure I’ve fought 3 different ones across 6 playthrus. So either its a huge list of premade champions or the AI produces a unique champion each time. I’ll experiment with this later. Stream it on twitch then post my finding afterward.
@@Vaga-Bard It works the same way as Fia's Champions - they're copies of other players who've beaten the challenge. If you're offline, it just uses 3 premade NPCs.
Hm, no? Fias champions are actual NPCs, some with questlines, and for some, you find their armours next to other Deathbeds during the game. @@apexkonchu2234
when i first fought the divine beast, i saw the hands close the jaw shut and just couldn’t stop thinking about it through the whole fight, such a cool explanation/backstory.
Literally one of only two songs from a non-AC Fromsoft game to ever get stuck in my head, standing beside Ludwig the Holy Blade. A real melody! Character! It's great
I'm a Malaysian Chinese who grew up watching a lot of lion dances. And it impressed me that the animation of the two dancers under the costume is pretty accurate to the real lion dance, even the one where the front guy stands on the shoulders of the back guy to appear taller. I'm so happy to see a traditional dance represented in Elden Ring. ^^
Fun fact is that there was no lion in east asia where lion dancing was done(Japan, Korea, China). Lion was more of a myth from far west such as India. Strangely, while lions are found in the Lands between, there is no animal that resembles a lion in the Shadow realm.
Some important lore details from item descriptions were missed in this video: The Dancing Lion are Horned Warriors who got the privilege to be turned into Sculpted Keepers (the puppet) that will channel the Divine Beast’s spirit in them. They are not two conscious people puppeting but one conscious spirit of the Divine Beast of heaven which seems to be a godly figure to the hornsent. The chained lion is just a Crucible/Omen/Hornsent lion which Golden Order would enslave and is Not the Divine Beast of the hornsent.
My man, they can't even get what's wrong with butchering and jarring people. They are genuinely surprised that it upsets friends and family of the victims.
My first thought when fighting this thing was hoping you'd make a video like this, thank you! I'm really looking forward to your upcoming videos and getting a closer look at the details
Don’t know if you know this, but if you look at the description of the “Divine Beast Armor and Helm” which drops from the warrior enemy in Enir-Ilum, it states that the sculpted keepers are the best of the best of the Divine Beast warriors….who stem from the horned warriors……who stem from the hornsent. So yes, that’s the answer to your question.
I never played Elden Ring or any Souls (?) games but I enjoy the short-form, efficiently informative styles of your videos. The length and the intriguing titles make them really easy to binge watch.
The dancers being called Sculpted Keepers has me wondering if they were statues brought to life. They’re inert until the old woman begins her incantation, after all.
The sculpted bit may be relating to just their head since they're not a real divine beast, but an imitation. There's humanoid enemies wearing lion head costumes in the DLC that aren't dancing dragons, but instead big guys with swords.
Not that interesting. I'd be the same concept. The Golden Order (I.e. Marika) hated what the horns represented and so made it a rule that Omens get their horns removed (With the exceptions being Morgott and Mogh because they are demigods) This likely just extended into the Lions too because Horns = Hornsent = Marika no likey
@@tarille1043 It's not because they were demigods, it's because omens born into nobility were locked into the sewers instead of getting their horns excised and used as foot soldiers.
Damn nice catch at the end Zullie And also the dedication to carefully animate those 2 guys even thought pretty much no one is going to see that. Impressive
I’m glad you pointed to the connection with the guardian lions. I might have totally missed it! The divine beast is definitely one of my new favorite souls bosses!
The last part about the colosseum is spot on; every year during the summer solstice, a 100 day celebration was hosted in the amphitheater-free to all citizens of Rome. This was seen as important as it was a direct act of the Emperor bestowing entertainment and the wealth of the to his subjects. Beasts including lions and Elephants were brought from conquered lands as a show of the Empires military prowess, and battles/beast hunts were staged to show the average citizen the tales of glory the Legions displayed in far off lands. These battles were a spectacle, with great details not only of the Roman forces, but that of their enemies as well. These bouts were meant to show the clashes outside of Rome-with hopefully the Roman-adorned gladiator coming out victorious. Should the foreign-adorned one win, it was to show the threat of neighboring enemies, and further show the perseverance of the Legions in defeating such a threat
i really figured it being 2 guys puppeteering would more visibly come up, like a phase 2 thing or a more unique death animation. with nothing like that happening i wondered if it were possible a minor case of grafting or just an odd ascended being in costume. no matter what i believed it was a costume, but im surprised they played with the idea as straight- forward as they did.
Thank you, Zullie! I'm an old man now and have to watch your videos with my glasses at 75% speed because I can't keep up with the text speed like I used to, but I still love all the lore, perspective and detail you provide! ❤
The snake-clad duelists and enslaved divine beasts is very on point for historical gladiatorial combat. Often, people weren't just being thrown into a pit for bloodsport, but rather they were doing mythical or historical cosplay, reenacting famous battles for the amusement of the audience. In that light, the match makes perfect sense; the duelists and lions would've been reenacting Messmer's crusade in miniature.
I'm not so sure if the lions from the base game are meant to have any relation to the Divine Beast. The dialogue from the Grandam seems to imply that the Divine Beast is a supernatural entity, and that the dancers are actually vessels for it. In this respect, the Divine Beast we fight actually is real, but it doesn't have a physical form, and relies on a host, much like the Fell God, who can only manifest itself through the Fire Giants.
is it possible that the Horned lions were meant to act as the original vessels for the divine beast, but they were taken by Messmer's army. Much like how the fell God manifest through fire giants, maybe that was what the lions were meant to be. however, Messmer's men might have captured them and sent them away to the lands between for use in the colosseum.
2:28 It's worth noting, I think, that these blade-wielding Lions have _broken_ horns. If they truly were intended to be held captive for entertainment, then it's very likely their horns were broken as additional insult to the Hornsent.
There are statues of the lions in natural form in various places and a possibly taxidermized one in the Specimen Storehouse Edit: nvm on the storehouse. None of those look like lions after all
Well i didnt saw them but maybe they looked like chinese lions? If you have watched a chinese fest where they have these lion dancers the faces their lions have always are kinda different to normal lions how we know them. Idk why they have these different looks on their lions but i also dont know their folklore enough so theres that
they aren't lions but i definitely think they are different hornsent beings since they look pretty similar. my biggest confusion is that one of the creatures looks eerily similar to torrent, although torrent doesn't have the barnacle looking growths on his body like they do in the specmen storehouse.
As soon as I saw this boss, I became excited for this moment: having layers stripped away, so we can see the mostly-unseen animations. Thank you for making videos like this.
Lion dances are common where i live, so when i first saw this boss i could not stop smiling. Every detail from the way it "stands" to whenever it shakes its head are so cool to see.
They are called "Sculpted Keepers" and their bodies have a grey, stone appearance. The visibility of the arm veins during the start of the cutscene reminded me of David and other Renaissance sculptures. I wonder if they literally are supposed to be stone? The "Tutelary Deities" we get Revered Spirit Ash from also seem to be made of stone. And the Curseblades (which are described as those who failed to become Tutelary Deities) have grey skin as well. I wonder if some Hornsent ritual involves turning to stone? The Tower also has those stone bodies incorporated into it.
Sculpted might also imply a long arduous process of being trained or specifically molded to a specific role. It might be that these hornsent are chosen from a very young age to assume this obviously sacred and revered position and put through a very specific regime to "sculpt" them to perfectly imitate the divine beast. We don't see too many hornsent with such incredible powers for instance.
Amazing! I hadn't made the connection between the divine beasts and the Lions, and the shots you got there at the end were amazing. Love your work Zullie!
The fact they bothered to animate what the dancers are doing under the cloth correctly even though majority is being obscured by cloth really goes to show their dedication
I love these videos where I don't learn many new informations, but the combination and the linking of many independant findings reveal something that makes you go "Oh right, of course !"
This fight was really difficult, but i really love this boss design (and soundtrack) And this video enhances even more my appreciation of the character. Honestly the animations for the two little fellas in there is just great!
I really love seeing the lion dance in every new year, they're fun to watch. In the Chinese folklore the Lion is actually called Nian or Year Beast, this Nian would eat children and disturb other people's livestock, so the celestial being from the heaven came to the village help them giving 3 hints to fight against the Nian that is 'any thing that are red color', 'some bright lights' and 'some firecrackers'. As new year approach again, the Nian appeared but was not prepare that the people in the village figured out its weakness, everyone was wearing red color dress and the Nian has erythrophobia or fear the color of red. All the streets was filled with lanterns with the bright color of red, which make the Nian dizzy and can't use it's nigh vision correctly, so when it goes near the children or the people's livestock, they begin to throw some firecrackers at the Nian to scare it away. Finally, the Nian flee into the forest and decide to eat other thing for the time being but every new year it will always come to taste the human flesh.
This was a wonderfully informative video. I was previously under the impression that this was another flavor of Grafting, rather than a really unsettling take on a Lion Dance.
The dialogue of the old woman in Belurat that plays during the boss cutscene may indicate that the spirit of a divine beast is actually possessing the bodies of these two hornsent, effectively using them to "come back to life" and defend the keep.
I kind of assumed that the "sculpted keepers" line was somewhat literal and that they were literally artificial. Also I'm not sure if those are indeed genuine divine beasts speared by messmer. The description text mentions that the lion dance was weaponized against Messmer's armies and it seems to make more sense that they are lion dancers considering Messmer went to the effort of spearing the bottom part of their cloaks.
According to Miyazaki, Messmer's existence and the history of the Land of Shadow was written before development on the base game even started, still building off GRRM's writings. The idea the colosseums may once have foreshadowed the backstory of the DLC is both entirely possible and also somewhat staggering to think about, and then it's even more bizarre that they removed that little hint anyway.
Thank you for these videos! Love them
Gotta love the fact that people thought the smouldering butterfly represented Melina at first, and then changed their minds to Messmer when the dlc trailer dropped, and then back to Melina when the dlc itself dropped with Messmer's Pyrefly and direct confirmation that Melina is a child of Marika
I would KILL for access to GRRM's Elden Ring bible. There is almost nothing I would not do to have all that info.
It is weird how very little buildup there is to the dlc though, with Messmer not even being mentioned at all.
GRRM builds elaborate histories for his stories, even going so far as to call "Fire and Blood", a compendium of the Targaryen dynasty's history and the basis for "House of the Dragon", a "fake history book." Not surprised there's a whole history in the foundation of the game that both base game and DLC have barely touched upon.
Not a phone in sight, just 2 buff man on top of each other, living in the moment
Emperor Commodus has entered the chat
So masculine, I've never heard of anything more straight❤
(8)Two brooos, dancing in a lion. Three inches apart 'cause they're not gay!(8)
@@something-g99 I might not get the pun, but what does masculinity have to do with sexual orientation? lol
@@FelixMBlumeFor a straight guy... _everything_
Do you think the guy in the front half of the Lion ever accidentally smashed his fingers in the teeth?
No but think about the guy in the back who constantly has to smell farts, and hear his companion blame it on thunder.
Don’t think he would have fingers if that were the case
too cool for that
I'm more concerned about him smashing his face on the floor during some of these attacks, like at 1:14
Imagine getting your fingers smashed by both sets of teeth... talk about acupuncture lmao
This boss must've been a nightmare to animate but by god they did a truly amazing job.
It looks like they mostly focused on the lion head and the dude legs, covered everything else with cloth and only animated what they needed to.
You could say... It was the dark souls of animation?
not as bad as godrick or ludwig
yeah animation is great but unfortunately they forgort about normal target lock (big flying creatures, classic) and about well working hitboxes (classic again)
@@user-zo7fy2gi8r Camera's a bit off on the fight, but the hit boxes are fine.
Just some insight about lion dance as a tradition, the dancer playing the hind of the lion is the more senior and adept one. It takes years of practice and more skill and stamina to make the body of the lion keep up with the movement of the head.
Having done the Lion Dance for many years you need both the head and the tail to know their respective roles.
@@suimeingwong2043 thanks genius
@@burneraccounthandle why so disrespectful
@@Jinnyfir because its a stupid comment and i dont need to be nice
@@burneraccounthandle you also don't need to be not nice, it'd have been easier to not comment anything
Fightning this thing is like fighting the Ulcerated Tree Spirit if it did 4 lines of cocaine and gave the camera a simultaneous seizure, heart attack and concussion
unlock your camera, brother. it's always an option, if rarely utilized by many
Bro locked in
@@thunderryu0494unlocking your camera still wont make it zoom out, its slightly better than locking on though
@@thunderryu0494 Unlock your camera on the boss who is constantly moving from one side of the screen to the other, and manually try to cover all this mess with your right stick, not forgetting to roll every few seconds. Sounds like a great idea, thanks Miyazaki-san.
@@paradox5384 that's why KB+M is unironically superior
Holy shit, the fact that under the Golden Order they recreated the great crusade in the colosseum for entertainment, just like the romans did as well. I love this game omg
It’s cool speculation, don’t take it as fact. That’s how you get brain rot like “Placidusax is the storm lord!” 🤤
@@Nachtmar3for real
on one hand, thats what the dummied out spawns in the arena seem to suggest, but on the other, Marika erased all traces of Messmer and his crusade from history in the Lands Between, so it seems unlikely she would allow such a representation of it.
@@zoid_on_youtube I can see her re-enacting the events but a re-written version of history that paints Messmer and the Hornsent as villains destroying each other. I can even guess that eventually Marika stopped doing that once it was expedient to do so, because as confirmed in game that the colosseums fell out of style and use once Godfrey was driven from the Lands Between. And that's when she really erased as much traces of Messmer and the crusade from her version of history.
The erasure of history doesn't happen all at once, I can imagine it going over a prolonged period of time, and other events happening that would then cover up or at the very least obscure the truth. But like real life, even with the most concerted effort to erase history, some traces would still remain, even if the people no longer properly understood them. So either way, nothing is lore-breaking by thinking the way OP does.
@@theoutsider8745 thats a good point, although if it is true, they might not even have portrayed Messmer as a villain disconnected to Marika initially. The whole crusade was essentially Marikas wrathful vengeance for how the Hornsent treated the Shamans (which Marika herself was), she may have initially wanted the destruction of her mortal enemies to be viewed as a heroic act, and had it portrayed it as such in the colosseums. Then, years later when her mind on the matter was less angry, she realized it was ultimately pretty bad optics to celebrate a genocide, no matter how you try to whitewash it.
Dancers are definitely horned themselves. Item descriptions of the Horned Knight weapons state that Sculpted Keepers are elevated from within their ranks. Curseblades may also be dancers that don’t make the cut.
Curseblades are attempting to become "tutelary deities" according to Meera's ashes, not sculpted keepers. Said deities being the corpses we find the Revered Spirit Ashes in, according to their description.
curseblades are not releted
There are two dancers that you can encounter as bosses in the DLC and they don't have horns anywhere on their body
My theory based on literally nothing other than the bags over their heads, the horns on the puppets are actually the ones that originally belonged to the dancers inside it. They cut them off for the puppet, and then it helps them act as if they ARE the puppet or something I guess.
@TheBl00D1u5t You can trip over Marika’s corpse in the back of the Radagon/Elden Beast arena. You gonna claim with a straight face that the lore & cinematics showing she and Radagon share a body are all false, or are you gonna stop being imbecilic and admit FROM is just lazy when it comes to making and placing their models? Lion Dancers are ex-Horned Knights, take it up with the in-game text.
Didn't expect there to be only 2. Thought there would at least 3 fellas in there, one for each element.
There’s another dancing lion that also has a deathblight mode, and so it has 4 total modes it cycles through. (It also spawns basilisks so that’s…. fun)
4 people would definitely be a tight squeeze!
It appears as though that they either don’t have have a universal set of elements amongst eachother or that we simply didn’t see (in the first encounter) and possibly still haven’t seen all elemental powers they can use!
I could've sworn it had like, a dozen legs under that cloak. I thought it was a grafted scion sort of deal.
for real i was already expecting at least two more, one for wind and the other for lightning but we got deathblight instead
@@Sedwards3795I died to that death blight lion more than to Messmer
@@jasv49it was those stupid basilisks getting in my way lol
I also appreciate how the hitbox for the boss is also just the two guys inside.
Often I was attacking the middle of the lion, and doing no damage because I was hitting just the cloth of the costume and neither of the guys under it 😅
Apparently the elden beast is 5 people in a costume
And has a guy cosplaying as sword
@@SaHaRaSquad That part is true.
@SaHaRaSquad He's really dedicated as the sword as well. His costume is made of some extremely durable materials, and it's actually sharp. Really went the extra mile.
Now imagine Rykard 💀
can confirm my dad works at fromsoft
Just like in ancient Rome certain gladiator types symbolized certain group of people that the Roman empire faced during their wars and similarly the guardian lions and the gladiators probably meant to reanact the war between Messmer and the Hornsent.
I really like this theory, but the fact that Messmer's war on the hornsent was meant to be kept secret, to the point that the entire war takes place in what is essentially a pocket dimension, leads me to believe that they decided to remove this "clue" from the base game for consistency.
@@TheNoodleWizard Maybe that's just a long enough timeline kinda thing. Like, Messmer knows what a tarnished is just by looking at us, and the tarnished as a group weren't really a thing until the end of Godfrey's reign, and the giant arenas were built in Godfrey's hayday.
@@TheNoodleWizard Maybe, but because people consider the serpent, likely Messmer, a traitor to the Erdtree, they must know about him enough since he was present during Radahns earlier days.
Maybe Marika labelled him as a traitor so she can wash her hands from the whole bussines with the Land of Shadow and blame the crusade on him.
@@dantoki6371 God-Devouring Serpent and the Recusants are a thing. That's where the branding of traitor likely comes from.
@@dantoki6371 I agree, that's the most plausible theory. And I can see Marika had those gladiator fights reenact her version of the history of the events to bury the truth. Its really tragic for Messmer, not only was he abandoned but his true history was warped and used in a most horrible way, by his own mother no less.
“…cruelty is only circling back on them like their beloved spiral” cold asf 😭😭😭😭😭😭
They tortured and murdered Marika's people for stupid religious rituals on a genocidal scale, wiping them out and leaving Marika as the only survivor. Marika did a lot of wrong things, but the Hornsent got what was coming to them.
What goes around, comes around
@@Knoloaify
Not only that, but the jar ritual is outright contradictory to the Crucible that the Hornsent fetishized, since that's an artificial attempt to recreate what should be natural (it's literally Godrick's gimmick, but somehow way more unhinged and dumber). It seems that the reaosn why all of the original Divine Beast warriors stayed in Raum while not stepping in to help their Hornsent descendants may be due to how the Hornsent eventually modeled their culture after trying to ascend above the Crucible rather than living in tandem with it, hence why the Hornsent have so many weird and ineffective attempted ascension rituals that only make problems for everyone. Imagine becoming such colossal screwups that not even one's ancestral demigods think they're worthy of being saved and just let them get burned.
@@Knoloaify Yeah, while I'm sure the overwhelming majority of their individuals didn't deserve to be exterminated, as a civilisation they were clearly as bad or worse than Marika's Golden Order. Treating outsiders terribly? Shamans, check. Treating their own outcasts terribly? Man flies, double check. And that terrible treatment was particularly barbarous and horrific.
Plus, by all accounts, at least the in-crowd under Marika's rule seemed to have lived pretty good lives, whereas the Hornsent children were dying of their own mutations all the time, apparently, and on the whole they didn't seem particularly prosperous.
@@Knoloaifyidk if religious fanatics torturing/killing a small village of shamans justifies an eternal limbo of suffering for an entire kingdom
I like how the second Lion Dancer implies that Deathblight is a natural weather pattern in the Realm of Shadow.
"Tonight's forecast is cloudy with a chance of Blight, stay indoors to keep safe from raining Basilisks."
Could also just be a form of corruption since that one seems to be one that survived messmers onslaught and is just . . . Lost to time away from home.
Weather patterns and life/death are cyclical, just like dances and music.
@@tropezando yeah that could also be more likely.
Keep in mind, these Lion Dancers and the Divine Beasts have existed WAY before Godwyn was even born, as he is the source of death blight, it wouldnt make sense that it's a common weather occurance in the land of Shadow, the second Lion Dancer having death blight as an option is something scary to think about, how did they manage to invoke something so foreign to them? How did Godwyns influence even manage to reach the land of shadow in the first place?
@vanquisher4700 It seems like a reoccurring theme in the DLC that a lot of the plagues of the modern, post-Shattering Lands Between have their roots in suppressed influences that came well before. Just like Malenia isn't the origin of Scarlet Rot but was cursed to become its avatar in the modern era, I could easily see Godwin just being the current, resurgent manifestation of Death Blight trying to reestablish itself after Marika disastrously tried to scrub the frickin' concept of death from reality.
I love the feeling, I have never noticed the lion and the snake matchup, but now it is as if we could see something mystical reiterate itself in different universes.
Gives me tiger vs dragon vibes
When it does the 360 breath you can literally see the second dude platforming for the head guy
Personally my favorite dlc boss, I just love the idea behind its design.
My favorite too, love the music
@@augustgurtisen it sounds like your taming a damn storm it’s so good
@@augustgurtisen apparently the weather change is synced to the music too
Cool concept, definitey one of the best soundtracks in the game, unfortunately not that fun to fight for me. Just felt like fighting the camera mroe than anything
the music, concept, and the fight itself was top notch 😊 i love it
'i'm not going heavy tonight, just one or two beers'
me and bro at 4am in the kitchen 20 beers deep
seeing this boss instantly made me think "yeah zullie's gonna have to explain this one."
Also not mentioned here is that a 2nd Dancing Lion appears as a Field boss in Rauh. It's mostly the same boss, but it can use Deathblight and can summon Basilisks from out of nowhere. Hope you'll wrap your head on how they are able to wield Death like that
Death, too, is another aspect of nature. Before the age of the erdtree, death was simply part of divine nature.
I feel like that implies some kind of deathblight storm being a thing, since the other elements are storm based it wouldn’t make sense for deathblight to be there if it weren’t aswell
My theory is that the front dancer keeps a basilisk in the lion suit with him, and he squeezes it to spray out Deathblight breath.
I imagine wielding death wasn't too abnormal until Marika detached the rune of Death, but that was a long time ago so only the ancient ones would have a real grasp on it
dlc was rushed and rewritten at the last second most likely. Explains the last boss and the lack of Godwyn/death lore. Not everything fits into 300IQ Miyazakis plan. The tower even puts emphasis on how "all kinds of death" end up there, but the one entity most related to death doesn't even get anything...
Those sword lions are absolutely the same species as the Divine Beast. Their face looks a little different because it's an old ass mask made from their skin lol
I would rather think they are lesser Descendants of them, because i dont think they would lose that much power otherwise
@@Zopeee Pretty plausible as the same had happened to the ancient dragons and their lesser descendants
@Zopeee Their horns seem to have been cut which might make tgem weaker similar to the Omens and they have been enslaved for who knows how long which could also play a factor. So i can see it going both ways. Either way they are a far cry from the divine beasts worshipped.
The lions in basegame could well be emaciated and mistreated versions of them. After all, they've had their horns shorn off just like the Omens, and that's not a process that's easily survived.
Plus the lions in Castle Sol breathe Ice, just like the Divine Beast
I knew it was some kind of "puppet" boss but i wouldn't have guessed that it was literally just a couple of homies that were wrecking my shit that whole time
hense the name dancing lion
like those Chinese dancing lions
@@lag00n54 yes my friend i know, I was just thinking they were doing a Grotesque Fantasy Dancing Lion and not just an actual straight up normal one being worn by a couple of magic men
@@Alexander_Alexander very muscular magic men
I like to imagine they accidentally slam their own finger when ever they slam it's head
two dudes in a trenchcoat
Fromsoftware never ceases to amaze me with there characters designs
@@SyntheticShinobi Delete this. Mom said it's my turn to correct random people's grammatical errors 😢
Ok that shot in the video of the colosseum fight with Messmer and the divine beast behind them is SICK, perfect visualization, and great vid, these lore tidbits are sooo coooool
The fact that one of the most insane bosses isn’t a deformed grafted undead lion, and it’s just 2 cosplayers is nuts
@@DMBlade4it’s like the first boss, no
@@DMBlade4 I noticed that souls games bosses can weirdly be VERY easy or VERY hard based on the person playing. Its not about skill level or anything. Its just like your brain has something that specifically connects with that boss.
I've seen Pros/speedrunners struggle on bosses other 'noobs' or 'casuals' beat after a few tries on same builds.
For me i thought Hoarah Loux was easy AF until i saw many people struggle on him, especially speedrunners and pros xD and im somewhat of a noob. But for some reason i was able to read all his attacks and dodge them effectivly on my first try. While i also got beat to shit by every dragon and burial watchdog. i just cant fight them properly.
Either that or i just wrote the biggest brain gymnastics useless paragraph ever xD
@@DMBlade4 he’s supposed to be challenging really, for me he was. But not difficult
@DMBlade4 that's pretty mediocre if you ask me. You're actually supposed to beat him 0th try
@@ec5400 Build completely changes boss difficulty
i really do like the twist on "chinese lion dance" they did here. the way the jaws crack when they close is oddly satisfying
This boss phases through different elements based on the music, truly a performance
“The Hornsent aren’t blameless, and cruelty is only circling back on them like their beloved spiral.” 🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥
It actually explains why we can wear the head as a helmet. Because it is a headwear.
Nah even if they used a real lion beast you could probably get his head as an headpiece. I mean we have a little octopus or even blaidds headpiece, and the game says (well its just a real good replica made to mimic their apperence...
@@darkcartman2826 I'm with you about octopus head, but blaidd's mask's description clearly states that the item in question is a mask.
Black Wolf mask is a disguise to get close to Ranni
I think it's incredibly cool that bother of them are modeled beneath the costume despite never being able to see then in game. A bit creepy to see this way though.
This was probably my favorite boss of the DLC, it was so unique and also I love the music!
You can see them during some animations, particularly when they rear up for breath/slam attacks.
You can see the legs of them when they whirl in the air or rear up, but it's mostly obscured by the cloth and storm effects. Like smoke and mirrors, but instead cloth and clouds.
Hornsent lore was interesting to learn about; especially in relation to how awful they treated the Shamans/Numens. Bonney Village/Gaol, and specimen storage are gonna live in my head rent free. Horrifying stuff really lol
Its also nice how this explains why the Minor Erdtrees are stuffed with pots in the base game when you consider the whole reincarnation notion of the Golden Order.
Specimen storage? Isn’t that messmer collecting, not the hornsent?
@@Nachtmar3 to me it looked like Bonney Village was a slaughter house; while the shadowkeep had what almost looked like a hospital. Maybe the beginnings of what would become the gentlet version of jar making in the land between.
@@pockystyx4087 Ah you’re referring to the jar part, duh. I didn’t catch that for some reason. Yeah it gave off heavy blood borne research hall hospital vibes for me.
@@pockystyx4087 Yeah, it seems like jars in the lands between are filled with the dead rather than the living.
That giant pot in front of the colliseum raises a LOT more questions from me now.
That’s where all the losing warriors went, and those losing warriors are who the jar summons. Pretty sure I’ve fought 3 different ones across 6 playthrus.
So either its a huge list of premade champions or the AI produces a unique champion each time.
I’ll experiment with this later. Stream it on twitch then post my finding afterward.
@@Vaga-Bard It works the same way as Fia's Champions - they're copies of other players who've beaten the challenge. If you're offline, it just uses 3 premade NPCs.
Hm, no? Fias champions are actual NPCs, some with questlines, and for some, you find their armours next to other Deathbeds during the game. @@apexkonchu2234
0:12 How tf do they put the helmets on 💀
That is one of the most badass boss designs. Thank you for showing this. Amazing work as always.
Badass? It's just two dudes in a trench coat. /s
when i first fought the divine beast, i saw the hands close the jaw shut and just couldn’t stop thinking about it through the whole fight, such a cool explanation/backstory.
It should also be noted that the Duelists also only have one eye, the right eye. same as Messmer
Without forgetting that he is possibly one of the best bosses with one of the best background soundtracks.
Literally one of only two songs from a non-AC Fromsoft game to ever get stuck in my head, standing beside Ludwig the Holy Blade. A real melody! Character! It's great
@@AtelierMcMuttonArt dont forget the plink plink plonk of ds3 soul of cinder
@@vishensivparsad I prefer the DS1 Lord of Cinder version tbh.
@@vishensivparsad Oh shit! You're right!
@@Lindblueteyeah DS1 is where it’s at.
Ohh yes Im so ready for this new wave of DLC content
I'm a Malaysian Chinese who grew up watching a lot of lion dances. And it impressed me that the animation of the two dancers under the costume is pretty accurate to the real lion dance, even the one where the front guy stands on the shoulders of the back guy to appear taller. I'm so happy to see a traditional dance represented in Elden Ring. ^^
China
THE POSTENING
Fun fact is that there was no lion in east asia where lion dancing was done(Japan, Korea, China). Lion was more of a myth from far west such as India. Strangely, while lions are found in the Lands between, there is no animal that resembles a lion in the Shadow realm.
Some important lore details from item descriptions were missed in this video: The Dancing Lion are Horned Warriors who got the privilege to be turned into Sculpted Keepers (the puppet) that will channel the Divine Beast’s spirit in them. They are not two conscious people puppeting but one conscious spirit of the Divine Beast of heaven which seems to be a godly figure to the hornsent. The chained lion is just a Crucible/Omen/Hornsent lion which Golden Order would enslave and is Not the Divine Beast of the hornsent.
“Cruelty is only circling back on them like their beloved spiral.”
Damn thats a cold line right there.
My man, they can't even get what's wrong with butchering and jarring people. They are genuinely surprised that it upsets friends and family of the victims.
@@your_nekoand then they have the audacity to say that Marika betrayed them
Marika proving to them that to fuck around is human, and to find out is divine.
My first thought when fighting this thing was hoping you'd make a video like this, thank you! I'm really looking forward to your upcoming videos and getting a closer look at the details
Don’t know if you know this, but if you look at the description of the “Divine Beast Armor and Helm” which drops from the warrior enemy in Enir-Ilum, it states that the sculpted keepers are the best of the best of the Divine Beast warriors….who stem from the horned warriors……who stem from the hornsent. So yes, that’s the answer to your question.
I never played Elden Ring or any Souls (?) games but I enjoy the short-form, efficiently informative styles of your videos. The length and the intriguing titles make them really easy to binge watch.
The dancers being called Sculpted Keepers has me wondering if they were statues brought to life. They’re inert until the old woman begins her incantation, after all.
They say in lore that the sculted keepers are the most elevated which means they rose through the ranks. That can’t make them statues.
The sculpted bit may be relating to just their head since they're not a real divine beast, but an imitation. There's humanoid enemies wearing lion head costumes in the DLC that aren't dancing dragons, but instead big guys with swords.
I took it to mean they were the keepers/caretakers of the beast costume itself, since it is divine to them
"cruelty is only circling back on them like their beloved spiral" 🔥✍️
Interesting how the lions in the base game, like a lot of Omens, have had their horns removed.
Not that interesting. I'd be the same concept. The Golden Order (I.e. Marika) hated what the horns represented and so made it a rule that Omens get their horns removed (With the exceptions being Morgott and Mogh because they are demigods)
This likely just extended into the Lions too because Horns = Hornsent = Marika no likey
@@tarille1043Marika has been highly traumatized by hornsent persecution against her people and decided to return the favor one hundred fold.
@@tarille1043 It's not because they were demigods, it's because omens born into nobility were locked into the sewers instead of getting their horns excised and used as foot soldiers.
Damn nice catch at the end Zullie
And also the dedication to carefully animate those 2 guys even thought pretty much no one is going to see that. Impressive
The Hornsent are just one more cosmic case of “fucked around and found out”
I’m glad you pointed to the connection with the guardian lions. I might have totally missed it! The divine beast is definitely one of my new favorite souls bosses!
love the head, and love that theres a smaller version of it
So there's an entire lore hidden on TH-cam and game Wikis, but it doesn't even show up in the game itself? Wow.
The last part about the colosseum is spot on; every year during the summer solstice, a 100 day celebration was hosted in the amphitheater-free to all citizens of Rome. This was seen as important as it was a direct act of the Emperor bestowing entertainment and the wealth of the to his subjects. Beasts including lions and Elephants were brought from conquered lands as a show of the Empires military prowess, and battles/beast hunts were staged to show the average citizen the tales of glory the Legions displayed in far off lands. These battles were a spectacle, with great details not only of the Roman forces, but that of their enemies as well. These bouts were meant to show the clashes outside of Rome-with hopefully the Roman-adorned gladiator coming out victorious. Should the foreign-adorned one win, it was to show the threat of neighboring enemies, and further show the perseverance of the Legions in defeating such a threat
I was _super_ waiting for this video and was not disappointed. TY Zullie
i really figured it being 2 guys puppeteering would more visibly come up, like a phase 2 thing or a more unique
death animation. with nothing like that happening i wondered if it were possible a minor case of grafting
or just an odd ascended being in costume.
no matter what i believed it was a costume, but im surprised they played with the idea as straight-
forward as they did.
Even when defeated they play their part as a single divine beast. They're simply that committed to the bit!
It's crazy they had two full models for the puppeteers. I just imagine the devs saying "this ones for Zullie" as the made them
War Lion enemy locations…
Stormveil: Wind and Lightning
Redmane Castle: Brute Strength
Castle Sol: Blizzard
Sounds similar enough.
Not gonna lie Zullie I've been waiting on you making this video since the trailer, thank you so much!
The DLC also gives new context to grafting that is found in the base game.
Holy shit, you always have the BEST music in ur videos! I played so much of Skyward Sword and this was my favorite song in the game! 😍😍
Get a notification Zullie uploaded, I watch immediately.
Thank you, Zullie! I'm an old man now and have to watch your videos with my glasses at 75% speed because I can't keep up with the text speed like I used to, but I still love all the lore, perspective and detail you provide! ❤
Thank Zullie, i've been dying to see what was under the hood as it were of this magnificent bastard(s)
The snake-clad duelists and enslaved divine beasts is very on point for historical gladiatorial combat. Often, people weren't just being thrown into a pit for bloodsport, but rather they were doing mythical or historical cosplay, reenacting famous battles for the amusement of the audience. In that light, the match makes perfect sense; the duelists and lions would've been reenacting Messmer's crusade in miniature.
I'm not so sure if the lions from the base game are meant to have any relation to the Divine Beast. The dialogue from the Grandam seems to imply that the Divine Beast is a supernatural entity, and that the dancers are actually vessels for it. In this respect, the Divine Beast we fight actually is real, but it doesn't have a physical form, and relies on a host, much like the Fell God, who can only manifest itself through the Fire Giants.
Isn't there something like a Divine Beast in the Speciman Storage?
is it possible that the Horned lions were meant to act as the original vessels for the divine beast, but they were taken by Messmer's army. Much like how the fell God manifest through fire giants, maybe that was what the lions were meant to be. however, Messmer's men might have captured them and sent them away to the lands between for use in the colosseum.
This is an interesting theory but I doubt it’s true. The mask looks too organic to have not been taken from a living creature.
2:28 It's worth noting, I think, that these blade-wielding Lions have _broken_ horns. If they truly were intended to be held captive for entertainment, then it's very likely their horns were broken as additional insult to the Hornsent.
There are statues of the lions in natural form in various places and a possibly taxidermized one in the Specimen Storehouse
Edit: nvm on the storehouse. None of those look like lions after all
Well i didnt saw them but maybe they looked like chinese lions? If you have watched a chinese fest where they have these lion dancers the faces their lions have always are kinda different to normal lions how we know them. Idk why they have these different looks on their lions but i also dont know their folklore enough so theres that
they aren't lions but i definitely think they are different hornsent beings since they look pretty similar. my biggest confusion is that one of the creatures looks eerily similar to torrent, although torrent doesn't have the barnacle looking growths on his body like they do in the specmen storehouse.
As soon as I saw this boss, I became excited for this moment: having layers stripped away, so we can see the mostly-unseen animations.
Thank you for making videos like this.
How cool would it have been if you had the possibility to "cripple" the lion by killing one of the dancers?
Lion dances are common where i live, so when i first saw this boss i could not stop smiling. Every detail from the way it "stands" to whenever it shakes its head are so cool to see.
Lion dance was introduced to Japan from China. The design appears to be based on the Japanese style lion dance (獅子舞/Shishi-mai).
I can’t believe the dancers’ movements actually make sense when you strip away the puppet, that’s such incredible attention to detail.
They are called "Sculpted Keepers" and their bodies have a grey, stone appearance. The visibility of the arm veins during the start of the cutscene reminded me of David and other Renaissance sculptures. I wonder if they literally are supposed to be stone? The "Tutelary Deities" we get Revered Spirit Ash from also seem to be made of stone. And the Curseblades (which are described as those who failed to become Tutelary Deities) have grey skin as well. I wonder if some Hornsent ritual involves turning to stone? The Tower also has those stone bodies incorporated into it.
I feel like they wouldn't be able to bleed if they were stone beings, From is usually pretty careful about keeping that kind of stuff consistent.
Sculpted might also imply a long arduous process of being trained or specifically molded to a specific role. It might be that these hornsent are chosen from a very young age to assume this obviously sacred and revered position and put through a very specific regime to "sculpt" them to perfectly imitate the divine beast. We don't see too many hornsent with such incredible powers for instance.
@@Suiberis Oh you KNOW they are chiseled from doing those acrobatics
Amazing! I hadn't made the connection between the divine beasts and the Lions, and the shots you got there at the end were amazing. Love your work Zullie!
Umm, Zullo, I'm afraid of strange bosses 😢
Short and simple, one of your best videos yet. Nice work!
The fact they bothered to animate what the dancers are doing under the cloth correctly even though majority is being obscured by cloth really goes to show their dedication
I cannot wait for you to dig into some of the stuff from this DLC! There is so much to go over!
Can't wait for a mod that removes the "lion" so you fight two naked, pirueting men as a boss
Don't forget that the second lion dancer can invoke the power of deathblighy
I love these videos where I don't learn many new informations, but the combination and the linking of many independant findings reveal something that makes you go "Oh right, of course !"
This fight was really difficult, but i really love this boss design (and soundtrack)
And this video enhances even more my appreciation of the character. Honestly the animations for the two little fellas in there is just great!
I really love seeing the lion dance in every new year, they're fun to watch.
In the Chinese folklore the Lion is actually called Nian or Year Beast, this Nian would eat children and disturb other people's livestock, so the celestial being from the heaven came to the village help them giving 3 hints to fight against the Nian that is 'any thing that are red color', 'some bright lights' and 'some firecrackers'. As new year approach again, the Nian appeared but was not prepare that the people in the village figured out its weakness, everyone was wearing red color dress and the Nian has erythrophobia or fear the color of red. All the streets was filled with lanterns with the bright color of red, which make the Nian dizzy and can't use it's nigh vision correctly, so when it goes near the children or the people's livestock, they begin to throw some firecrackers at the Nian to scare it away. Finally, the Nian flee into the forest and decide to eat other thing for the time being but every new year it will always come to taste the human flesh.
Thank you Zullie, for being one of the few channels out here still regarding spoilers.
Lol thank you so much. The first time I saw this boss I was like "wonder whats in there" and hoped you would make a vid on it XD
As soon as I heard about this boss I knew that this video was coming. So nice to finally be able to watch it. Thank you Zullie! 😄
This was a wonderfully informative video. I was previously under the impression that this was another flavor of Grafting, rather than a really unsettling take on a Lion Dance.
Love these, always so fascinating the minute details!
Yet more evidence that SotE was always supposed to be about Marika, but pivoted to narratively focus on Miquella at some point relatively late in dev.
One of the most creative bosses Fromsoft has made.
The dialogue of the old woman in Belurat that plays during the boss cutscene may indicate that the spirit of a divine beast is actually possessing the bodies of these two hornsent, effectively using them to "come back to life" and defend the keep.
was really looking forward to this video! thank you for all the hard work!!
As soon as i saw the trailer i was waiting for this video, thanks!
"...cruelty is only circling back on them like their beloved spiral."
HOLY SHIT THIS GOES HARD
Zullie, I need a book of poetry now. Thems the rules.
Even though the camera is a nightmare to deal with, this still became one of my favorite bosses. It helps that the music absolutely slaps
I don't normally put too much stock in cut content but hoooly shit what a good catch there with the duelist vs lion symbolism.
I did not have "DLC makes me feel sympathy for Marika" in my 2024 bingo card
I kind of assumed that the "sculpted keepers" line was somewhat literal and that they were literally artificial. Also I'm not sure if those are indeed genuine divine beasts speared by messmer. The description text mentions that the lion dance was weaponized against Messmer's armies and it seems to make more sense that they are lion dancers considering Messmer went to the effort of spearing the bottom part of their cloaks.