The story of Elden Ring expands far beyond
the saga of the Tarnished that we, as players, get to experience in-game. It is but the final
act of a forgotten conflict that has shaped the history of the Lands Between. At the center
of that history lies one key orchestrator: Queen Marika the Eternal. To understand the
story of the Lands Between means to understand the intent of the one who is its author. Yet, how
much do we really comprehend of Marika’s will?
As the vessel of the Elden Ring, Marika is revered
as the sole deity within the Golden Order. But, in an act steeped in mystery, she shattered the
relic, igniting a catastrophic war and resulting in her confinement within the Erdtree, which
culminated in her demise at the hands of the Tarnished, who would become the Elden Lord.
The question as to why Marika would do such a thing is the impetus to the quest
of understanding her character. Some see this as a rebellious act against those who
control her, while others depict her as a torn soul aiming to end the order she initiated,
fueled by remorse over its consequences.
But I believe her true motives run much
deeper than that. And the answer to this question that I will share with you today will
serve as the cornerstone of my interpretation of the hidden story of Elden Ring, what I like to call the Emancipation Theory. And this is a good time for me to address
something. Some of the most direct and commonly asked questions in regards to the
lore of Elden Ring are often unanswerable; we, as the players, lack enough information to
conclude with certainty many things. In fact, most of the crucial elements that would allow
us to paint the full picture are subject to that uncertainty. This is what makes FromSoftware’s
style of world-building so engaging for many of us and is also the source of much frustration.
If we are to ever attempt to move forward towards the greater narrative of the game, we have to
accept that some assumptions have to be made. Though we could endlessly list all the various
theories and interpretations that surround a certain topic or character, eventually, we each
must take our pick of what makes sense for us, lest we just endlessly stick to reading the
same item descriptions going nowhere. This channel and my videos are building
towards a single grand theory, and as such, this video will be built upon some of my previous
work and taking them for granted. What I try to do is share with you all my perspective and opinion
on what I think is the story underneath it all. The goal isn’t necessarily to try infallibly
to prove why such and such is the right answer, as that would be a fool’s errand, but rather
lay out all the reasons why I personally think this is the story being told.
And I know full well how some of you feel about some of my theories, as they are more on the
'unique' side... to put it nicely. But even still, I do hope you can find value in this scenario
I am trying to paint as we move forward.
And with that being said, enjoy.
The Golden Order forms the bulk of The Golden Order forms the bulk of the history of the Lands Between, as we know
it. Envisioned by Queen Marika the Eternal, it was created when the Rune of Death was
removed from the Elden Ring and sealed away by Marika’s shadowbound beast, Maliketh. An
order of life that would produce the Erdtree.
To try to understand Marika’s motives, we need to
look at the bigger picture. So, first, let’s start by painting a rough timeline of Marika’s reign.
Its history began with the war against the giants, where Marika’s army, led by her consort Godfrey,
slaughtered the worshipers of the Fell God, and confined his Flame of Ruin atop the mountain.
Death had already been sealed and now, with the Flame of Ruin gone, Marika seemingly ensured that
nothing could harm the Erdtree. She then sent Godfrey in a long war to claim the continent.
It is also during that period that Radagon made his first appearance in the Liurnian Wars,
where he gained renown as a champion and oddly came to marry the enemy’s leader, Lunar
Queen Rennala, ending the war and uniting the Houses of the Erdtree and the Moon.
This union, while strategically beneficial, also resulted in the birth of the first Empyrean
in the Golden Order, the Lunar Princess Ranni.
Soon, Elden Lord Godfrey subjugated all of
the lands, his campaign ending intriguingly at the border between Limgrave and Caelid. After
all his enemies were felled, his grace dimmed, and he was expelled from the Lands Between. Marika
then calls upon Radagon to be her new consort… The age of Elden Lord Radagon was one
marked with many changes to the norms of society but had also seen the Order
of the Erdtree enter its golden age. A time that would abruptly come to an end with the
first death of a demigod in recorded history. The Night of the Black Knives shook the
empire to its core, as shrouded assassins swept through the lands bringing death
to the demigods, Marika’s children.
Finally, came the Shattering, where
Marika herself shattered the Elden Ring, the trigger for the war that would ensue… where
the remaining living demigods fought to claim each other’s shard of the Elden Ring... But ultimately,
they would fail, and leave the lands ruined and locked in a long stalemate to this day.
So, the Fingers, arbiters of the Greater Will’s favors, elect to call upon the Tarnished,
the graceless warriors that were once banished with Lord Godfrey. They would extend them grace,
and one of them would become Elden Lord. But in order to do so, they would have to burn the
Erdtree itself, and free both fire and death… completely destroying the Golden Order.
These are the broad strokes of events that lead all the way to the game’s endings, from
the very birth of the Erdtree. The reason I am laying it out like this is that it serves to
highlight our first and most obvious tell of Marika undermining her own order. The return
of the Tarnished after the Shattering of the Elden Ring serves as the final nail in the
Golden Order’s coffin. Yet their banishment and subsequent call back was promised by Marika
long before any of that would come to pass. And so, we can already tell that her reasons
for shattering the Elden Ring could not have been on a whim. No, as it is deeply linked to
circumstances she herself planned eons before. And as we will see, Marika’s involvement in
bringing about the events of the game is even more insidious than it initially seems.
And to show that, there is no better place to start than here. The Elden Lord armor tells us that after Godfrey’s conquest was finished and his last worthy foe
was defeated, grace simply faded from his eyes. Him and his warriors, now tarnished, were chased
from the Lands Between. But thanks to the Echo of Marika, we know that this awfully convenient
coincidence was in fact not a coincidence at all, but rather it was Marika’s doing. Marika took away
their grace yet for some reason promised them to return it and call them back to their home.
And in an earlier iteration of the game, the Tarnished would have gotten a chance to
talk directly with Godfrey, which gives us more information on what took place. There are a few noteworthy things about his
dialogue, but for now, what it does is explicitly confirm to us that Marika intended to shatter
the Elden Ring as early as the age of Godfrey… And the reason couldn’t simply have been a
change of heart or remorse over the multiple genocides her order was responsible for
since the timing of Godfrey’s exile betrays anything but a calculated decision. She first
wanted the Lands Between conquered, and then, when she had no more use for Godfrey, she sent
him away in preparation for events to come. This narrative also raises an essential
question: At what point did Marika choose to shatter the ring? Something we will
have to keep in mind moving forward. So then, what could be the reasons
that would have made Marika want to betray the Greater Will during that period?
The most common motive given by the community for Marika banishing Godfrey was that she came to a
realization around this time. And that revelation was what started a change in her that led to
her plotting to take down her own order. This event could be summed up as a crisis of faith,
that swept not only Marika but her subjects too. Though we do not have a definitive timeline
of when that happened, we can vaguely link it to the end of the Age of Abundance, which
is closely associated with Godfrey’s time. The earlier periods of the Golden Order were
blessed by the bounty of the Erdtree, its sap was collected and was considered the greatest jewels,
but at some point, that fleeting age ended. This change could have heavily harmed the
people's faith in Marika and might have been the cause of great unrest. It is possible that
it is also during this period that the Erdtree seeds first appeared, if the existence of the
minor Erdtree church, as well as the Echo of Marika we can hear within it, is linked
in any shape or form to those times The realization that not just the bounty of the
Erdtree, but also the Erdtree itself, were not eternal, was perhaps ample reason for not just the
people but also Marika herself to be shaken. And so, the idea would be that in her despair at
the realization that her age would not be eternal, Marika decided to rebel and to take the
whole of it down with her. However you feel about this explanation, it paints Marika as an
incredibly childish character who threw a tantrum of cataclysmic scale. Upon finding out that her
order was not eternal, she decided to plan eons in advance its elaborate downfall, at the cost of
the land, her children's lives, and her own. Make no mistake, Marika's actions to shatter the ring
come at her own detriment. As the vessel, Marika would shatter with the Elden Ring, a fact she
was fully aware of. And the ultimate goal of the Roundtable Hold and the Tarnished, as per her own
instructions, is the murder of a god, herself. The brightest days of the Golden Order were yet still ahead, and she had just united
the Lands Between, fully establishing her rule. This is the equivalent of building a
new house, and just as work on it is done, you realize that it will eventually fall apart in
the next 50 years, so you take it upon yourself to plan decades in advance to burn it down
and everyone inside. As flawed as a character Marika may have been, this course of action just
doesn’t add up if those are her motivations. Even more than that, I don't believe that the
end of the Age of Abundance led to Godfrey's banishment, nor do I think Marika was upset
about it. Instead, I suggest that both Godfrey's exile and the end of the Erdtree's bounty
happened due to the same underlying reason, with the former potentially happening first.
You see, the Erdtree was born and grew from the red primal matter of the Crucible. The Crucible
once contained the origin of all life blended together within it. And the Erdtree feeds on the
corpses who would latch onto its roots as part of the traditional burial rite of the Golden Order.
Miquella also later tried to recreate the Erdtree, by watering one of its seeds with his own
blood. All of this to say, that the Erdtree and its offsprings feed on concentrated life
energy, in this case, people or blood. When Godfrey’s campaign throughout the
Lands Between and the countless deaths it caused must have watered the land, and fed the
Erdtree, allowing it to grow to its full glory, and it was the abundance of corpses that
was behind its abundance of blessings. This mechanism was reflected in the very culture
of the Golden Order, particularly during Godfrey’s age. Even putting aside the obvious
act of Erdtree burials, the arenas which were built all around the Lands Between were sites
where bloody ritual combat to the death was conducted in honor of the Erdtree, a practice
that also later died in the Age of Radagon. And so, it wasn’t a coincidence that the bounty
of the Erdtree was only associated with Godfrey’s age, but rather it was that age of bloodshed
that was behind it in the first place. Next, I would like to address the main reason
behind the idea that Marika despaired around that period of time. That being the echo
found at the minor Erdtree church. Marika never in any situation has addressed anyone with anything but absolute authority. Be
it Godfrey, Radagon, or her children the demigods, she naturally stands above all of them. Her power
was never hinging on the faith or acceptance of her subjects. Yet somehow in this echo, she
is addressing her audience as comrades and is arguing, trying to convince them that things
will be fine, trying to sell them on this new path ahead, trying to quell their unrest…
I believe… this is not Marika talking. Let's take a moment to look a bit closer at this echo.
What “Marika” describes in her speech could only be described as the impetus, the rationale behind
Golden Order fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is a religious movement that appeared at some point
during the Golden Order, aiming to study and understand Order in its most pure form. It is
said to be scholarship in all but name, and for good reason, the study of order is more akin to
scientific research in our world than religion. Fundamentalism seems to be taking inspiration
from the real world's scientific fervor of the Islamic Golden Age, where the principle of
Ijtihad championed independent reasoning and critical analysis. This period was marked by a
profound commitment to scientific exploration. The pursuit of knowledge was deemed a
religious duty, inspired by the Islamic belief that understanding the natural world was
a means of gaining a deeper appreciation of God's creation. This is why Golden Order fundamentalism
focuses on the study of mathematics and physics, as they are means by which one can model and
understand the universe. This scientific dimension explains why fundamentalist incantations are
based on Intelligence as much as faith.
The existence of fundamentalism and
its nature also serves to inform us on where Elden Ring takes its inspiration
for the concepts of chaos and order, and that’s a topic I am very excited to explore
in a future video. In a way, what fundamentalism does is bridge a gap between sorceries and
incantations. And so, to be a fundamentalist, one would require both the academic rigor and
drive to unearth the secrets of nature, as well as being a greatly devout and godly person.
Enter Radagon, the second Elden Lord. A character who in his quest for self-fulfillment, for
completion, sought to study and understand all things. As the husband of the Lunar Queen, he
studied sorceries, and as the husband of Marika, he studied incantations. From Radagon’s Ring
of Light, we know that he was a fundamentalist, but more so than that, it is abundantly
clear that there is no better candidate to be the founder of the movement than him.
As seen from the Echo of Marika, fundamentalism’s impetus started around the time where the people
of the Golden Order faced a crisis of faith, which happened due to the end of the Age
of Plenty associated with Godfrey. Radagon, as the New Elden Lord, brought into the Golden
Order the sorceries and culture of Caria. And into the faith, he brought the methods he
used during his studies of the stars.
And so, Golden Order fundamentalism was born,
marking both a change in the faith and the norms of the age. The minor Erdtree church is
deeply linked to that transition, and it is also there where we find the seal that enhances
Golden Order fundamentalist incantations.
Marika, on the other hand, is never
associated with fundamentalism.
The person who was pleading with the people and
preaching what is essentially fundamentalism is not Marika, it is Radagon. If we consider
that for a moment, the tone of the speaker starts to make a lot more sense. Radagon, at
one point a common soldier of the Golden Order who through his achievements in war rose to
the rank of champion and finally Elden Lord, would be addressing his contemporaries
in the manner seen in this dialogue, This piece of dialogue is pivotal to understanding Marika’s character, and me taking it away
from her has a significant impact on how her character and motivation can be interpreted.
The reason I am saying all of that is that I want you to understand that I am not doing it lightly.
The game, through Melina, explicitly spells out that this is an echo of Marika. And I do not make
a habit of randomly discrediting or dismissing what the game or characters are telling us. Though
many will vehemently disagree with this take, and that’s understandable, in this case specifically,
I believe there is room for an argument to be made. Based on what we as players know, the notion
that this dialogue is actually from Radagon is not inconceivable, as the game also explicitly
tells us that Radagon IS Marika. And what is conceivable became likely to me when considering
the context in which this echo lies, its contents, and how it fits in the bigger narrative of
Marika’s actions and her motivations. So, not only can Marika’s course of action not be
justified by a crisis of faith, the main clue of such an event might be a massive misdirection and
not her words at all. And the presumed trigger, the end of the Age of Abundance, likely took
place during a transitional period following Godfrey's banishment, in a time when Radagon was
just beginning his reign as the Elden Lord. Which brings us back to square one… So, to better
understand Marika's intentions, we must turn our attention to what may be the most pivotal
event in the history of the Golden Order... Even if we were to concede that Marika’s actions
weren’t due to a change of heart that happened sometime after the earlier days of her reign,
it could be said that her preparing for the return of the Tarnished and the shattering of
the Elden Ring could have been some sort of insurance or backup plan, a sort of big red
button to press if she ever felt like it.
And so, the trigger in this situation would
be the assassination of her children during the Night of the Black Knives, as it is
called. The event that took the beloved Godwyn the Golden from the Lands Between. Even
in-universe, there is a notion that the Night of Knives is what drove Marika to the brink.
It is important to remember, though, that very few people are aware that Marika shattered
the ring. Specifically, only the Fingers and those who received their guidance like Gideon and
other Tarnished who have procured a Great Rune, and probably the demigods. It seems the masses
think that Marika simply abandoned them.
So, the general perception is that the Night
of Knives, the smashing of the Elden Ring, and the Shattering War were part of the same
cascade of events, but the notion that Marika shattered the ring due to her children’s death is
actually the players putting 2 and 2 together. But as we will see, looking at everything we
know and the relationship of the different people involved, it is in fact more likely that Marika
had a direct hand in orchestrating that event.
Ranni the Witch, daughter of Radagon and Rennala, was the individual
behind the forging of the gold-slaying black knives that the assassins used. After stealing
a fragment of the Rune of Death from Maliketh, she enacted a specific ritual which resulted
in the simultaneous death of Godwyn’s soul and her Empyrean flesh. The Blackknife assassins, her
accomplices, rode through the Lands Between that night and killed multiple of Marika’s children.
The assassins themselves are said to be Numen women from the Eternal Cities and constitute our
first and most obvious link to Marika. As Numen, they are of the same race as her, and their
armor even says that they share close ties. The nature of their relation is never elaborated
on, though it could be tempting to jump on this link to incriminate Marika’s involvement in
that plot, this piece of information does not tell either way if they were working for Marika
or were opposed to her and enacting some sort of vengeance, for example. Though it might be worth
pointing out that Melina, Marika’s daughter, actually shares the assassins' fighting style.
What you might deduce from that is up to how meaningful you think that actually is.
What actually matters here is Melina herself, who is one of the few confirmed direct accomplices
of Marika’s designs. She is the Kindling Maiden and serves as a guide and aid to the Tarnished
in his mission of becoming Elden Lord. Melina’s role was directly given to her by her mother,
and that role includes burning the Erdtree’s thorns and entrusting the player with certain
keepsakes, notably Torrent the Spirit Steed and the Crimson and Cerulean Flasks.
Where this comes full circle is that when entrusting Torrent, the player will be confronted
by none other than Ranni, the main culprit behind the Night of Knives. Ranni says that she has been
tasked with delivering something at the request of Torrent’s former master. This is vital, as the
delivery of certain items to a chosen Tarnished is a known part of Marika’s plot, something that
she directly instructed her daughter to do.
Ranni, by delivering us these items
and wishing us good luck in our quest, shows herself to be directly in the know of
Marika’s plan. And by the way, should you miss the meeting with Ranni, the items will find
their way directly to the Roundtable Hold. This, in combination with the close
ties of the Black Knife assassins with her, makes Marika’s connection to the
Night of Knives significantly more likely.
But that would mean that Marika wanted her
children killed? And the answer is yes, for make no mistake, the god of the Golden
Order has no qualm sacrificing her own children for her goals. The first instance of
that is simply Melina, who serves as nothing more than kindling in her mother’s design.
And even when considering the soulless demigods themselves, there is only one instance in the
game which gives us any sort of hint as to how Marika sees them or feels about them.
The ghost of the Mausoleum Church off the Weeping Peninsula laments the state of
the soulless demigods, describing them as the Queen's unwanted children. This cold
detachment between the demigods and their god is also most notably visible in an echo of
Marika where she addresses them directly. If you ever had any doubt that Marika would be willing to sacrifice her beloved children, then
this should make it clear how far she would go. This echo is particularly interesting as it shows
the truth behind the Shattering War. The demigods were, in a way, accused of being corrupted by
the strength of the Great Runes and driven by ambition they warred, though this is true for some
of them, for example, Godrick. The reality of the situation is that they were given no choice by
Marika. They would either slaughter each other or die at the hands of the coming Tarnished.
And if you still feel that they somehow still had any sort of agency over the outcome
of the situation they were put in, then hold on to that thought for a bit longer...
until we expose the dreadful truth of Marika’s control in the last part of this video.
And her manipulation also extended to her own shadowbound beast. As an Empyrean, Marika was
given Maliketh as a loyal servant but also as an insurance for the Fingers, as Maliketh would
turn into a baleful shadow to kill her had she gone astray. However, Marika’s only use she had
of Maliketh was as a guardian of Destined Death, sealed very far away from herself.
But even then, she betrayed him.
Maliketh believes that Marika fooled him, yet the only thing she had him do, dates back to the
very creation of the Golden Order. If that act by itself constitutes a betrayal, then it means that
it was done with ill intent. That being, taking the Finger’s insurance out of the picture.
And so it seems, that even then, from the very beginning, Marika’s actions
show that she always intended to betray the Greater Will and his emissaries.
Now, this is a lot to take in and consider, and perhaps even if you had indulged me so
far, all I have been doing is taking away potential reasons for Marika to want to shatter
the Elden Ring… So the question still stands then, why? And I promise we will get to that in just a
moment, but the reason I have been so insistent on the question “when did Marika decide to do it”
is that the answer to that serves as our biggest lead on understanding Marika’s motivations.
The notion that Marika’s actions were not in fact reactionary, and not a consequence
of something that happened during the Golden Order is the point that I am trying
to drive home. And from there, we don’t have to look very far to understand the “why.”
Ranni, as well as the Black Knife assassins, are what informs us of Marika’s true alignment.
You see, Ranni’s end goal is to bring about the Age of the Stars where she takes the Elden
Ring, order itself, and embarks on a grand journey through the dark cosmos, as to take
its influence away. This also happens to be the goal of the Nox and the Eternal Cities
from which the Black Knife assassins hail. The Nox are said to be an ancient race who were
once punished by the Greater Will for opposing it, and were consequently buried underground. Ever
since, they have been plotting, wishing, preparing for what they call the Age of the Stars. From the
Black Knife assassin, we know the Nox are related to the ancient Numen, the same race as Marika.
And as it turns out, Marika the Eternal’s connection to the Eternal Cities goes a
lot deeper than just her title. In fact, she could potentially be its founder. If you have watched my video on Radagon being a mimic of Marika, you would know that one
of the pillars of that theory is that Marika hails from the Eternal City, the same civilization
that tried to create lords through mimicry. Back then, the main connections I was aware of
that lend credence to that idea were the Black Knife assassins as well as the internal names
from the Eternal City enemies. But since then, a few more things came to my attention, even
though the Nox enemies were named Marika Lineage in the files, the item description of the Nox
Swordstress and Priestess Ash in the 1.0 version of the game clarifies their genealogical link
much more explicitly. The Nox are said to be descendants of Marika, to which they owe their
title of Empyreans’ family, found in the 1.0 Nox Set. This is where I would like to remind you of
the potential link of the Black Knife assassins to Marika might be and the fact that Melina, Marika’s
daughter, shares their distinct fighting style. But perhaps the most exciting discovery made on
the subject comes from YouTuber and dataminer Sekiro Dubi, who in a Twitter post enabled
internal flags the developers over at FromSoftware used while working on the game areas. The flags
are obviously not meant to be seen by the player, and what they give away is the labels by which
the developers internally referred to the Eternal City, calling them... Marika’s Ruins.
This insight into Marika’s origins also begs the question of how old is she really? And were the
Eternal Cities explicitly named after her? I’ll leave these questions for another time…
Even though cut content spells it out for us, there are still ways to infer the Marika-Eternal
City connection from what we have in-game, though it takes a lot more speculation. For example,
you will notice that the Walking Mausoleums that cradle Marika’s dead offspring, the soulless
demigods, are actually Eternal City structures, which is fairly significant as one’s burial rites
usually speak volumes about their heritage even if it wasn’t clearly apparent in life.
Then there are a lot of small details, like the Erdtree’s culture taking a lot from
the alchemical practices of the Eternal Cities, with chemists being priests of the Erdtree as
well as perfuming being as common of a practice as it is. Even the architecture of Leyndell takes
some distinct patterns from the Eternal Cities, with Lower Leyndell being completely in the
same architectural styles as Ordina and Selia, which are basically the closest thing
to surface settlements for the Nox. Have you ever wondered why Godfrey’s conquest
of the Lands Between stopped at the border between Caelid and Limgrave? It’s an odd stopping
point for a war that did not leave an inch of the Lands Between unturned. Caelid is a region
controlled by Selia, the Town of Sorcery, where Radahn would later learn gravitational
magic. It also has clear ties to the Eternal City, and even the sage Gowry referring to
them as descendants of the Eternal. I don’t see any reason why the Golden Order’s
conquest would ever stop at the last region left to grab, unless said region was already
considered annexed territory, and Selia is unquestionably part of the Golden Order today.
And so, perhaps this is the most important point I would like to communicate with this video.
Something as major as the current god and vessel of the Elden Ring being also of the Eternal
Cities, which are directly and openly opposed to the Fingers and the Greater Will, is not something
that can just be ignored. In order to even start discussing what Marika’s character is like and
what her motivations are, you need to acknowledge and take into account her origins, which is
perhaps one of the most commonly overlooked aspects of any analysis of her character I have
seen. Particularly in this case, where said origin comes with such heavy baggage. The notion that
Marika could be working to destroy her own order from the inside since the very beginning, and that
she was never in fact loyal to the Greater Will, only seems so outlandish when we don’t
account for who she was before being a god. And even though it would seem nonsensical that
she would start an order just to destroy it, the answer is that Marika’s plot and actions
result in an outcome that has a much broader and more meaningful impact than just the fall of
the Golden Order, which we will be exploring later in the final video of the Emancipation Theory.
I am sorry for leaving something to another again… but the truth is that I need to set these building
blocks in order to convey the bigger picture, and I’ll still need to talk about these
subjects on screen before all the pieces are in place, so please bear with me.
But for now, we must ask, why would the Fingers elect an Empyrean from the race that challenged
the Greater Will, has been punished for it, and is still being punished for it to this day?
It would be common sense to not give power and support to an individual that has
plenty of reasons to resent you and had turned against you once already.
And although we can conjecture a few reasons as to why the Fingers would still choose
Marika, the game already seems to have a neat little answer to that question already.
As it so happens, the Eternals are in possession of a secret rite, which requires a treasured
and rare substance to conduct. The effect of this rite is the total and complete
undoing of all antagonizations. Well, isn’t that awfully convenient?
Through the power of Fate, Celestial Dew, a treasure of the Eternal City,
allows one to conduct the Rite of Absolution in a fountain in front of a Nox Priestess…
And so, even if Marika has always harbored animosity towards the Greater Will, as long
as she treads carefully and keeps her true intentions hidden, she would be able to carry
out her scheme until the course of events to come could not be altered. Which brings us to the final
subject I would like to talk about today: Fate. Throughout this video, the word has reared its
head a few times, but I cannot stress enough how important this notion is. You see, there is
an aspect of the world building of this setting that is only ever mentioned twice, as far as
I know. And one such occasion was the original reveal trailer for Elden Ring, dating back to
even before the Age of Hollowing in 2019. 'The Elden Ring, that which commanded the stars…' In this world,
astrology is very much real, and the fate that governs the existences of beings seems to be
quite literally written in the night sky. To control the stars means to control fate. And that
is the fearsome power of the Elden Ring itself. It is fate that sits at the center of this ancient conflict between the Nox and the Greater Will. You
see, Marika is the vessel of the Elden Ring and, as such, holds its power. Power she is free to
use as the sole god of her own order. And so, her scheming becomes a lot more sinister when you
consider she has some level of control over the very fate of people itself. And we actually know
for a fact that the events orchestrated by Marika were also written in the tapestry of fate.
During the Golden Order, it is said that Carian astrology faltered at the vines, and reading
fate in the stars was not possible. However, there is another way people in Elden Ring can
peer into destiny, and that is through their faith. Those become known as prophecies and they
show the fatality of the curse Marika placed on the land. It is said that sometimes priests of
the Golden Order would glimpse the prophecies of cardinal sin in their faith, showing them
the burning of the Erdtree, which would come when the Tarnished would be Elden Lord.
And it does not stop there, as we happen to have multiple instances of visions that all show
different parts of the same scenario that is to be played out. Goldmask, an eminent Golden Order fundamentalist
and scholar, through his research into order, managed to predict the return of the Tarnished
and the call of grace long before it happened. Not only a testament to his genius and insight
but also a demonstration of the inevitability of the events to come. The Prophecy of Flame, as it is called, also
directly ties the burning of the Erdtree to the subsequent freeing of Destined Death.
And finally, even a Two Fingers foresaw the
ultimate crowning of a Tarnished as Elden Lord. The call of grace, the burning of the
Erdtree, the unsealing of Destined Death, and the ascension of a Tarnished to the throne
of Elden Lord. All unthinkable events that form every beat of the scenario played out in the
game were all foretold by vastly different people from different times. This plot, this
scheme was directly engraved in fate itself. It isn’t to say that every detail is set in stone
or that there is no escape, since clearly the Lord of Frenzied Flame exists, but then again, if
anything would shatter the influence of the Elden Ring, it would be chaos itself, its anathema.
But besides that, every ending, regardless of the variations, plays out exactly as Marika wanted.
And the realization that she has had a hand directly meddling in fate makes the Shattering
War all the more sinister. She pitted and forced her children against one another, which
resulted in the stalemate that allowed the Tarnished to pick off the demigods one by one in
a Lands Between weakened and ravaged by war. So, was it even possible for things to have
gone any differently at all? After all, the return of the Tarnished was hinging on
the Shattering War coming to a stalemate. It seems to me that they were set up to fail.
Now, there is a lot more to say about fate, specifically why it is the center of the conflict
and the various things and forces that have sway But… you guessed it! It’s for another video!
So for now, this is everything I have to say in relation to Marika specifically.
And in short, here is my proposition:
Marika was never loyal to the Greater Will and the
Two Fingers. She carries with her the dreams of an ancient civilization who were crushed for opposing
their control. And when she was chosen to be the god of a new age, the vessel of the Elden Ring,
and holder of its power, she started enacting her plan, making preparations throughout the history
of the Golden Order. All in anticipation of the day she would shatter the Elden Ring, initiating
the cascade of events that would lead to their ultimate goal. With the whole of the Lands
Between, her children, and the Tarnished cursed to play their fated role on the board.
Thank you, everyone, for watching. The next video is going to be about the Eternal Cities, their
ties to the ancient dynasty, and how they were destroyed by the Greater Will. I hope you look
forward to it. I am sure many of you have plenty of questions, and they will be answered in time.
Until then, I want to hear what you all think, so do not hesitate to leave a comment. I do try to
read them all. If you want to support my channel, be sure to like, subscribe, and share the video
with anyone interested in Elden Ring lore.
We are so incredibly close to the Shadow of the
Erdtree trailer at the Game Awards, keep an eye out for a deep dive on that too.
And with all that said, goodbye.
