Elden Ring Lore | Duality and Twins

I find myself increasingly fascinated with the notion of balance and Duality at the end of Elden ring we are presented with the Dual nature of a god two beings of contrasting temperament yet housed within a single body Marika and Radigan the Moon and the Earth tree life and death silver and gold morgue and more God mikola and Millennia what is the relevance of these themes today I will provide you with my interpretation of these but first of all a word from today's sponsor Opera GX the number one browser for us Gamers with his Aid opporty X is armed to the teeth where the whole host of tools to enhance your gaming experience like limiting how much RAM and CPU your browser takes up as well as having integrated quick links to sites like twitch and Twitter of course one of the coolest things about the browser is how good it looks and how you can Adorn it with one of its many more cards such as this really cool medieval mod it's easy to activate with one click of a button and it gives your browser a cool animated background background music and keyboard sound effects as well as opening and closing tab noises well I personally really like about the mod system is that you can combine elements of different mods together to suit your preference so I can have the Aesthetics of a cyberpunk browser with the cool dragon background switching to Opera GX has never been easier as you can import your bookmarks browsing history cookies and passwords from your previous browser with just one click so if you want to optimize your browsing experience and even get a unique tab that shows all of my videos then download Opera GX using my link below thanks again to Opera GX for sponsoring this video and now back to the lore Duality has long been a focus of from software games most obviously in Dark Souls light and dark chaos and death and so I'm not pretending it is something new to from software games rather I've always had this subject in the back of my mind nagging me is something I want to discuss because it is so prevalent with Elden ring in particular so many elements or forces in Eldon ring have an opposite or an inversion whether it be the greater well and the frenzied Flame or more got and moves contrasting ideologies about their Omen condition each of these dualities have something interesting to share whether it be a simple contrasting narrative device or whether it be a deeper reference to lunar and solar archetypes and balance as a whole we will be unpacking some of these subjects today as well as reconciling it with the ideologies of the golden order fundamentalists whose aims seem to revolve around reconciliation of all matter ultimately by the end of this video I hope to have explored the meaning behind some of these examples and why Duality is so important to Elden ring as a whole and the main conflicts found within its story but before we get started guys remember that if you like Elden ring lore then consider liking this video and subscribing to the channel in Dark Souls 1 in the very first cinematic we are introduced to the ideas of Duality light and dark heat and cold life and death yet it only came with disparity and before this there was just neutrality a gray world of unloving stone dragons likewise we hear a similar story in Elden ring a time of when there was only one form of life the one great oh that there is came from the one great with a greater will made a mistake torment bear Affliction every sin Every curse I think it's fair to assume that in this time when life was just one there are no dualities and so this is our inciting cosmological event that laid the foundations for disparity and my speculation is that because we see so much examples of Duality and balance within the world of Elden ring is that with this disparity came a system of balance that this world exists in a state of balance and opposing forces an aversion of each element or a Newtonian response naturally being a system of opposing forces this can sometimes generate conflict however at the end of this video I will present what I believe to be the perfect harmonious balance between two twins that we find in the game the concept of two opposing elements making a whole is such a fundamental basic to life science and philosophy from the double helix strands of DNA the Sun and the Moon mothers and fathers life and death and yin and yang so it is no surprise that these ideas permeate mythologies across numerous cultures and the mythology of many cultures the moon and the sun has always been the most fundamental of dualities both sources of light the symbols of Night and Day personified in certain mythologies to be opposing and yet symbiotic and so with that said I'd like to start with what I see as the most fundamental duality in Eldon ring the Moon and the Earth tree like in Dark Souls the moon plays an important role with an Elden Rings mythology however unlike Dark Souls where the Moon is the Counterpoint to the Sun instead the opposite to the Moon inhaled in ring is the art tree slash the Elden ring as many have observed the sun actually plays a very minor role within Elden ring to the point that it's almost not even visible within the sky it is clear that the art tree plays the role of a sun symbolically in this world it not only does it eliminate the land but it also once gave off heat in fact we can learn of via the warming Stone one of the most well-known philosophies of balance is that of Yin and Yang a Chinese philosophical concept that presents the world as a system of balance between opposing yet interconnected forces yen is the receptive or passive element but is also represented by the moon and generally is associated with the feminine conversely Yang is the active masculine aspect represented by the sun they are two halves of the fundamentals of the world one even brings the Knight and the other the day the light and the shadow these elements of Yen really help explain the foundation of the moon's depiction within Souls games as a whole the moon has very much always been associated with the feminine in Dark Souls the Darkmoon gwyndolin is raised as a girl because he was born with a strong Affinity to the Moon likewise in Eldon ring it seems to be the women of the carrion family specifically who are the inheritors of the moon's Legacy brunella makes contact with the full moon then leads her daughter Rani by the hand who is introduced to hermoon the Darkmoon the moon and the sun been associated with the feminine and masculine respectively isn't just an Eastern concept however in Roman mythology Luna is a female whereas Saul is a masculine figure as for why the moon seems to be associated with sorcery in both souls and Elden ring I believe it simply comes down to the fact that culturally magic is more associated with women and feminine energies however that being said the Moon is also associated with magic itself Moon magic is a thing and often occult practices revolve around lunar cycles finally yen is also the passive element of the Yen and yang balance this connection is made in the game Warframe as well in warframe's Choice system you can either make sun decisions or Moon decisions some decisions are the passionate ones whether that be acting in angor or in violence or on the flip side showing empathy whereas the moon decisions in Warframe are shown as the detached emotionless decisions where logic dictates the action of the player likewise in Eldon ring the order of the moon seems to be a detached order of logic this is reflected in rani's speech if you choose the age of stars now come at the age of the Stars a Thousand-Year Voyage under the wisdom of the Moon here begin it's a chill night that encompasses all reaching the great beyond into fear doubt and loneliness path stretches Into Darkness this is a subject we have discussed previously in my Ranny lore video the translation is a little odd and I would recommend that video if you'd like to see some better translations but in essence what Ronnie is seeing here is that her order will be at a great remove from Earth it will be present in the cosmos Untouched by emotion faith and close contact her order being far away from the people that she governs and the cold abyss of space sounds like a very cold logical and passive order if I ever heard one a Yen order contrasted with the active order of the earth tree that is very direct very present and active it very much directly moves to impose its order upon the world even beginning a series of violent conquests to achieve such an end a very young order but this analogy also does somewhat spell into the alchemical realm from the black moon worshiping not box we can find out that the Moon is also associated with silver from the silver tiers to the silver mist that their Knight maidens spray from their mouths all of which I see as analogous to Mercury one of the three prime elements in alchemy and at a stretch we could see the gold of the earth tree as analogous to sulfur or the soul in alchemy there are three prey materials the neutral base matter salt and then the two opposing materials we have just mentioned sulfur and Mercury sulfur and Mercury follow some of these similar dichotomies that we've just discussed about yin and yang sulfur like Yang is the active aggressive element that is meant to represent the soul the greatest lore item in the game the albinoric blood clot shows that the urban orix themselves have a silver blood and its item description highlights the fact that they are reviled by most living things in the lands between because they are artificial reinforcing the the fact that these Mercury blooded creatures are merely the material aspect of the world and they are without Soul or sulfur because they are disconnected from The Source or Nexus of souls the Earth tree the magnum opus of alchemy is to reconcile and combine these materials into the perfect substance one of the allegorical depictions of such a union is known as the Rebus an immortal being the combination of the White Queen Mercury and the red king of a male and female into one whole the relevance of this to Elden ring should be quite obvious as it makes us think of Radigan being the Red King and Marika the White Queen again these two are meant to be opposing forces and yet an Elden ring we find them forced into a single body and so this alchemical analogy gives us two states of being you can have two opposing matters in a system of balance or you have convergence and we will return to this Topic near the end of the video when we talk about Golden order fundamentalism but I want to move on to the subject of twins as we do find quite a lot of twins in Eldon ring and Twins and mythologies are often the personification of the themes of Duality shadows and contrasts which is why religion and mythology quite often contain stories of twins Romulus and Remus and caster and Pollocks just to name a few one of the most clear and obvious examples of twins is the omen twins morgue and morgot both Omen yet both represent radically different philosophies about their condition The Omen are a fascinating subset of beings they are aesthetically associated with the age of The Crucible grotesque and bestial strong and violence and with physical forms as chaotic as The Crucible itself yet the real Crux of the omen condition is their souls which have become disconnected from the earth tree the Nexus of life in this world the seedbed curse is a good tool to understand the omen condition with as these are the poxes that the dongito spreads The Omen curse with it reads the following by doing so he prevents dead Souls returning to the Earth tree leaving them forever cursed one of the most loathsome things found in the lands between these beings are cursed in so much that their souls die but are unable to return to the Earth tree this is why for me some of the powers of the omen are comparable visually to those who live in death and for clarity I'm talking about the brown black Flames that Royal women are able to produce which is very visually similar to the white black flame of ghost flame a flame which Sprouts from those who live in death when they begin to respawn remember that those who live in death are born from Godwin a being who died in Soul only and so in that way the omen are very similar both a set of beings who have dead souls and we are beginning to see a pattern here of who the fundamentalists hate those who live in death The Omen and the urban oryx all groups that are disconnected from the earth tree recycling system ultimately morgoth accepts the Judgment of the golden order believing that his Omen form to be accursed that Mars the purity of the thrones and of the earth tree the Thrones stained by my curse such him I cannot bear thy part in this shall not be forgiven yet his twin morgue is the opposite in the depths of the sewers he rejected the condemnation of the archery order and not only accepted his accursed blood but learned to love it and wear it on his sleeve let it become his own standard for his power base so what is the Thematic role of morgue and morgot in their contrasting ideologies well there are several facets to it firstly I believe it is just a simple relationship of contrast to opposing brothers that highlight the damaging effects of the golden order Dogma both are afflicted by it in different ways one is Gaslight into hitting themselves and the other is radicalized forced to become exactly what the golden order labels them to be but mainly these two are just thematically harmonious with the rest of Eldon ring by bringing another set of dualities into a story that is filled with them already reinforcing the notion that everything in this world has a shadow everything exists in Balance but with that said I think we talk about the elephant in the room now when we're talking about Duality and that is the golden order fundamentalists the fundamentalist School of the golden order seems to tout convergence and regression a focus on completeness rather than balance this of course can be traced back to Radigan himself whose Talisman tells us that he aspires to be complete to me the idea of completeness again goes back to the alchemical idea of the rebirth the reconciliation and combination of all matter indeed under Radigan the fundamentalists reject a system of balance between Miracles and spells radigan's fundamentalist prayers are a result of both intelligence and Faith neither spell nor Miracle but both the foundational laws of the golden order fundamentalist further espouse these ideas though all things are in fact linked not in opposition and to quote the law of aggression regression is the pool of meaning the all things yearn eternally to converge I hadn't realized the full significance of these words until I began to consider Elden Ring's systems of duality as it stands now the world is one of opposing forces acting upon each other creating a Newtonian system of balance and yet sometimes the balance slips the removal of the Rune of death for example which leads the world any deathless state but ultimately things eventually do rebalance we later have the Knight of the black knaves and the birth of those who live in death as if to correct the imbalance that had been caused by the removal of the Rune of death but balance between opposing forces can be destructive sometimes and perhaps radican witnessing these events around death seeks now to completely eliminate balance altogether instead of it being a Yen and yang Circle two halves acting against each other it is just a circle Devon and Darion D and his brother represent a culmination of golden order ideals two beings yet One Soul convergence their armor and weapons are gold and silver combined reminding us that their condition is symbolic of the greater themes of Duality found within Elden ring we've already talked about gold and silver and its relevance to Yin and Yang to Mercury and sulfur and yet here we have two beings with one soul and their armor sets showing these two materials these two halves as one their weapon the Inseparable sword reads the following sword forged by compounding silver and gold the Inseparable twins found solace in the golden order the only institution not to reveal them as accursed beings to the golden order these twins are a step towards greater convergence the removal of balance and Oneness within the world I have seen people try to liken the fundamentalist ideology to be similar to the frenzied flame and the return to the one great and I would argue that the real difference between these two is that the golden order fundamentalists don't necessarily want all life to be bundled into one form rather that there is a uniformity amongst life and that everything is linked together in a chain of causality as we've discussed numerous times in different videos the law of regression makes one think of the statistical phenomena known as regression towards the mean in essence this refers to the idea where a sampling of variables where there are extreme outliers if you repeat that same sampling the results will regress closer towards the mean towards the average last protagonist describes this very aptly in his great Tree video in which he uses the example of two parents who are above average height if they have a child together that child is likely to be shorter than them and closer to the average height so the law of regression in the context of Elden ring most likely means that life in general that eternally yearns to converge well over time regret closer and closer to an average again implying some sort of uniformity or form combining this understanding with the great themes of Duality and balance within Elden ring we can see the golden order fundamentalist ideas as a Transcendence to something Beyond opposing forces something that is complete much like Radigan strive to be and much like the true magnum opus of alchemy the combination and Reconciliation of all matter the driving towards wholeness or completeness is also jungian in which a person attains wholeness by reconciling the different aspects of themselves the ego with Shadow the anima and the Animus except in radigan's case this reconciliation of both of his halves is more literal as he does indeed share his body with his other half with his shadow and perhaps this gives new meaning to America's last words to her other half oh radican Leo Hound of the golden order that yet to become me the art yet to become a God let us be shattered both mine Other Self perhaps Radigan wanted Marika and Madigan to become one being despite the fact they share a body they are still distinct personalities they are still the two materials of alchemy as ultimately he is just one half of a whole yet radican's fundamentalist ideology his desire for convergence is flawed there are things that exist outside the holistic golden order such as those who live in death and The Omen and the urban oryx these cannot be reconciled they can only be expunged D even acknowledges that these beings those who live in death tarnish the truth of the golden order just by their mere existence as they fall outside the principles and causality of golden order fundamentalism they are like the remainder in a mathematic equation that doesn't quite balance so at a very base level this philosophy is flawed if everything is not connected in a chain of causality then all things do not yearn to converge it's that simple those who live in death and The Omen curse will continue to exist outside those chains of causality however they do work in a system of balance as they act as opposing forces to the archery and those who are connected to it the world of Elden ring either needs to exist in a state of balance or it needs to be completely melted away to become one material once again and I want to move on to the final pair of twins who I believe are are the best example of harmonious balance that we can find in Elden ring the twin prodigies meccola and Millennia are born of the single-bodied god and as we learn from melania's remembrance this fact was supposed to make their birth the most special of all and perhaps Radigan had hoped that they would not be born as twins for in a lot of way the white-taired mikla and the red-haired Millennia together are the greatest force of all and yet they were born as twins reflecting that Purity and Duality that exist throughout Elden ring again one lunar and one solar one with white tear one with red hair one physical aggressive and Powerful the other passive reflective and intelligent I have always believed that centrino is an aspect or part of mikola and perhaps that is reflective of the fact that he aligns more closely with the feminine aspect of Yin and Yang as we learned from the triple rings of light Radigan hope to utilize his son's intelligence for his golden order fundamentalism as mikla is obviously a great thinker yet meccola rejects the teachings of convergence as he only cares about one thing his sister and to cure her to make her life better in fact most of what we know about mikla's life is dedicated to curing his sister in return Molina rewards her brother's love with undying loyalty despite herself being an emperion and one of the most powerful beings in all the lands between she resigns herself to be her brother's blade while he sought a way to eliminate her curse Melania would Shield her brother from his meccola the ever youthful was no doubt physically feeble and yet he now had his sister's strong arm to defend him morgue and morgot's relationship was one of contrasting and opposing forces an antagonistic relationship at least in an ideological sense rather than a physical sense and it was meant to better emphasize the omen condition and the flaws of the golden order yet meccola and Millennia actually represent the Pinnacle of opposing forces in Balance because they aren't really opposing they are symbiotic and harmonious yet individual in fact the statues of meccola and Melania highlight their powerful Bond but not only this it shows two beings two halves making up one Hall contradictory yet Cooperative they are together a singular cosmic power that could bring balance and together their strength disproves the need for convergence that the golden order fundamentalists strive for they value the individuality of two opposing halves and are the poster children for disparity and individuality it is just a shame that mikla's order was never given a chance to grow snuffed out by morgue indeed it is the fickleness of gods no better than man that is the fly in the ointment but regardless of the actions of God and Men there will always be a shadow and in the world of Elden ring I think it holds true but for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction and that is why the world of Elden ring is one of dualities Reflections and shadows so thanks guys that is my take on Duality and twins within Elden ring I know this was a little different than my usual Elden Ring videos but I've been thinking deeply about the concepts of Duality recently and how it manifests as almost a background noise to all of Elden Ring's great events but please let me know your thoughts below what do you think about the themes of parity Duality and twins within Elden ring and if you like this video please leave a like consider subscribing and comment below as it really helps the channel out immensely but until next time guys I will see you in the streets of lindel take care and have a wonderful evening

Channel: SmoughTown

Views: 65,822

Keywords: elden ring lore, elden ring, elden ring story, elden ring gameplay, lore, explained, elden ring lore explained, elden ring endings explained, golden order, erdtree, marika, radagon, those who live in death, maliketh, elden ring story explained, elden ring explained, night of the black knives, carian, ranni, nox, eternal cities, black knife assassin, sellia, ordina, leyndell, godwyn, godwyn prince of death, is melina ranni, Age of stars explained, dark moon, rennala, renna the witch, renna

Id: ArzPrGmYQ6I

Length: 26min 56sec (1616 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 23 2023