5 Big Theories on Radagon - a cinematic Elden Ring video essay

Video Statistics and Information

Video
Captions Word Cloud
Reddit Comments
Captions
Out of all of the characters in Elden Ring, I  still find Radagon to be the most intriguing.   He's the one that I think about the most  and one that I have the most unanswered   questions about. In what ends up being one of  the big, if not the biggest reveals in the game,   we uncover Radagon's dark, guarded secret:  that he and Marika are one in the same. During   an interview with Stephen Colbert, George RR  Martin said that FromSoft asked him to build   them a world so that they could basically go in  and destroy it, so he wrote them a history of   what happened five thousand years before the  current game, who all the characters were,   and who was killing each other and what powers  they had. Listening to his interview sparked my   imagination and it got me thinking about  this topic in a new way, so I'm going to   try and present Radagon and Marika and their  motivations as Martin may have imagined them. We don't know much about Marika's background,  only that she's Numen. which are a group of   people who hail from beyond the Lands  Between and are possibly the descendants   of other worldly beings. The preset appearance  of the Numen is very aged and this corresponds   to the line about them being long-lived but  seldom born. In the Mountaintops of the Giants   lies the Zamor ruins. The Knights of Zamor were  hailed as heroes in the War Against the Giants,   and their armor set describes them as long-lived  warriors, mortal enemies of the Fire Giants,   devotees to winter. It's the phrase "long-lived"  that stands out to me as possibly having ties to   the Numen. The Zamor could have descended from  a Numen tribe that settled in the far north,   learning how to conquer the brutality of their  environment and developed their ice sorcery   through their ceaseless struggle against  the Fire Giants. the Northerner template   describes this hardy group of people as being  descended from giants, so we can see that it's   possible to have giant heritage without having  a conspicuous appearance. This preset also has   bright platinum hair and pale skin, similar to  Marika's coloring and in fact, in my opinion,   Marika looks more like the Northerner than she  does the Numen, and it makes me wonder if maybe   one of her parents was a Northerner and the other  was a Zamor. The forbidden romance of fire and   ice, or should I say, ice and fire. Now where  have we seen this combination before? Another   clue that makes me think that Marika has Zamor  blood in her is that one of the Ancient Heroes of   Zamor drops Radagon's Scarseal. Having Zamor and  Northerner blood in her lineage would give grounds   for Marika beginning her war campaign for the  Erdtree in the Mountaintops of the Giants region,   as supported by the location of her first church.  And just in view of this church is the Forge of   the Fire Giants. Marika growing up in the north,  watching that roaring flame grow day by day,   and fearing what it meant for the safety of the  Erdtree and deciding to start her war campaign   here because of that, is such great visual  imagery. The war against the Giants was Marika's   key battle in establishing the Age of the Erdtree.  The Fire Giants who inhabited the mountaintops had   a flame strong enough to destroy the Erdtree, so  Marika decided to extinguish them commanding her   first husband, Elden Lord Godfrey, to lead that  fight. The fiants were attacked and wiped out,   save for one whom Marika spared not out of  mercy, but as a prisoner cursed to tend to   the undying flame for eternity. Which leads  us right into the first theory on our list. Curses are a big theme we see all throughout the  game. Is it possible that Radagon’s existence is   the result of a curse placed on Marika? We know  that Martin likes using hair color as a code for   lineage. And we see this with all of the demigods  who inherit Marika and Radagon’s hair colors.  We all know very well by now that Radagon's red  hair is one of the most referenced traits in the   game, and we learn later on in another  shocking reveal that his red hair is a   trait shared with the Fire Giants. The Giant’s  Red Braid reads: Every giant is red of hair,   and Radagon was said to have despised his own red  locks. Perhaps that was a curse of their kind.  There seems to be a popular interpretation of this  last line to mean that the red hair was a curse   inflicted on Radagon via Marika, that Marika  was cursed with this red hair as retribution   for her slaughter of the Fire Giants, and she  hated it so much that she expunged it from her   body in the form of an autonomous being who became  Radagon. Kind of like an Adam and Eve situation.  The idea that the last surviving Fire Giant cursed  Marika with red hair is very difficult for me to   get behind. Like the best that this last remaining  giant, who just witnessed the genocide of his   entire race, could do was to give her red hair? Another reason I don’t like this theory is that   there is direct mention of someone being cursed  at the conclusion of the War against the Giants,   but it’s Marika cursing the Fire Giant,  not the other way around. I also think   the placement of these revelations about Radagon  are significant; the first one is in Leyndell,   and the second is in the Mountaintops of the  Giants which you can’t access until you complete   Leyndell. The big shocker obviously is that  Radagon is Marika. So what bigger revelation   about Radagon can they possibly throw at us now  to rival that? That Radagon is part Fire Giant.  There is one other detail that I feel  supports the theory about his giant heritage.  The art of smithing originated with the  giants, and we learn this through Iji and Hewg,   our beloved blacksmiths. When Marika destroyed the  Elden Ring, Radagon tried to repair it, a giant   skill that he may have inherited or been taught.  And it’s this image of him smithing away with   Marika’s hammer that became the iconic look we  know him by. Radagon also forges the Golden Order   Greatsword; meanwhile Marika, assuming she doesn’t  know how to smith, had to imprison Hewg to get him   to forge her commissioned god-slaying weapon.  I just think the signs point to Radagon being   part giant, which means this curse theory doesn’t  work for me. So let’s move on to the next theory. Twins are another recurring theme in Elden  Ring. We see twins with smaller characters,   bigger characters. We know that Martin loves  twins, so it’s not too far-fetched to think   that Radagon and Marika might have been twins. Radagon and Marika having once been separate   entities has merit based on this  particular scene with Melina: It sounds like it wasn’t until after this  conversation that they were conjoined, that at   this moment she was convincing him to become one  with her so that she could shatter the Elden Ring.  And we’ve see how the demigods seem to inherit  one parent's traits over another. If Radagon and   Marika were twins, they could have each  inherited distinct traits from the depths   of their bloodline. And with the Zamor  being sworn enemies of the Fire Giants,   having red hair would be humiliating for Radagon.  He’d have good reason to despise its association.  Although I like the idea of this theory  because it fits the story given the theme   of twins and I can picture Martin having  written Radagon and Marika this way,   I don’t think it has enough support to draw  from, and it raises a couple of questions for me.  While Radagon was married to Rennala, he  ordered the Carian preceptors to wear masks   that had the mouths sewn shut to serve as  a reminder that all of their matters were   to be kept private. He also brought with him  to the Caria manor a gold sewing needle that   was used to tailor the clothes of demigods. What secrets did Radagon want to hide so as   to make sure his Carian teachers didn’t spill  the beans? And why would a former war general   need to take a sewing needle capable of altering  demigod clothes with him to his new wife’s estate?  I interpret this to imply that Radagon must  have been considered a god at this point,   and his true identity was something he  wanted to keep under wraps. I don’t see   how being Marika’s twin brother or having been  part giant would be reason enough for secrecy,   especially because Rennala seems  to be one of the more accepting and   progressive characters. The secrecy  had to be about something bigger.  So if Radagon isn’t Marika’s  twin, who, or what, was he? Gold is the most prevalent color in the  Lands Between, from the Golden Order to   the Erdtree and everything in between.  It’s the color of Marika the goddess.  In an attempt to forge a more  refined version of herself,   did Marika split off the unwanted aspects  of herself in the form of Radagon?  Just to put this theory in context, An alloy  is a mixture of metals. Alloys are created in   order to achieve desired qualities, like  improved strength, or certain colors. While we see lots of gold in the armor  sets and trinkets of Erdtree believers,   we see red gold used distinctly in  reference to the Crucible Knights,   who served Godfrey when he was Elden Lord. Red gold is achieved by the mixture  of gold and copper, not unlike the   hair coloring of Marika and Radagon. The idea of Marika considering her blood   to be alloyed, mixed, with that of a Fire Giant of  all things, and her wanting to split off this part   of her that represented the primordial crucible,  is fitting with the Golden Order’s teachings of   selective grace. Marika as a secretly biracial  goddess who wanted to be pure fits in line with   the prejudice and discrimination we see throughout  the game. And reminder, this is the same woman   who chained up her children in the city sewers  because they basically weren’t pretty enough.  But the thing that makes alloys desirable  is that they are physically stronger than   unalloyed metals. Gold on its own is weak  and soft, but mix it with copper and silver,   and it’s stronger. And Marika would eventually  come to learn this, that being divided into   two different aspects of herself didn’t give  her the strength needed to shatter herself,   thus melding with Radagon was necessary. For this theory to work in my opinion,   Marika or the Greater Will, or both, would need  to at some point consider her mixed heritage   to be unfit for her post as goddess. So, in  order to make her pure gold, unalloyed gold,   but weaker as a result, they split off the  red, copper aspect, in the form of Radagon,   but then decided later on oh it's okay; he can  go on to sire children with her, even though   we took him out because we don't like him. I just don't agree with Radagon being the   byproduct of some eugenics campaign,  because Radagon was called a champion;   he was called a hero, and his children wore their  heritage representing him proudly. I just don't   see him as being an unwanted offshoot that Marika  had to pluck from her body; I think his inception   and design had to be more purposeful than  that. Which brings us to the next chapter. Mimicry is the ability to take on the appearance  of another thing. When mimicry happens in nature,   it’s most often for the survival of the creature.  When people do it, it’s usually out of deception.  We see references to mimicry in  three very interesting items: The Mimic Tear Ashes, the Mimic’s  Veil, and the Law of Regression. The Mimic Tear Ashes state that the Eternal  City used mimic tears to try and forge an   artificial lord, and though this organism  takes on the appearance of the summoner,   its mimicry doesn’t extend to  imitating the summoner’s will. The Mimic’s Veil is one of the items  that Godrick stole from Leyndell,   and it was also known as “Marika’s Mischief.”  The Law of Regression is the incantation we use   in front of Radagon’s statue to lay bare  his secret, and it states that it reveals   mimicry in all its forms. This incantation can  also be used on the Mimic’s Veil to reveal the   deceiver. The fact that the Mimic’s Veil  is called Marika’s Mischief might be one   of the biggest hints about Radagon’s origins.  Godrick used this veil to disguise himself   as a woman in order to flee from the capitol,  and before that, who knows how Marika used it.  Is it possible that she disguised herself as a  powerful champion named Radagon, and then used   a Mimic Tear to create a clone of that disguise  in order to carry out her secret assignments   that she only trusted herself to handle? This theory proposes some interesting speculations   regarding Radagon's sudden appearance during the  Liurnian wars. Because the first Liurnian War   didn’t end in a stalemate; it ended with Radagon  victorious. And if we’ve learned anything about   the way that Marika likes to fight, we’ve  learned that she doesn’t show mercy. But   instead of annihilating the inhabitants of the  Carian kingdom, as Marika did with the Giants,   the Stormhawk King, and the original dwellers  of Castle Morne, the Carian kingdom is spared   enough to rebuild their armies. It’s also  interesting to note that Godfrey wasn’t sent   to deal with the Liurnian conflict. Because I’m  sure if Marika really wanted the Carian kingdom   squashed, she could have sent in the big guns. There's a curious bit of information we we learn   from the Carian Knight’s Sword. "Weapon of knights  sworn to Carian royalty. Despite numbering fewer   than twenty, this power made them a match  for even the champions of gold in battle." This made me wonder if perhaps during  that First Liurnian War, Marika,   after seeing how overpowered the Carian Knights  were and realizing powerful sorcery at play here,   thought that there might be greater benefit in  infiltrating their forces and learning from them,   rather than destroying them, so she sent Radagon  back with a different approach. Furing the Second   Liurnian War, Radagon is begging for Rennala's  forgiveness for his military aggressions and   he's professing his love to her. Marika could  have created this image of the kind of man   she thought Rennala would fall for, this tall,  red-headed, handsome champion. Even the naming   convention of Radagon and Rennala is suspicious.  And by giving him red hair, it may have attracted   Rennala to him even more, because I think  Rennala may have had a thing for redheads. And I am 100% serious so let me explain. Let’s read the description of the Stargazer   Heirloom: "A talisman engraved with the  legend of a queen. The young astrologer   gazed at the night sky as she walked.  She had always chased the stars every   step of her journey. Then she met the full moon  — and, in time, the astrologer became a queen.”  And we know of course that this is  in reference to Rennala. But what   connection do we see here that sticks  out? That Rennala was an astrologer. Now let’s look at the Sword of  Night and Flame: "Astrologers,   who preceded the sorcerers, established themselves  in mountaintops that nearly touched the sky,   and considered the Fire Giants their neighbors.” And there we have it. The basis of the connection   between Radagon and Rennala. The Astrologers  called the Fire Giants their neighbors. The   Sword of Night and Flame is a treasure of the  Carian dynasty, it represents a union between   the astrologers and the Fire Giants. I think that  Rennala was fated to have a weak spot for Radagon,   and Marika knew to exploit this. She  might have created Radagon as a way   to infiltrate the Carian kingdom, or  to learn the secrets of Raya Lucaria,   or maybe that contentious Fire Giant part of her  background was attracted to Rennala. But even   though Radagon was created to be a Manchurian  Candidate, he develops his own autonomy. His icon states that as the husband of Rennala  he studied sorcery, and as the husband of Marika,   he studied incantations. Thus did  the hero aspire to be complete.   This doesn’t read like a carbon copy of  Marika, nor an obedient puppet. This is   his own desire being expressed. This  disguise that Marika created and then   brought to life is very much its own entity  at this point and has a distinct identity. And whether or not Radagon was sent to Rennala  under false pretenses, I think that he genuinely   fell in love with her. The bittersweet story  between Radagon and Rennala that Pastor Miriel   recounts for us is the only loving relationship  between spouses that we see in the game. We   certainly don’t see this language of love and  devotion used in reference to Marika and Godfrey. And when Radagon returns to Leyndell, he  takes his assignment of Golden Order lapdog,   which Marika calls him, quite seriously, because  that’s most likely how he was designed to be. He   develops Golden Order incantations and  forges a sword to represent its tenets.   He’s the honor roll, straight A student,  something Marika clearly was not. I really   like this mimicry theory because it allows  for Radagon to be an independent being,   while still technically being Marika.  And I think it allows for other themes   to be pulled into play without any conflict to  this one. Which brings us to our last chapter. The theme of duality is pervasive in  Elden Ring. It’s the very first image   we’re greeted with when we start the  game. Marika shattering the Elden Ring,   Radagon trying to repair it. He represented  duty, while she represented choice. These two   conflicting wills are very clearly not of the  same identity. Take a look at the differences   in which attributes are raised in Radagon’s  versus Marika’s Scarseals and Soreseals. Radagon’s raises vigor, endurance, strength,   and dexterity, while Marika’s raises  mind, intelligence, faith, and arcane. He appears to be her opposite in every way. This idea of duality is another reason I  think that the Zamor and Northerner theory   makes so much sense, because that union would  have caused a lot of inner turmoil in Marika.   Both parts of her background being sworn  enemies with each other since the beginning   of time, ice and fire. And maybe this extreme  dichotomy of her heritage caused an identity   crisis. Radagon could be the result of some  expression of dissociative identity disorder.  Radagon being the personification manifest of  Marika's conflicting will is such an amazing   concept because he represented all of the things  that she was not, and by Marika removing this   part of her, it caused disorder. Splitting off  these aspects of her infected the integrity of   her body as a vessel, and that's when she realized  she'd have to be complete again in order to carry   out her plans. And even though Radagon was a  fundamentalist follower of the Golden Order,   he believed Marika and he obeyed her when  she asked this of him, two qualities that I   think Marika may have removed from herself. And  because Radagon is the one loyal to the Golden   Order and upholds his duty as ordained by the  Greater Will, he's the aspect of Marika that is   released from their shackles inside the Erdtree,  and also the one that we end up having to kill. Although we may never get the full story of just  who Radagon is, I think that's part of his Allure   and I'm sure there are a lot of other theories  and ideas out there about Radagon and Marika,   and if you have any that you really like or  that you've come up with, definitely let me   know in the comment section. I love reading  your comments I get such amazing feedback and   I thank you very much for always sharing your  thoughts with me; I learn something new every   single time I post a video. And just a quick  announcement that I have enabled membership for   my channel so if you'd like to be extra generous  in your support I'd so greatly appreciate it. But   everything goes back into video production so my  software licensing fees, my audio licensing fees,   whatever expenses are associated with making  a video, it's just gonna go right back into   that and I have a lot of amazing Ideas coming  up not just for Elden Ring; more Elden Ring,   but other games that I think are going  to be really fun to discuss as well. So   definitely check that out if you are interested  in that and I would appreciate it. But thank you   so much for watching my video and for leaving  a thumbs up for subscribing for doing all the   stuff that goes into successful channels  and last but not least I have a shout out   for Sean Foox for coming closest to guessing  the topic of this video based on a screenshot   I shared a couple days ago and I got some  really funny answers for that so thank   you to everyone who played along. Alright guys  that's it for now I'll see you next time, bye!
Info
Channel: kitetales
Views: 59,335
Rating: undefined out of 5
Keywords: elden ring, lore, radagon, marika, explained, theory, story, kitetales, rennala
Id: HZZszQzWo3Y
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 21min 59sec (1319 seconds)
Published: Fri Feb 24 2023
Related Videos
Note
Please note that this website is currently a work in progress! Lots of interesting data and statistics to come.