The Shadow of The Erdtree Theory That Nobody is Talking About... | Elden Ring Theory

the first trailer for Elden Rings new shadow of the earth tree DLC has been out for around 2 weeks now and as expected the presentation met and exceeded the expectations of a lot of fans myself included it was a great display showing off gameplay editions new set design and of course hinting at brand new lore but of course you probably already know that by now chances are good that all already you've seen countless analyses reactions and commentaries regarding this 3 minute long trailer and so have I everyone with even a passive interest in Elden ring is excited about this thing and has something to say about it especially since there's a lot of unanswered questions and New Concepts presented here the star of the show in many people's minds was of course Mesmer the Impaler who was presented as a character that's simultaneously in the service of his mother Queen Mara while also adorning himself with iography that stands against the golden order and their beliefs which is puzzling to say the least there's also the general presence of mola with much speculation being cast as to his motivations and even the nature of his actual physical presence in the land of Shadow to begin with and of course there's all of the new combat Styles and items to be added but so far the biggest thing that's stuck out to me has been something different something that I haven't heard a lot of other content creators address or at least not with the same amount of zeal and excitement as other matters no the biggest thing that stuck out to me when first watching this trailer was this short scene right here wherein I made an astute observation that being that this tree looks really weird yet I know not exactly the most Earth shattering Revelation out there I mean on the surface the impact of this observation if you could even call it that pales in comparison to pretty much anything else seen in the entire presentation I'm pretty sure Mesmer being revealed as a new demigod caught way more people's attention than a wacky looking piece of foliage but nevertheless for whatever reason this has been the thing that I've continued to think about and The more I've thought about it the more I've come to believe that this weird looking tree may actually hold the key to revealing not just the story of this DLC but that it may actually serve to reveal the solutions to some of Elden Ring's oldest unanswered questions I'm serious when I say that I think this short clip that doesn't even occupy 5 Seconds of screen time might be one of the most important parts of this whole presentation forget about Mesmer forget about mola this gnarly old tree is the solution to absolutely everything and today I'm going to try and explain why that assumption may not be quite as presumptuous and absurd as I've been playing it up to seem my takeaway from this trailer is that we're going to be heavily exploring the age preceding that of the earth tree and having a lot of information revealed pertaining to Queen Mara's rise to power as well as finally revealing the significance of a lot of metaphysical lore Concepts that currently are seen as sort of adjunct accessories Loosely revolving around the greater Narrative of the game but before we get into all of that let's set the stage after all what is the land of Shadow all about in the first place owing to information from the Elden ring website and an interview with director Miyazaki hosted by IGN we already know quite a lot of information concerning the overarching plot of the shadow of the earth tree expansion first we know that the land of Shadow is a location obscured by the her tree itself perhaps literally located in its shadow as such I think there's been a general assumption that this tree is just the her tree somehow but we'll get back to that point in a little bit for now let's read what hakam Miyazaki has to say on it when asked to briefly give an overview of the DLC its setting and its story during the aforementioned IGN interview Miyazaki said quote first of all the setting of shadow of the earth tree is a brand new land it's a brand new map separate from the lands between it is a land that is overshadowed by the particular shadow of the her tree as opposed to the her tree in the lands between and it takes place again on an entirely separate physically separate map so it will involve a warp of sorts to get there in terms of setting and themes it technically occupies the same space as the lands between the same universe but due to something Story related that we won't reveal today this has become physically disconnected and you'll travel to the shadow of the earth Tree Land as a separate place so this land of Shadow itself is a place the player will visit to walk in the steps of Mika mola is a key part to the story this time perhaps as guessed by many players who saw the art that was released previously this is in fact mola and it is he who traveled to the land of Shadow and it's the players who will be tracing in his path and following in his footsteps trying to see what he's going to do there another axis of the story is Queen Mara and what she did in the land of Shadow and what led mola to follow her there honestly that's a pretty concise explanation considering we only have a cryptic trailer to go off of and combined with some detail offered on the official Elden ring website which refers to the land of Shadow as the place where Queen Mara first set foot it seems clear to me that this DLC will place an emphasis on Mara's origin of sorts as I alluded to earlier but what does that entail exactly what came before the her tree and the golden order to begin with well to understand that we need to explore how the passage of time works in Elden ring or at least how eras of time are most broadly defined you see the macroscopic timeline of the Elden ring world can be defined in terms of Ages with an age being Loosely defined as an era of time in which a given set of metaphysical properties is imposed upon the land via the Elden ring by a god a God is someone who was a Once An imperion someone chosen by the greater will as a candidate for godhood and B Who Rose to the challenge and actually asserted themselves as the god of the age now the role of a God is a very important one for it is the god of the age that essentially dictates how reality will function via possession of the Elden ring the easiest and really only complete example of this process that we have to work with is of course that of Queen America and her rise to power where after becoming a God she removed the Rune of death from the Elden ring in order to instill a immortality of sorts that she saw as a more fitting state of being another aspect that appears to be of some importance though is the existence of an Elden Lord presumed to be someone engaged in a union with the god of the age in some way unfortunately the qualifiers for signifying an Elden Lord are somewhat unclear but we can assume that they probably aren't quite as important as the god of the age themselves since Queen Mara went through two Elden Lords the first of whom was Godfrey who was later replaced with ragon Queen Mara's other half now it might be easy to assume that all of these titles and points of stat status are purely constructs of America's age but there's good reason to believe that these concepts of godhood and lordship are more ingrained in the passage of Ages as established by the greater will than they may at first seem when the optional boss dragon lord plos sax is slain from Pham masula they drop an item known simply as the remembrance of the Dragon Lord which reads in part the dragon lord whose seat lies at the heart of the storm Beyond time is said to have been Elden Lord in the age before the her tree one once his God was fled the Lord continued to await its return this rather cleanly establishes that Concepts like Elden Lord and gods existed in some form before the rise of America and it also conveniently allows us to start painting a picture of what the age preceding the present may have looked like as the present age has ragon and Godfree before him as Elden Lords the age of the past had plosch as the present age has a God in the form of Queen Mara the past had an unnamed God now fled and as the modern age has the her tree the past most likely had an icon of its own known as The Crucible of life now for those who don't know The Crucible or more properly The Crucible of life is one of the oldest Concepts chronologically found in all of Elden ring lore it is described as a manifestation of the her tree's Primal vital energies and at least in the game's English translation as the place where all life was once Blended together now right off the bat I should make it clear that this line is written a little bit differently in the original Japanese and the correlation between The Crucible and the primordial origins of Life are not as well defined in this original version of the text but the implication remains largely the same in essence The Crucible has a deep and intimate link with the creation of biotic organisms themselves as evidenced by iconography of animal parts such as feathers scales and horns being often associated with The Crucible and its creation in Crucible magic all manner of faculties relating to birds amphibia reptiles and mamalia can be observed but although we can identify many elements that are symbolic of The Crucible you may have noticed that I have yet to tell you what this thing actually is and that's on purpose because truth be told it's never been overtly stated though there is one big clue The Crucible axe armor set dropped by Crucible Knight or dois and The Crucible tree armor set which can be collected from a chest after Crucible KN Cura both have a selection of descriptions between them all of which make mention of The Crucible of life being in no uncertain terms the primordial form of the her tree which can be taken a couple of different ways the first is that The Crucible May literally have been a tree itself perhaps not unlike the tree that we see in this new trailer but another implication here is the notion which led us to discuss The Crucible in the first place it simply corroborates the idea that The Crucible whether it be a tree or not preceded the Earth tree as the symbol of an age gone by and if we reexamine the trailer with this assumption in mind that this tree may be a physical representation of The long-lost Crucible of life then a lot of things actually start to make a bit of sense in the lands between creatures and Magic which stem from The Crucible are considered an affront to the golden order as a result of amica's assertion of herself as the one true God creatures that demonstrate Crucible aspects such as the Omens are considered Blasphemous along with creatures that bear a more pronounced or overt link to The Crucible such as the misbegotten which are in my opinion at least exemplary of The Crucible ability to blend life together but in the shadow of the earth tree trailer figures such as this lion dancer boss adorned with horns and the head of a great Golden Lion speak to a depiction of Crucible magic that seems less stigmatized as many content creators have already suggested this boss appears to be in actuality a number of individual people or figures of some kind dressed in a costume such a guys appears almost ceremonial and while I've heard speculation that it may depict Godwin or some other member of the golden lineage it's hard to Discount The Crucible iconography that's present all over this thing and it's not the only time that we see such iconography depicted in this trailer here we see what appears to be an incantation similar in nature to those of dragon communion but instead evoking the form of a Great Bear with gnarled horns another clear indication of The Crucible signature blending of life and shortly Hereafter this creature similar to a hippopotamus exhibiting a gaping jaw full of massive teeth which erupts with quills not dissimilar to that of a porcupine can also be seen another being archetypical of the afores said themes and yet another clear representation of Crucible magic I also think the coloration of this spell is worth mentioning as it's similar in tone to the other aspect of the cruci incantations found throughout the base game all of which share this sort of sparking reddish gold effect and as it happens that color reddish gold is important in more ways than just this the description of ova's great sword the weapon that once belonged to the same Knight as The Crucible axe armor set reads great sword of Ovis one of the two honored as foremost Among The Crucible Knights this sword is imbued with an ancient holy Essence its red tint exemplifies the nature of primordial gold said to be close in nature to life itself this description is interesting isn't it primordial gold is not the same shade of gold that we see within the Earth tree and it's not the same type of gold that we see in the golden order incantations either no it's a deeper more Rich color a color not unlike this one seen in the sap of the tree from the land of Shadow now you wouldn't be remiss to think that that's a little bit of a leap in logic and to decry that these colors be being of negligible similarity is nonsense but to that I say don't just take my word for it because the description of the Crimson Amber Medallion offers something interesting a medallion with Crimson Amber inlaid boosts maximum HP the her tree's old sap becomes Amber treasured as the most precious jewels in the age of Godfrey the first Elden Lord a primordial Life Energy resides inside so if you haven't guessed yet then allow me to illustrate what I think this scene actually represents and why exactly I've spent so much time thinking about it making this video and zealously preaching that this weird-looking tree is so significant obviously as I think I've made clear by now I believe this tree is what we call The Crucible of life I'm not denying that it may go by other names as well such as how Miyazaki calls it a shadow tree at one point and it certainly wouldn't be the first time in elen ring lore that an important concept goes by two different titles but the description of The Crucible as essentially the UR tree of a prior age fits too well with The Narrative of the DLC thus far established for me to believe at this point that it could be anything else I also think that the icaris gold sap seen spilling forth is also a clear parallel to the mentions of primordial gold and that it matches even if imperfectly with the tone of The Crucible Knights equipment when shown in proper light I believe this is most clearly evident in ova's great sword look along the blade as the tarnished holds it aoft in the light of day but ultimately the real kicker of this Theory and of this video is that if we accept this correlation between the shadow tree and The Crucible as true then a whole lot of story elements become evident very quickly resulting in a Cascade of extrapolations and potential narrative Direction once again I feel that some of these extrapolations are simply too convenient and narrative Rich to ignore so in turn I'm going to be going over what I believe this means for the rest of of the shadow of the earth tree storyline starting now one question that may come to mind right away is if this tree is The Crucible then what happened to it what caused that sap to spill forth like blood from an open wound well remember this DLC will concern itself with Mika retracing the steps of Queen Mara in her Ascent to godhood and while we don't know exactly what that Ascent entailed it may not be unreasonable to believe that America would have tried to collect the essence of The Crucible for herself in order to catalyze the process of becoming God after all this tree The Crucible was likely the symbol of the age at the time and if you're an imperion seeking to become God what better way to create your symbol than by harvesting and utilizing the literal lifeblood of the very thing which you are to proceed remember how The Crucible is described as the primordial essence of the her tree what if that's because the her tree was grown directly from the life abundant essence of The Crucible to begin with it explains a correlation that's otherwise rather difficult to reckon with but it also may explain why Mika is here too bear in mind that of all the imperion of the Modern Age including himself his twin sister Millennia Ronnie the Witch and now potentially Mesmer by virtue of his parentage Mika is very likely the closest to attaining godhood or at least was at some point and a key part of that process seems to have been the creation of his own giant tree the hel tree which Nia is said to have watered with his own blood before encasing his very body within it to facilitate its full growth in fact it may very well be that the only reason his Ascension did not fully come to fruition was as a result of being cut from the halig tree and taken away by mogue however in light of this Theory perhaps the halig tree was always destined to fail as is perhaps suggested by the description of the helik tree Knight armor there may have been a missing piece to his godhood something that Mika on his his own had failed to identify but which Moog perhaps through wisdom imparted on him by the formless mother knew to be the Amber sap of The Crucible in the land of Shadow we have reason to believe that Moog has worked with Nia extensively and may have even been physically present with him in the land of Shadow at some point seeing as he emerges from a pool of blood issued from Mika's shriveled arm which was revealed in dialogue near the end of the DLC trailer and in miyazaki's interview to be our gateway to accessing the land of Shadow when the expansion launches but perhaps most interestingly it's also said on the Elden ring website that in this DLC Nia awaits the return of his promised Lord so could it be that Moog shared America's Secret to attaining godhood with Nia in exchange for lordship in the coming age if so one can imagine the deal working to the advantage of everyone involved Mika is granted godhood mogue lordship and the formless mother weasel her way into meddling with the greater Will's plans maybe even hijacking the greater Will's hold on its own Creations altogether who's to say I believe that the exploration and the seeing through of these theoretical plot points will constitute the majority of the macroscopic story presented in Shadow of the earth tree but there are other details for which I have a hard time understanding their place in this puzzle if I'm at all on the right track that is one such element is the war which is mentioned as having happened sometime in the land of Shadows past by both the trailer and Miyazaki I'm under the impression that given the potential Direction we've outlined today this war would necessarily be one fought between those who worshiped The Crucible and the earliest followers of America during her rise to power perhaps in a bid to stop her from slicing open the great tree to harvest its essence or perhaps the war took place after she'd already done this and The Crucible devout were simply intent on making her pay for her sins maybe this explains the presence of the massive Wick man war machine but then again maybe not there's also the matter of how the land of Shadow came to be obscured as it is today concerning both its separation from the lands between and the presence of this giant veil in the sky which Miyazaki has made clear is an instrument used for keeping the land of Shadow secret while I don't really have an explanation for the physical disconnection of this location from the rest of the map I am under the impression that this veil was deliberately created by Mara after or during her induction into godhood in order to conceal the turbulent past of her Ascension for anyone who's watching that's familiar with the lore of hollow Knight I think an apt comparison is the door to the abyss in that game which prevents those of the Modern Age from accessing the quote refuse and regret of the past I think the same principle applies to America especially since a land bearing enduring physical alterations themselves evident of the bloody process through which she instilled her order would almost certainly be considered a threat to the monotheistic view that she wishes to impose upon her subjects in other words if anyone could plainly see for themselves the path she took to attaining Divinity well the illusion of the great Mara the Eternal becomes a lot less believable and Powerful but the one element of this trailer that I simply cannot make heads or Tales of here is of course Mesmer the Impaler it's not that I think his presence here really confirms nor denies anything we've spoken of today but simply that he's a bit of a wild card at the beginning of this video I highlighted how hypocritical his intentions seem to be one of the final pieces of dialogue in the trailer States those stripped of the grace of gold sh all need death in thece of mesmer's which seems to very clearly indicate that Mesmer slays those who do not abide by marica's rule and yet look at him Fire Snakes potentially even Dragon communion as evidenced by his eye this guy is just about as sinful and damnable as they come in the eyes of the golden order so I don't know I'm thinking of exploring Mesmer and some of my thoughts about him specifically within a dedicated video before the DLC releases so let me know if you'd like to see that but overall I believe the story that's being hinted at with him is extremely cool though I'm not sure it has a ton of overall bearing on what we've discussed today specifically truth be told though that's pretty much everything I've got for you today I have no doubt that some of what I've posited may be content or that many may not be inclined to believe it at least not so quickly and that's perfectly fine although I know I kind of framed it in a dramatic way in the title and in the thumbnail and in the introduction and ultimately it's just what kind of minations have come to my mind as a result of this 3 minute long trailer and in Earnest all I want is for this to be some fun food for thought I'm not really trying to sell anybody on anything truthfully at this point in the video I'm thankful to anyone who's decided to stick around whether you thought what I was saying was plausible or not not and I hope that my ramblings at least gave you something to think about before shadow of the her tree drops this summer so whether you've got something you'd like to add or if you think I got something wrong or overlooked a piece of evidence then I want to hear about it all the same it helps me continue to grow and hone my research into Elden ring lore so that I can present more of this type of content to you in the future and what a future that's looking like it's turning out to be if you enjoyed this video and want to see more lore and Theory related content regarding not just Elden ring but a whole host of other games and IPS new and old then maybe consider subscribing I've got an Eclectic mix of content here for anyone looking to expand their horizons with lore stemming from all kinds of different places and I hope you'll take some time to check some of that stuff out if you find it interesting I've got a lot more content on the way too and I got to say leading up to this summer we've got an exciting ride ahead of us so I'm really looking forward to sharing that with all of you anyway that's going to do it from me so until next time this is a Veron I'll see you again soon and have a good one [Music]

Channel: Everberon

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Id: Y_wlOklvxps

Length: 23min 16sec (1396 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 05 2024