Previous posts: (Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4).
Let's get this show back on the road.
Part 9: Last Call Before Nightreign
Turns out the announcement of Nightreign stopped my positively unhinged theoryposting dead in its tracks. I had been drafting a Big Finale Post where I presented my Grand Unified Headcanon, but there’s not much fun in that knowing that in a short time I’m going to be hit with a series of curveballs from left field that throw everything into total chaos. (The inevitability of FromSoft DLC / sequels)
But with release nearly upon us, I’m going to round up the straggling theories and observations I’ve had that don’t fit into the Big Finale Post, just so I can clean out the draft dog a bit and stop having all these words sitting there menacingly.
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Observation: The incantation sigils for Messmer & Frenzy look similar
I can’t believe I didn’t catch this until recently. Three pronged fire on both of them, with the Flame of Frenzy predictably looking more ragged and not having a boundary circle. Which would make Messmer’s flame the un-frenzied version of the Frenzied Flame, something chaotic but still controlled. The sigils for Giant and Two Finger incantations are just boundary circles (ie, “things you contain other things in”), with the Giant sigil being more solid (looks like the forge seen from above, as fitting for masters of the flame.) and the Two Fingers being in light-cipher script they use to communicate with humans.
Messmer’s sigil has a thick outside border like the Giants (with less decoration), with a double-helix or braid inside the ring (vs the Tengwar-like scribbles of Finger sigils). This feels like a combination of methods, and it looks like the Celtic knot pattern in the Erdtree sigil.
Of course, you know what also makes a nice circle? Mythologically potent serpents. The serpent that is currently inside Messmer and nibbling on his flame.
It also brings up a question of which came first: is Messmer’s sigil representative of Flame of Frenzy that has been bound, or is the Flame of Frenzy actually a variant of whatever Messmer inherited? Something that’s been supercharged by despair like oxygen fuels an ordinary fire? Is there really just the one Fire that has speciated into multiple forms?
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Correction: Maybe Not A Brownshirt
In my last post, I did a lot of theorizing based on the idea that Messmer was basically leading his own brownshirt death squads and either threatened or was going to commit a coup. I still like this reading, though Kyana and several other commenters have pointed out that not only is there the line about him leading the crusade “on his mother’s wishes”, but a lot of his voicelines seem almost bored with it all. Like his heart really isn’t in it. He says “Those stripped of the Grace of Gold shall all meet death in Messmer’s Flame” like he’s reading off a script.
Which makes me think that maybe this was a punishment detail for him. He might still have been building his own personal death squads back in Leyndell and / or tried to burn down the Erdtree, but he doesn’t seem to have much in the way of hatred for the people he's fighting.
Which is seemingly countered immediately by the literal walking warcrimes he had as part of his forces and the whole “committing genocide and sticking heads on pikes” thing. So if he wasn’t “yeah let’s go kill hornsent” and was really doing it on Marika’s wishes, the game is drastically understating the extent of how psychologically broken this man is.
That item description indicates that he took the carrot. I think it’s safe to assume that Marika had a stick ready and waiting for her wayward red-headed step-son if he didn’t cooperate.
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Observation: There’s something missing from the Beast incantation sigil
It’s an empty oval with claw marks, as if something inside was gouged out of it. Which is a bit odd, as it would imply that a beast was responsible for clawing out whatever they had at their spiritual center. The Ring is a likely candidate for what was lost.
That there are three claw marks there is probably nothing important at all and doesn’t mean anything.
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Theory: The Scadutree is the real Erdtree
- Looks burnt? Check.
- In a location where the ash would fall on Leyndell? Probably check.
- A secret Marika would want hidden? Check.
- Oozing golden sap? Check.
- Sap which may or may not be the blood of the sun? Not checked but I believe it.
- Conveniently near the apparent physical location of the Crucible? Check.
I do not have a meaningful argument beyond vibes and implications but it feels right. Scadutree is real Erdtree, which was planted on top of the Crucible in order to control and regulate it, and it might have also eaten the sun and this probably established the Golden Order.
Because the sun is associated with death. The sun is barely mentioned in the game but nearly every damn time it crops up, it is associated with death.
- The eclipsed sun is described as protector of the “soulless demigods” in the mausoleums, where it (the eclipse) keeps Destined Death at Bay.
- But, importantly, the sun is not currently eclipsed, so the mausoleums are walking around to prevent them from being consumed by deathroot.
- An eclipse was part of Miquella’s plan to resurrect Godwyn so he could die a true death (and potentially return his soul to him?)
- Death becomes unstuck at night (crucified bodies re-animated and start screaming)
I’m going to stick a pin in this: “Sun seems affiliated with Destined Death (and possibly the Gloam-Eyed Queen) and prevents spirits from being re-embodied (ie, the dead remain soulless / cannot have spirits put back into them) - these might be one and the same. Does Destined Death destroy the spirit as well as the body? We know the Flame of Frenzy does that…
(Aside, Death Flare skill drops the phrase “lusterless sun”)
As for demihumans going mad at night, despite all their connections with the Carians and all their magic being sorcery… I think this calls for my Sun = Greater Will theory.
Greater Will gave intelligence to the beasts, intelligence that they have been steadily losing over time with the loss of the sun’s radiance (ie, what was once given out by the sun directly is now Marika’s to pick and choose with) and which they fully lose when the sun is no longer visible. The sun has lost its luster, the beasts have lost their intelligence, it’s like poetry it fucking rhymes.
And if Scadutree = real Erdtree and Erdtree blessings / sap = golden tears / sun-blood…
Oh yeah, it’s all coming together.
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Observation: Possible timing of the Gloam-Eyed Queen Dustup.
In a moment of brief coherence of the whole GEQ charade (damn you Miyazaki and Martin both), the description for the Mending Rune of the Death-Prince contains the following line:
“The Golden Order was created by confining Destined Death.”
Enya has dialogue that is basically that verbatim. Which on its own is not much, but it gives us a pin on the board:
Golden Order founding = defeat of Godskins and GEQ by Maliketh.
Which means that the GEQ vs Maliketh fight could not happen any later than Radagon’s return to Leyndell, since you can’t have Golden Order Fundamentalism if there’s no Golden Order.
But if I am onto something with the previous section, there might be an addendum.
Golden Order founding = defeat of Godskins and GEQ by Maliketh as part of a greater plan to steal the Sun/Greater Will’s power via the Erdtree
Tree would likely have already been extant at this point, but I don’t know if it would have happened before, during, or after Marika’s ascension to godhood. We can say with reasonable confidence that she was doling out sap blessings prior to cutting away the Land of Shadow (the big collection bowl being the most direct sign)
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Observation: Marika’s choice of exile for Maliketh
I don’t think that’s where the GEQ was located when she was defeated. I think his exile was a combination of practicality (“outside of time” is about as sealed away as you can possibly get) with some small measure of kindness. Maybe. As close as Marika at the height of her power would have. As one of the beastmen, Farum Azula would have been Maliketh’s home. Whether or not he took any comfort in being stuck in the perpetually-crumbling ruins of the city that was once his own, I couldn’t tell you.
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Immediate Retraction: Was Maliketh actually exiled, or was he hiding?
Off the cuff on this one.
- Marika has a big spear of destined death through her body, indicating that she was attacked by either Maliketh or the GEQ
- Malieketh, like Blaidd, was assigned to an Empyrean by the Fingers to ensure compliance.
- Marika going rogue and breaking the Ring would be more than sufficient reason for the Fingers to give Maliketh a kill order. (Note: I think this would also apply to attempting to kill Metyr, or removing the Rune of Death from the Ring. Or attempting to devour the sun.)
- Maliketh was clearly not able to finish the job, since Marika-Radagon is still alive when we find them.
Putting it all together: I think that Maliketh had enough loyalty to Marika to prevent him from killing her. Gearing punishment from the Fingers/Will, he bolted from the scene and hid himself somewhere that his half-mad self still recognized as safe (his old home of Farum Azula)
No, I do not know how the outside of time thing works for this, nor do I have any meaningful insight into the nature of Marika’s betrayal or what Maliketh is referring to when he asks non-present Marika why she “relinquished” something.
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Theory: Destined Death causes petrification
Building on the above, Marika’s body is basically entirely stonelike when we meet her, and she has a big ol’ red spear sticking out of her. Destined Death deals damage over time, its lesser deathblight form grows long pointy objects out of you, put together I’m feeling more confident in the previous theory. Given the extent of the damage, it’s certainly been a while since it happened, but who knows how long that would be.
Hold on… if this is true and Maliketh is the one who delivered the wound, it would mean that Maliketh had Destined Death already in his possession: the GEQ would already have been defeated and the Golden Order already established. That would cross out “Erdtree eating the sun” as a trigger, leaving us with attempted killing of Metyr or breaking the Ring (unless eating the sun and assassinating Metyr were happening simultaneously, which makes a whole lot of sense. If you’re trying to take out the Boss Man, you have to also take out the second in command before they can organize a counter)
If it was the GEQ who delivered the wound, that would necessitate that she and Marika were different people (at least at this stage), she had the Rune of Death in her possession, and Maliketh was acting to protect Marika. That would align more with Marika betraying him; he saves her life, and then she uses him as a disposable vessel for Destined Death.
Wait, wouldn’t removing the Rune of Death necessitate Marika having godhood (and thus possession of and control over the Ring)?
I’m at an impasse: there are two versions I can reconstruct, both of which seem equally likely but incompatible due to the ramifications.
Right at this moment, I am leaning towards
- GEQ = Marika prior to removal of the Rune of Death; an Empyrean selected by the Fingers as the next candidate for godhood.
- GEQ goes off-script and attempts to coup the Fingers by trying to assassinate Metyr and using the Erdtree to eat the sun.
- Maliketh is activated; he wounds but does not kill GEQ
- Option A) Maliketh does not have Destined Death at this time
- Option B) Marika splitting off from the GEQ and removing the Rune of Death happens simultaneously with all of this. Like we’re talking a difference of minutes. Potentially even Maliketh straight up taking it out of her hands in a blind rage and stabbing her with it
- Actually that’s a banger of an image, I’m keeping that.
- Marika betrays Maliketh’s loyalty / mercy by foisting the newly-separated Rune of Death onto him and exiling him to the ass-end of nowhere.
I do not know where the Gate of Divinity comes into play in this theory. I am presuming it would happen shortly or even immediately before, but there is nothing nada jack shit on the GEQ, godskins, or Maliketh in the DLC so who the fuck knows. I will use explicitly bad archaeological methodology and say that the absence of direct evidence can be filled with whatever I god damn feel like.
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Headcanon: Godfrey’s Caelid campaign
I like the idea of Caelid being a patchwork of minor states that was never conquered by a single party. A new castle and a new warlord on every new hill. Technically they were loyal to Leyndell but Godfrey was probably running cleanup operations against rebellious lords for years afterwards. Definitely feels like a place where empires go to bleed out and die. A reading not really supported in the text, but it feels appropriate.
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Observation: The Flame Gradient
I have once again only recently
observed something potentially significant: The different kinds of fire
have colors that can be arranged on a gradient, which I have listed here as primary-secondary color.
- Frenzied Flame - Bright yellow-orange
- Giant’s Flame - Bright red-orange
- Black Flame - Bright black-white
- Messmer’s Flame - Deep red-crimson
- Ghostflame - Washed-out light-dark
The
outlier is St. Trina’s flame, which is a pale purple; off the top of
the dome I think it’s Ghostflame that’s been imbued with Trina’s toxin /
nectar, I don't know how it counts here.
The question now becomes "what order do these go in, and what does that say about the relationship?"
Frenzied Flame is the most destructive, Ghostflame the least. All of them sans maybe Ghostflame are treated as an existential risk by the Order. Black Flame might be a combination of Giant's Flame or Ghost Flame with Destined Death. Ghostflame is cold, and is said to burn death. Messmer's sigil looks like the Flame of Frenzy contained by the methods of the Giants. Let's not forget Magma, Bloodflame, or Thorn sorceries (the first looks closer to Giant's flame, the latter to Messmer's.
If we're going alchemically, the ordering of the magnum opus is black > white > gold > red.
Will muse on this further.
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Theory: The GEQ had her Grace rescinded
It’s all in the name, isn’t it? she’s the Gloam-Eyed Queen, not the Night-Eyed Queen. Gloam is twilight, when there’s no direct sunlight but it’s not fully dark yet. That sounds like an appropriate epithet for someone who had the Grace of the Greater Will taken away from them - the light is gone from her eyes, but not fully.
It’s unclear how much control the Fingers / Will have on who gets or loses grace. It’s always “Grace of Gold” or “grace of the Erdtree”, digging through the text doc I have reveals nothing as direct as “given Grace by the Two Fingers”. We know that they’re able to call the Tarnished back to the Lands, but that could just be re-activating or taking advantage of something that was once there: like having Grace and then losing it still leaves a backdoor. The GW abandons the demigods, but it doesn’t seem to strip them of Grace when it does so. On the other hand, Marika is wheeling and dealing Grace like a professional grifter, so it’s a safe bet to say that it’s something the bearer of the Elden Ring can just do.
Which would indicate that GEQ is a separate person and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.
All right. Let’s reverse course and say that she was a separate person, and that she had Grace stripped from her by Marika. This would mean that:
- She wasn’t originally called the Gloam-Eyed Queen (backed up, perhaps, by 1.00 calling her the Queen in Black.)
- Marika didn’t kill her when she presumably had the chance.
**
Observation: Marika & Radagon are blind
Considering that the shamans all seem to be blindfolded (and the Nox, for that matter), and their likely inspiration in an order of all-female blind mediums (check
Zayf's video for details), I see no reason to believe that either of them could actually see.
You know who else was blind (at least in 1.00)? And who got their eyes removed (in both)? Shabriri.
Hyetta's blind, but she can see glimpses of the Flame of Frenzy all the same, just like like Shabriri.
Considering what I've said already about the sun, I think the Frenzied Flame and Greater Will might be less different than anyone might be letting on. Indeed, they might be the same thing. The sun is a miasma of incandescent plasma (a gigantic nuclear furnace), but it is also the prime mover of all the interconnected systems of life on earth. Chaos and order.
Also worth nothing that the Briar Witches supposedly see the Blood Star in their blindness. Another facet from Frenzy, perhaps.
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Theory: The Beast Eye = GEQ's eye (and probably Marika's)
It’s a stone eye with a purple aura, and the color alone would be enough for GEQ affiliation - the fact that Maliketh gives it to you it's described as “claw-marked” are a bonus. If Destined Death = petrification that’s yet another point in favor.
When we finally meet Marika, she's missing an eye and a large chunk of her head. And petrified. Almost as if someone violently gouged out her eye and attacked her with a weapon that can petrify people.
A problem emerges if we consider the scar- and sore-seal, though not an insurmountable one. Common belief is that these are Radagon / Marika's eyes, which were placed on their eyes by the Fingers / Greater will and removed for reasons. I don't know how much I believe that, no matter how appealing the core idea is, because why would the Fingers / Will use Marika / Radagon's runes? Not to mention that Messmer's sealed eye is clearly Marika's Rune, right there.
So with our two lonely lines of lore for the four items.
Scarseal: These seals represent the lifelong duty of those chosen by the gods.
Soreseal: Solemn duty weighs upon the one beholden; not unlike a gnawing curse from which there is no deliverance.
The vaguely defined gods in this place are probably Marika / Radagon, and the recipients of these seals are...probably not important. Randos who have been spared immediate execution and given a duty to fulfill. More useful is just the establishment that this is a thing Marika does regularly.
That the soreseals are yellow and oozing and only slightly less decayed than a Shabriri Grape is worth noting.
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Theory: Serpent as agent of Law of Regression
Rykard / the Serpent are all about joining together into a singular whole – this is pinging strong on the Law of Regression sensor. Myth of the Serpent as world-devourer would indicate a cosmological role along the same lines, or at least a belief in said role. Perhaps something of a one-snake cosmic clean-up crew. The interacting systems of the world have become too unwieldy, they’ve fossilized, they’ve started breaking down: here comes the serpent to clean house and restart the process.
Specifically, though, what if its function is to roll in, kill the gods who have overstayed their welcome, and then prime the stage for a new cycle? It’s in line with Rykard’s devour the gods (togethaaaaaaaaah) thing. Rykard’s the one speaking, but the words might very well be the Serpent’s.
What if it offered the same deal to Marika? Join with me and we can devour the gods together and take their power. We’ve got a tree, we’ve got a Serpent, we’ve got offerings of divinity: that’s Eden, baby.
Rykard feeds self to snake to facilitate devouring of the gods and starting a new lineage (since we know that the Serpent permits for a form of reproduction outside Erdtree rebirth (Or outside of what came before Erdtree rebirth, since we know that hasn't been around forever). And if Marika = GEQ, that's where we get the godskin nobles assimilating "inhuman physiology, not unlike the Crucible".
Nobles have a snake tail crucible-aspect, Apostles are stretchy longbois, it's like poetry it rhymes etc.
Also: Serpent shows up as part of the decoration Giants’ Forge and lives in a volcano. Both of these are places where things are known to (s)melt together into cohesive uniform masses.
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Observation: A very important piece of cut dialog for Kale
[800054000] Ah, you, is it...
[800054010] Did you see? What they did to my ancestors?
[800054020] The whole clan, buried alive. Sick. Maddened. Husks of themselves.
[800054030] Have you heard their moans? They're hardly human anymore.
[800054040] They think we worship the Three Fingers? That we called the maddening sickness down upon them?
[800054050] Well. If that's what they expect from us, then that's what they shall get from us!
[800054060] The world of grace and its people should have been content to see us sink between the cracks.
Grain of salt for cut content, but this pretty firmly indicates:
- A) The Nomads did not worship the 3 Fingers
- B) The Order believed the Nomads were responsible for the 3 Fingers’ subversion by Frenzy
- C) That the Order believed it was worship of the 3 Fingers that brought the Frenzy (?????)
A & B are more support for my old theory back in Post 1 that that at some point the Three Fingers weren’t associated with the Flame of Frenzy at all. C is wholly speculative and is based entirely on syntax of cut dialogue.
This leads me to a secondary, and potentially larger point.
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Theory: Shabriri's greatest crime isn't what we think
While lots of people claim that the genocide of the Nomads was brought around by Shabriri’s slander of them, I honestly don’t know if that would actually qualify him for the position of “most reviled man in all history” (per
Howl of Shabriri); he’s repellent to us the audience because we have a better view of the big picture - we know that the Nomads were innocent - but the rest of Kale’s dialogue indicates that the Nomads were already held in generally low regard by the Golden Order. If the the Nomads were toting around a divergent set of Fingers and taking their messages directly (rather than relying on the Order-approved Finger-Readers for interpretation), it probably didn’t take much convincing for the Order to get behind a pogrom; even if Shabriri is the one responsible for starting the killing, the Golden Order would probably consider him a hero who uncovered a dangerous heresy in the nick of time.
A religious minority is accused of practicing heretical rites that pose both a material and spiritual threat to the established religious / political status quo; this should be extremely fucking familiar, because it’s the god-damn Satanic Panic. Pick an out-group, make an accusation, destroy people’s lives and suffer no consequences even when the accusation is proven to be false.
Remember, the Golden Order is an authoritarian theocracy: using spurious accusations to justify atrocities against religious and cultural minorities is practically the national sport.
And, importantly, Shabriri gets us a double (technically triple) instance of the “it is said” weasel-words:
Shabriri’s Woe: "It is said that the man, named Shabriri, had his eyes gouged out as punishment for the crime of slander, and, with time, the blight of the flame of frenzy came to dwell in the empty sockets."
Howl of Shabriri: "It is said that the sickness of the flame of frenzy began with Shabriri, the most reviled man in all history."
Shabriri’s Woe 1.00: “The man, named Shabriri, was born without pupils. Known to be a great lover of the grape, a sickness in the form of a red colored chaos was said to have come to dwell beneath his eyes. Eventually, his pupil-less eyeballs were crushed by other men, and he was driven to the gloomy southern peninsula.”
The only actual contradiction here is timing. In 1.00 he made contact with the Flame of Frenzy before having his eyes removed, and in main game he made contact afterwards.
So then: who was he slandering, to justify the removal of his eyes and hounding him to the dismal fringe of the empire? Was it even actually slander? Did frenzy-sickness actually begin with him, or is it merely a folk belief since Midra was written out of reality? And what did he do to make him the "most reviled man in all history?
Slander against a mistrusted religious minority wouldn't even qualify as slander, so I can only presume that he had slandered Marika / the Erdtree, the Golden Order. And, since those three interconnected things are the axis mundi of a brutally violent authoritarian theocracy run by a living god with a skin so thin she would rather rewrite reality than look even slightly not in total control of everything at all times, I'm going to make the bold claim that Shabriri was spitting straight facts.
Accusing your critics of slander is right there in the petty tyrant DARVO manual, after all.
My thinking is that Shabriri was able to see the truth. Maybe it was because he was blind - we do love a blind prophet. He was able to see through the sham. I couldn't tell you what exactly he saw, (though it might be the same thing that Gideon saw), but I presume it had to do with Marika's dirty laundry and how the system is entirely broken and rotten to the core. That part's a work in progress.
But a bit of quote-unquote slander isn't enough to become "the most reviled man in all history." Not even Marika is that sensitive to criticism. But I think I know what would qualify - considering, of course, that history is written by the Golden Order.
Burning the Erdtree.
Because what's the one sane man to do? What's the one man who realizes that the ordering of the world is irrevocably broken? That the Erdtree ate the sun? That the balancing force of Destined Death was removed from reality? If there was anyone else, maybe they could have joined forces. Maybe there could have been a resistance. Marika's martial prowess is not as great as she lets on, a significant enough revolt might actually work.
But Shabriri is alone. They took his eyes, and yet he's the only one who can see; they call him a madman and a drunkard for it, but they say it because they're all blind.
Except Melina. Perhaps. A fragment of Marika split off so the god-empress could sequester a part of herself far away, where it could no longer trouble and humiliate her. A contingency plan in her plotting to free herself from the influence of the Fingers. The vessel of what she used to be: the Gloam-Eyed Queen in Black, godslayer. The hatchet-man who comes around when the powers-that-be have overstayed their welcome.
(Yes, I admit that this theory touches on "Marika was in on the plan all along!" , which I generally don't like. Needs more workshopping.)
So there's a conspiracy to burn the Tree, to set things right. They succeed at the burning but not the repairing. Maybe fixing things was never on the table. Souls games have never been ones where the restorationist fantasy wins the day.
The Tree is burned, but remains intact. Melina is dead in body. Perhaps Messmer was a player here as well, and this was the straw that sent him on the Crusade.
Wouldn't that just be perfect justification? Blame the burning on a mad prophet and hornsent saboteurs. Make a show of the traitorous son, too brow-beaten to protest his innocence. Make a show of magnanimity by letting him lead the crusade as penance. Send him off with legions of prisoners, highwaymen, brigands and raiders. Shower them with Grace so they might destroy those wretched hornsent who burned the Erdtree.
And then close the door to the Shadow Lands behind him, wipe it all from reality, and rewrite history. Now there is only this perfect, eternal, golden tree growing out of an old stump, and there always has been.
