Does Elden Ring's Lore Make Sense?

i've been enjoying the search for lore and from soft games since before the release of dark souls 3. this meant that i was waiting and eager for eldon ring and all the mysterious lore and hidden revelations it was sure to bring i analyzed trailers i covered live streams and when the game came out i delved into the story and the many threads that made up not only it but its multiple endings i was proud back in the day when i released one of if not the first breakdown of the endings of dark souls 3 and i was proud again to do something similar for eldon ring and if you want to support me making more content like that feel free to subscribe to the channel that search for truth and meaning and the scattered evidence of the game and the chance to share those findings with the community and really positively interact with others who enjoyed it all the same way was fantastic i had that same feeling of discovery with eldon ring and i still do but just as we alter the cycle in eldon ring things have felt a bit different in this most recent iteration of the fromsoft formula as fromsoft fans we are used to mysteries and things shrouded in uncertainty but in some ways eldon ring feels like it takes things further there is more left unknown and without any comment at all the definite set of events or timeline or relationships are murkier and more up in the air another youtuber ratatoskr even has a video about how for him the lore of eldon ring is quote uninterpretable ratatoskr lays out his issues and confusions well so i recommend you watch his video if the topic piques your interest while i don't think i come to his same conclusions i am sympathetic to the ideas and concerns the video talks about while we have always had things left up to interpretation in the past there was always something definite to base the interpretation on ratatoskr points out that lots of the elden ring world and timeline simply don't have information or answers that we can then use to interpret or glean themes from he points to examples like the motivations of queen america or the allegiances of the black knife assassins and examples have come up in my videos too even my most recent videos on estelle and the elden beast both end with conclusions of uncertainty about each creature i was able to say some things about their likely origins and motivations but i had to quickly move into speculation to say anything of a real note and because of that the videos ended with well this may be the case like the knox may have made the estelle but i don't have any definite evidence on the matter this seems likely but we don't know for sure ratatoskr also brings up how this lack of clear events leads to a quagmire of connections between things and people in the game we saw a bit of this in my omen and crucible video the crucible being anne or the original form of life in the lands between sets up well that it can be connected to quite a few things as i go over in the video we find traces of it in the crucible knights the misbegotten the omen and subsequently the omen killers and even animals all around the lands but then these things get murky due to the connections that these beings have with others we see some connection from the dung eater and his curse to the omen recall also that the omen naturally have cursed blood and the cursed blood also extends connection from mo to the formless mother another outer god that we get little information on other than through connection with moat do all of these beings now have connection with the crucible 2. in that video i also talked about the similarities between the crucible as a primordial form of coagulated life and the frenzied flame ending which seems to move in just that direction melting the world back into one so do we then connect the omen crucible knights and misbegotten indirectly with the three fingers shabiri bike and hayeta now this could be a good time for a counter along the lines of isn't it good storytelling to have an interconnected world where one thing branches to the next and that to the next and so on and to that i would have to say of course that makes for a world that feels real and lived-in and authentic but we still have an issue because the boundaries of these connections are so blurred the web of life connecting all the players and events in the lands between is out of focus we can discern some of the ties but we can only do so with a poor level of clarity as the game just doesn't give enough of the core building blocks to properly or cohesively piece stuff together or so the argument goes this is acutely of concern for ratatoskr's aims because he sees the basic whose whats and hows as the boring stuff or the stuff to first get clear on only as a means to seeing a bigger picture focused on themes and messages because we cannot come to conclusions on the facts of the matter and many things in game he doesn't see how he can get to that richer discussion of themes and overarching ideas thus eldon ring is uninterpretable we lack the tools to go about interpreting it as his thumbnail suggests in making the point he also brings up the ashes of ariandel dlc and dark souls 3 which in a discussion of themes is a fantastic piece to touch on since it is essentially a microcosm of the main theme of dark souls 3 and maybe the whole dark souls series feel free to see his video for a more in-depth discussion of it but succinctly the message of ariendel is that of the response to stagnation as things age and stagnate the world rots and there are two possible reactions to this rock we can either try to endlessly prolong life and the world as we know it suffering through and bearing the effects of rot and stagnation or we can let what we know come to an end we can accept its death and let a new age usher forth in ariendel this new age is brought about by the burning of the old world the fire burns away the rot and a new world is able to be created painted in this case rise up beyond the ashes the cyclical themes of dark souls are captured well in this dlc ages of fire and dark choosing to prolong the flame or let it fade and begin something new the negative effects of halloween and endlessly prolonging the faded age all of these themes are present in the games and they are nicely captured in the short experience of ariandel it seems clear to me that these themes and messages line up with the quote unquote best ending in the base game of dark souls 3 2. yes fromsoft does leave the choice and interpretation up to us the players but their overarching themes in support of self-determination and in condemnation of stagnation of endlessly prolonging that which should be allowed to end make it seem pretty cut and dry to me that the proper ending for dark souls 3 is to let the fire fade opting to do so with the help of the fire keeper allows the ushering in of a new age free of any remnants or power grasping by the player or the followers of koth it cleanly captures the overall ideas and themes of dark souls 3 with a player choice coming back to eldon ring i could say that this example should make us look to a potential dlc to answer our questions and i will do that i mean i do hope that we get a dlc that fleshes things out but i'll give such an answer with a very big caveat the dlc won't get rid of the issue with the base game unless it includes some retconning or something like that in dark souls 3 we could come to a conclusion about the themes and choose the ending which corresponded best to that conclusion and we could do all of this without needing any guidance from any dlc the dlc just acted as a reinforcement or retelling of what we already were told this is not the case with eldon ring while we may be able to get more clarity from a dlc the base game itself does not support a similar conclusion making process when it comes to the endings of eldon ring i feel less confident that i can say for certain how one rises above the others in gelling with the themes of the game of course i still do say so just with less confidence ronnie's ending really does seem to me to be the best encapsulation of player choice but i can only defend that viewpoint with arguments and evidence up to a limited threshold in this game more than any previous one i feel less able to say that the correct ending is not just a matter of preference and i see more people favoring different endings in this game than in dark souls 3. editing mad here with a possible correction i ran some polls in my community and people seem to be in more agreement about the elden ring ending the age of stars being a canon ending than they do with dark souls 3 endings so maybe i'm mistaken and the ending for elden ring is actually more of a consensus than the previous games obviously this could just be a bias of what i've been exposed to but through my discussions with other content creators the greater level of unclearness seems to be something we agree on even if the degree to which it matters may be up in the air so we may be in a less clear position now but does that mean that we have to wait until dlc comes out to make any kind of conclusion or can we come to some kind of understanding about what themes and ideas are central to the game right now as someone who is continuing to make these videos my answer will probably be unsurprising yes i think we can make some worthwhile conclusions and find some meaningful answers in the search on one level all of this confusion and unclarity can constitute a message itself this is something i really picked up on in talking to another creator crunchy who makes great in-depth lore videos make sure to go check out him and his recent video on what elden ring means if any of this stuff is enjoyable to you the whole context of the elden ring being shattered can justify the hodgepodge of events and timelines that we find the elden ring helped constitute the order of the world and with that broken the logic of the world is broken too we as players take up the role of choosing what to do with the ring in the ending we choose we can mend it a certain way bring in ronnie or burn everything with the chaos flame as the logic of the game world is broken we as players are the ones to set it right as such it is up to our choices and our own sense to make sense of the story and the events we find in game and in crunchy's words ultimately the game is about the player deciding how they think the world should be ordered as a player your beliefs about elden ring decide how the elden ring in game is repaired from software has put the story making in our hands as players somewhat similar to what they did with halloween and dark souls making it dependent on whether the player themselves seeks to continue to push through the game or give up and go hollow thereby letting their player character go hollow too but even past this larger player narrative of choosing what to make of the world we do still have some level of certainty about in-game messaging and thematic choice through what the game does give us we can learn about things like the frenzied flame for example we come to understand its motivations even if its origin and specific implications are still murky and in terms of conclusions i think we can find justification to reject it based on the themes of the game which emphasize and extol striving despite struggling finding beauty and hardship and never choosing to give up basically everything the opposite of what the frenzied flame and tribury say the game even gives us melanot to reiterate these themes when we are deciding if we should make the choice obviously the player can still choose the flame just to see the ending and many of us do or did but in determining what the right course of action would be and what should be canon if anything what we think of as canon the themes are present in game which make a pretty clear delineation that does not support the frenzied flame ending as best or right at least i'm pretty confident of that now we can still say that the intense ambiguity in this and especially other things which we know even less about like the black knight assassins for instance do take away from the overall richness of the experience and story things are just a bit off with so little known about so many of the events and the characters especially characters who act in game and who we interact with like melanoma and even ronnie to some degree but of course the loris lutheian is pushing ever forward there are soldiers like smoketown v-limit crunchy and more on the hunt for lore and producing videos on really novel stuff you can find them and other creators on the hunt at the round table hold section on my channel page there is definitely more research and discovery still to be had but the issues that ratatoskr brings up are meaningful at least i would say they are and they do present somewhat of a problem to confront in this hunt for lore this search for meaning and to not be too repetitive with a point from my previous videos this seems like another area that shows some limiting of the game scope could have been helpful instead of cut content and dialogue random repeat story bosses and a massive world that leaves quite a bit just not fleshed out a slightly smaller game with more concrete core events and evidence for the player to find would have given a stronger sense of lore and a better ability for us to piece things together that in turn would have led the player to being able to get a bit clearer on the subsequent themes and whatnot while still leaving the door open for plenty of weird occult or tangential things to stay mysterious more clarity on the black knife assassins who are featured presently in the game and actually do things in the game wouldn't mean that the ancient structures and time of crumbling feram azula can't still be mysterious and archaic and full of unknowns lost to time leave the time before the urge tree shrouded in mystery but give us more information on the happenings of the shattering and the night of the black knives let us wonder about the broken structures and barely unearthed ruins throughout the lands between but fill us in about the wars of the shattering and the actions of the demigods there's a balance to be struck and even with from software's penchant for mystery in mind it feels like eldon ring lands too much on the side of the player left in the dark but even with all of this we might be running into the same problem that i am talking about in game i would bet that more than a few responses to this video will be that eldon ring is properly mysterious just like every fromsoft game and every game has cut content and dialogue in quests and that this is no different just like with the endings to some degree it may come down to each person's preference and how they interpret things to determine if they think this is an issue for the game so let's just turn it back to you the watcher do you think the lore of eldon ring is uninterpretable like ratatoskr said it was for him or is it right for many more years of hour-long smotown lore videos are these two questions even in opposition but the answer to both of them be yes can we reach the themes and bigger picture despite lacking resolution in the details let me know what you think i've tried to touch on both views in this video and since i'm likely to keep making content especially an upcoming video on the themes of the game and how they connect to other things like philosophy and berserk i'm more in the camp of recognizing issues but still thinking that there are workable themes which we can grapple with player choice struggling self-determination and affirmation of life stand out as a few of them if you would like to aid that continued search for lore and meaning you can support the channel by subscribing or becoming a patron on patreon your support helps me dedicate more time to the channel and videos also check out those i mentioned in this video and linked to in the round table hold if you are looking for more lore content they all make really good stuff with that i will thank you for watching and hope to see you in the next video thanks bye

Channel: MadLuigi

Views: 31,681

Keywords: elden, ring, elden ring, elden beast, lore, elden ring lore, elden beast lore, final boss, greater will, outer god, lore explained, explained, elden ring explained, elden beast explained, ending, ending explained, marika, melina, radagon, outer god lore, astel, star, fallingstar, naturalborn, naturalborn of the void, astel lore, nox, eternal city

Id: 3Ct0jDKPUe8

Length: 15min 0sec (900 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 23 2022