I Think People Who See The Tarnished In Elden Ring As Just Murder Hobo Assholes Who Kill Everything In

Have some Madeline bc yes

I remember in a bloodborne 2 concepts video I watched a while ago (it was a collaboration/contest between a bunch of different creators) my absolute favorite ideas were the ones set in and around a fishing village/costal area.

It seems like fromsoft's aesthetic would seamlessly go hand in hand with a dark and dingy coastal setting and I'm shocked that they haven't really touched on the idea much. I'm desperate for them to try it one day.

Of all the esoteric details in Elden Ring (and that’s not a low bar), the one that itches my brain the most is the fish tail on Godwyn’s corpse. For the same reason that Aldrich’s vision of the Deep Sea from DS3 bugs me. Maybe Kos points at it too, depending on your persuasion. But like, there’s some kind of goth water-world lurking in FromSoft’s storytelling consciousness and I WANT IT.

One small part of elden ring I find really interesting is Millicent's prosthesis and how you go about getting it.

I find it incredibly interesting to have such a good item locked behind doing something horrible during a questline. It's an entirely needless act of evil as well. Millicent trusts you wholeheartedly and never gives you a reason to attack her. The only way to get this item is through actively betraying her completely unprovoked.

The game gives you a pretty interesting ultimatum. What's more important to you? An incredibly useful and powerful talisman? Or the life of one of the very few friendly faces throughout the lands between? Does the answer change knowing that she's doomed to fall either way?

It's also good that this time around, there isn't an achievement for collecting every talisman. Only the legendary ones. So there's not even an achievement based incentive for the talisman. If you want the talisman, you want it for entirely self imposed reasons, and you're going to have to go through Millicent to get it.

Rykard and the Night of the black knives.

Y’know after thinking about it for a while, I think Rykard's involvement in the night of the black knives could run a little deeper than just being a co conspirator. What if he was the person who actually did the deed?

Not on Godwyn mind you, we already know that was all the black knife assassins handy work. But there is one other corpse that is left unaccounted for.

What if he was the one who killed Ranni and carved the cursemark into her back?

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I know there’s no evidence in game that says anything about this but… it had to have been someone right? Someone other than Ranni I mean. She’s metal as fuck, but it would have been incredibly hard to carve such a specific symbol into her own back. Especially since failure would mean certain death. 

And I also don’t think it would have been some random black knife assassin either. It’s certainly possible but looking at everything revolving them, their alliance seemed shaky at best, and they may not have even known about Ranni's half of the plot to begin with. No, I don't think she would have trusted them to do it. But I do believe she’d trust Rykard. They were already in on this together, and assuming he wasn’t part of the heist itself then there’s only really one other role he could have played in the event. 

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And going off of purely in game mechanics, he definitely has the stats to wield a black knife blade. If you compare the stat requirements for the black knife and Rykards own blasphemous blade, then they match up pretty well. He would be able to use one.

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And then we've got Ranni's body itself, which is burnt beyond recognition. Which is strange for a black knife killing, since they have no inherent fire damage, and while they do seem to have some sort of burning affect, it's never as bad as how scorched Ranni's corpse is. We never see this sort of damage done by a black knife again.

This leads me to believe that Ranni's body may have been burnt after the fact. Possibly as one final middle finger to the Two Fingers and the GW for trying to control her fate. One last 'fuck you' by desecrating the holy flesh they bestowed upon her.

And who do we know that has access to fire powers? Or more specifically Magma powers?

Rykard. The lord of blasphemy himself.

Your honour, I rest my case.

As far as I've seen recently, I've noticed a pretty big shift in public opinion regarding the DLC's final boss. I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's starting to make more sense to people after being given a bit more time to think it over.

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Interestingly enough, I think Messmer is the only one of her children that we know her interactions with. No one else has any mention of times spent with her. Most demigods don't seem to have anything to say about her at all. The only outlier being Melina who also doesn't seem to really know much either.

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Kind of, but it's not a very clear picture. We know he upheld the golden order's ideals but we also know that he was not as battle hungry as his father or as dedicated to the horrors of the order as his mother, due to his diplomatic approach to ending the war with the dragons. Instead of forcing them into the order (or out of existence) they managed to come to an understanding and live harmoniously alongside each other, in stark contrast to the outcomes of every other war the order has waged. (despite the fact that they still kept Lansaxx's corpse in their city as a war trophy)

Unfortunately most of Godwyn's past, even including the golden order's proper gander has been lost to time, but from what we know, he seemed to have been a pretty upstanding guy.

While this is more headcannon territory, it's known that Godwyn at some point did have children of his own (due to the golden lineage going all the way down to Godrick, who is a distant ancestor to the rest of the royal family) and I believe that his consort was actually the dragon "Fortisaxx" who he met during the war against the dragons and became good friends and "companions" with, which directly led to the end of the war and peaceful integration of the dragons into the golden order. I have a whole post going over the topic if you're interested in seeing they deeper thought process behind this.

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unfortunately I don't know much about the albinuriac woman, but she seems to be an incredibly important figure in the albinuriac society.

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Sadly, where the land of shadow fits into the timeline is a little bit muddy. All we know is that it used to be a part of the lands between, being the centre that is missing in modern day, but was at some point separated and isolated from the rest of the world, probably in order to hide Marika and the Golden Order's deepest darkest secrets.

I don’t think I ‘hate’ a single Elden Ring character. Each and every one is designed so compellingly, their stories are so varied, their interactions while sparse are the type to carry magnitudes of meaning.

Example:

For the longest time I did not realize that the scene we stroll into at Castle Morne is a slave rebellion. The misbegotten are treated as chattel. My first go around I assumed “ah yes, monster attack castle, understand”

It wasn’t until I watched a random lore video that only referenced it that I got it. I went back and read the descriptions of stuff and I’ll be damned.

There’s a lot of little tidbits hidden here and there that flip entire perspectives on their heads. Preaching to the choir on this point.

Even the characters that I generally dislike/disregard (dung-eater, (hot take) Varre, selvus) I still find fascinating. One of the cool parts about the game is you can just kill the character you don’t like. If you’re doing a run and you want to get a little roleplay in, sometimes murder freak be murdering.

Personally, I’m not on twitter, instagram (used to be), deviant art (do people still use that), or anywhere else ((I Do have a blue sky but I think I’m too dim to use it just yet)) . I’d love to be in a space where people talk more about lore or art things! I haven’t the foggiest clue where to go though. When I hear people say “everyone hates on xyz character” or “this fandom is so nuts” or whatever I am genuinely confused. I’m only seeing a portion of the stuff here, and so far it’s been more than pleasant! Big ups to the people on here, so far you’ve all been very kind 😊

So I guess, could I ask anybody to fill me in? Or where to go to get filled in?

In the meantime I want you to know I’ve started working on a pair of drawings centered around Malenia and Miquella - ooooo be so tragic oooooo

I think something that makes this scenario even more painful is that the explosion was caused by a bullet hitting a container of shadows own energy/power. I can't imagine how that must have made him feel.

OK I've seen some people be worried so I do wanna clarify something about Sonic Movie 3:

they DO make it clear that the military was trying to kill Maria

the change from it being a direct shot to an explosion was probably to keep the rating low, but they WERE pointing guns at that 12yo

walters said "those are children" and the soldier responded "we have our orders"

they WERE killing that 12yo whether it was via bullet or boom

just bc the bullet missed doesnt mean it wasnt aimed for her and shadow

it was clear that the military killed maria.

shadow never mentioned this to sonic tho which i think he should've bc it's gonna be a jolt for sonic in movie like 7 when shadow's like "did i never mention the military executed my sister" and sonic's like "they did WHAT"

Miquella the kind when you ask him why there's an Albinauric torture chamber in castle sol.

Thinking about how Farum Azula is about the only place in the lands between a body can be put to rest without it being "returned to the erdtree" via its roots.

Thinking about how the society of Farum Azula seem to hold the dead in incredibly high regards, the entire city being a mass mausoleum in which the dead can be seen weaved into the very foundation.

Thinking about how Dragonlord Placidusax is said to have been elden lord long before the erdtree even existed and that he's waiting for his missing god to return even to this very day.

Thinking about Farum Azula having an ancient, more whole depiction of the elden ring designed into one of its major buildings.

Thinking about how the Godskins have reptilian, almost dragon like features and are fought in Farum Azula's prayer room.

Thinking about how the dragons and the golden order warred fairly early on in the Golden order's history, and that unlike many other of its documented conquests, the dragons were the aggressors in the situation, as stated in bolt of Gransax' item description. However what caused the dragons to attack seems to be conveniently forgotten in modern history.

Thinking about the sheer magnitude of history that's seemingly been buried from before the golden order, including an entire age that existed before it that had its own elden lord and god.

Thinking about how Marika had to defeat the gloam eyed queen before she was able to alter the elden ring and remove the rune of death to begin her own order.

Thinking about how the GEQ was an empyrean queen who had ties to death.

Thinking about how Placidusax has a missing god who used to host the elden ring before the age of the erdtree and ruled from within a mausoleum city that worships and honours the dead.

btw I'm calling it now that those eye markings that Melina and Ranni have are actually marks of empyreans. (which would also make Melina herself one aswell.)

I just think it's slightly too suspect that we never see the full face of a living empyrean in the game.

Marika has her eyes covered in the intro and is missing one half of her face in the ending (the perfect place for an eye marking to have been without leaving any evidence)

Malenia's upper face has been affected by the rot and thus no eye marking would be visible.

Miquella's face is also never properly shown in game. Even in the shadow of the erdtree teaser it is kept out of shot of the camera.

And while Ranni does have an eye marking on her puppet body, we have no idea what her original one might have had, as it's been burnt beyond recognition and no depictions of living Ranni exist in game.

Even if it isn't the eye marking, there's been a very deliberate choice to keep empyrean's faces hidden throughout the game and I feel like it means something.

I'm not sure what the general concensus on the "Melina is the Gloam-Eyed Queen" theory is here, but I think it would be pretty cool considering that Melina helped our tarnished to grow and become the death of the gods, much like the GEQ did for her apostles.

Even while stripped of her power, her memories and her very body she was still unwavering in her own convictions. Even if she didn't fully remember what they were for a lot of her journey with us.