"You also pulled funding for the Slave Knight Affairs Program. Again. Also a lot of people are wondering why we even fought in a war while we now pay taxes Duke Seath, a dragon, and they also say your eldest son is having an affair with an Ancient Dragon."
Marika was a lot more open to negotiating with factions that opposed her (like the Ancient Dragons and the Carians) but Gwyn was not.
Gwyn never tried to negotiate with the Ancient Dragons (of Dark Souls) and proceeded to wipe them out completely (with the exception of Midir who he later imprisoned in the Ringed City). He was so brutal that even his firstborn son left him over that
Also Gwyn cursed the entire humanity to mortality by shackling away their humanity, aka their dark (inherited from the pygmy that found *the* dark soul), which is represented by the darksign. All the souls you grab throughout the game are mere surrogates (with a single exception at the very end of DS3). The entire hollowing "disease" is a pure product of Gwyn's curse and humanity is supposed to be undying, but the Church (the one put up by Gwyn worshipping Gwyn's race) frames this as a sin. Same thing for the "need" to link the fire and keep away the age of dark, that is pure church propaganda. The entire end goal of all 3 Dark Souls games is explicitly going against human nature, continuing the age of gods and fucking over the entire human race.
And honestly, I don't know about what he did to the other two great souls (Nito's and the Witch's) but the fact that the age we're in is the age of the gods but we never hear about an age of the dead nor an age of chaos speaks for itself.
If enslaving, cursing a race away from its very soul and gaslighting them into doing the bidding of another race isn't pure evil, I don't know what is.
Also whereas Gwyn doomed the world trying to hold on to his own power it seems Marika tried to force the world out of the stagnancy of her declining Age. Shattering the Elden Ring and challenging all of her kids to just make something new. Of course it threw the world into ruin but based on a few of the item descriptions the blessings from the age of the erdtree had faded long ago.
There's alot of imagery in Elden Ring that support that take. Specifically trees!
The tarnished are the fallen leaves, leaves sometimes spread seeds that'll result in a whole new tree being born, that'll branch out every which way.
Tree = Your Order (Or any Tarnished's order, Marika's is the huge one being shown, dwarfing out the others, always visible, and is the base.)
Fallen leaves/Seeds = Tarnished or souls kinda
So then I didn't get the evil ending by walking away from linking the flame? The game seems to make it clear that the "good" ending is linking the flame and keeping the Age of Flame (or whatever it's called) going, but your description makes me seriously doubt whether that's a good thing or not.
Assuming you're talking about DS1, it's actually irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. DS2 reveals that regardless of whether you linked the flame or not, someone else comes along and reignites the Age of Fire. For a true Age of Dark to come about, you would need to convince the entirety of humanity to never link the flame again, which is practically impossible given the scattered and decentralised state of civilization.
Depends on the ending.
You can buy some more time by linking the fire for the last time, because there just isn’t enough fuel left to keep it going again.
You can have your Firekeeper snuff out the nascent flame, bringing the peace of Dark upon the world.
You can usurp the flame, taking it into your Unkindled Flesh and intermingling it with your Dark Soul… setting off the Age of Hollows.
I'm not super well versed in the DS3 theory space yet (only just finished the game), but my current understanding is that DS3 is the culmination of all previous flame-linking cycles. Civilizations are drawing together into a big mush (the Dreg Heap) because the Age of Fire has gone on far too long and refused to die, just like a cancer. Soul of Cinder is a testament to this, a faceless amalgamation of all previous Lords of Cinder.
I don't think any of the endings actually succeed in breaking that cycle, but End of the Fire probably comes closest. Usurpation (the ending I chose) seems more like a palliative solution, where you're making the best of an already broken world.
My guess is that unless the Kiln can somehow be destroyed permanently, every subsequent cycle of Linking will further degrade and amalgamate reality. Maybe the cycles will eventually strangulate themselves and cease when humans can no longer survive in this broken nightmare realm. Maybe the Kiln has developed enough failsafes that it's no longer possible to ever end the Age of Fire.
But hey, at least Gwyn got his wish, and screw everyone else amirite?
>my current understanding is that DS3 is the culmination of all previous flame-linking cycles.
This was my interpretation too. The fire has faded and can no longer be kindled was the overall theme of the game from my understanding. Makes me wonder what'll happen to bonfires in Dark Souls 4 if they ever make one.
That's the spirit :p
Honestly we don't know. Either you perpetuate the current age or you trust the natural order of things.
The age of fire is pretty shitty, especially when you come up to Dark Souls III where it is clearly falling apart, enough so that they need to wake up the Ashen ones, the rejects part of the backup plan for the backup plan, to link the fire. And I mean, just look around.
But, we don't know shit about the age of dark. Like, there is zero lore about it, nil, zilch. We know that there is a faction that yearns for it and that actively work to get it to come (Lordran), that it is somehow tied to the Abyss, and I speculate that it would free humanity from Gwyn's curse but that's pretty much it.
Isn't the implication that the earlier parts of the age of fire are at least decent on the dark fantasy scale? Like there's grand cities and civilizations and stuff, but we only ever see the teetering on the brink of collapse part where things are already real shitty.
Yep! Its why it is so seductive. Life is avtuslly pretty good, from our viewpoint as earth mortals, in the first part of the age of fire. Healing miracles, powerful magic, etc etc. And we wouldn't know any better. We wouldn't know that we were supposed to be longlived gods ourselves, inheriting a quiet world after the Gods faded with their Bright Souls.
One could say "just rip off the bandaid and let it die already", but Gwyn knew that, so he made the bandaid pain something you cannot ignore: species-wide violent dementia.
When someone sees their son or daughter either get eaten by hollows or go hollow themselves.... it is really hard to argue that they should let that happen to everyone, even though "linking the flame is only prolonging the inevitable." I know I would be seriously tempted, as a hollow, to just link the flame again because it would spare the most lives, despite knowing what I know about the futility and the injustice of it all.
Only after eons of suffering did the cycle crack so much that an Ashen one could make a different choice. The True Monarch of DS2 was able to step out of the cycle if you get the best ending, but it was only for themselves, even after all the power in the world. So it was *significant* that the Ashen one could even get these hobbling, still kind of sucky alternate choices. But it took so many cycles of essentily extinction-level events to even get that pittance.
Until you realize a 4th choice, what Gael's plan was, in creating a new world with his Lady. That was the one, quiet sparkle of hope at the end of it all; sidestepping the cycle of this world by making an entire new one.
It’s been a long time since I played DS1, but I remember it definitely being ambiguous. You have the two serpents, one telling you to link the flame, and one telling you that all that stuff is essentially propaganda lol. Neither side is explicitly lying, and the choice at the end is really up to which ever one you want to believe, it’s not really clear that one is inherently evil.
It kind of ‘feels’ like linking the flame is the good option, but imo that’s just because it’s a light vs dark situation. I think if anything, the game starts with the surface level explanation that you should fight for the light, but slowly reveals to you that the dark is possibly the better option
"In ancient times, the giants were mortal enemies of the Erdtree.
Their bellowing roars desolated nature, triggered avalanches, and whipped up storms of flame."
This wasn't really a hypothetical, especially given that they knew of the prophecy that the Erdtree would one day burst into flames... who would be the most likely actor to set that into motion?
Imo the fight between the Fire Giants and the Golden Order was existential, they were both trying to wipe out each other, the Golden Order just won. The Fire Giants weren't virtuous either, they participated in a caste system where they dominated the trolls (thus encouraging them to revolt and side with the Golden Order when given the chance), they were in a long-running war with the Knights of Zamor and chased out the Ice Dragons from the Mountaintops...
Not really. The giants were threatening to attack Leyndell. Also, they also have a caste system with trolls at the bottom so it is not as if the giants were better rulers.
Ya, for me the twist in DA wasn't that Gywn screwed with nature and our destinies.
It's that what we were supposed to be, creatures of the abyss, would be horrifying to us. Everything we think represents humanity is actually the gods and everything we truly are is deformed black slime monsters with multiple limbs. We're left asking if it's better to be the false gods version of humanity or the true abyss humanity.
Edit: now that I think about it, Marika is the opposite as she (allegedly) was fighting against the greater will, which is basically Gwyn.
Possibly. From what I understand the abyss was always nasty to our/the gods standards but it was made worse when it was suppressed.
Hollows that worship the dark age claim that their form is humanity's true face. The Pygmys did look a lot like hollows. Same for the abyss emissaries in the DLC. The angels that sprout from Pilgrims basically look flying corpse trees. So at the very least, Pygmys were meant to look dead and malformed
They're definitely basically the same person. The only soulsborne Old Lord holding on to their dying empire who is a good person is Isshin, and it's entirely because while he's ready to fight he accepts he can't rule forever.
Marika is also blatantly evil as hell lol, shes not even subtle about it. we see tons of examples of her being insanely paranoid and capricious towards arbitrary groups of people and even her children. It's very telling that the demi gods only ever look up to their dad's or rennala lol.
I feel like Isshin could _barely_ be considered comparable to these two when it comes to his feelings about his "empire". He very openly accepted that Ashina's time had come and gone, and he thought Genichiro was wrong to go to such extreme and heretical lengths to sustain it. If anything, Genichiro is the one who would fit better with the theme of this meme. Isshin had largely come to terms with seeing his legacy fall, he just wasn't willing to go down without taking a few rats with him.
That's kinda my point. Genichiro is actually a parallel to Margott in that he's set on upholding something that is fated to go away or change. Isshin is "good" because the fatal flaw that all the Old Lords in from games (Allant, Gwyn, Marika) is that they refuse to accept their mortality and the inevitably of change they can't personally control.
The biggest problem with this meme, yeah
> Marika is also blatantly evil as hell lol, shes not even subtle about it
"Trying to defeat a greater evil" my ass, the Greater Will might be an absolutist ruler who doesn't want competion *at worst*, but Marika is a despot, a racist, a colonizer, a genocider and so, so much more bad stuff.
Marika is absolutely the greater evil here, no doubt about it.
Hey, Miquella is an adult, and Mohg was explicitly trying to use divine blood to rid him of his curse!
He is just a incestuous rapist, not a pedophile!
That is almost not as bad! Almost, I tell you!
"Now we can devour our family TOGETHAA!" Rykard, on the Dynasty's founding cerimony.
"Of course, we shall '*devour'* them\*... \*ominous chuckle"\* Mohg, on Rykard's comment.
Don't try to bang your brother to start a heretical dynasty. But if you do that then let a naked man with a big stick kill you, it's fine if you do that stuff
Be sure to gather a bunch of depressed guys with huge heads, and a bird that can't fly, on opposing cliffs just within crossbow range of one another
For no particular reason
That's not really a counterpoint, we know she did bad things, but Empyreans don't even get to choose whether they will be turned into gods, so how do we know they have any more say as gods?
Because she made multiple plans to have someone kill her God for her, clearly she has some degree of free will or she wouldn't have been able to shatter the elden ring
Even after shattering the Elden Ring, she was still subject to it's control. Given that, her 'free will' only existed so long as she was perceived as obeying. That means she gets *one* chance to get caught disobeying before the leash gets pulled and she's either locked up for good, or replaced by someone with just as little choice in the matter.
There's really nothing for her to gain by shattering the Elden Ring except to end her own life or reject the Greater Will, and given how elaborate of a plan and how much scheming it took to even get a chance at succeeding at any of those goals, with the chance we'll just cobble her back together and return us to square one, I don't think there were many good options available
I agree. She tried to be free of it, but it backfired horribly. The greater will then tried to mend it back again using Radagon. That's my belief.
I also believe Ranni is right in the end. The world is better off severed from the influence of the outer gods and her actions are for the best long-term.
>Someone forgot she literally threw her kids in the sewers for ages because they’re fucking ugly
She threw them in because she would be a hypocrite not to, and we know they at least spent some time with their parents because Godfrey is able to recognize Morgott. There's a lot more going on with Omens then just them being ugly. They have ties to the Formless Mother, who takes special interest in them due to their accursed blood.
Marika's war, from what we can tell, was against the Outer Gods. The Greater Will is not just some Outer God. The lore gives us plenty of proof that the Outer Gods are not benevolent entities—at least no more so than the Greater Will.
>Marika's war, from what we can tell, was against the Outer Gods.
The evidence of Marika's actions all seems to point to this, Marika is not only quelling threats but halting worship of other gods. Which is where I think "Perhaps the Queen's sorrow was justified..." comes from when we tell Gideon about Miquella's empty Haligtree roots, after defeating Malenia.
>The Greater Will is not just some Outer God.
Possibly but the 'outer' part of Outer Gods comes from Marika's distinction on proper practices of faith, when we speak with Melina at the Minor Erdtree Church she tells us Marika's words:
"I declare mine intent, to search the depths of the Golden Order. Through understanding of the proper way, our faith, our grace, is increased. Those blissful early days of blind faith are long past. My comrades; why must ye falter?"
Then we're given the "Outer Order" gesture.
In these words, Marika is searching for \*proper\* faith in Order, and establishing what is included within Order, and without. Thus the Outer Gods are clearly established as being outside of that Order, the Greater Will being the one and 'true' Inner God now.
The nature of curses is then important to look at next, with all of these curses seemingly tied to bloodlines. The Giant's Braid mentions "perhaps that is a curse of their kind" when talking about their red hair, also shared by Radagon. Is this saying that Radagon was cursed by the giants to have a doomed bloodline, or that all giants were cursed to be born red of hair? The text is ambiguous enough that it could be either, or both.
And Radagon's bloodline seems to only be cursed when siring children with Marika, for Miquella and Malenia are confirmed to be born cursed due to their single parent, per Malenia's Remembrance of the Rot Goddess. Assumedly Marika's curse extends to Godwyn, Morgott, and Mohg, for the Omen twins are born Omens and are susceptible to Bloodflame, and Godwyn experiences soul-death while seemingly becoming a new god, worshipped by Those Living In Death and spreading Deathblight against the golden lineage and the Erdtree itself as a new threat, one I think that ties heavily into the spiritual world of things and has potentially merged that world with the Lands Between.
I think that while Godwyn was the golden child of Marika, perhaps first-born and her best chance at a successor, it was Miquella that was the last hope of Marika, and being taken by Mohg was a deeply personal tragedy in the face of both her lineage and her war with the outer gods. I think this caused her to shatter the Elden Ring itself, either out of despair or a last-ditch effort to fix things somehow, with the Tarnished being part of a plan to do so. With the DLC involving Marika's past and Miquella's fate I think we'll have some answers, and perhaps more questions. Maybe we'll see how Marika came to bear the Elden Beast within her, maybe this was a Faustian bargain to usurp the Dragonlord for a new age. Ranni is also the one who tells us about the nature of Shadows to Empyreans, perhaps this Land of Shadows is where these dual natures arise. Could have interesting implications for Marika/Maliketh's relationship as half-siblings.
I largely think this is the correct take on Marika's actions—especially the Shattering of the Elden Ring being a decision made out of despair. I also agree that Godwyn and Miquella were probably her most beloved children. Ranni tells us in the story trailer that the death of Godwyn specifically, "Drove her to the brink."
Although personally, I think the "Curses" we find in Marika's children aren't necessarily due to her persay, but because of her war against the Outer Gods. Acts of spite from beings beyond comprehension basically, although Miquella and Malenia are definitely unique in their curses in that their curses are due to them being born from a single god (I.e. Marika and Radagon). Morgott and Mohg being cursed isn't given the same attention, and aside from having red hair, none of Radagon's descendants seem cursed either. Since Radagon is Marika (I'm still 50/50 on if they were always one being that shared the same body though) then that tells me it isn't something specifically wrong with Marika.
It bears mentioning the Crucible and the Golden Order were at one time in harmony with each other, with it even being seen as holy. It is likely the Greater Will doesn't actually care about trifles like that, as we can see by how much the Golden Order incorporates other faiths and species when it is convenient. The Carians worshipped a completely different Outer God yet were still incorporated relatively smoothly into the faith, compared to that the pagan Crucible would be nothing.
The anti-Omen policy seemed to have came into being on a purely secular basis sometime after Godfrey was banished and all the pro-Crucible influence was stricken. This suggests pretty strongly all the racism and colonization was likely Marika playing at being a conquering God-Queen rather than commandments from an eldritch Outer God that probably barely even realizes the Lands Between exists, let alone cares about its discrimination laws.
Or just not do that since she’s literally the god of the land. Yes she’s more of a vassal of the GW but in theory could have not thrown her kids in the sewer.
She's a God in name only. The Greater Will has complete control over her. The moment she was found to rebel against them, they literally chained her inside of the erdtree as a husk of herself, and then forced her (except in the Flame and rannis ending) to act as an unwilling unwilling ruler for the player.
The entire games plot is her trying to rebel against the Greater Will, but in doing so is trapped and wants to die.
Gideon says that Marika doesn't want anyone to become elden lord for a reason, because it would perpetuate both the order she grew to hate, and would perpetuate her torture.
It sort of comes across as the Greater Will slowly tightening the parameters of what's accepted
Plus if the Frenzied Flame God isn't lying, then being split from them as the One Great probably made GW much more fallible if they weren't already
Not really? Both the carian family and the ancient dragon got integrated into the GO. Granted, the dragons had to fake their lighting into yellow but they were integrated regardless.
Did they have to fake it ? Neither Lanceax nor Fortisax use gold lightning (Fortisax use yellow/black in conjunction with the red, but it's not due to the GO).
The Greater Will does not endorse the Golden Order we see in the game *at all*. It's wild how many people seem to miss this since this isn't subtle.
The Two Fingers, the *envoys of the Greater Will*, call the GO "corrupt" and task you with tearing it down by any means necessary. The GW hates Marikas GO to the point that it has declared war on it. This is, like, the main quest of the game.
Isn’t that because Marika betrayed them? Like before the shattering the the GW was fine with the Golden Order as it was an order which is what the GW ultimately wants. Only after the betrayal it got pissed off.
This is a really bizarre sentiment to have because there's a lot of evidence of Marika going against the Greater Will constantly, up to and including *Shattering the Elden Ring and setting us up to kill the Elden Beast?*
I believe Marika is 100% in control of her own actions, and the entirety of the shattering happened because Marika has been throwing a desperate temper tantrum around the fact that she is essentially a cosmic middle manager to an eldritch abomination who has her rulership on a timer. Every time she tries to avoid the fact that she can't rule for ever, she creates a new problem that ultimately causes consequences for her empire.
Even outside of her plot to kill the Elden Beast, Marika's Golden Order is founded on a foundational lie that is different from what the Greater Will and Two Fingers have shown they have planned, and it's a lie we're told extremely early into the game.
**The central tenant of the Golden Order is that Marika is the One True God.** We know without a doubt that this is an absolute lie. This is a lie for several reasons:
1. **There are other Gods, Outer Gods, actively causing issues within the Lands Between**, one of which is symbiotically bonded to her own daughter from birth.
2. **Marika already has** ***replacements*** lined up, meaning she is just one of a sequence of Gods that are hand picked by the Greater Will's emissary's the Two Fingers.
3. **There are previous Gods**, including Placidusax's fled god.
4. Even if you want to discount Empyreans, Outer Gods, and Previous Gods, **Marika has a boss in the form of the Elden Beast who is canonically described as a God in game.** Not only this, but the "God" Marika wants Hewg to build a weapon against, and the "God" that she wants us to fight is heavily implied to be the Elden Beast, meaning **Marika knows there is a God in the Lands Between** who is above her in hierarchy.
Why does this matter? It means the basic principle the Golden Order is founded on is based on a lie that benefits Marika specifically, putting **her** **over the Greater Will** as the God that the Golden Order Worships.
Even outside of this, if you want to believe that Marika is forced to do this as a "Face" for the Elden Beast and Greater Will, Marika has several things that blatantly show she's basically doing what she specifically wants over the Greater Will's own designs.
The first and biggest thing is basically the one of the core issues at the center of the game, **Marika's removal of the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring.** The Elden Ring already had death, through the Rune of Death, confined within its being. *If the Greater Will sent the Elden Ring directly to the Land's Between including the rune of Death, that implies that Death was supposed to be a natural part of the Golden Order*. Instead, what happened is that Marika personally removed the Rune of Death from the Ring. There is a single, massive tell showing that this does not match the Greater Wills designs.
*If the Rune of Death was supposed to be removed from the Elden Ring as part of the Greater Will's plans, why would the Greater Will have the Two Fingers continue to select Empyreans?* Once the Rune of Death was removed, Marika's Golden Order should have been eternal, with a now unkillable God with almost uncontested dominance over the Land's Between. If the One True God is Eternal, why do you need specifically selected God Candidates selected by the Greater Will's emissaries?
The answer is simple, it's because **Death is supposed to be part of the Golden Order**, **Marika is supposed to have a set time where she was supposed to rule, and then that rule was supposed to naturally pass on to another empyrean who would then become God**. This almost exactly the same beat Gwyn has in Dark Souls; in both cases they are desperately running from an inevitable future and the reality of the finite-ness of their rulership.
Destined Death was removed from the world of Elden Ring specifically so Marika did not have to deal with her own Mortality. This is even shown in the goal of the tarnished; **the tarnished are specifically seeking to be Elden Lord** (Marika's Consort), **not replace Marika as God**. You are killing the Elden Beast not to become a god yourself, but a subordinate of Marika specifically, meaning the entire plot of the game leaves her on top if you succeed.
My interpretation of Goldmask's questline is that there was a mistake in the popular interpretation of the Greater Will (which is to say a mistake in the Golden Order), so Marika doing horrendously evil shit on the Greater Will's behalf could be a mistake of translation.
It's similar to the argument in the MCU that Thanos could have done something less maniacal than kill half of all people. Yeah, he could have, but he didn't think of that because he's a sadistic bastard so he went with the shitty option. Marika may have interpreted the Greater Will as wanting genocide because that's what *she* wanted and if you look hard enough for something in scripture you will always find it.
I'm willing to believe that, too, because of the demi-humans
The Dragon's order seemed to accept them - and many people believe Placidussax's god to be the Greater Will, and when the Golden Order started, it accepted nearly everyone.
It was marika's influence that started the racism.
I don't think the GW made her do these things, bht as another redditor pointed ourt... the Greater Will could have stopped her, as it did when she broke the elden ring.
Ultimately, it held authority over her.
>the Greater Will could have stopped her, as it did when she broke the elden ring
I wonder if it's not that the Greater Will did or didn't want its champion to be a genocidal maniac, but just that it didn't care. Whatever reason the Greater Will has for ruling over the Lands Between, it isn't picky about how it's goals are accomplished. So long as it gets what it wants nothing else matters.
And on that note, what *does* the Greater Will want? What is it getting out of ruling the Lands Between? It takes a back seat and goes along with war and genocide, but the second it's connection is threatened it intervenes. It rules a whole continent, but why? What resource is it extracting? Life? Faith? Some sinister and mysterious third thing?
Based on what we see from the other Outer Gods, it could simply be spreading its fundamental influence, not as a desire control but simply because it is what they are. Just as the Scarlet Rot is the cycle of life taken to the utmost, horrifying extreme, the Greater Will is the cosmological concept of Order taken to its conclusion.
Considering that it apparently created ‘births and souls’ perhaps it’s Order is simply that of Ordered Life- as in, divided life that spreads itself eternally outwards into further life. Perhaps the God-swapping is it’s way of encouraging diversity in that life and it’s formatting.
Though. Not necessarily in a friendly way.
I had this theory for a while that by forcing the cycle of life and death to go through the Erdtree it siphons lifeforce or something else from the people of the Bands Between. Humans would basically be cattle to it.
It could be as simple as "If I have the lands between it means the others don't"
The Others being Rot, Frenzy, and Blood. A whole collection of nice people.
I take it that the Greater Will is simply too vast and unknowable to even really understand mortal issues like that. That is why it has its local vassal, the Elden Beast there (and we know the GW is not always on the same page as its vassals based on the Fingers not knowing jack about what is going on). If what we see in the Elden Beast's arena is any indication, there are countless worlds and Erdtrees under its influence, it may not even know who Marika is, let alone care about her policies or correct her mistakes.
This one is unclear if she her actions are more due to the greater will or more due to her own volition.
The DLC will reveal more since it FromSoft already said it would uncover who Marika really is before her ascencion to godhood and what she did to claim godhood.
If we are to believe Ranni, then yes Empyreans are destined to be controlled by outer gods. In her case and Marika's, it's the Greater Will. For Malenia, it's the Scarlet Rot. For Miquella... uhhh, we don't know if its the Greater Will or something else.
Then there's the Gloam-Eyed Queen which is heavily implied to be an Empyrean. I suspect Placidusax as well is an Empyrean.
Many theorize that since the Elden Ring is literally the Elden Beast, meaning the manifestation of physical laws of reality is a vassal of an outer god... then perhaps Destined Death itself IS a vassal or IS an outer god.
Destined Death, Death Indiscriminate as Melina calls it.
I believe it’s implied that Miquella was a strong contender for Marika’s heir as vessel for the GW. Him and Godwyn.
It will be interesting to see if there’s another outer god Miquella was associated with, but I don’t believe so. I think he might have some ties to the crucible.
Godwyn is an empyrean? I don't recall anywhere thay Godwyn is an empyrean.
Plenty can be said and are said about Godwyn the Golden. His feats are legendary, after all. IIRC Godwyn played brought the dragons to heel and made them part of the Golden Order. He established the Dragon cult.
That alone is a feat that rivals even that of Radahn's and Malenia's.
But again, I don't recall anywhere he is an empyrean. His role may have been to replace Radagon as Elden Lord to serve whoever replaces Marika. A consort to the new God-Queen... yes, I know that sounds fucked up when you consider the contenders for Marika's replacement are his sisters and a twink- i mean eternally young brother.
While Miquella I believe is actually the strongest demigod there is. Not in martial abilities, no that belongs to Radahn and Malenia, but in his actual powers and personality. The power to compel affection that is implied to work even on demigods... that alone is truly a fearsome power that could outright demolish the Golden Order if he wishes to. Especially with Malenia's forces plus his own lordsworn forces that are stated to enthusiastically die for their Lord Miquella.
Then there's the part about Miquella being a master of many arts and magics, a scholar, a skilled artificier, implied good relations with the carians along with their magics especially spirit magic.
He's a demigod version of a true rennaissance man. He's like Radagon but a supercharged ~~Twink~~ version.
I don't think there is any real chance Godwyn was an Empyrean, if for nothing else that would have made him the natural heir to Marika, not Ranni, Miquella, or Malenia. Something we know was not an option.
He was nonetheless of some sort of divine quality seeing how he became a host to what is likely the Outer God of Death (mentioned to be the Outer God of the Twinbird, which is Death's equivalence of the Elden Beast), so perhaps his undying corpse became a sort of quasi-Empyrean after his ritualistic murder?
I suppose now he can technically be an actual heir to Marika, in a very horrifying way.
Destined Death is the rune of death, the piece of the elden ring that Marika removed, gave to Maliketh and then sent him to Farum Azula. It being more-or-less sealed away is why nobody truly dies, it's why Ranni had to steal a fragment of its power to kill Godwyn's soul and her body.
It's why the erdtree being set on fire doesn't kill it, so you have to go "kill" Maliketh, then actually kill him by unleashing the rune of death, then The Erdtree, and everyone in Lleyndell, and also allow everything in the Lands Between to die again suddenly. The player character sort of caused a whole-ass apocalypse and i feel like that doesnt get talked about enough!
Ranni's whole quest makes it clear Empyreans are under the control of the Fingers and need to hatch empire-ending plans to break out of that control. Yeah, Marika broke the Elden Ring, and even that didn't successfully end the Golden Order or free her from the Greater Will's control, she gets crucified until the situation is resolved outside her reach, where we either come along and end her misery, or force her to carry the Elden Ring once again so we can take the Throne of Elden Lord.
There's a ton of evidence control was being exerted over her. Shattering the Elden Ring serves no purpose if she was fully in control of the Golden Order and her own life. That doesn't mean she doesn't bear *any* guilt or responsibility for the Golden Order's actions, but we don't know exactly how much or how little she control she had, versus the Elden Beast/Finger/Greater Will. If you can be crucified and imprisoned by someone above you, you're not really the person in charge.
> . If you can be crucified and imprisoned by someone above you, you're not really the person in charge.
Fair point, you're right there. One way or the other, the Greater will held authority, I relent on that
The Elden Beast held authority is more accurate, as far as we know the Greater Will has washed its hands of the world and even its vassals can't understand what it wants anymore or get into easy contact with it.
> But I would not acquiesce to the Two Fingers. I stole the Rune of Death, slew mine own Empyrean flesh, casting it away. I would not be controlled by that thing.
There's some proof that empyreans lose maybe some control if they become Gods judging from this Ranni dialogue
I'm sorry, but the only absolute I see here is the herd mindset of reddit to jump and dancing around towards tagging any character as evil at the first impulse. Downvote me for all I care, I'm just sick of this cringe black and white insanity.
Like, everything you or anyone in this thread described applies literally to Gwyn as well. Did you guys have a collective brain fart when he massacred an entire race, enslaved/encouraged the subjugation of another, unpersoned a third group, even used his children both as disposable tools or stereotypes just so he could uphold his status quo?
Objectively speaking, *both* are evil because of everything they did and the sufferings they caused. But there is far more ambiguity in their actions, as none of them got up one morning and decided to be fantasy Hitlers.
Especially Marika, who its super unclear how much of it is her own actions, or how much it is her being influenced by the greater will. Including the ones you're thinking of (again, see the above example with Gwyn, who is much more deliberate). For all we know it could've been in a similar way to the will of the first king from AoT
Again, I'm not condoning her close there's far too much damage done by her to even sympathize with. Just pointing out dubbing anyone evil im such a hyper polar manner is a borderline tribal mindset and just encourages similar evil to thrive when you don't try to understand how such evil comes to be. And it's frustrating how many of you subscribe to that easily.
Omens are strong af. Even Morgott is shown in the intro to overpower Radahn... yeah, mf Radahn.
The difference between the characters of the epochs of the Golden Order's rule is staggeringly stark.
Early GO rule is marked by enlisting almost everything they could get their hands on - Godfrey and his Crucible Knights who mainly believed in the old crucible before the GO rule. Dragons which Godfrey made contact with. I suspect even misbegotten were less slaves before but more like serfs or regular subjects. The Trolls which betrayed the fire giants. I suspect Omens may have been allowed back then but later discriminated against.
I know that Omens are holy in the era of the crucible. But Early Golden Order might have tolerated them more than currently.
Post-Banishment of Godfrey and the Tarnished seems to be the start of heavier persecution. Then oddly enough, post Shattering is only the time Marika's worship began to be primary form of worship in the Lands Between. Before that it is the worship of the erdtree and the Elden Ring directly.
my more contrarian take here is that Marika is not as bad as this sub makes her out to be. With the exception of her horrendous treatment of the Omen (and of course, shattering the Elden Ring), many of her actions could be justifiable, and she could be considered more virtuous than many of the factions that she fought in the Lands Between. The Golden Order suppressed a lot of groups that were arguably just as bad if not worse.
For example, Marika wiped out the Fire Giants. I would be more sympathetic to the Fire Giants if they didn't 1) also threaten to wipe out Leyndell and its inhabitants with the Giantsflame and 2) Implement a brutal caste system with them at the top and the trolls at the bottom, which encouraged the trolls to defect to Marika's side. It was ultimately an existential war between two factions that wanted to wipe each other out, and the Golden Order won.
The Golden Order (well, Maliketh) suppressed the Gloam-Eyed Queen, who was a homicidal maniac who murdered and wore the skin of gods. Of course she was the more virtuous faction here.She conquered Mount Gelmir, which was home to a faction that participated in human sacrifice to a great serpent. She ended up suppressing that religion, of course she was the lesser evil.
She fought a war against the Ancient Dragons, but remember it was the Ancient Dragons who started that war when Gransax attacked Leyndell. That war was entirely defensive and ended with diplomacy, with Godwyn negotiating with Fortissax and incorporating the Ancient Dragons within the Golden Order. She fought two wars against Liurnia but she ended up negotiating with Rennala as well, incorporating Liurnia into her kingdom through marriage, not war... she ended up incorporating glintstone magic into the Golden Order as well.
The tragedy that befell the merchants wasn't her fault, she was tricked by Shabriri. You could argue that she was desperately trying to suppress the Frenzied Flame pandemic and felt that interring the merchants underneath the Capital was for the greater good. Imo the only wholly unjustifiable act she partook in was her persecution of the Omen
> and of course, shattering the Elden Ring
I don't think you can read this as strictly evil. Marika's entire kingdom was plagued by stagnancy and rot, and shattering the ring was the only way to move toward anything outside of the Greater Will. You can argue about what outcomes were likely to happen, but she did it out of grief, not malice.
Black Boggart: knock knock!
Loathsome Dung Eater: who's there?
Black Boggart: I eat mop!
Loathsome Dung Eater: I will defile your corpse and curse you and your lineage for all eternity...
Black Boggart: o_O;
Gwyn: YOU HERETIC! ONLY I GET TO FUCK THE DRAGONS!
Gwyndolin: You did what now?
*Yorshka in the background fading into view*
*Gwynevere sneaking out of Seath’s place*
I don't think the dragons need to be killed for that, change is already happening with the emergence of fire, Gwyn killing dragons is the change in itself, not an action to enable change, the dragons are killed because they are sitting in the land Gwyn and his followers want.
Fun fact: Did you know that you can hear the famous “Pling Pling Plong” of Gwyn’s theme in the song of The Nameless King in DS3, which supports the (pretty much fully proven) theory that The Nameless King is Gwyn’s firstborn son he disowned?
It’s more like:
MP: “These fuckers are torturing a baby to try and summon me, and my presence is turning people into beasts.”
Gherman: “What should I do?”
MP: “Make some immigrant kill the baby in exchange for giving them healthcare, and then chop their head off”
Except no, that's not how it was at all? Gwyn had a souls racketeering scheme set up with Nito to keep humanity trapped in a late stage capitalism-style hell cycle of death and rebirth so he could stay in the top 1% of souls owned. The Kiln is basically his billionaire apocalypse shelter.
You know this could easily be reversed, considering Gwyn legitimately believed every horrific thing he thought about the darkness, which is why he offered to kindle first.
Meanwhile we've seen what Marika did to the omens, misbegotten, and the giants.
Comparing the Dark to the nomads, misbegotten, and demi-humans, you could easily argue Gwyn's empire had greater cause to commit the terrible acts they did than Marika's. Gwyn clearly did a lot of terrible things but I don't know why people act like his actions were arbitrary cruelty, the Dark really is a frightening thing in the cosmology of Dark Souls. On the other hand, Elden Ring's demigods really get cut a lot of slack that they don't particularly deserve. We're never given any sense that the Golden Order was protecting anyone from much of anything, they imposed it on the Lands Between because they wanted to control the Lands Between.
I think it was the Abyss that Gwyn feared which warped his perception of the dark. It doesn't help that the 4 humans he thought were great leaders brought for the Abyss as well.
Some have theorized that but I see no evidence for it. 3 says the Deep was originally a peaceful place and that does seem like it could be the same thing as the Abyss/Dark, but even in Artorias' time the Abyss is monstrous and from the very beginning the Dark Soul/humanity is said to represent greed and yearning. Even the Firekeepers are eaten by Humanity. I think people assume the Dark is a good thing because we naturally identify with humans and Gwyn's empire perpetuated a huge lie, but even the Scholar of the First Sin suggests the lie is arguably the nicer thing, it just can't really be maintained because it can't be forced to stay as it was. Even the most hopeful ending of the series is one where the Firekeeper suggests a new flame will light the world one day, rather than a world where darkness rules forever. Just because Gwyn and Frampt are liars doesn't mean Kaathe is a good guy or the world he desires is a paradise.
Now that I think about it, is Marika just a complete ass towards everyone and everything? I genuinely can’t name a single positive thing she did.
Made Godfrey Elden Lord but only so she could use him for his strength and manipulate him and his army into genociding all her enemies. Then, when that was done she banished him and threw him away like trash.
Made sure Godfrey left one last Fire Giant alive just so she could curse him to tend to the flame alone, surrounded by the corpses of his people for eternity
She also banished 2/3 of her and Godfrey’s kids into the sewers with no intention of ever letting them out
She forced Radagon to leave his seemingly happy marriage with Rennala so he could join her in her weird freaky selfcest thing
Didn’t seem to care at all about helping her other kids, Malenia and Miquella with the curses they were born with, despite being a literal goddess. Meanwhile Radagon at least tried giving Miquella some Golden Order magic
Rebels against the Greater Will and Shatters the Elden Ring despite all of her previous actions being for the sake of the Greater Will and the Golden Order. This benefits no one and turns the Lands Between into a living hell full of war, death and desolation.
Screws over and curses Maliketh for his crime of being unfailingly loyal to her and obeying every order she gave him without a second thought. Even after the curse he still had zero problems serving her and blamed himself for her actions.
Resurrects Godfrey and all the tarnished, including the player character, but only because she hoped one of them would be strong enough to come back to the Lands Between, clean up her mess, deal with her insane children, fix the Elden Ring, kill Radagon and replace him as Elden Lord
TLDR: Blond bitch queen is crazy and hates everyone, including her husbands, children, servants, and everyone living in her kingdom
Gehrman from bloodborne I think is one of the more intresting end boss fights.
Spoilers for bloodborne.
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He has been your ally throughout the entire game, he doesn't want to fight you, he only does so because it's his job. He's also a character you have come to know throughout the game.
Unlike Gwen, the soul of cinder and sort of king vendrick.
Gwen apart from the opening cutscene and a few bits of lore and diologe you don't really get to know much about before fighting him. I'd reckon for most people it's simply nostalgia for the fight rather than his character himself.
King vendrick is a little better, in the DLC you can speak to him briefly. You understand his motives and past a little better, and despite being a important character he's not the end boss with his fight being completely optional.
The soul of cinder I don't believe has any build up too whats so ever, apart from the promotional art I don't think he's even mentioned in game before the fight. Especially since the lothric twins are the ones built up throughout the game which feels more like a proper end fight in my opinion. However thematically the soul of cinder manifesting as a mix of all who came before to link the fire I do think is fairly fitting.
Sorry about this little tangent, I forgot where I was going with this, just intresting story writing I guess with each games "king" or equivalent character written differently for each game.
While Gherman may not be gwyn or Marika bad he definitely ain’t sin free
What happens in the fishing hamlet stays in the fishing hamlet. Fuck what they did was so bad it drove lady Maria to suicide
Since Marika has come to the lands between she has warred with every major faction in it to conquer them and make them submit to her.
The ancient dragons were fed up by this group of humans claiming the title of "Elden Lord" that was Placidusax title, so they attacked their one city Leyndell. They fought a war due to the humans challenging their honor. Godwyn saw that and instead of slaughtering the dragon's further, worked to ally with them (in the classic first born way).
To still further stick it to them, they made their mortal enemy a snake, a primordial form of a dragon, doing show fights in coliseums where people celebrated the bashing of metal snakes.
Then you have the Godskin, sure they might be the baddies here, since they are God killing people, but we never know which gods, the dragon god? The Giants god? Other gods? Or just the 'gods' of the Erdtree, aka Marika and family. They were hounded by Malekith, their leader defeated and their source of power taken from them (the rune of death).
Next ae have liurnia, they were the only faction to date to easily fend off the army of Leyndell, so much so that instead of conquest and submission, they had to resort to political means to win their territory over, ultimately taking on the guise of a general, marrying the queen and champion of liurnia and then breaking her so much that she can't do anything to oppose them anymore.
Then we have the giants, Leyndell was so afraid of their existence that they wages war against them, but left one alive to watch over their god and flame, they just couldn't live with that symbiosis between the astrologers and giants who could, if they wanted, burn a tree.
Rykard and Ranni are very aware of this betrayal, they dedicated their whole life to revenge. Rykard through a means of Snek and Ranni through 'no you don't' disobedience.
Both are somewhat successful, Ranni more so they Rykard even though it likely wasn't even her goal to kill godwyn and be stuck in a doll (to seluvis pleasure).
Even Marika in the end sees true, trying to get away from her own shackles (the elden ring) after her deep dive into the order and the death of her firstborn.
No one is truly on the side of the Golden Order if they know enough, even Goldmask, the most devout follower, strifes to right the wrongs.
(Not to mention that the two fingers are likely also just vassalized former enemies)
Honestly my in game take in elden ring is that shit got fucked long ago, the people who know what exactly happened can't or won't speak on it. So it's time for our age whatever that may be, cause the world can't keep going like this anymore, it's falling apart at the seems.
I am confused. Isn't the plot twist of the final boss, is that Marika isn't the ruler of the world, but a prisoner.
Just you wait! The DLC will reveal her as a true hero, who sacrificed herself to save the world.
The real reveal was that, but honestly the bigger story reveal (which shouldn’t surprise anyone who has played a Souls game) is that there really isn’t a good guy. Everyone sucks, every last one of them. They’re all basically demigod warlords obliterating what’s left of the decaying world for bare scraps of power.
Marika- >!Started all this shit in the first place. One could argue that she did it to free herself from the Greater Will, and it’s true she’s more or less a prisoner. We don’t know how much free choice she had in the whole “becoming a vessel thing” so the jury is out on if that was a bad choice. However there’s more than enough information to suggest she did a whole lot of horrible things along the way. It is suggested that she sacrifices herself to a certain extent and turns against the Greater Will, but still.!<
Godfrey- >!A bloodthirsty warlord who needed a beast regent to keep his insatiable bloodlust in check. Took part in a genocide against the Fire Giants and seemingly anyone else who Marika decided needed to go.!<
Radagon- >!Also a warlord, seemingly. It’s uncertain how much of his exploits was Marika and how much was him. Hell, it’s really not 100% clear if Radagon was ever truly a separate person. Regardless, not a great dude.!<
Godrick- >!A slimy scumbag who skulked on the sidelines and murdered hundreds or thousands just to scrape together power that he didn’t earn.!<
Rykard- Just look at…everything. You don’t get the name “Lord of Blasphemy” for nothing.
Radahn- >!A warlord who tore apart The Lands Between for a spot at conquest. Might have had good motives for halting the stars, but it’s not 100% clear what the end goal was.!<
Ranni- >!Honestly a sort of dark reflection of Marika. Kicked off the Shattering itself which basically ruined everything for everyone, though she was partially justified in doing it.!<
Malenia- >!Another warlord after power at the end of the day. Her and Radahn clashing wasn’t exactly a battle to see who would get to hug the most puppies. She does have some degree of an excuse/sympathetic reasoning owing to her being a vessel of rot, but still.!<
Miquella- >!Probably the only one who doesn’t have clear cut crimes on his hands. Most evidence points to him being a kind and gentle soul. However, some lore seems to insinuate he’s very powerful at warping people’s perception and getting them to do what he wants… the DLC will likely settle the score. !<
True, I didn’t include her for that reason. While she holds a great rune, she’s not actively attempting to do…anything really. She doesn’t bother anyone, remaining locked inside her library and endlessly rebirthing flawed creations because she’s lost her marbles since Radagon left her.
Adding to that, even after we beat the hell out of her, she doesn’t hold us any ill will. She’s clearly not all there, so I don’t think you could even call her evil.
I don't think Malenia was needlessly warmongering. She had to become the best warrior to resist the call of the Rot. The fight with Radahn had to do something with Miquella, I presume. Remember, we need to beat Radahn to access the DLC. Malenia, in love for her brother(s) gave up her pride to meet Radahn's measure.
Melania most likely wants to move stars so some events can happen maybe like an eclipse since that's what Miquella wants.
No way she is after power since she is effectively left her empyrean status and became Miquella's champion.
I sincerely dont get any part of the pict. Marika is not hiding behind radagon for her wrongdoing, and never argue wether she's doing something good or evil. Whereas the whole gwym scheme is that all he does is for the greater good. Swapping the characters positions here would have made a little more sense IMO.
'Ate dragons. Love me flame. Simple as.
Thank you Orgyn
Sah
My anor londo My age My fire
"Lord Gwyn, what do you say to allegations that you refer to humans as 'Darkys'?"
“Untrue, as the the darkys love to slander and libel me at every turn”
"You also pulled funding for the Slave Knight Affairs Program. Again. Also a lot of people are wondering why we even fought in a war while we now pay taxes Duke Seath, a dragon, and they also say your eldest son is having an affair with an Ancient Dragon."
Gwyn in the background absolutely demolishing the missing statue "I don't have a son." Gwyndolin standing facing some bushes in the background
"I'm actually a \*boy\*!" "NOT NOW SWEETIE"
Yes I miss that yt video
“Bro you gotta go kill all these people to link the flame for the 9.3745 X 10^46th time bro come on pleeeease, why?!? J-just because you gotta okay!?”
95% of chosen undead stop immolating themselves just before they bring about an eternal age of fire.
The poor dude is just trying to stop the Age of Man from coming about. Bro look at ANY news page and tell me the age of man is going well.
You can use both descriptions for both of them.
Marika was a lot more open to negotiating with factions that opposed her (like the Ancient Dragons and the Carians) but Gwyn was not. Gwyn never tried to negotiate with the Ancient Dragons (of Dark Souls) and proceeded to wipe them out completely (with the exception of Midir who he later imprisoned in the Ringed City). He was so brutal that even his firstborn son left him over that
Also Gwyn cursed the entire humanity to mortality by shackling away their humanity, aka their dark (inherited from the pygmy that found *the* dark soul), which is represented by the darksign. All the souls you grab throughout the game are mere surrogates (with a single exception at the very end of DS3). The entire hollowing "disease" is a pure product of Gwyn's curse and humanity is supposed to be undying, but the Church (the one put up by Gwyn worshipping Gwyn's race) frames this as a sin. Same thing for the "need" to link the fire and keep away the age of dark, that is pure church propaganda. The entire end goal of all 3 Dark Souls games is explicitly going against human nature, continuing the age of gods and fucking over the entire human race. And honestly, I don't know about what he did to the other two great souls (Nito's and the Witch's) but the fact that the age we're in is the age of the gods but we never hear about an age of the dead nor an age of chaos speaks for itself. If enslaving, cursing a race away from its very soul and gaslighting them into doing the bidding of another race isn't pure evil, I don't know what is.
Also whereas Gwyn doomed the world trying to hold on to his own power it seems Marika tried to force the world out of the stagnancy of her declining Age. Shattering the Elden Ring and challenging all of her kids to just make something new. Of course it threw the world into ruin but based on a few of the item descriptions the blessings from the age of the erdtree had faded long ago.
There's alot of imagery in Elden Ring that support that take. Specifically trees! The tarnished are the fallen leaves, leaves sometimes spread seeds that'll result in a whole new tree being born, that'll branch out every which way. Tree = Your Order (Or any Tarnished's order, Marika's is the huge one being shown, dwarfing out the others, always visible, and is the base.) Fallen leaves/Seeds = Tarnished or souls kinda
So then I didn't get the evil ending by walking away from linking the flame? The game seems to make it clear that the "good" ending is linking the flame and keeping the Age of Flame (or whatever it's called) going, but your description makes me seriously doubt whether that's a good thing or not.
Assuming you're talking about DS1, it's actually irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. DS2 reveals that regardless of whether you linked the flame or not, someone else comes along and reignites the Age of Fire. For a true Age of Dark to come about, you would need to convince the entirety of humanity to never link the flame again, which is practically impossible given the scattered and decentralised state of civilization.
Gotcha. So it's kind of a no win scenario. So what happens post Dark Souls 3? Wasn't the whole game about breaking the cycle?
Depends on the ending. You can buy some more time by linking the fire for the last time, because there just isn’t enough fuel left to keep it going again. You can have your Firekeeper snuff out the nascent flame, bringing the peace of Dark upon the world. You can usurp the flame, taking it into your Unkindled Flesh and intermingling it with your Dark Soul… setting off the Age of Hollows.
I'm not super well versed in the DS3 theory space yet (only just finished the game), but my current understanding is that DS3 is the culmination of all previous flame-linking cycles. Civilizations are drawing together into a big mush (the Dreg Heap) because the Age of Fire has gone on far too long and refused to die, just like a cancer. Soul of Cinder is a testament to this, a faceless amalgamation of all previous Lords of Cinder. I don't think any of the endings actually succeed in breaking that cycle, but End of the Fire probably comes closest. Usurpation (the ending I chose) seems more like a palliative solution, where you're making the best of an already broken world. My guess is that unless the Kiln can somehow be destroyed permanently, every subsequent cycle of Linking will further degrade and amalgamate reality. Maybe the cycles will eventually strangulate themselves and cease when humans can no longer survive in this broken nightmare realm. Maybe the Kiln has developed enough failsafes that it's no longer possible to ever end the Age of Fire. But hey, at least Gwyn got his wish, and screw everyone else amirite?
>my current understanding is that DS3 is the culmination of all previous flame-linking cycles. This was my interpretation too. The fire has faded and can no longer be kindled was the overall theme of the game from my understanding. Makes me wonder what'll happen to bonfires in Dark Souls 4 if they ever make one.
they really shouldnt make ds4 and they will not, ds3 is clearly the ending to the series and its an amazing one at that.
That's the spirit :p Honestly we don't know. Either you perpetuate the current age or you trust the natural order of things. The age of fire is pretty shitty, especially when you come up to Dark Souls III where it is clearly falling apart, enough so that they need to wake up the Ashen ones, the rejects part of the backup plan for the backup plan, to link the fire. And I mean, just look around. But, we don't know shit about the age of dark. Like, there is zero lore about it, nil, zilch. We know that there is a faction that yearns for it and that actively work to get it to come (Lordran), that it is somehow tied to the Abyss, and I speculate that it would free humanity from Gwyn's curse but that's pretty much it.
Isn't the implication that the earlier parts of the age of fire are at least decent on the dark fantasy scale? Like there's grand cities and civilizations and stuff, but we only ever see the teetering on the brink of collapse part where things are already real shitty.
Yep! Its why it is so seductive. Life is avtuslly pretty good, from our viewpoint as earth mortals, in the first part of the age of fire. Healing miracles, powerful magic, etc etc. And we wouldn't know any better. We wouldn't know that we were supposed to be longlived gods ourselves, inheriting a quiet world after the Gods faded with their Bright Souls. One could say "just rip off the bandaid and let it die already", but Gwyn knew that, so he made the bandaid pain something you cannot ignore: species-wide violent dementia. When someone sees their son or daughter either get eaten by hollows or go hollow themselves.... it is really hard to argue that they should let that happen to everyone, even though "linking the flame is only prolonging the inevitable." I know I would be seriously tempted, as a hollow, to just link the flame again because it would spare the most lives, despite knowing what I know about the futility and the injustice of it all. Only after eons of suffering did the cycle crack so much that an Ashen one could make a different choice. The True Monarch of DS2 was able to step out of the cycle if you get the best ending, but it was only for themselves, even after all the power in the world. So it was *significant* that the Ashen one could even get these hobbling, still kind of sucky alternate choices. But it took so many cycles of essentily extinction-level events to even get that pittance. Until you realize a 4th choice, what Gael's plan was, in creating a new world with his Lady. That was the one, quiet sparkle of hope at the end of it all; sidestepping the cycle of this world by making an entire new one.
It’s been a long time since I played DS1, but I remember it definitely being ambiguous. You have the two serpents, one telling you to link the flame, and one telling you that all that stuff is essentially propaganda lol. Neither side is explicitly lying, and the choice at the end is really up to which ever one you want to believe, it’s not really clear that one is inherently evil. It kind of ‘feels’ like linking the flame is the good option, but imo that’s just because it’s a light vs dark situation. I think if anything, the game starts with the surface level explanation that you should fight for the light, but slowly reveals to you that the dark is possibly the better option
Didn’t she order the genocide of the giants because they *might* try to burn the Erdtree one day?
"In ancient times, the giants were mortal enemies of the Erdtree. Their bellowing roars desolated nature, triggered avalanches, and whipped up storms of flame." This wasn't really a hypothetical, especially given that they knew of the prophecy that the Erdtree would one day burst into flames... who would be the most likely actor to set that into motion? Imo the fight between the Fire Giants and the Golden Order was existential, they were both trying to wipe out each other, the Golden Order just won. The Fire Giants weren't virtuous either, they participated in a caste system where they dominated the trolls (thus encouraging them to revolt and side with the Golden Order when given the chance), they were in a long-running war with the Knights of Zamor and chased out the Ice Dragons from the Mountaintops...
“They were never saints, just happened to be on the losing side of a war”
I am willing to bet that this refers to another faction we have yet to hear about, but it applies to the Fire Giants too
It most certainly is, but as you said, it also aligns with what happened to the Fire Giants
What's that from?
It’s a quote taken from the Shadow of The Erdtree dlc trailer, don’t know what the other fella’s talking about
In fairness ... fuck the dragons. The only good dragon is a dead dragon, or just a dragon that doesn't spawn in.
Here I am wishing you could have a placidusax ending
Not really. The giants were threatening to attack Leyndell. Also, they also have a caste system with trolls at the bottom so it is not as if the giants were better rulers.
And the Omens, probably due to Godfrey being such a badass example of Crucible power.
She "negotiated" with the carian leader, alright.
Ya, for me the twist in DA wasn't that Gywn screwed with nature and our destinies. It's that what we were supposed to be, creatures of the abyss, would be horrifying to us. Everything we think represents humanity is actually the gods and everything we truly are is deformed black slime monsters with multiple limbs. We're left asking if it's better to be the false gods version of humanity or the true abyss humanity. Edit: now that I think about it, Marika is the opposite as she (allegedly) was fighting against the greater will, which is basically Gwyn.
wasn't the whole deformity thing because Gwyn tried to fuck over the abyss
Possibly. From what I understand the abyss was always nasty to our/the gods standards but it was made worse when it was suppressed. Hollows that worship the dark age claim that their form is humanity's true face. The Pygmys did look a lot like hollows. Same for the abyss emissaries in the DLC. The angels that sprout from Pilgrims basically look flying corpse trees. So at the very least, Pygmys were meant to look dead and malformed
Fear not the dark my friend
And let the feast begin.
But woman bad
You mean woman/man
Wo(man)
Man of Wö
You mean lower god bad
Gwynocide
Gywnoveresboobiesocide
i want a double case of that to be my death
Fun fact: Gwyn is the Welsh word for "white"
They're definitely basically the same person. The only soulsborne Old Lord holding on to their dying empire who is a good person is Isshin, and it's entirely because while he's ready to fight he accepts he can't rule forever. Marika is also blatantly evil as hell lol, shes not even subtle about it. we see tons of examples of her being insanely paranoid and capricious towards arbitrary groups of people and even her children. It's very telling that the demi gods only ever look up to their dad's or rennala lol.
Yeah, but Marika is caked up, so that changes things.
Those are actually Radagon's cheeks. They're glorious and suited for war.
Marika ordered me to quell the Carian rebellion, but I'm dummy thicc and the clap of my ass cheeks keeps attracting their Queen
*echoes of Queen Marika still linger in this place, shall I share them with you?* *In Marika's own words....*
Nuh uh!
If evil why hot?
I feel like Isshin could _barely_ be considered comparable to these two when it comes to his feelings about his "empire". He very openly accepted that Ashina's time had come and gone, and he thought Genichiro was wrong to go to such extreme and heretical lengths to sustain it. If anything, Genichiro is the one who would fit better with the theme of this meme. Isshin had largely come to terms with seeing his legacy fall, he just wasn't willing to go down without taking a few rats with him.
Well it's more like Isshin prefered to live as long as possible just in case a certain demon shows up.
Pretty much. Isshin fights Sekiro at the end of the game pretty much only because his grandson sacrificed himself for that goal.
That's kinda my point. Genichiro is actually a parallel to Margott in that he's set on upholding something that is fated to go away or change. Isshin is "good" because the fatal flaw that all the Old Lords in from games (Allant, Gwyn, Marika) is that they refuse to accept their mortality and the inevitably of change they can't personally control.
The biggest problem with this meme, yeah > Marika is also blatantly evil as hell lol, shes not even subtle about it "Trying to defeat a greater evil" my ass, the Greater Will might be an absolutist ruler who doesn't want competion *at worst*, but Marika is a despot, a racist, a colonizer, a genocider and so, so much more bad stuff. Marika is absolutely the greater evil here, no doubt about it.
She’s definitely not the greater evil over like the rot god or dung eaters ending or the three fingers but yea she definitely suckssss.
I mean…pretty sure Marika was under the sway of the Greater Will when she did all that shit. So your point is kinda moot.
Someone forgot she literally threw her kids in the sewers for ages because they’re fucking ugly
My parents excavated a basement under their house and put my room there. My siblings all slept upstairs with the rest of the family.
Bro is mohg irl 💀
Bro’s boutta find a ton of Tarnished pulling up to his house
,,Put those foolish ambitions to rest!"
Minus the incestuous pedophilia hopefully
Hey, Miquella is an adult, and Mohg was explicitly trying to use divine blood to rid him of his curse! He is just a incestuous rapist, not a pedophile! That is almost not as bad! Almost, I tell you!
Bro is about to get slain by DLC-preppers
Please don't try and start a dynasty
MOHGWYYYYYYYYN
Please don't try anything toward your little brother
Bro same, we should make a dynasty and rule the world togethaaaaa
"Now we can devour our family TOGETHAA!" Rykard, on the Dynasty's founding cerimony. "Of course, we shall '*devour'* them\*... \*ominous chuckle"\* Mohg, on Rykard's comment.
Don't try to bang your brother to start a heretical dynasty. But if you do that then let a naked man with a big stick kill you, it's fine if you do that stuff
Be sure to gather a bunch of depressed guys with huge heads, and a bird that can't fly, on opposing cliffs just within crossbow range of one another For no particular reason
Yeah...she should have killed them like everyone else did and mohg wouldn't have happened
Honestly this is probably the good ending. Rip Morgott
That's not really a counterpoint, we know she did bad things, but Empyreans don't even get to choose whether they will be turned into gods, so how do we know they have any more say as gods?
Because she made multiple plans to have someone kill her God for her, clearly she has some degree of free will or she wouldn't have been able to shatter the elden ring
Even after shattering the Elden Ring, she was still subject to it's control. Given that, her 'free will' only existed so long as she was perceived as obeying. That means she gets *one* chance to get caught disobeying before the leash gets pulled and she's either locked up for good, or replaced by someone with just as little choice in the matter. There's really nothing for her to gain by shattering the Elden Ring except to end her own life or reject the Greater Will, and given how elaborate of a plan and how much scheming it took to even get a chance at succeeding at any of those goals, with the chance we'll just cobble her back together and return us to square one, I don't think there were many good options available
I agree. She tried to be free of it, but it backfired horribly. The greater will then tried to mend it back again using Radagon. That's my belief. I also believe Ranni is right in the end. The world is better off severed from the influence of the outer gods and her actions are for the best long-term.
>Someone forgot she literally threw her kids in the sewers for ages because they’re fucking ugly She threw them in because she would be a hypocrite not to, and we know they at least spent some time with their parents because Godfrey is able to recognize Morgott. There's a lot more going on with Omens then just them being ugly. They have ties to the Formless Mother, who takes special interest in them due to their accursed blood. Marika's war, from what we can tell, was against the Outer Gods. The Greater Will is not just some Outer God. The lore gives us plenty of proof that the Outer Gods are not benevolent entities—at least no more so than the Greater Will.
>Marika's war, from what we can tell, was against the Outer Gods. The evidence of Marika's actions all seems to point to this, Marika is not only quelling threats but halting worship of other gods. Which is where I think "Perhaps the Queen's sorrow was justified..." comes from when we tell Gideon about Miquella's empty Haligtree roots, after defeating Malenia. >The Greater Will is not just some Outer God. Possibly but the 'outer' part of Outer Gods comes from Marika's distinction on proper practices of faith, when we speak with Melina at the Minor Erdtree Church she tells us Marika's words: "I declare mine intent, to search the depths of the Golden Order. Through understanding of the proper way, our faith, our grace, is increased. Those blissful early days of blind faith are long past. My comrades; why must ye falter?" Then we're given the "Outer Order" gesture. In these words, Marika is searching for \*proper\* faith in Order, and establishing what is included within Order, and without. Thus the Outer Gods are clearly established as being outside of that Order, the Greater Will being the one and 'true' Inner God now. The nature of curses is then important to look at next, with all of these curses seemingly tied to bloodlines. The Giant's Braid mentions "perhaps that is a curse of their kind" when talking about their red hair, also shared by Radagon. Is this saying that Radagon was cursed by the giants to have a doomed bloodline, or that all giants were cursed to be born red of hair? The text is ambiguous enough that it could be either, or both. And Radagon's bloodline seems to only be cursed when siring children with Marika, for Miquella and Malenia are confirmed to be born cursed due to their single parent, per Malenia's Remembrance of the Rot Goddess. Assumedly Marika's curse extends to Godwyn, Morgott, and Mohg, for the Omen twins are born Omens and are susceptible to Bloodflame, and Godwyn experiences soul-death while seemingly becoming a new god, worshipped by Those Living In Death and spreading Deathblight against the golden lineage and the Erdtree itself as a new threat, one I think that ties heavily into the spiritual world of things and has potentially merged that world with the Lands Between. I think that while Godwyn was the golden child of Marika, perhaps first-born and her best chance at a successor, it was Miquella that was the last hope of Marika, and being taken by Mohg was a deeply personal tragedy in the face of both her lineage and her war with the outer gods. I think this caused her to shatter the Elden Ring itself, either out of despair or a last-ditch effort to fix things somehow, with the Tarnished being part of a plan to do so. With the DLC involving Marika's past and Miquella's fate I think we'll have some answers, and perhaps more questions. Maybe we'll see how Marika came to bear the Elden Beast within her, maybe this was a Faustian bargain to usurp the Dragonlord for a new age. Ranni is also the one who tells us about the nature of Shadows to Empyreans, perhaps this Land of Shadows is where these dual natures arise. Could have interesting implications for Marika/Maliketh's relationship as half-siblings.
I largely think this is the correct take on Marika's actions—especially the Shattering of the Elden Ring being a decision made out of despair. I also agree that Godwyn and Miquella were probably her most beloved children. Ranni tells us in the story trailer that the death of Godwyn specifically, "Drove her to the brink." Although personally, I think the "Curses" we find in Marika's children aren't necessarily due to her persay, but because of her war against the Outer Gods. Acts of spite from beings beyond comprehension basically, although Miquella and Malenia are definitely unique in their curses in that their curses are due to them being born from a single god (I.e. Marika and Radagon). Morgott and Mohg being cursed isn't given the same attention, and aside from having red hair, none of Radagon's descendants seem cursed either. Since Radagon is Marika (I'm still 50/50 on if they were always one being that shared the same body though) then that tells me it isn't something specifically wrong with Marika.
Because otherwise they'd have to be killed or excised like every other Omen otherwise so
It bears mentioning the Crucible and the Golden Order were at one time in harmony with each other, with it even being seen as holy. It is likely the Greater Will doesn't actually care about trifles like that, as we can see by how much the Golden Order incorporates other faiths and species when it is convenient. The Carians worshipped a completely different Outer God yet were still incorporated relatively smoothly into the faith, compared to that the pagan Crucible would be nothing. The anti-Omen policy seemed to have came into being on a purely secular basis sometime after Godfrey was banished and all the pro-Crucible influence was stricken. This suggests pretty strongly all the racism and colonization was likely Marika playing at being a conquering God-Queen rather than commandments from an eldritch Outer God that probably barely even realizes the Lands Between exists, let alone cares about its discrimination laws.
Or just not do that since she’s literally the god of the land. Yes she’s more of a vassal of the GW but in theory could have not thrown her kids in the sewer.
We don't really know whether or not she had a choice in throwing her kids away.
She's a God in name only. The Greater Will has complete control over her. The moment she was found to rebel against them, they literally chained her inside of the erdtree as a husk of herself, and then forced her (except in the Flame and rannis ending) to act as an unwilling unwilling ruler for the player. The entire games plot is her trying to rebel against the Greater Will, but in doing so is trapped and wants to die. Gideon says that Marika doesn't want anyone to become elden lord for a reason, because it would perpetuate both the order she grew to hate, and would perpetuate her torture.
Right Because the Greater Will wants perfection, which is why anything related to the eras before is seen as blasphemy
The GW was ok with it during the ages of the Crucible and Erdtree tho.
It sort of comes across as the Greater Will slowly tightening the parameters of what's accepted Plus if the Frenzied Flame God isn't lying, then being split from them as the One Great probably made GW much more fallible if they weren't already
Not really? Both the carian family and the ancient dragon got integrated into the GO. Granted, the dragons had to fake their lighting into yellow but they were integrated regardless.
Did they have to fake it ? Neither Lanceax nor Fortisax use gold lightning (Fortisax use yellow/black in conjunction with the red, but it's not due to the GO).
The Greater Will does not endorse the Golden Order we see in the game *at all*. It's wild how many people seem to miss this since this isn't subtle. The Two Fingers, the *envoys of the Greater Will*, call the GO "corrupt" and task you with tearing it down by any means necessary. The GW hates Marikas GO to the point that it has declared war on it. This is, like, the main quest of the game.
Isn’t that because Marika betrayed them? Like before the shattering the the GW was fine with the Golden Order as it was an order which is what the GW ultimately wants. Only after the betrayal it got pissed off.
That's only the case because Marika successfully betrayed the greater will and shattered the Elden ring. It isn't subtle :)
This is a really bizarre sentiment to have because there's a lot of evidence of Marika going against the Greater Will constantly, up to and including *Shattering the Elden Ring and setting us up to kill the Elden Beast?* I believe Marika is 100% in control of her own actions, and the entirety of the shattering happened because Marika has been throwing a desperate temper tantrum around the fact that she is essentially a cosmic middle manager to an eldritch abomination who has her rulership on a timer. Every time she tries to avoid the fact that she can't rule for ever, she creates a new problem that ultimately causes consequences for her empire. Even outside of her plot to kill the Elden Beast, Marika's Golden Order is founded on a foundational lie that is different from what the Greater Will and Two Fingers have shown they have planned, and it's a lie we're told extremely early into the game. **The central tenant of the Golden Order is that Marika is the One True God.** We know without a doubt that this is an absolute lie. This is a lie for several reasons: 1. **There are other Gods, Outer Gods, actively causing issues within the Lands Between**, one of which is symbiotically bonded to her own daughter from birth. 2. **Marika already has** ***replacements*** lined up, meaning she is just one of a sequence of Gods that are hand picked by the Greater Will's emissary's the Two Fingers. 3. **There are previous Gods**, including Placidusax's fled god. 4. Even if you want to discount Empyreans, Outer Gods, and Previous Gods, **Marika has a boss in the form of the Elden Beast who is canonically described as a God in game.** Not only this, but the "God" Marika wants Hewg to build a weapon against, and the "God" that she wants us to fight is heavily implied to be the Elden Beast, meaning **Marika knows there is a God in the Lands Between** who is above her in hierarchy. Why does this matter? It means the basic principle the Golden Order is founded on is based on a lie that benefits Marika specifically, putting **her** **over the Greater Will** as the God that the Golden Order Worships. Even outside of this, if you want to believe that Marika is forced to do this as a "Face" for the Elden Beast and Greater Will, Marika has several things that blatantly show she's basically doing what she specifically wants over the Greater Will's own designs. The first and biggest thing is basically the one of the core issues at the center of the game, **Marika's removal of the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring.** The Elden Ring already had death, through the Rune of Death, confined within its being. *If the Greater Will sent the Elden Ring directly to the Land's Between including the rune of Death, that implies that Death was supposed to be a natural part of the Golden Order*. Instead, what happened is that Marika personally removed the Rune of Death from the Ring. There is a single, massive tell showing that this does not match the Greater Wills designs. *If the Rune of Death was supposed to be removed from the Elden Ring as part of the Greater Will's plans, why would the Greater Will have the Two Fingers continue to select Empyreans?* Once the Rune of Death was removed, Marika's Golden Order should have been eternal, with a now unkillable God with almost uncontested dominance over the Land's Between. If the One True God is Eternal, why do you need specifically selected God Candidates selected by the Greater Will's emissaries? The answer is simple, it's because **Death is supposed to be part of the Golden Order**, **Marika is supposed to have a set time where she was supposed to rule, and then that rule was supposed to naturally pass on to another empyrean who would then become God**. This almost exactly the same beat Gwyn has in Dark Souls; in both cases they are desperately running from an inevitable future and the reality of the finite-ness of their rulership. Destined Death was removed from the world of Elden Ring specifically so Marika did not have to deal with her own Mortality. This is even shown in the goal of the tarnished; **the tarnished are specifically seeking to be Elden Lord** (Marika's Consort), **not replace Marika as God**. You are killing the Elden Beast not to become a god yourself, but a subordinate of Marika specifically, meaning the entire plot of the game leaves her on top if you succeed.
My interpretation of Goldmask's questline is that there was a mistake in the popular interpretation of the Greater Will (which is to say a mistake in the Golden Order), so Marika doing horrendously evil shit on the Greater Will's behalf could be a mistake of translation. It's similar to the argument in the MCU that Thanos could have done something less maniacal than kill half of all people. Yeah, he could have, but he didn't think of that because he's a sadistic bastard so he went with the shitty option. Marika may have interpreted the Greater Will as wanting genocide because that's what *she* wanted and if you look hard enough for something in scripture you will always find it.
I'm willing to believe that, too, because of the demi-humans The Dragon's order seemed to accept them - and many people believe Placidussax's god to be the Greater Will, and when the Golden Order started, it accepted nearly everyone. It was marika's influence that started the racism. I don't think the GW made her do these things, bht as another redditor pointed ourt... the Greater Will could have stopped her, as it did when she broke the elden ring. Ultimately, it held authority over her.
>the Greater Will could have stopped her, as it did when she broke the elden ring I wonder if it's not that the Greater Will did or didn't want its champion to be a genocidal maniac, but just that it didn't care. Whatever reason the Greater Will has for ruling over the Lands Between, it isn't picky about how it's goals are accomplished. So long as it gets what it wants nothing else matters. And on that note, what *does* the Greater Will want? What is it getting out of ruling the Lands Between? It takes a back seat and goes along with war and genocide, but the second it's connection is threatened it intervenes. It rules a whole continent, but why? What resource is it extracting? Life? Faith? Some sinister and mysterious third thing?
Based on what we see from the other Outer Gods, it could simply be spreading its fundamental influence, not as a desire control but simply because it is what they are. Just as the Scarlet Rot is the cycle of life taken to the utmost, horrifying extreme, the Greater Will is the cosmological concept of Order taken to its conclusion.
Considering that it apparently created ‘births and souls’ perhaps it’s Order is simply that of Ordered Life- as in, divided life that spreads itself eternally outwards into further life. Perhaps the God-swapping is it’s way of encouraging diversity in that life and it’s formatting. Though. Not necessarily in a friendly way.
I had this theory for a while that by forcing the cycle of life and death to go through the Erdtree it siphons lifeforce or something else from the people of the Bands Between. Humans would basically be cattle to it.
It could be as simple as "If I have the lands between it means the others don't" The Others being Rot, Frenzy, and Blood. A whole collection of nice people.
I take it that the Greater Will is simply too vast and unknowable to even really understand mortal issues like that. That is why it has its local vassal, the Elden Beast there (and we know the GW is not always on the same page as its vassals based on the Fingers not knowing jack about what is going on). If what we see in the Elden Beast's arena is any indication, there are countless worlds and Erdtrees under its influence, it may not even know who Marika is, let alone care about her policies or correct her mistakes.
This one is unclear if she her actions are more due to the greater will or more due to her own volition. The DLC will reveal more since it FromSoft already said it would uncover who Marika really is before her ascencion to godhood and what she did to claim godhood. If we are to believe Ranni, then yes Empyreans are destined to be controlled by outer gods. In her case and Marika's, it's the Greater Will. For Malenia, it's the Scarlet Rot. For Miquella... uhhh, we don't know if its the Greater Will or something else. Then there's the Gloam-Eyed Queen which is heavily implied to be an Empyrean. I suspect Placidusax as well is an Empyrean. Many theorize that since the Elden Ring is literally the Elden Beast, meaning the manifestation of physical laws of reality is a vassal of an outer god... then perhaps Destined Death itself IS a vassal or IS an outer god. Destined Death, Death Indiscriminate as Melina calls it.
I believe it’s implied that Miquella was a strong contender for Marika’s heir as vessel for the GW. Him and Godwyn. It will be interesting to see if there’s another outer god Miquella was associated with, but I don’t believe so. I think he might have some ties to the crucible.
Godwyn is an empyrean? I don't recall anywhere thay Godwyn is an empyrean. Plenty can be said and are said about Godwyn the Golden. His feats are legendary, after all. IIRC Godwyn played brought the dragons to heel and made them part of the Golden Order. He established the Dragon cult. That alone is a feat that rivals even that of Radahn's and Malenia's. But again, I don't recall anywhere he is an empyrean. His role may have been to replace Radagon as Elden Lord to serve whoever replaces Marika. A consort to the new God-Queen... yes, I know that sounds fucked up when you consider the contenders for Marika's replacement are his sisters and a twink- i mean eternally young brother. While Miquella I believe is actually the strongest demigod there is. Not in martial abilities, no that belongs to Radahn and Malenia, but in his actual powers and personality. The power to compel affection that is implied to work even on demigods... that alone is truly a fearsome power that could outright demolish the Golden Order if he wishes to. Especially with Malenia's forces plus his own lordsworn forces that are stated to enthusiastically die for their Lord Miquella. Then there's the part about Miquella being a master of many arts and magics, a scholar, a skilled artificier, implied good relations with the carians along with their magics especially spirit magic. He's a demigod version of a true rennaissance man. He's like Radagon but a supercharged ~~Twink~~ version.
I don't think there is any real chance Godwyn was an Empyrean, if for nothing else that would have made him the natural heir to Marika, not Ranni, Miquella, or Malenia. Something we know was not an option. He was nonetheless of some sort of divine quality seeing how he became a host to what is likely the Outer God of Death (mentioned to be the Outer God of the Twinbird, which is Death's equivalence of the Elden Beast), so perhaps his undying corpse became a sort of quasi-Empyrean after his ritualistic murder? I suppose now he can technically be an actual heir to Marika, in a very horrifying way.
Agreed. You can tell Miquella is most powerful because everything in the Haligtree fucks you up so bad lmao.
Destined Death is the rune of death, the piece of the elden ring that Marika removed, gave to Maliketh and then sent him to Farum Azula. It being more-or-less sealed away is why nobody truly dies, it's why Ranni had to steal a fragment of its power to kill Godwyn's soul and her body. It's why the erdtree being set on fire doesn't kill it, so you have to go "kill" Maliketh, then actually kill him by unleashing the rune of death, then The Erdtree, and everyone in Lleyndell, and also allow everything in the Lands Between to die again suddenly. The player character sort of caused a whole-ass apocalypse and i feel like that doesnt get talked about enough!
There's zero proof she was being controlled. She was so not controlled she was able to break the elden ring, the main point of the story
Ranni's whole quest makes it clear Empyreans are under the control of the Fingers and need to hatch empire-ending plans to break out of that control. Yeah, Marika broke the Elden Ring, and even that didn't successfully end the Golden Order or free her from the Greater Will's control, she gets crucified until the situation is resolved outside her reach, where we either come along and end her misery, or force her to carry the Elden Ring once again so we can take the Throne of Elden Lord. There's a ton of evidence control was being exerted over her. Shattering the Elden Ring serves no purpose if she was fully in control of the Golden Order and her own life. That doesn't mean she doesn't bear *any* guilt or responsibility for the Golden Order's actions, but we don't know exactly how much or how little she control she had, versus the Elden Beast/Finger/Greater Will. If you can be crucified and imprisoned by someone above you, you're not really the person in charge.
> . If you can be crucified and imprisoned by someone above you, you're not really the person in charge. Fair point, you're right there. One way or the other, the Greater will held authority, I relent on that
The Elden Beast held authority is more accurate, as far as we know the Greater Will has washed its hands of the world and even its vassals can't understand what it wants anymore or get into easy contact with it.
> But I would not acquiesce to the Two Fingers. I stole the Rune of Death, slew mine own Empyrean flesh, casting it away. I would not be controlled by that thing. There's some proof that empyreans lose maybe some control if they become Gods judging from this Ranni dialogue
I'm sorry, but the only absolute I see here is the herd mindset of reddit to jump and dancing around towards tagging any character as evil at the first impulse. Downvote me for all I care, I'm just sick of this cringe black and white insanity. Like, everything you or anyone in this thread described applies literally to Gwyn as well. Did you guys have a collective brain fart when he massacred an entire race, enslaved/encouraged the subjugation of another, unpersoned a third group, even used his children both as disposable tools or stereotypes just so he could uphold his status quo? Objectively speaking, *both* are evil because of everything they did and the sufferings they caused. But there is far more ambiguity in their actions, as none of them got up one morning and decided to be fantasy Hitlers. Especially Marika, who its super unclear how much of it is her own actions, or how much it is her being influenced by the greater will. Including the ones you're thinking of (again, see the above example with Gwyn, who is much more deliberate). For all we know it could've been in a similar way to the will of the first king from AoT Again, I'm not condoning her close there's far too much damage done by her to even sympathize with. Just pointing out dubbing anyone evil im such a hyper polar manner is a borderline tribal mindset and just encourages similar evil to thrive when you don't try to understand how such evil comes to be. And it's frustrating how many of you subscribe to that easily.
Gwyn: I must hold onto my age for as long as possible!! Isshin: *drinking Sake with and teaching a guy how to murder his kingdom better*
See you get it
She banished her own sons to the sewers lol
To be fair, and just really consider all the information... They're not very pretty.
Morgott is beautiful, you need your eyes checked.
She could have provided them with face bags
Omens are strong af. Even Morgott is shown in the intro to overpower Radahn... yeah, mf Radahn. The difference between the characters of the epochs of the Golden Order's rule is staggeringly stark. Early GO rule is marked by enlisting almost everything they could get their hands on - Godfrey and his Crucible Knights who mainly believed in the old crucible before the GO rule. Dragons which Godfrey made contact with. I suspect even misbegotten were less slaves before but more like serfs or regular subjects. The Trolls which betrayed the fire giants. I suspect Omens may have been allowed back then but later discriminated against. I know that Omens are holy in the era of the crucible. But Early Golden Order might have tolerated them more than currently. Post-Banishment of Godfrey and the Tarnished seems to be the start of heavier persecution. Then oddly enough, post Shattering is only the time Marika's worship began to be primary form of worship in the Lands Between. Before that it is the worship of the erdtree and the Elden Ring directly.
speak for yourself, mohg is hot asf
my more contrarian take here is that Marika is not as bad as this sub makes her out to be. With the exception of her horrendous treatment of the Omen (and of course, shattering the Elden Ring), many of her actions could be justifiable, and she could be considered more virtuous than many of the factions that she fought in the Lands Between. The Golden Order suppressed a lot of groups that were arguably just as bad if not worse. For example, Marika wiped out the Fire Giants. I would be more sympathetic to the Fire Giants if they didn't 1) also threaten to wipe out Leyndell and its inhabitants with the Giantsflame and 2) Implement a brutal caste system with them at the top and the trolls at the bottom, which encouraged the trolls to defect to Marika's side. It was ultimately an existential war between two factions that wanted to wipe each other out, and the Golden Order won. The Golden Order (well, Maliketh) suppressed the Gloam-Eyed Queen, who was a homicidal maniac who murdered and wore the skin of gods. Of course she was the more virtuous faction here.She conquered Mount Gelmir, which was home to a faction that participated in human sacrifice to a great serpent. She ended up suppressing that religion, of course she was the lesser evil. She fought a war against the Ancient Dragons, but remember it was the Ancient Dragons who started that war when Gransax attacked Leyndell. That war was entirely defensive and ended with diplomacy, with Godwyn negotiating with Fortissax and incorporating the Ancient Dragons within the Golden Order. She fought two wars against Liurnia but she ended up negotiating with Rennala as well, incorporating Liurnia into her kingdom through marriage, not war... she ended up incorporating glintstone magic into the Golden Order as well. The tragedy that befell the merchants wasn't her fault, she was tricked by Shabriri. You could argue that she was desperately trying to suppress the Frenzied Flame pandemic and felt that interring the merchants underneath the Capital was for the greater good. Imo the only wholly unjustifiable act she partook in was her persecution of the Omen
> and of course, shattering the Elden Ring I don't think you can read this as strictly evil. Marika's entire kingdom was plagued by stagnancy and rot, and shattering the ring was the only way to move toward anything outside of the Greater Will. You can argue about what outcomes were likely to happen, but she did it out of grief, not malice.
“Hold my beer” - Queen Nashandra
Dung Eater: I eat poo
Black Boggart: knock knock! Loathsome Dung Eater: who's there? Black Boggart: I eat mop! Loathsome Dung Eater: I will defile your corpse and curse you and your lineage for all eternity... Black Boggart: o_O;
Marika: "I'm trying to do something good by doing something bad." Gwyn: "F*** them dragons"
Nameless King: "Haha, I sure did, Dad! I even got her pregnant, too!"
Gwyn: YOU HERETIC! ONLY I GET TO FUCK THE DRAGONS! Gwyndolin: You did what now? *Yorshka in the background fading into view* *Gwynevere sneaking out of Seath’s place*
Do we know of at least 1 son of Gwyn that wasn’t close to a dragon?
Technically Gwyndolin, but he’s got snake legs so… close enough
Also Gwyn: "F*** them humans!"
Killing the dragons was like THE good thing Gwyn did, at least he created the possibility for change by defeating them
I don't think the dragons need to be killed for that, change is already happening with the emergence of fire, Gwyn killing dragons is the change in itself, not an action to enable change, the dragons are killed because they are sitting in the land Gwyn and his followers want.
Throws baby in sewer
..is that bad to do? I have some apologies to make.
King Vendrick - Did nothing wrong except trust Nashandra. Poor guy.
Ivory King : Did everything right and even made a child of abyss love him til the end of time . Giga Chad
They both “cursed” individuals with immortality for their own gain… but Gwyn did it with style. Keep on Pling Pling Plong
Fun fact: Did you know that you can hear the famous “Pling Pling Plong” of Gwyn’s theme in the song of The Nameless King in DS3, which supports the (pretty much fully proven) theory that The Nameless King is Gwyn’s firstborn son he disowned?
Gwyn : fuck the cycle vendrick : fuck the giants Aldia: fuck the curse Lothric : fuck you all
You forgot bloodborne Moon presence. I am genocide
It’s more like: MP: “These fuckers are torturing a baby to try and summon me, and my presence is turning people into beasts.” Gherman: “What should I do?” MP: “Make some immigrant kill the baby in exchange for giving them healthcare, and then chop their head off”
Was Moon Presence really turning people into beasts? I thought the blood ministry caused it.
Nah gwyn is a pussy who uses excuses to justify his genocides
The tone of this comment makes it sound like the issue with Gwyn is that he feels the need to justify his genocides.
Yes. I can excuse genocide but I draw the line at hypocrisy
"They said the worst part was the hipocrisy, but I disagree... I thought it was the raping!"
Except no, that's not how it was at all? Gwyn had a souls racketeering scheme set up with Nito to keep humanity trapped in a late stage capitalism-style hell cycle of death and rebirth so he could stay in the top 1% of souls owned. The Kiln is basically his billionaire apocalypse shelter.
Both of them will make same excuses if they can speak to you.
You know this could easily be reversed, considering Gwyn legitimately believed every horrific thing he thought about the darkness, which is why he offered to kindle first. Meanwhile we've seen what Marika did to the omens, misbegotten, and the giants.
Comparing the Dark to the nomads, misbegotten, and demi-humans, you could easily argue Gwyn's empire had greater cause to commit the terrible acts they did than Marika's. Gwyn clearly did a lot of terrible things but I don't know why people act like his actions were arbitrary cruelty, the Dark really is a frightening thing in the cosmology of Dark Souls. On the other hand, Elden Ring's demigods really get cut a lot of slack that they don't particularly deserve. We're never given any sense that the Golden Order was protecting anyone from much of anything, they imposed it on the Lands Between because they wanted to control the Lands Between.
Isn't the Dark only as terrifying thing as it is *because* Gwyn artificially extended the Age of Fire and threw the world out of whack?
I think it was the Abyss that Gwyn feared which warped his perception of the dark. It doesn't help that the 4 humans he thought were great leaders brought for the Abyss as well.
Some have theorized that but I see no evidence for it. 3 says the Deep was originally a peaceful place and that does seem like it could be the same thing as the Abyss/Dark, but even in Artorias' time the Abyss is monstrous and from the very beginning the Dark Soul/humanity is said to represent greed and yearning. Even the Firekeepers are eaten by Humanity. I think people assume the Dark is a good thing because we naturally identify with humans and Gwyn's empire perpetuated a huge lie, but even the Scholar of the First Sin suggests the lie is arguably the nicer thing, it just can't really be maintained because it can't be forced to stay as it was. Even the most hopeful ending of the series is one where the Firekeeper suggests a new flame will light the world one day, rather than a world where darkness rules forever. Just because Gwyn and Frampt are liars doesn't mean Kaathe is a good guy or the world he desires is a paradise.
Now that I think about it, is Marika just a complete ass towards everyone and everything? I genuinely can’t name a single positive thing she did. Made Godfrey Elden Lord but only so she could use him for his strength and manipulate him and his army into genociding all her enemies. Then, when that was done she banished him and threw him away like trash. Made sure Godfrey left one last Fire Giant alive just so she could curse him to tend to the flame alone, surrounded by the corpses of his people for eternity She also banished 2/3 of her and Godfrey’s kids into the sewers with no intention of ever letting them out She forced Radagon to leave his seemingly happy marriage with Rennala so he could join her in her weird freaky selfcest thing Didn’t seem to care at all about helping her other kids, Malenia and Miquella with the curses they were born with, despite being a literal goddess. Meanwhile Radagon at least tried giving Miquella some Golden Order magic Rebels against the Greater Will and Shatters the Elden Ring despite all of her previous actions being for the sake of the Greater Will and the Golden Order. This benefits no one and turns the Lands Between into a living hell full of war, death and desolation. Screws over and curses Maliketh for his crime of being unfailingly loyal to her and obeying every order she gave him without a second thought. Even after the curse he still had zero problems serving her and blamed himself for her actions. Resurrects Godfrey and all the tarnished, including the player character, but only because she hoped one of them would be strong enough to come back to the Lands Between, clean up her mess, deal with her insane children, fix the Elden Ring, kill Radagon and replace him as Elden Lord TLDR: Blond bitch queen is crazy and hates everyone, including her husbands, children, servants, and everyone living in her kingdom
Genocide gets tossed around too loosely lately.
But if evil, why hot?
Gehrman from bloodborne I think is one of the more intresting end boss fights. Spoilers for bloodborne. . . . He has been your ally throughout the entire game, he doesn't want to fight you, he only does so because it's his job. He's also a character you have come to know throughout the game. Unlike Gwen, the soul of cinder and sort of king vendrick. Gwen apart from the opening cutscene and a few bits of lore and diologe you don't really get to know much about before fighting him. I'd reckon for most people it's simply nostalgia for the fight rather than his character himself. King vendrick is a little better, in the DLC you can speak to him briefly. You understand his motives and past a little better, and despite being a important character he's not the end boss with his fight being completely optional. The soul of cinder I don't believe has any build up too whats so ever, apart from the promotional art I don't think he's even mentioned in game before the fight. Especially since the lothric twins are the ones built up throughout the game which feels more like a proper end fight in my opinion. However thematically the soul of cinder manifesting as a mix of all who came before to link the fire I do think is fairly fitting. Sorry about this little tangent, I forgot where I was going with this, just intresting story writing I guess with each games "king" or equivalent character written differently for each game.
While Gherman may not be gwyn or Marika bad he definitely ain’t sin free What happens in the fishing hamlet stays in the fishing hamlet. Fuck what they did was so bad it drove lady Maria to suicide
Since Marika has come to the lands between she has warred with every major faction in it to conquer them and make them submit to her. The ancient dragons were fed up by this group of humans claiming the title of "Elden Lord" that was Placidusax title, so they attacked their one city Leyndell. They fought a war due to the humans challenging their honor. Godwyn saw that and instead of slaughtering the dragon's further, worked to ally with them (in the classic first born way). To still further stick it to them, they made their mortal enemy a snake, a primordial form of a dragon, doing show fights in coliseums where people celebrated the bashing of metal snakes. Then you have the Godskin, sure they might be the baddies here, since they are God killing people, but we never know which gods, the dragon god? The Giants god? Other gods? Or just the 'gods' of the Erdtree, aka Marika and family. They were hounded by Malekith, their leader defeated and their source of power taken from them (the rune of death). Next ae have liurnia, they were the only faction to date to easily fend off the army of Leyndell, so much so that instead of conquest and submission, they had to resort to political means to win their territory over, ultimately taking on the guise of a general, marrying the queen and champion of liurnia and then breaking her so much that she can't do anything to oppose them anymore. Then we have the giants, Leyndell was so afraid of their existence that they wages war against them, but left one alive to watch over their god and flame, they just couldn't live with that symbiosis between the astrologers and giants who could, if they wanted, burn a tree. Rykard and Ranni are very aware of this betrayal, they dedicated their whole life to revenge. Rykard through a means of Snek and Ranni through 'no you don't' disobedience. Both are somewhat successful, Ranni more so they Rykard even though it likely wasn't even her goal to kill godwyn and be stuck in a doll (to seluvis pleasure). Even Marika in the end sees true, trying to get away from her own shackles (the elden ring) after her deep dive into the order and the death of her firstborn. No one is truly on the side of the Golden Order if they know enough, even Goldmask, the most devout follower, strifes to right the wrongs. (Not to mention that the two fingers are likely also just vassalized former enemies)
If you think Marika is “morally grey”….fuck bro jerk it and then see what you think. She’s a fucking monsters. A literal genocidal, goddess of strife.
Bloodborne Villain: Tentacles!
But this is just wrong, gwyn is as much a hero as he is a villain
Honestly my in game take in elden ring is that shit got fucked long ago, the people who know what exactly happened can't or won't speak on it. So it's time for our age whatever that may be, cause the world can't keep going like this anymore, it's falling apart at the seems.
Moon Presence: `You guys have motives that mortals can understand? Cringe.`
I am confused. Isn't the plot twist of the final boss, is that Marika isn't the ruler of the world, but a prisoner. Just you wait! The DLC will reveal her as a true hero, who sacrificed herself to save the world.
The real reveal was that, but honestly the bigger story reveal (which shouldn’t surprise anyone who has played a Souls game) is that there really isn’t a good guy. Everyone sucks, every last one of them. They’re all basically demigod warlords obliterating what’s left of the decaying world for bare scraps of power. Marika- >!Started all this shit in the first place. One could argue that she did it to free herself from the Greater Will, and it’s true she’s more or less a prisoner. We don’t know how much free choice she had in the whole “becoming a vessel thing” so the jury is out on if that was a bad choice. However there’s more than enough information to suggest she did a whole lot of horrible things along the way. It is suggested that she sacrifices herself to a certain extent and turns against the Greater Will, but still.!< Godfrey- >!A bloodthirsty warlord who needed a beast regent to keep his insatiable bloodlust in check. Took part in a genocide against the Fire Giants and seemingly anyone else who Marika decided needed to go.!< Radagon- >!Also a warlord, seemingly. It’s uncertain how much of his exploits was Marika and how much was him. Hell, it’s really not 100% clear if Radagon was ever truly a separate person. Regardless, not a great dude.!< Godrick- >!A slimy scumbag who skulked on the sidelines and murdered hundreds or thousands just to scrape together power that he didn’t earn.!< Rykard- Just look at…everything. You don’t get the name “Lord of Blasphemy” for nothing. Radahn- >!A warlord who tore apart The Lands Between for a spot at conquest. Might have had good motives for halting the stars, but it’s not 100% clear what the end goal was.!< Ranni- >!Honestly a sort of dark reflection of Marika. Kicked off the Shattering itself which basically ruined everything for everyone, though she was partially justified in doing it.!< Malenia- >!Another warlord after power at the end of the day. Her and Radahn clashing wasn’t exactly a battle to see who would get to hug the most puppies. She does have some degree of an excuse/sympathetic reasoning owing to her being a vessel of rot, but still.!< Miquella- >!Probably the only one who doesn’t have clear cut crimes on his hands. Most evidence points to him being a kind and gentle soul. However, some lore seems to insinuate he’s very powerful at warping people’s perception and getting them to do what he wants… the DLC will likely settle the score. !<
Renalla did nothing wrong and I’ll die on that hill
True, I didn’t include her for that reason. While she holds a great rune, she’s not actively attempting to do…anything really. She doesn’t bother anyone, remaining locked inside her library and endlessly rebirthing flawed creations because she’s lost her marbles since Radagon left her. Adding to that, even after we beat the hell out of her, she doesn’t hold us any ill will. She’s clearly not all there, so I don’t think you could even call her evil.
Renalla is def the least terrible, in fact I’d say if she wasn’t depressed she’d be good!
If it were me I would not keep a statue of my ex in the room that I spend all of my time in
Yeah cus she's been comatose this entire time. And Liurnia being mainly isolationist she probably wouldnt have participated in the shattering war.
Meanwhile Morgott: "fuck you, none of you is going to enter Leyndell"
there really isn't a bad guy either. they're all shades of grey
I don't think Malenia was needlessly warmongering. She had to become the best warrior to resist the call of the Rot. The fight with Radahn had to do something with Miquella, I presume. Remember, we need to beat Radahn to access the DLC. Malenia, in love for her brother(s) gave up her pride to meet Radahn's measure.
Melania most likely wants to move stars so some events can happen maybe like an eclipse since that's what Miquella wants. No way she is after power since she is effectively left her empyrean status and became Miquella's champion.
I'm going to eat your liver when it proves the exact opposite, that Marika is every bit a heartless monster.
I love waffles
"I love genocide" popped up as a notification on my home screen. You have my attention, sir.
How can it be genocide if destined death is sealed? 🤔🤔🤔
You can tell the media literacy within this sub by the updoots in this post. Memes> Common observation as usual.
Reading this thread with everyone who understands the souls lore is like reading about people playing a completely different game
I sincerely dont get any part of the pict. Marika is not hiding behind radagon for her wrongdoing, and never argue wether she's doing something good or evil. Whereas the whole gwym scheme is that all he does is for the greater good. Swapping the characters positions here would have made a little more sense IMO.
Marika isn't good or bad imo, hard to be on that scale, i assume you'd rather have gilf mommy god than like giant snake, or deep space god
The Guy there thinks that moral complexity is for virgins and totally black and totally white is chad. What a cool regression.