The Lore of Elden Ring's Bosses (that served the Golden Order)

many of elden rings bosses serve america's golden order in some shape or form whether they're loyal to it or enslaved by it so let's discuss all of these bosses starting at a time before order had even come to the lands between to the north are mountaintops of the giants a name that makes it abundantly clear just who dominated this region of the world however it was not always this way according to the borealis missed incantation the ice dragons were once lords of the mountaintops long ago until they were defeated by the fire giants and chased from the peak and perched upon this peak stands an enormous forge interestingly the chain rings of this forge depict dragons which might be a reference to the dragons that once dwelt here and while i don't think we can say for sure who built this forge the art of smithing is said to have originated among the giants and the craft was even once considered divine so it seems likely that at the very least they made good use of this fire sparks from this forge would fall down and fertilize the smoldering flowers that bloomed upon the mountaintops and it seems like it was a pretty crucial part of life in this region the most ancient giants here were called fire giants and according to the burn of flame incantation they have long held a solitary curse to serve as keepers of the flame for eternity now traditionally in from software games curses are the domain of the gods and indeed the fire giants are cited to have borrowed power from one such god who is represented here by a single large red eye this god is called a god of the flame and it's believed to be able to inhabit fire itself as well as the bodies of the fire giants who worshipped it the giants shared borders with the astrologers who according to their legendary sword of knight and flame established themselves in the mountaintops and considered the fire giants their neighbors the relationship here is implied to be friendly even collaborative maybe as the sword does combine the power of both flame and the power of the primeval current that's glimpsed within the night sky the sword would go on to become a treasure of the carrion royal family and the carrions themselves are likely descendants of the astrologers generations later these carrion royals would call upon their old giant allies for aid but we'll get to that in a moment the fire giants also had another neighbor with whom relations were not so amicable further down the mountains just past the forbidden lands roamed the knights of zamor according to their armor these long-lived warriors clad in biting freezing winds are said to have been the mortal enemies of the fire giants since time immemorial according to their weaponry these beings were devoted to winter itself and had weapons styled after icy winds and bodies that were cloaked in swirling ice storms it makes good sense that such cold beings would be natural mortal enemies of the fire giants and they commonly did challenge their larger rivals but it seems like their true chance came when queen america waged war against the fire giants and the knights of zamor gladly joined her offensive they earned great renown amongst the order of the odd tree and many ancient heroes of zamor became hailed as heroes as the fire giants were largely wiped from the face of the earth after this war now up until now i've resisted calling the giants evil but the reality is that in pretty much every item description their god is described as a fel god and the giant's flame is a flame of ruin and to be fair their god doesn't seem like a super nice guy i mean it only really opens its eye when the fire giant boss sacrifices a leg which is pretty metal but i'm sort of giving them the benefit of the doubt because i think it's pretty clear who's writing the history about this fel god here the many mentions of this god as evil clearly come about because fire itself was just this extremely taboo topic during america's age of the earth tree and it's not just giants flame items that mention this fire in general was prohibited to those who served the earth tree which was a pretty smart defensive measure especially considering that many rival outer gods also have a flame of their own the formless mother has blood flame the three fingers have frenzied flame the outer god of death has ghost flame but giant's flame in particular was capable of burning the earth tree and that is a fact that clearly inspired the inevitable war with the giants so the giants were deemed mortal enemies of the earth tree and they allegedly desolated nature triggered avalanches and whipped up storms of flame with their roars clearly those who served the ode tree were afraid and perhaps rightfully so and so led by lord godfrey the forces of the earth tree went to war the fire giants borrowed from the power of the fel god to fight against the earth tree but were defeated nonetheless according to the burn of flame incantation this released the fire giants from their curse to serve as keepers of the flame all except one who the fel god still hides within and upon realizing that the giant's flame would never die america left this last giant alive knowing it was bound to protect the flame for all eternity and thus leaving it cursed cursed to protect the flame from someone like us in addition to the knights of zamor many lesser giants were also roped into the war against the fire giants these lesser giants are called trolls and are confirmed to be a race that is descended from the giants this relationship is clearer at the mountaintops where the trolls here still cast giants flame incantations troll hammers were even once used as ancient ceremonial smithing tools thus it seems evident that the trolls and the fire giants coexisted for a time and then fell further and further apart because while some trolls are assumedly still fire giants at heart many now are not in fact at the heart of most trolls is nothing there's this suspicious hollow here almost as if something has been ripped out of their torso and when you consider what's upon the torso of the last remaining fire giant the truth becomes pretty clear right every single troll is now missing that giant eye of their outer god and if you manage to look really closely here at a troll we realize that in its place is this strange stone tablet that is held in place by what look like roots as pointed out by quailag these rooted tablets are very reminiscent of the rooted shackles that were created to bind the omen twins moog and morgot which might suggest that the trolls are also being shackled or suppressed by america in some way this is just speculation of course but america does have this suspicious set of stone tablets in her chambers and i think it's a good theory for sure a sword gravestone in the mountaintops elaborates further on the troll's role in the war of the giants here champions battled and allegedly the trolls betrayed but what was the nature of this betrayal did these lesser giants resent their larger kin or did marrica force this betrayal in some way with the stone shackles i think that's largely up to you guys but whatever the case nowadays the trolls are said to have lost their minds and are inseparable from the weight of their rusty swords which have long since lost any trace of gold so whether they carry coffins or mine down at the bedrock of the earth their sad state brings to mind enslavement now more than anything else that said some trolls do seem to have a little bit more dignity and these are the ones that fought against the ode tree later on these were the enchanted troll knights deemed comrades of the young ranala and they were called into service when the queen invoked an oath that they swore long ago as mentioned earlier the trolls go way back to when the fire giants and the astrologers were still neighbors and back then it seems for whatever reason they swore an oath to the astrologers and later when the carrions went to war against the urgery i assume the trolls were finally called into that service to be treated as true knights of carrier wielding swords embedded with blue glintstone and summoning enormous glint blades they fought aminar with their long-lost human comrades eg is another such example of that relationship by the way he became the carrion family's royal blacksmith and unlike the stone digger trolls he actually uses that weapon for its intended purpose as a blacksmith's hammer and now he serves the lady rani who he's known ever since her childhood next i want to talk about the night's cavalry these recurring bosses wander the dim roads at night and were once led by the fel omen now this description specifically references margaret's title as the fel omen not morgot's title as the omen king and i think this is important because margaret represents this undercover extension of morgot who scouts further out in the world and takes out champions who approach all the way from stormville castle morgot's big role in the story is that he's a stout defender of the urgery who wouldn't dare betray the golden order he calls all the other demigods willful traitors all simply for fighting over the great runes of the elden ring even radhan who has a lot of signs of being quite loyal to the golden order is called a traitor simply because he fights at one stage another character who has a great rune you can even see morgot in one of these opening cutscene cinematics leaping onto what looks like radon and managing to even get an attack off on one of the mightiest of the demigods actually a channel named smotown has a really good little video discussing whether this is indeed redan and i'd highly recommend you go and check that out anyway my point is the knights cavalry seemed to fulfill a similar role to margate according to their armor they were deliverers of death for great warriors knights and champions simple as that no motive is listed except that they have a reputation for taking out the greatest warriors of the world and that makes sense that that would be their aim because only the strongest can acquire two great runes and approach the earth tree so it's almost as if strength itself must be stifled so that morgot's failing order might be maintained as for why margaret defends stormvale i like to think that he's fighting here because he recognizes that godric is the weakest of the demigods who yet remains so he's bolstering his strength in that sense and trying to maintain this unsteady stalemate having a strong defense is essentially the guiding principle of those who serve the erd tree especially as you get closer to the capital there are numerous examples of this the soldiers of lane dell fight their battles defensively the knights of lane del always put their shield before the sword and lanedale itself the city is built to withstand siege with layers and layers of defensive measures built in and the protective standard to which all defenders of the old tree aspire is that of the tree sentinels whose order became the living rampart of the earth tree embellished with golden tree crested armor and shields that can retaliate with bolts of light they turn defense into offense and that's the idea in lane dell defense is the best offense and the way this idea is presented is just such beautiful storytelling so many characters in other areas of the lands between long to return to the blessed land of the ode tree and even for you it's this goal that looms over you the entire game so the path is designed to repel everyone getting close you know the highway through leonia has fallen apart so you need to take this secret waterlogged route up through the mountain this is my favorite part of the game by the way finding this secret path through the mountains and infiltrating the altus plateau and then when you finally get there there are countless ballista and golem arches and they're all positioned facing outwards and finally you even find a side entrance to lane dell and that is even guarded by a tree sentinel and it's not just any tree sentinel this one is actually a draconic tree sentinel which is kind of different this variant of sentinels arose after the ancient dragons attacked lane del in its history and we talked more about this event in the video about the demigods but in the end the ancient dragons were befriended and worship of the ancient dragons was deemed acceptable alongside belief in the odory dragons were conjoined with the golden order so to speak and the dragon cultists took after them in a physical fashion also instrumental to the rise of the earth tree were the crucible knights they were eventually scorned for their strength for their appearance and for their close resemblance to chaos and how that inspired who they originally were sixteen of these nights served godfrey the first elden lord and all 16 of them yet remain across the lands between one is imprisoned in an ever jail two appear to be dead and are summoned to fight you as spirits a number of crucible knights still patrol lane dell some protect great tree roots though most just stand dejected in lost corners of the earth and one of them has even found a new blasphemous master so the next time you fight these think carefully about where they are and who they're fighting with because each knight is a distinct character with purpose or lack thereof even though they were all once united by a common purpose and a single lord many of these knights fight with different aspects of the crucible some fight with wings some with horns fire and tail but what they all have in common is their mastery of their lord godfrey's signature stomp attack which breaks up the earth beneath their feet this is such a cool homage to godfrey you know knowing the law is great it definitely makes dying to it feel a little bit better right anyway i think it's important to remember that godfrey and his crucible knights existed in an age before the odd trees an age with the great tree in its primordial form back when there was this red tinted crucible of life and these were warriors who drew power from its chaos eventually however they were brought on board with order which is best exemplified by godfrey being tamed by the beast regent upon his back there are two types of ornamentation that the crucible knights can have there's ax ornamentation which is worn by crucible knight or dovis and his men and i think the axe is a bit of a homage to godfrey again and then there are some nights that have great tree ornamentation and these are displayed by the knight seluria and her men which is of course a reference to the great tree itself and i'd like to quickly talk about the great tree in one of my first lore videos i proposed that there was a great tree that must have existed before the erd tree and that the erd tree might have even replaced this great tree this was based on the english root resin item description which has the word great tree capitalized and as one word which certainly makes you think that it's a distinct tree right the line is the roots of the great tree once linked to those of the earth tree which is a line that seems to clearly set up that these are two separate trees except the japanese translation doesn't say that japanese translation says these roots are said to have once been connected to the golden tree it does mention the great tree earlier but it seems to just be referencing the ode tree as that great tree because it is a really big tree some people have taken this to mean that there was no great tree before the earth tree and you know while that's certainly possible i do think it's still fair to argue that a great tree existed before the oak tree for one many of the crucible night items reference a primordial form of the earth tree and they have ornamentation and history that is based on this primordial holiness that is not the holiness of the odd tree so calling it a great tree might just be referencing that tree and secondly siluria defends a giant tree in the deep root depths it's one that has this hollowed-out entrance that is reminiscent of the entrance at the earth tree as well so maybe there's something here i just kind of wanted to set that straight for now but the reality is that we don't really know for sure and hopefully dlc will shed a light on some of these past ages of the world which seems to be a common trend with from software dlc and there just really are so many remnants of previous ages in this game and i'd love to see a little bit more about what their cultures really were like it kind of makes you resent just how all-encompassing the odd tree became so many of these cultures have been lost and i guess that's how a lot of characters in game feel as well they feel upset by that and knowing this fact helps you understand why so many of these characters are okay with burning down the odd tree they're totally fine with that and this brings us to our next boss because in the act of burning down the odd tree you release a slew of ulcerated tree spirits from it these spirits lie suffering beneath the ash until you come along but of course you fight many of these tree spirits across the lands between even before the end game there's an ulcerated tree spirit at the husk of this minor herd tree there's a bunch in catacomb dungeons by great tree roots there's even one at the husk of the hailik tree there's a lot of these some might even say there's too many of these bosses i think they're the worst boss in elden ring but anyway understanding their law might make it a bit more palatable so while these creatures fight near the trees i don't think they're defending them rather i kind of think they're this corrupted by-product of dead or dying trees we know that one of the new purposes of the earth tree is to accept spirits and allow them to live on and it's almost like these ulcerated spirits are this horrific failure of that process one of miyazaki's favorite themes in these games is the idea that life is not supposed to be eternal and i think these spirits are a physical manifestation of stagnation and decay they're this product of an age of an urgery that really should have ended a long time ago most tree spirits drop golden seeds which are also found at the base of smaller illusory trees and they read when the olden ring was shattered these seeds flew from the odd tree scattering across the various lands as if life itself knew that its end had come the talisman also goes on to say the ode tree was once perfect and eternal and thus it was believed that earth tree seeds could not exist this was back when there was an age of plenty when blessings literally dripped from the boughs of the ode tree like sap and the earth tree's warm light healed those who bathed in its rays theod tree flourished with abundance yet it was only for a fleeting moment such is the course of all life then the leaves began to fall and as you know from the introduction and the endings the fallen leaves tell a story the story is that the odd tree was withering scattered across the lands between are minor herd trees where you go to collect crystal tears basins were placed at the feet of minor herd trees in order to collect these tears though in some cases these tears are dropped by earth tree avatars instead when the elden ring was shattered the avatars emerged wielding ceremonial staffs that depict the odd tree in its historic radiance these creatures are the will of the dying earth tree made manifest i think they are literally part tree after all and they fight desperately to protect the minor earth trees which are the offspring of the withering oak tree itself some avatars placed in caled and michela's hailig tree are rotten avatars and they even have this uniquely designed staff that festers with rot just as they do remember the hailik tree is also an emulation of the ode tree so it makes sense that it has its own avatars as well and they fight on because to many of these creatures any odd tree whether it's minor or a copy or doomed is something worth protecting so if you've made it all the way to the end of this video then chances are you love this kind of long form content so an audible subscription might also be just right for you sign up at audible.com or text vaatividia to 500 500 and you'll get a free credit for the first month and then again for every paid month thereafter but this time i'd recommend you spend that credit on the sandman which might be just one of the most unique audiobooks that you've ever listened to it has its own cast of voice actors including the author neil gaiman himself who narrates as well as sound effects and music it's an incredible introduction to the story that a lot of people are talking about right now have a listen and see what i mean the year was 1916. roderick burgess conceived a plan in my power he would capture death did burgess know what he had got don't you you are death 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Channel: VaatiVidya

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Keywords: guide, walkthrough, lore, dark, souls, dlc, two, bloodborne, story, vaatividya, vaati, vidya, from, software, sekiro, combat, tips, tricks, elden, ring, trailer, queen marika, demigods, morgott, godrick, ranni, rykard, radahn, miquella, melina, omen, dragons, margitt, rennala, caria, liurnia, leyndell, gideon, empyrean, scarlet rot, outer god, demi, gods, fire giant, stonedigger trolls, knights of zamor, ancient hero of zamor, ulcerated tree spirit, night's cavalry, erdtree avatar, tree sentinels, draconic tree sentinels

Id: OJVpsT2_1PU

Length: 23min 32sec (1412 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 25 2022