Lore Revelations in the Shadow of the Erdtree

[Vaati] I'm willing to bet that as soon as you entered this place, you knew that we were going to get some answers in the shadow of the Erdtree. And we have. There are satisfying revelations regarding Queen Marika, and Miquella, and the Omen, and dragons, and the gods.

We even now know what Malenia whispered to Radahn in this scene, before her scarlet flower bloomed in Caelid. This video will only scratch the surface. It's just an overview, a teaser of new revelations and the foreshadowing of a deeper analysis to come.

So let's get into it and this time, let's begin at the end. After you defeat the final boss, promised consort Radahn, on your 400th attempt, you can read the 'Remembrance of a god and a lord', which states, The cutscene that plays here is a memory. [Miquella] Lord Brother.

I'm going to be a god. If we want our part of the vow, promise me you'll be my consort. I'll make the world a gentler place.

[Vaati] And so Miquella made his heartfelt wish that Radahn would one day be his king consort. Now, this ending and the reappearance of Radahn has received a lot of early criticism, but I think this encounter does go a lot deeper than some people are giving it credit for. For example, we're hearing about Miquella's side of the vow in this scene, and about what Miquella wants.

But what about Radahn? What was his part of the vow? What did he want?

There is evidence of Radahn being kind, sure, but this is also a man who celebrates war. Did he truly share Miquella's vision for an age of compassion? And if he wanted to be with Miquella, why did he fight so vehemently against his death in The Lands Between that would have brought his soul to the realm of shadow with Miquella.

But the most chilling thing about this story, I think, is that even if Radahn did want to become Miquella's Lord and I can see that side of the argument too, to be fair, but even if he did want that, do Radahn's wants even Metyr in the face of Miquella the Kind? As we speculated long ago, from items like the Bewitching Branch, Miquella has the power of enchantment over others. He has the power to steal hearts.

Literally, if you are embraced by him twice in the final fight, your heart is stolen and it's like a part of you dies. [Miquella] Lord of the Old Order, let us go together. [Vaati] This effect can also be seen in Miquella's Faithful Band, who overcome their differences and shortcomings to fight for Miquella's cause until Miquella's enchantment is broken and they turn at each other's throats.

And what makes Miquella a fascinating character is that he isn't manipulating others for selfish reasons. His cause actually is righteous. When he wields love as a weapon, he does it genuinely to make the world a better place, without any intent to cause harm.

However, such acts are still oppressive. If your want is taken away, what is left of you that remains? Perhaps the saddest example of this is Mohg, who, as we speculated, was indeed under Miquella's spell.

[Ansbach] Once, in an attempt to free Lord Mohg from his enchantment, I challenged Tender Miquella, only to have my own heart rather artfully stolen. I knew not how weak I was. I believed that with sufficient mastery, even an Empyrean would be within reach of my blade.

I could not have been more mistaken. Miquella the Kind is a monster, pure and radiant. He wields love to shrieve clean the hearts of men.

There is nothing more terrifying. [Vaati] In the Specimen Storehouse, you can find the Secret Rite scroll, which details the secret rite by which Miquella will ascend to godhood. It reads, Ansbach reveals Miquella's plans in full.

[Ansbach] After Lord Mohg's slaying at his dynastic palace, it appears his body has been absconded with and taken straight to Kind Miquella. As if using Lord Mohg to gain entrance to the Land of Shadow were not enough, he plans to use his corpse as the vessel of his king consort. He has forsaken Lord Mohg's soul.

He desires only his empty shell. [Vaati] In your fight with Radahn, you might have noticed the horns sprouting from his gauntlets and his tendency to perform blood flame attacks. This is because Radahn occupies Mohg's body, fulfilling the terms of the secret rite at the Gate of Divinity where Miquella will become a god.

So, in retrospect, Mohg was under Miquella's spell all along and became obsessed with Miquella, believing that they would ascend together as Lord and God. But Miquella had plans for Mohg, not just as a corpse to pull into the realm of Shadow as a vessel for Radahn's soul, but as Ansbach reveals, Mohg was also used as a means for Miquella to enter the realm of shadow in the first place. A while back, I speculated that the realm of Shadow was a sort of death dimension, and that Miquella's sacrilegious death at the hands of Mohg might have been intentional so that Miquella could enter the realm of Shadow, and actually surprisingly, those speculations were proven correct as well.

Ansbach confirms that Mohg enabled Miquella to enter, and the Tower of Suppression makes it clear that all manners of death wash up in the realm of Shadow, which lies at the very center of The Lands Between. Incidentally, Radahn's return also answers one of the biggest mysteries of Elden Ring. which was what Malenia whispered to Radahn as she let the rotflower blossom at the end of their fight.

According to the Young Lion's Helm, she whispered, "Miquella awaits thee," "oh promised consort! " And so, Malenia's southward march to Caelid is finally explained as well. She was there to kill Radahn so that his soul could be taken to the realm of shadow & the vow could be upheld at any cost.

Once transported to the realm of shadow, Miquella set off for the Tower. And as his great rune says, [Ansbach] Miquella has said as much himself. He wishes now to throw it all away.

He says the act, though undoubtedly painful, will sear clean the Erdtree's wanton sin. The truth of his claim can be found at each cross, which is evidence enough to earn my belief. [Vaati] But what was the Erdtree's sin that Miquella died and was reborn for?

Well, now we've talked about the end, this brings us to the beginning. These words come from Leda, and while she never says them in-game, they're pretty d**n important, because with Marika in the footage, it's clear that this was her seduction, and her betrayal. That was the affair from which gold arose, and Shadow was born.

The same music that played in that moment also plays here, in the village where it all began: the Shaman Village, to the northeast. At its center is this, A minor Erdtree, an incantation which reveals that this was Marika's home, which she one day bathed in gold. So Marika's home was a shaman village, the implication clearly being that she herself was a shaman.

This was likely a matriarchal society of other Numen women, though that's perhaps speculation better left for another video. Put simply though, a shaman is defined as someone who has influence in Metyrs of the spirit. Their spirituality is what's valued here, and it's on this point that this story takes a bit of a dark turn, for the message at the hidden entrance actually reads: Adjacent to this message is the statue that moves aside at the sign of the "O Mother!

" gesture in Messmer's Shadow Keep. This emote is a clue to the truth, and it actually leads us all the way down here to where the 'O Mother! ' gesture can be found.

This dire place is called Bonny Village, and a phantom at the whipping hut here elaborates on just who the shamans were, or rather, the value they had. He states, So the shamans, in the words of their abusers, at least, were accorded life for a singular purpose, and that was to be stuffed inside of jars with others. A nearby whip, bestrewn with rotting, misshapen teeth, elaborates on how and why it was used on the shamans.

For one, it states that the pain it inflicts was used to encourage their obedience. But additionally, it says that as their wounds ripen, they grow inflamed and ooze pus, and the flesh of shamans was said to meld harmoniously with others. So it is that the shamans stuffed into jars become this living amalgam of beings, presumably with the flayed shaman herself at the fore.

So now we know what happened to the shamans. They were whipped into submission and forced inside of jars. We know a little bit of the why as well.

Apparently it was done so that they could become saints. But the next question I want to answer is who? Who did this to them?

Well, it was the Hornsent. The Caterpillar Mask worn by Hornsent himself reveals that it was a ritual implement of the greater potentates of Bonny Village, which is this very village where we just discussed the evidence of the shaman's abuse. It goes on to state that the mask was used to ward off thoughts of impurity, doubt, temptation, and other wickednesses one is vulnerable to while absorbed in divine ritual.

And man, if you need to ward off thoughts of doubt and wickedness while you're stuffing flayed people inside of jars, maybe what you're doing is just straight up wrong. I'm starting to understand why Marika purged the realm of shadow with fire. It's as Leda says, "They were never saints.

" "They just happened to be on the losing side of a war. " But if this mask wasn't proof enough of the Hornsent being responsible, look at Belurat Jail. It's below Belurat itself, which was the settlement of the Hornsent, and to this day the innards and the shamans remain, with the shamans offering their prayers to the innards of the Great Jars such that they they might be reborn one day into sainthood.

But what is sainthood? Well, it's never explained directly. I do have some ideas, but they might have to wait for another video.

What we do know is that the Hornsent were obsessed with invoking divinity, and forcing the shamans to achieve sainthood was likely one facet of that. So it's the Hornsent that we need to discuss next. The Hornsent are an extremely ritualistic people with swaths of their culture devoted to spiritual research and invoking the divine.

And one of the most sacred things to them is the Crucible, which they have to thank for their Tangled Horns, which are considered an evolutionary gift. If you didn't know, the Crucible has been long established as this primordial form of the Erdtree. a blending of life that became the Erdtree's primal vital energies.

And apparently it originated in the place that became the realm of shadow. This becomes quite clear thanks to Devonia, who is the longest serving of the Crucible Knights. According to her helmet, she quested in search of the Crucible's origin and departed from the lands of the Erdtree alone.

Another item we can find that's a clue for the Crucible is Spira, an incantation for a spiral of light. The spiral, it says, is a normalised crucible current that, one day, will form a column that stretches to the gods. Maybe it's no coincidence that the White Tower of Belurat is a spiral, nor that it culminates in a divine gateway that is a column of the dead, stretching to the gods.

There's also trees that include the dead, but I digress, I'm getting off topic. Back to Marika, because at some point it seems Marika rose to prominence within or adjacent to this Hornsent culture. We can kind of infer this because Hornsent refer to Marika's eventual purge as a betrayal, and something can only really be a betrayal if you were aligned with them in the first place, right?

So The Hornsent were aware of Marika, and likely her Erdtree as well, before what they call the Betrayal. But how? How did Marika rise to such power in their homeland where she was presumably a shaman, one of those subjugated?

Well, before there was this betrayal, there was a seduction from which gold arose and I think the fingers had a hand in it. [Ymir] I fear that you have borne witness to the whole of it. The conceits, the hypocrisy of the world built upon the Erdtree.

The follies of men. Their bitter suffering. Is there no hope for redemption?

The answer, sadly, is clear. There never was any hope. They were each of them defective, unhinged from the start.

Marika herself and the fingers that guided her. And this is what troubles me. No Metyr our efforts, if the roots are rotten, then we have little recourse.

[Vaati] Ymir is the High Priest of Manus Metyr, a cathedral of the Hand to the east. Once he instructed Rellana herself in the sorcerous arts, but eventually he would come to abandon this allegiance to the moon, stating that the moon was merely the closest of the celestial bodies and nothing more. [Ymir] I am a glintstone sorcerer.

We study the stars and examine the life therein. Are you familiar with our findings? Long ago, we began as stardust, born of a great rupture far across the skies.

We, too, are children of the greater will. Is that not divine? Is that not sublime?

And yet, none can fathom its implications. It's utter brilliance. [Vaati] In the ruins of this land, and beneath Manus Metyr itself, are the echoes of that greater truth that Ymir glimpsed.

This is Metyr herself, the Mother of Fingers. Her remembrance reads, You might recall the Elden Ring and the Elden Beast made landfall in The Lands Between upon a star as well. But Metyr came even before that.

So it was that this mother birthed the Fingers, communing with and receiving signs from the Greater Will who occupied the Great Beyond. But at some point Metyr became broken, abandoned, and no sign has come through ever since. [Ymir] Do you recall what I said?

That Marika and the fingers that guided her were unsound from the start? Well, the truth lies deeper still. It is their mother who is damaged and unhinged.

The fingers are but unripe children, victims in their own right. [Vaati] It's not clear when Metyr was broken, abandoned, but I assume it was before Marika started taking the guidance of the fingers, since Ymir states that the fingers were unsound from the start. Thus, the Greater Will's guidance is outdated at the very least, and has been for all of Marika's reign.

That's a pretty big revelation. Incidentally, Placidusax was also Elden Lord before Marika, and he was abandoned by his god as well, so maybe things became broken around that time? Lots of speculation to be had there.

At any rate, abandonment by the Greater Will or no, Marika took up the power of the Elden Ring. that the Fingers offered for her own reasons, and the abandoned Fingers spread the glory of the Greater Will through her and she through them. Another important item on this topic is the ancient seed talismans that can be found, which depict the two Fingers around an Erdtree seed.

They had a hand in the birth of the Erdtree. All this while the Fingers claimed to be envoys for the Greater Will, but that's a lie. The greater will is gone.

The fingers are alone, operating on outdated guidance. This is something that many characters suspected, but most characters in Elden Ring assumed that this happened around the time the Elden Ring was shattered. It's a revelation that the fingers have been broken for a really long time.

And so the Tarnished, too, is alone, following this guidance of grace that now likely only belongs to Marika herself, if anyone. And Marika might have played friendly with the Hornsent for a time, but eventually she had what was surely vengeance when the Hornsent were purged, subjugated, and betrayed. The realm of shadow became this disconnected domain of death, and the Shadow Tree that looms high became the realm's symbol of abandonment, not grace.

Before she left, Marika bathed the village of her home in gold, placing a small illusory tree that restores the health of those nearby. She did this knowing full well that there was no one left to heal. Then, she left, never to return, not even for her son, who she left behind to endlessly enact her subjugation of the realm of shadow.

So next, let's talk about Messmer, the Impaler. As anticipated, Messmer is entirely loyal to his mother, who is Queen Marika. His armor reveals that And in the end, all those stripped of the grace of gold would perish.

". . .

. . in the embrace of Messmer's flame.

" To this end, he had his Black Knights, Fire Knights, and Common Infantry. Not to mention the Carian forces who followed Rellana into war, on Messmer's behalf. So it was that the Hornsent were purged in a war without end.

A phantom at Castle Ensis bemoans, But Marika never returned, testing their faith. One phantom even raises the possibility that Messmer himself has been abandoned. And he has.

The final straw for him is when you, a tarnished who would become Elden Lord, arrives at his doorstep. [Messmer] I will not suffer. Our Lord, devoid of light.

No mother, forgive me. Soon, Tarnished. Wilt thou be taken in the jaws .

. . of the Abyssal Serpent, shorn of light?

[Vaati] Like his siblings, Messmer was born cursed. In fact, the game likens his curse to Melina's, who is heavily implied to be his younger sister. Messmer, too, it is said, bore a vision of fire.

We learn this from the item Messmer's Kindling, which describes the fire that endlessly burns within him, His remembrance elaborates on this serpent, stating 'a malevolent snake writhed within Messmer'. And so his very mother plucked out his eye and put in its place a seal of grace. So I was wrong about this eye.

It wasn't the slitted eye of dragon communion. Instead, it was Marika's seal of grace, holding back something terrible. The description continues to state that even with this seal in place, Marika's fear compelled her to secret away her child within the realm of shadow.

Hidden away, keeping company with the original sin and a hatred that would not be confined. There's so much more to say about this base serpent and the dark fire. There's so much more to say about Messmer.

We even learn from Gaius's remembrance that Messmer was an older brother to Radahn, meaning Messmer's birth and thus the birth of Melina as well likely would have arrived much earlier in the timeline. And there's a ton of curiosities with Messmer's Knights as well, some of whom were loyal, some who were disloyal, and some of whom occupied this space of reluctance in between. But those stories are better off in other videos.

In the interest of moving on, there is one last thing I want to talk about with Messmer, and it's that in the cut dialogue, Messmer notes that Miquella has spoken of us to him. And indeed, we do know that Miquella did come through this shadow keep, divesting himself at the crosses all the while which brings us to our next topic, Saint Trina. Each cross of Miquella is a piece of himself marked with his great rune, arms, an eye, flesh.

But there's a couple of crosses in particular that I remember as a part of what was an extremely chilling moment. As you progress along the coast towards the fissure, you notice that Miquella has divested himself of his doubt and vacillation. Without these things, he was free, it seems, to abandon something that was very dear to him.

And inside the fissure, at what is perhaps the deepest part of the land in the realm of Shadow, we realize that Miquella has actually divested himself of his love. A phantom says, His other self, his love, his fate was Saint Trina. So, to Miquella, who was one of Marika's kin, having a second self is nothing new, really.

We've now even learned from the shamans that their flesh melds harmoniously with others, after all. Actually, the fact that St. Trina was able to be discarded might even suggest that Radagon could have become divested from Marika in a similar way.

But Miquella's other half was truly special, and she was renowned for granting peaceful sleep to many in The Lands Between. which I imagine would have been very much appreciated in this land that's filled with the weary undead. So, St.

Trina naturally had many followers, and perhaps at the fore was Thiollier, whose obsession with St. Trina returns almost immediately when Miquella's enchantment finally breaks. [Thiollier] I'm feeling rather lost, haunted by memories of St.

Trina. Her visage, her sender, the lure of velvety sleep. What Kindly Miquella chased at me for falling for St.

Trina, while knowing that she was the discarded half. The problem is, I simply cannot help it. I would sacrifice everything just to gaze upon her one last time.

St. Trina is below, defended by a putrescent knight who is basically tainted flesh once given eternal rest that now serves St. Trina.

Die enough times to St. Trina's nectar and you will hear her words. All of this makes you realize that if godhood really would be Miquella's cage, as Saint Trina believes, then it really might have been Marika's cage as well.

It echoes what the sawseals suggested long ago, that solemn duty weighs upon the one beholden, not unlike a gnawing curse from which there is no deliverance. In the end, Marika's caged divinity is likely a part of why she shattered the Elden Ring. And so, Miquella's divinity would surely come at a cost to him.

He would essentially be sacrificing himself to bring about that gentle age in the name of everybody who would fall under his enchantment. And this enchantment is a tendency that Miquella regains when he returns in full force as a god. Because once charmed by Miquella, a circlet of light adorns your head.

And according to the description of the circlet of light, which you receive after Miquella's defeat, this enchanting circlet would have been the foundation of Miquella's age of compassion, not the Elden Ring. Presumably, in his age, all would be charmed. But Miquella found one that would refuse to be embraced.

You. No wonder, as one god and one king consort is all the world needs. And you're the chosen Elden Lord of a different page, whatever ending that may be for you.

So, naturally, you would have refused to be embraced. Thank you for watching and thank you for listening to me even with my nasally COVID voice. Sorry about that.

Before I go, Displate currently have a limited time sale for 27% off your first Displate and 37% off for any Displates after that and you'll get that deal just by clicking the link below. I've commissioned a new design to celebrate Shadow of the Erdtree. This one is called Eclipse, and it's this gorgeous black and white illustration commissioned from Nico Delort.

This one has a lot of easter eggs and references hidden within it. How many can you find? And if you're looking to pick up a few more Displates to make use of that discount, check out my other store offerings as well.

I love commissioning these designs and displates are honestly great, convenient products that just make any space more interesting. So check that out and again, thank you for watching. Please subscribe for more Shadow of the Erdtree lore because I've really barely scratched the surface here today.

I really had to restrain myself from going deeper into all of these topics in the interest of providing a concise overview of all of the lore, and I didn't even cover all of the lore. It was still tough. Honestly, the most fascinating content is yet to come.

I still want to talk about how Bayle, the new dragon in the DLC is actually the father of the drakes and how he had a war with Placidusax. I wish I had time to talk about the Abyssal Forest and Midras Mance. which the Hornsent locked away.

And then there's Godwyn, whose story we can actually say has come to a conclusive end just by virtue of the lack of new information we've received on him. There's so much more to every single thing I've talked about today, and I encourage you to go through the item descriptions and seek these answers yourself if you're interested, because ideally, you know, I won't be the only source of information that you go through. Support other creators, think critically about all of the content you consume.

But thank you for watching mine, and I look forward to exploring all of this with you in the months to come. Look for another upload soon. Cheers guys.