UPDATE: I tested both the Bewitching Branch and the DLC's new Charming Branch and as far as I can tell, they do NOT work on Those Who Live in Death. (The Scarlet Rot zombies in the Haligtree can be charmed though.) So that could offer another reason for Miquella's rejection of Those Who Live in Death. Thanks to everyone who brought that up in the comments!
The reason for mohg and morgott, malenia and miquella is because they are twins, and twins are cursed (I don't remember where in the game this is stated, but it is)
@@_Hal9000exactly he was never coming back We kill mogh and morgott Malenia was abandoned Because If he cannot control you You will die He tells us this As we are The representative of marika
I imagine just grtting cut once by something tainted with the rune of death, or deathblight, or blackflame even, would be quite draining on a person. Possibly sapping the soul slowly.@patrickgeovanni4981
"Godwyn wasn't afflicted" isn't that kinda the point? Like out of all of her kids Godwyn was favoured because he wasn't born weird as so it's much more devastating when he dies in the most horrific of ends?
There’s a recurring theme in Elden ring that the Golden order is built on a lie. It has this perfect “golden” appearance that it portrays to everyone, but underneath the surface there is always something horrible or rotten going on. I think Godwyn being cursed fits this theme. Examples: Leyndell is this shining golden city that looks perfect from the surface, but underneath in the sewers there is a whole cesspool of Omens, frenzied flame curse, and other suffering. The erdtree is a giant golden tree that looks beautiful, but the roots are rotten and it’s dying from the inside. Even with Marika herself, she’s portrayed as this eternal golden goddess, but when you actually find her body in the erdtree it’s broken and destroyed.
I heard someone say that Godwyn is like black mold. You have a dark place that's kinda humid and before you know it... there's a godwyn growing in the the corner.
I'd imagine most of the demigods have problems with Those Who Live in Death, they were all raised in a world without death, and find what godwyn has become to be vile, if they know. Miquella tried finding ways to give him a true death but nothing to indicate how long after the night of black knives or how far along in his changes godwyn was at the time
Miquella is basically just Seluvis, so him actively lashing out against those he can't puppeteer would make sense, with Radahn being another case of that. Of course, he'd probably phrase it more kindly, but less accurately.
I really don’t think Godwyn was afflicted before his assassination, to me it’s like despite being born pure and golden, even he was cursed in the end just not in the way expected.
But when you think about it, the more you learn about the golden order, the more you realize it was never “pure and golden” there was always some horrible secret underneath the “golden” surface.
There is literally NOTHING that is pure and golden in elden ring. Even the erdtree. Makes zero sense for godwyn to be the exception. Since when has miyazaki actually made exemptions?
@@Archangel1994 Well Godwyn being cursed doesn’t actually affect his character as a person, he could have actually been “pure and golden” as in being one of the only demigods who was genuinely a good person. He could still be a sign of a better age while hiding his curse. Because if Godwyn did actually avoid being cursed somehow, the question would be why? Just random?
"... please die a true death" may be it is not kind words at all, the state of godwyn is probably a big problem for the age of compassion, I need to verify if skeletons can be affected by miquella's power.
Oh that's a smart theory and it could also imply that miquella was flawed even before he discarded his love. Compassion should be given to all, and miquella seems to have hated those who live in death. That could also be when his change began from a kind man to the most fearless empyrean. He failed twice at saving people dear to him so he embarked on his journey to godhood
@@ghostly_number I tried to charm skeletons or mausoleum knights and they're immune, Miquella's power are useless against those who live in death, Gowdyn existence is the biggest issue in Miquella's plan
@@MsieurDooM yeah it even matches with st. Trina, her sleep powers soothe those who live in death and could be another reason why miquella discarded her. Maybe st. Trina was born as one of the failed attempts at trying to kill godwyn
I really like that interpretation! It fits in quite well with Goldmask's Mending Rune looking like a grossly incandescent sun and the Dung Eater’s sun medallion.
@@GothicPrincessAlice what’s that got to do with the eclipse? The mending rune of death is created through Fia’s quest line and has nothing to do with the eclipse.
@donovan4222 Fia's dialogue indicates that Godwyn was reborn as the Mending Rune of Death and that us brandishing it and adding it to the Elden Ring would fix the issue of Those Who Live in Death. Additionally the rune itself looks like an eclipse and we know of Castle Sol and the whole thing to get Godwyn's soul back.
@@GothicPrincessAlice Ah ok gotcha yeah I agree that Godwyn is basically reborn with Fias quest but I think that was because she tried a different method than Miquella. Miquella probably couldn’t use a mending rune as his consort anyways.
oh wow I never noticed Godwyn protecting Fia 😳 that’s such a cool detail. and mentioning the real life story of a person with a locked-in syndrome was very insightful, this is a great theory 🩷
@@FranzbroetchenGaming but what about the one at the bottom of Stormveil? why doesn't no one talk about the giant fish face their after you fight the tree spirit?
@@BigCityNightsMusic The one being down there does make more sense. If Godwynn recived Erdtree Burial, his body would be regenerated. That is why we have those two Godwynns, the Erdtree is trying to bring Godwynn back but keeps failing due to his soul being killed. The reason that Godwyn being in the DLC is so shocking is because the Land of Shadow is not supposed to be connecte to the Erdtree. We are all confused on how his body regenerated here dispite there being no Erdtreee root or Erdtree burial in the Lands of Shadow. Does that make sense?
I don't he is suppose to be the golden child the perfect child as he is the first and only perfect child kinda defeats the purpose of being the "perfect child" or one could say him being the perfect child is his curse ig but I still prefer that he is perfect and within his death it causing one of most problem in the world itself because Ranni made it so that his Soul is permanently destroyed but his body alive and live in death, causing the death blight then they tried to cure/ fix it by putting Godwyn being buried on the root of the Tree then it spreads like an infestation, his twisted face manifesting, his eyes and hair maninfesting on the environment
@@lag00n54 i think its perfect and resemble the irony of Leyndell. A perfect goldish order capital that hides catacombs of chaos under it. The same way Miquella The Kind but the truth is he charmed everyone to boast him as Kind. Godwyn the Golden was spoken to be perfect but the truth of himself should be connected to Deathblight as his dark side.
In my theory maybe deathblight was something completely different and became DEATHblight when his body was killed with bits of Rune of Death, basically some ability getting mixed with Death and then spreading like that
I'm sure Miquella eyed up all the demigods as potential consorts, and I'm willing to bet he didn't get his first choice because so many of them disqualified themselves by either dying or messing up their bodies. Godwyn got knifed and became zombie compost, Rykard jumped into a snake, Godrick was cringe, and the omen twins were living with the ninja turtles and then Morgott was in the witness protection program as Margit. As fellow empyreans connected to other outer gods, Malenia and Ranni couldn't be his consort, plus Ranni had already reverse-pinnochio'd herself. Melina was a free-roaming bodiless spirit, so she might have been able to be installed into a vessel, but as she had a sealed eye, maybe she was also an empyrean (gloam?) and not able to be a lord? Same with Messmer and his abyssal serpent? Realistically, only Radahn and Mohg were left for Miquella to consider as a consort by the time he embedded himself in the Haligtree.
And the fact that Mohg is literally the perfect vessel to serve the purpose of "invoking the divinity" at the Gate for Miquella's ascension, because he was the only demi-god whose body also inherits the Aspects of Horns whilst fully embraces it (didn't cut them off and despise them like Morgott)
Probably not because he’s like Griffith obsessed over Guts. He could have chosen us in the DLc we’ve known for our strength and poised to be lord of the old order
@@yudistiraliem135 he won't ever choose the player. He is, as you said, already set his sights on Radahn quite some time ago and planned his ascension accordingly. He's not changing his plans on the fly like Ranni. He is never at a disadvantageous position like Ranni to need to acquire and negotiate external assistance to reach her objectives. Miquella can charm literally anyone and had them do the work for him. If the Tarnished player isn't there, he could have just have some other schmuck to kill Mohg for him. Scarlet Rotted Radahn, after all, was literally taken down by an entire group of Tarnished ganging up on the demigod. As far as Miquella is concerned, the Tarnished player is nothing more but a tool he uses to get Radahn free of the Scarlet Rot and kill Mohg for his use. The only thing he doesn't expect is us capable of killing both him and Radahn, alone, at the pinnacle of their power.
@@norasyikinali6283 Miquella probably never expected someone who wasn't part of his charmed group would be so persisted at finding him just for an answer, let alone one that is a god slayer.
Is death effectively a sea? Those giant caskets that look like ships. The caskets that use waterfalls and rivers. Godwyn's body is morphed as some aquatic entity. ...the mariner...
@@Lamren Looking into Alchemy, it might also be an alchemical concept of the use of water. It might be the blackening process of making/using the philosopher stone/Magnus Opus/ Great Work
@@majdjinn5042 If you google "River styx charon" it becomes even more apparent imho, now that I think about it within that concept the river of styx is considered the place where the souls of the dead linger and return to the cycle, so if the Undead boatmans are a reference to Charon, I wonder if godwyn turning into an aquatic monster is somehow linked to that concept (the river) too... Since he's supposedly the prince of death. Damn this sucks that we don't get a more definitive closure on godwyn's fate.
To me the fact that Godwyn is in the Realm of Shadow clearly tells the lands were veiled after his death, soon before or during the shattering Specially considering Radahn knew Messmer
The Tower of Suppression plaque says all manners of death make their way to the Realm of Shadow, but it doesn't say this stops happening after the lands were veiled.
"all manners of death" are probably speaking about death rituals and burials. Godwyn was "buried" at the roots of the erdtree and thus it would allow him passage to the land of shadow. It also explain why his death knights are skeletons they committed suicide and followed him into the land of shadow.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes. It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. -Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
While I’m still a bit iffy on the idea of Godwyn being born afflicted with Deathblight, him being born afflicted with it could be the explanation we needed as to why Ranni and the Black Knives chose him as their assassination target. Knowing he would be buried at the foot or roots of the Erdtree based on the burial practices of Marika’s era, they must have known that his Deathblight and Deathroot would have inevitably spread across the lands through the Erdtree roots, harming Marika’s Order. Though this does raise some questions, especially if Marika did have some role in the Night of the Black Knives. And also, technically wouldn’t Godwyn make more sense if he was born uncursed? Also, technically Godrick’s lineage could be argued to have been born without any curses, though that line of lineage would curse themselves much later in life through grafting. After all, Godrick’s body pre-grafting is that of an old man, and he was able to disguise himself as a woman fleeing Leyndell. Grafting seems to be something passed down from his ancestors up to Godfrey and perverted through time, likely since he couldn’t match up to Godwyn himself. And wouldn’t Godwyn being uncorrupted from birth also help tie him to his Norse inspirations, like how he could arguably be compared to Baldur from Norse myth? A golden child of a God that cared for him immensely only to be killed off by a leaf/plant? We know Norse mythology did have an influence on Elden Ring’s lore.
Actually yeah if you attack FIA when she's sitting at the foot of Godwyn...you're attacked and FIA seems to state she's not doing it so it implies it's Godwyn
I just thought of something. You know the cathedral in the DLC where Ymir is? It's called Cathedral of Manus Metyr. Manus = hand in Latin, while Metyr is self explanatory. Metyr is the name of the creature that lives underneath the cathedral. But what about it's Liurnian counterpart at the Moonlight Altar, Cathedral of Manus Celes? If we go by the same formula then wouldn't Celes be the name of Ranni's two fingers considering they live underneath the cathedral, making them the only two fingers in the game with a (known) name? Ranni's two fingers are also a lot bigger than the ones at Roundtable Hold so maybe Empyrean two fingers are special, more powerful and deserving of unique names? Do all fingers have names or is that exclusive to really important finger creatures such as Metyr or Empyrean two fingers?
Miquella: Don't worry Godwyn! I'm going to grant you a true death! Godwyn, blinking: Actually, these dead guys are my boys, and I kinda like being the Elden Ring equivalent of the Lich King. Miquella: Damn it! Onto Radahn! Excellent work once again! As a Special Ed teacher, I loved the connection to speech pathology. Great job bringing it back to his tolerance of the dragons, too.
I really like the cursed Godwyn theory it makes a lot of sense that Godwyn may of been suffering from deathblight before his death. Perhaps his “golden” description was just kind of a facade and he was rotting underneath the surface, just like Leyndell and the Erdtree.
Marika would have thrown him away like garbage like she did every other one of her children if that were the case. She wouldn't have had the most earthshattering crashout in existence and literally break the Elden Ring if he was doomed to spread deathblight.
@@Akiraspin Godwyns curse could have been similar to the golden order in that he looked golden on the outside but had deathblight on the inside. She could have not known he was cursed at first, or just been in denial about it. If Godwyn wasn’t cursed, how do you think he avoided it?
@@Akiraspin I've seen it suggested elsewhere (sorry to whoever I can't remember who) that his curse/defect was in his fate rather than apparent on the surface. She wouldn't discard him like the others because she was unable or unwilling to accept the curse without witnessing the actual effects. It would thematically work with the "gilded, but rotten" recurring motifs in the lore.
@@Akiraspin I don't think we have evidence of her doing that to Miq & Mel, only the Omens. I think that was specifically a response to Mohg and Morgott being born with Hornsent traits
I don't think he was born cursed, but I do find myself agreeing that he must have had a change of heart and fully accepted his role as prince of death. In the lore Godwyn has been shown to be a Chad, not just a Chad in fact, but a Gigachad. I haven't found a single instance of Godwyn treating an individual cruelly or unjustly in any of the in game texts I found so I think it's very plausible that he sympathized with these people who were being brought back to the land of the living and immediately persecuted. One of the interpretations I've always had for his name "Godwyn the Golden" anyway is that he was a shining example of what a demigod should be rather than just a symbol of the Golden Order. The Golden Order is cruel and sees nothing wrong with tormenting and cruelly punishing their enemies, but Godwyn doesn't do that. Godwyn befriends Fortissax and probably all other Ancient Dragons not only because he kicked their asses, but because he treated them with dignity and fairness after achieving his victory. Being stuck in a state where all he can really do is observe, Godwyn has had nothing but time to watch the persecution of those who live in death and to me it just sounds like something Godwyn would do after spending god knows how long watching the kind of suffering the Golden Order inflicts upon his people.
I think Godwyn was the grim reaper my boyo. That’s why he was so noble his the giants look like they was deathblighted. He probably showed up, fucked up the giants and went about his day slaying dragons in bed
Godwyn has no agency. He's simply a corpse growing out of control. His soul died a true death, but his body lives on. That was the whole point. Souls in Fromsoft games are what give things agency and sentience. He's literally just a cancer. The only person that calls him the "Prince of Death" is Fia, and she's obsessed with Lordship and a place in the Golden Order for Those Who Live in Death. It's more symbolic than anything, or delusion at the worst.
CZcamsrs saying melina isn't messmers sister because it's NOT confirmed are honestly beyond coping and stupid. How could the game be anymore up front cmon. Things can be confirmed without saying it out right you ninny
Ranni, Rykard and Radahn were not cursed from birth. They are Marikas children since Radagon is Marika. Every demigod is directly spawned by Marika but not all are cursed from birth, so Godwyn could very well be born without a curse.
They are cursed by the fire giants the red hair is a symbol of that curse, but I think radahn in is frenzy wild state started to gain the giants rage and hight.
It's all a bit vague, but it seems likely Radagon wasn't just an alter ego for Marika but actually a distinct entity sharing her existence somehow, like they were two aspects of the same being. Miquella apparently inherited this trait, being able to manifest as St Trina. Note that Miquella was able to cast Trina off, and even after that Trina seemed to retain her own personality and she even disagreed with Miquella's plan. So, it's possible that being a child of Radagon is somehow different from being a child of Marika - at least enough to negate whatever curse was plaguing Marika's bloodline. Say, whatever caused it required Marika herself to carry the child? Really, who knows?
the three carian lineage that 1 killed their siblings 2 went full blasphemy 3 held the fate of the stars i believe theyre cursed by their self-righteous greed!
The second lion dancer is near or on top of a deathroot, that's why it seems to be using deathblight. You can find hidden Godwyn roots in a few places.
The last part of the video is such a huge revelation on Godwyn and Miquella's changing agendas that i'm just astonished by it, it makes perfect sense. I'm not sure if Godwyn really had the Death Blight before his death, but regardless of that, the rest of the theory you present makes perfect sense, Godwyn seems to be conscious in Death, even without a soul, and he seems to now favor those who live in death, just like he favored the Ancient Dragons when he forgave Fortisaxx, which explains why Godwyn's Death Knights seem to protect his faces and also still wield Ancient Dragon Lightning.
Though, according to Rogier, the Night of the Black Knives occurred "long before the Shattering." So, it doesn't seem like those two events were actually related.
@@RelativelyBest i thought the death of godwyn was the last drop for Marika and the catalyst for her decision to shatter the ring. So even if the events werent close id say they are still definitely connected
Finally, I don't Miquella had given up on Godwyn. In Castle Sol, after the boss of the castle, you find a spirit who says: "Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers are lacking. Your comrade remains soulless…I will never set my eyes upon it now… Your divine Haligtree." Maybe Miquella just never told Castle Sol that he was giving up on that scheme, but to me it seems more like they had failed. I'm kinda sad about how lacking the eclipse lore is to be honest. It's super intriguing that an Eclipse in the Elden Ring universe might have the power to bring back a soul from Destined Death or at least grant life to soulless bones.
Something to note: Morgott and Mogh's curses may not have been that they were Omen, but that they were both touched by the Formless Mother. Morgott is the only other Omen besides Mogh who uses bloodflame, which suggests that were either of them Empyreans, they could have become gods of blood akin to Malenia.
Mogh only saw the formless mother once his horn pierced his eye like the thorn sorcerer's in the base game. Morgott probably saw her when he cut off his own horns, you need to harm yourself in order to begin communion with the formless mother.
I love Godwyn's idea. The one thing that reminds me of Godwyn is the movie Super Mario Bros where the king was turned into a mushroom and as a mushroom his fungus covered the land.
While Godwyn may retain intelligence, I think he's still dead. A soul is pretty much the essence of your being, your identity. When Mohg's soul is forsaken, his body becomes an empty husk for Radahn to fill. Godwyn perished in soul alone, and while his body and maybe a mind still live, it's not really Godwyn anymore. Whoever Godwyn really was, his personality, etc, that's all gone. The flesh lives on, and maybe the mind too, but without a soul, it would surely be a husk of a person, a zombie. Slime molds are interesting organisms since they form neural pathways and structures similar to animals with brains. Some slime molds can learn and have been shown to make decisions in laboratory experiments. That's rather like thinking or having a mind, yet the slime mold is a very primitive imitation of an actual mind, its "intelligence" being closer to a computer than a living thing. My point is, I think Godwyn is a similar case. We know his flesh/body is still alive. Whether he still has a cognitive mind is debatable, but there's definitely an argument to be made. Still, the Rancorcall to defend Fia could be something done instinctively or without thought. Our brains and computers are not so different. What separates an AI from a real human is that we have souls, and I don't mean that in any spiritual sense. We have identities, creativity, imaginations, and traits that define us and separate us from all being the same. The brain can think and the body can move all it wants, but without the actual individual who's piloting it, that mind and flesh would be more like a zombie or AI program than a living person. I think most sensible people would describe AI art as "soulless" since it lacks the creativity and unique imagination of a real, living human. It's art made by a computer that lacks a soul and is not really alive. Prince of Death Godwyn is that AI program, literally "soulless," thinking and acting but lacking the actual human behind the actions. In any case, no matter what life and intelligence that thing retains, it is not Godwyn the Golden anymore. Whoever Godwyn was before died on the Night of the Black Knives. So, in my opinion I think pre-assassination Godwyn and Prince of Death Godwyn should be treated as two different beings with different identities and goals. The person piloting the mind and body of the original Godwyn died, and now the mind and body are on autopilot, lacking any human aspects. I think one of the best real-life comparisons to Godwyn would be a virus. "Viruses are considered by some biologists to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection, although they lack the key characteristics, such as cell structure, that are generally considered necessary criteria for defining life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as 'organisms at the edge of life' and as replicators." - Wikipedia article about viruses (the info here is good despite Wikipedia not always being reliable, as this info is in line with the biology classes I've had) I think Godwyn is basically a virus, an "organism at the edge of life" as it were. The way his eyes and surrogate cadavers replicate endlessly and infect everything is very similar to a cancer or virus, and I think that comparison is intentional. Cancer and viruses don't have souls or minds, they're more like a computer program. Prince of Death Godwyn is much the same, as all he does is replicate and spread death. Does he protect Fia out of love, because he's conscious and retains human emotions? Or does he protect Fia in the same way a virus protects a cell through lysogeny? "Lysogeny is characterized by integration of the bacteriophage nucleic acid into the host bacterium's genome or formation of a circular replicon in the bacterial cytoplasm. In this condition the bacterium continues to live and reproduce normally, while the bacteriophage lies in a dormant state in the host cell." That last sentence is key, since I think that's what Fia and Godwyn's relationship is. Godwyn uses Fia as basically a host cell to transmit his death and replicate further. Perhaps since Fia dies in the end the relationship would be more comparable to the lytic cycle, where the host cell explodes and the new baby viruses swarm out of its ruptured corpse, basically. Fia lays with Godwyn, gestates and gives birth to the Rune of the Death Prince, and dies, presumably during the birth. That rune is basically the viral genome that is the catalyst for spreading and replicating, as putting the rune into the Elden Ring would presumably cause the Prince of Death's essence to spread to everything, maybe without needing Deathroot anymore. Deathroot gets the job done, but the Prince of Death's influence is seemingly slow and hasn't taken over on the same magnitude of the Scarlet Rot in Caelid. Relying on the tree roots to spread is fine, but using Fia as a means to spread quickly and completely would be most optimal, which is why he protects her. He doesn't love her, she's just the most optimal path for his replication. Dusk is a time that has some qualities of day but also some of night, which I think speaks to what the Age of the Duskborn is, more specifically Godwyn's nature as the Prince of Death. Godwyn has qualities of a living being (his still living flesh and mind) but also lacks some qualities of living things (a soul and conscience) that make his existence hard to categorize as alive or not alive, much like a virus - a being on the edge of life, the sun on the edge of night (dusk). One final note: lysogeny could explain Godwyn having deathblight before the assassination. In lysogeny the host cell continues to exist normally, but with the virus genome dormant inside it, waiting to replicate. Perhaps Godwyn always had undeath lying dormant within him, which is why he doesn't appear afflicted from the outside and no one would have known. His death was maybe the trigger for the deathblight to activate, for the viral genome to wake up and start replicating alongside the host cell. Sorry for writing so much, but I kept having more thoughts and felt like I had to write it all down lol.
Godwyn is even more gone than Mohg, because unlike how "natural death" occurs in the Lands Between, where souls simply return to the Erdtree to awaits rebirth, his soul was permanently wiped out by Destined Death. There's probably no method to bring Godwyn's soul back like how Miquella could bring Radahn's soul to a new vessel to revive him.
@@apophisstr6719 indeed. This is why it annoys me to see so many angry people saying stuff like "Godwyn should have been revived not Radahn, this story is trash!" Would Godwyn have been cooler than Radahn? Personally, I think so. But would Godwyn have made sense? No! His soul was literally destroyed, there's no way to bring him back. Miquella already tried to do it before with the Sol eclipse, and that didn't work. Even as a god, Miquella couldn't bring back Godwyn. He could revive Radahn because Radahn's soul still existed. He can't revive Godwyn since there's no soul to revive.
@@LtCdrXander Not only Miquella tried to bring Godwyn's soul back with the Eclipse, he even attempted to bring an end to his body because the ritual didn't work in the end. The only thing Miquella thought he could do after Eclipse is to let Godwyn rest in peace with True Death, but even that seem to had failed as Godwyn's death root cancer continue to spread.
@@LtCdrXanderthere is no reason to assume that destined death is “true death” destined death was a part of the Elden ring before the age of the erdtree but “true death” still didn’t exist. Therefore it makes no sense that destined death would magically be able to perma-kill people when it was never able to do that before.
Unless there's a Von Erich curse thing going on, I think it's silly to think of everyone's curses as being Marika's original sin because they're all disperate. Miquella's eternal youth isn't a curse, he can not age because he's constantly leaking rejuvinating dew everywhere. Which could explain why he does seem to visibly age once he abandons his flesh. Malenia was chosen from birth to be a vessal of the Scarlet Rot, an Outer God that's also a mystical plague, not anything innate to her. Omenhood is not a curse, it's what life before the Erdtree looked like, only Marika's prosecution of them makes people think they're cursed. If Godwyn was cursed with deathblight the whole time, someone would have noted it. He'd be Godwyn the My God! Good Sir, your legs have fused into a mermaid tail of rotting tree branches!, not Godwyn the Golden.
i feel almost like godwyn being conscious and aware of everything that's happening in the lands between and to his own body is almost more nightmarish than him being mindless alongside being soulless.
Here’s my theory: Godwyn was actually cursed by the Crucible, his lower body being a fish like mermaids. The Crucible does not only manifest with horns, but also scales and wings. Godwyn was not viewed as cursed because Marika only hated those with Horns due to her past. Godfrey/Marika children seems to be only the affected by this, while Radagon/Marika children were cursed by the Outer Gods. Some “Death” Outer God probably took over Godwyn’s body as it is now vacant due to his soul dying. This “Death” Outer God existed long before Marika’s reign as Death Sorceries are known to be long forgotten rites. I think the Outer Gods are not from a foreign place or realm but concepts that have been pushed “out” by the Golden Order. Death, Rot, and Blood should not have been foreign to begin with. Also here a funny thought: Rings of Spectral Light (A Death Sorcery) -> Discus of Light (Gifted to Radagon by Miquella) -> Radagon’s Rings of Light(Is in the Golden Order Principia)
Godwyn is confirmed to have fought and bested a dragon, who can fly and breath fire. I highly doubt he could have done so from the ocean against a fire and lightning wielding dragon. And also he is the head of of the dragon cult, how could he be a master of lightning while confined to the water?
@@blizzardgaming7070He may have still done so despite his fishy lower half. We never have seen his lower-half before his death and the black knife assassins did have to lift him up when they were inscribing the cursemark onto him. Maybe he was riding something when he was fighting the dragons?
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly is such an amazing underrated book & movie. I urge anyone who feels like life is not worth living, alone, unappreciative, depressed, or even on top of the world to watch it. It can change your perspective and I think it's a perfect metaphor for Godwyn being locked-in.
i don't think godwyn was born from godfrey he was born of the boughs of the erdtree, probably as all the souls (grace) get sucked up to become a lord, like death bed companions or jar saints, and used the golden egg to birth him, it's why we never see his legs, and probably why he wasn't cursed wasn't a true birth, hes like a golden alburnric or a sweetling, we see all artificial life loses use of its legs has anyone pointed out jars in the main game gold and red and male, the ones in the dlc are silver and blue and female, also in boney village the men are crying at the loss of the women, in windmill village the women are skinning men and having a party, seems to be hinting at duality, not sure how it fits, interesting and i doubt its on accident must have some kinda meaning
Godrick is a descendent of Godfrey so its hard to imagine Godwyn not being between the two, but I really like what you've said about duality. Truly interesting parallels.
@xm4339 yeah the naming convention seems to line up nicely i agree, but then mogh and morgott are the opposite, and it never actually connects him as his father In game but I'm pretty sure he's left this game way more open ended than previous games. Hopefully for sequels 😁 Is a lot of duality or as you put it, parallels, in the base game and dlc, it must have some thematic reason Seems most gods come after someone in suffering let's go of their pride, in mogh, fire giant, malenia, rodhan, messmer, I feel like miazaki is trying to hammer home a point, what exactly that point is I'm not smart enough to work out yet lol
Whats interesting is the night of the black knives is sort of like beginning of Ragnarok. A prized son thought to be immortal killed in a deceptive manner. Ranni would be loki
Also to add onto your theory, maybe miquella knew about godwyns curse and tried to kill him completely using the eclipse, which didn't work, so he tried stealing the rune of death, but ranni caught on and high jacked his plan. We know that when you die, it's not a legit death, and you can be reborn through and erdtree burial. It would explain why marika decided to give miquella her blessings, because she thought miquella could cure his deathblight. In theory, it may have worked. But godwyn didn't really die, so because the plan failed catastrophically, marika lost her mind and shattered the elden ring. Why else would marika support miquella, when he's so anti marika and golden order? Maybe that's why marika removed the death rune in the first place, to prevent this very thing from happening?
one connection I've not seen anyone make is that the omen powers (the non blood ones) look identical to the golden death powers (the ones that deal deathblight instead of cold damage)
The cursed children thing reminds me of Game of Thrones; Cersei being cursed to watch her children die etc. Curses can come in many forms. I feel Godwyn's curse is primarily one of irony. He was supposedly the perfect god who did no wrong. He was noble, kind-hearted, courageous and beloved. Yet his death wasn't honorable, it was perhaps one of the most treacherous things that can happen to someone of his character. He was killed in the dead of night in a plot by his own kin, who murdered his soul. Ansbach even suggests that forsaking the soul is an extremely humiliating act. It sounds like Godwyn was perhaps a Robb Stark of this universe, and the Night of Black Knives was his Red Wedding. Kind of like how Radahn was a warrior who likely wanted a true and honorable death in battle. Yet the Scarlet Rot forced his body and mind to become a mindless undying zombie and when we killed it, his soul just went straight in service to Miquella where I imagine he was still not wholly free. Tragic irony.
Ranni's ending getting more and more likeable over time. That said I'll buy part of this. Specifically the "Alive but soulless" theory. It also makes sense in that death stuff requires INT/FTH and no ARC to operate. Same stat build, but Order vs Death. Same person, different skills.
Him being cursed before dying doesnt make sense. Godwyn was the golden child aka perfect. Only time she had a relatively normal kid. Thats why shes breaks when hes killed. Every single one of her childrens were "defective" when compared to godwyn, to the point that marika chose a tarnished as lord rather then any of her kids
@@Daniel-eq8vn that's a theory man, all we know is that Marika shattered the ring after his death, that godwyn was the perfect child, and that ranni used black knives to kill him. They are numen and related to Marika and therefore she planned it all, from ranni to the black knives, Marika being the mastermind Is a big stretch. It's like if my sister killed my child and for some reason I'm the one who planned it. You realize it sounds stupid right
Seems to me that Godwyn wasn't initially into the whole "Duskborn" ending but becoming the Prince of Death left his soulless body unable to do much else. Wether Godwyn decided to seek the Duskborn age or was left with no other choice is hard to say.
Imagine Godwyn was alive all along but wore the mask/identity of the Dung Eater? I thought it was strange that when you progress the Dung Eaters quest, one of the lines he says is "my fate was the grandest, the most brilliant of them all!"
sounds cool and all but doesnt really make much sense 😅Dung Eater sought to rid the world of curses... BY CURSING THE ENTIRE WORLD! I doubt Godwyn would have any connection to the crucible other than his twin brothers... wait... hmm... What if he saw the treatment of the Omens? Still wouldn't make sense ngl.
Whoa, I never knew about the attacking Fia interaction, that's pretty damn important. I wondered the same thing about the Godwyn faces in the DLC. I was honestly really hoping for Godwyn to come back in the DLC in some form, but the only mentions of him are in the items and catacombs you showed. It feels like a HUGE loose thread, but with Godwyn and the gloam eyed queen, theres plenty of material for a sequel I guess. I think this all makes great sense, but not all of Marika's children were cursed. Radahn and Ranni seemed to make out ok initially. Not sure what it changes, if anything though
YOU JUST LIT A CANDLE TO MY THEORY. Miyazaki didnt want godwyn&miquella duo boss even tho he first considered it. Why? Because it would be too much like lordran and lothric. First of all, theyre two golden boys, blonde and radiant, and their primary powers are light, and light(ning). I believe from a game design standpoint miyazaki wanted something more contrasting and didnt want the screen to be filled with too many similar visuals, he wanted the duo boss characters to be heavily contrasting, complimenting eachother uniquely. Your theory that godwyn was always cursed and essentially crippled from the waist down makes complete sense, as it would then literally be a lothric twin princes clone fight
And even if he wasn't always lame from a curse, he certainly was now with that mermaid tail. Speaking of, imagine if they did use Godwyn's current form for the fight, that horror show casting holy magic everywhere
Imagine if the reason why Ranni severed Godwyn’s soul from his body so he will not suffer a painful death from death blight (because there is no cure other than dying and being born anew with a different body much like what happens with us, the Tarnished). Maybe she respected him, and thus killed him that he may not also suffer from being another tool by Marika’s skewed propagandas; only to have been declined and so came the night of black knives. To top it off, Godwyn may have planned to disobey his mother since he wants to return death back into the world. And that she does not seek to fight her. Ranni may have known this, and thought of a plan where Godwyn will not witness his mother look at him with disdain.
She would have expressed that sort of altruism and theres absolutely nothing to support this theory. She absolutely did not have godwyns best intentions in mind...her mentor was a witch.
@@Unknown-mj4woyeah it's established she makes cold and calculated decisions to further her agenda at cost of lives, which she sees as the ultimate reasoning for any terrible, much like Marika. It's established this stuff is cyclical and ranni can't just say the cycle isn't like that. She even works with Rykard and possibly Marika.
Love the video! ❤ 1. I love the point you brought up about the Shadow realm being split off after the night of Black Knives which makes sense although it's still weird because it would mean that Mesmer would've stayed around for a rather long time which would make it allthemore curious nobody in the proper lands between knows him. The relation between the Shadow Realm and the lands between is probably the most irritatingly unclear part of the DLC lore imo. 2. I'm still not convinced about Godwyn being cursed with deathblight before his death. He was worshipped as Marika's perfect son and his followers (the dragon cult knights) in Leindell only use the dragon lightning and not death blight attacks, which implies that the latter was smth adopted later on by his most loyal comrades. The reason Ranni's corpse isn't struck by death blight is probably that it was her body that died, so she doesn't live on in death, because overall the transformation of Godwyn's corpse seems more like it was a result of his f*cked up death. 3. I love your comparison to the locked in syndrome. You've made a very strong case that Godwyn might be conscious although i wonder how it works since his soul died. I'd guess his thoughts and motivations would be a lot more basic/instinctive, even less than that of an animal than actually fleshed out thoughts
They still have so much potential for a 2nd dlc with Godwyn. Since his soul is dead someone could still take over his body as that part of him is still living.
a) Messmer didn't invade the lands of shadow until after Godwyn was born, and we've known since base game that Miquella and Malenia were cursed because they were born of a single god, not because of the Empyrean Grandam. The entire premise for you to theorize that Godwyn had deathblight before dying is flawed from root to stem. b) Godwyn's entire characterization is ABOUT being Marika's only child that wasnt cursed. This theory is......just obnoxious for a lore tuber to come out with. There's no reason for it. There are so many actual mysteries, why invent one that's not there...? Like...come on man.
That's this game right now. We need someone to do an alternative deep analysis to answer the actual questions in the game, not deep speculation. I don't hate story time, I just don't like how often it's presented as real. The biggest flaw here is that Mogh and Morgott aren't really cursed. They are blessed by the power of an age Marika want suppressed. Marika cursed them by deciding their horns meant evil things when they didn't previously.
A. This doesn’t contradict the theory though…the night of black knives obviously happened after Godwyn was born. The question is how the death knights in the shadow lands know Godwyn is dead…since the shadow lands were sealed it could be that they didn’t get sealed until after the night of black knives. B. There is a recurring theme in Elden ring that everything Marika and the golden order portray as “golden and pure” was actually rotten under the surface. You see this with Leyndell and the sewers, the erdtree on the outside vs the roots, and how Marika is portrayed to the lands between vs how we find her body in the end game…there is a theme that nothing is really “pure and golden” and it was all based on a lie. That fits with Godwyn actually being cursed the entire time.
But how do we know that Godwyn wasn't cursed? Nowhere in the game is that stated IIRC. Just because he's called the Golden does not really mean much...Marika was called Queen Marika the Eternal and look how that turned out.
Hey someone FINALLY paid attention to my Godwyn theory! Though you still think my analysis of Godwyn as a "bad guy" is off. Thats silly. Do people still think there are good guys in this game? I thought Miquella being revealed as bad would have fixed that. Oh well. You still used all the evidence I used in my post! Though not the evidence that Ranni definitely didnt kill Godwyn and could not care less about him at all. But almost... Hey something else. The image of Godwyn being killed by the Black Knife assassins. His pose in the painting... The one with his arms out. He is in EXACTLY the same position in the Deepfoot Depths. He is still in that same position. He hasnt moved. He was already down there.
only people who literally know nothing about the lore say that, you already meet godwyn in person in game, hes just an undying corpse, as stated over and over and over again
@@HonorBolt if Miquella can just toss the soul of one boss we killed, into the body of another boss we killed, who’s to say he couldn’t try again to accomplish a proper Eclipse and grant Godwyn a true death, then take his returned soul to the Land of Shadow and put it in Mohg’s body? It’s all fiction, they can explain or incorporate whatever they want into their story and eventually it will settle with the community as canon. Just because what I think should have happened, didn’t happen, doesn’t mean it would’ve been impossible. In fact I believe it’s what was going to happen up until late in the DLC’s development. They just chose a different narrative and wrote in new explanations and justifications for the new narrative. Late enough into the development, however, that they had to rush which meant using Godfrey/Hoarah Loux’s character model, copy pasting Radahn’s base-game textures (with a bit of tailoring), and tacking on a couple of Mohg horns to the arms. Boom, easy fan service, apparently. (With how many people are defending the decision so vehemently, I worry they actually hit the nail on the head with that one… Elden Ring used to always hit that good balance of mass-appeal and classic souls insanity, whereas PC Radahn felt like he was just there to hype up all the Radahn fanboys and, well, appeal to the masses… it’s a shame we didn’t get the Godwyn/Death-themed DLC we deserved, SOTE was very very good in other ways, but kind of dropped the ball when it came to lore (except for Marika’s story, that was cool asf). SOTE was good but not great, it didn’t do the base game justice, as badly as I wanted it to… I think Elden Ring deserves another DLC to fill out the holes left in the lore and provide actual, satisfying answers to at least a couple of the hundreds of questions you could ask about it. I’m not asking FS to answer everything, but they should’ve answered more than they did. And some of the few answers they did give were either underwhelming, confusing, or so sparse they could barely beget speculation. This wasn’t the classic, “intriguing mystery on top of another intriguing mystery and maybe a solid answer or two” souls DLC formula, it’s to a level that it crosses the line from fun and intriguing to tedious and frustrating. Why do they barely touch on any of the base game lore? Why is there so much random stuff introduced, that isn’t referenced ANYWHERE in base game? Again, SOME new stuff is understandable and even ideal, but SOTE doesn’t strike a good balance between old lore and new lore…
In the Elden ring trailer cinematic you can see malenia speaking in radan's ear something, that which we now know is "miquella awaits thee, o promised consort" That was on the first one
I feel like godwynn might have been the scadutree avatar. Sunflower represents light, his moniker is “the golden”. The thorns, while not inflicting deathblight, seem to have deathblight-like visual effects. I think that Sunflower Godwynn was there to protect miquellas great rune
Great video! I especially appreciated the idea that Godwyn's mind is still alive. Personally the DLC has put me on a bit of a tear on looking for elements of ancient Egyptian mythology in Elden Ring. I've mostly been looking at serpent, bird eye and scorpion symbols but I''ve found so many things that appear to be linked. Considering your video was about the price of death I figure that it might be worth mentioning at Osiris the lord of the dead and the first mummy. Osiris's story in a nutshell kind of starts with his murder by set by tricking Osiris to climb into a coffin that fit only him. Set then locked him in the coffin and threw him in the Nile. Osiris wifi Isis finds the coffin embedded in a cedar tree that was being used a pillar for a palace. Some stories say that Set then cuts up Osiris's body but either way Isis wraps Osiris's body in linen and uses a spell to bring him back to life. She then conceives a child (Horus) with Osiris before he has to return to the underworld to be the lord of the dead. All of that really reminds me of Godwyn and Fia. It's not exact but there is a lot of overlap. One other related thing I found was an old talisman associated with Osiris and mummies. One was placed on every Mummy as a protective ward and the symbol was Osiris's two outstretched fingers, side by side. Anthropologists call them two-finger amulets. I'm not sure what it all means but I hope I've been able to return the favor in food for thought. =)
One theory I had is that Miquella's eclipse was his attempt to bring about the age of the Duskborn. The eclipse image is very similar to the mending rune of death, said to be Godwyn reborn. Perhaps he lacked the cursemark, and changed his plans to pursue godhood
I also have to disagree about the idea that Godwyn's presence implies something about the timeline... The Suppressing Pillar at the center of the Shadow lands states: ""The very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed." Combined with the lore of the Cerulean Coast and the fact that killing Radahn is required to enter the DLC, it is implied that despite how well hidden this place is, Death is attracted here inevitably.
@@garrulousgoldmask i wonder if the ensha we fight is a resurrected Lord. The person in the armor is not even supposed to be Ensha. Wonder if he is a product of Gideon’s research. Seluvis made puppets creating vessels out of the bodies void of souls and offnir practiced necromancy putting souls into vessels. He has the same tomes in his study that are in marikas bed chambers that are in mesmers storeroom. Trying to learn the secrets of marika and stumbled upon the rites of the land of shadow. They did part ways over one of the puppets.
Not all demigods are cursed: Godfrey was the first Elden Lord in the Golden Order Era but he came from the Crucible Era, and for this reason two of his three children he had with Marika were omens, labeled by the Mother Tree as "wrong" and therefore persecuted, but in the DLC we learn that horns were once a symbol of the divine. The three demigods that Radagon had with Rennala were all healthy, including Radahn who had no curses and was the strongest of all, Ranni who was an empyrean and also without curses and for Rykard there is no evidence that he had curses himself, he was just a little blasphemous. The only demigods who have these imposing curses are Messmer, Melina, Malenia and Miquella, all born from Marika and Radagon who are the same person and for this reason somehow linked to the deadly sin that is often mentioned when talking about them. also Godwyn is often described as the one who was closest to perfection, and the fact that he died in soul but not in body reflects the dynamics of undeath. I may be missing some details but this is the idea I have
I am seeing some people pointing out that Godwyn having a afliction of Death dulls part of the story where Godwyn being "The Golden Child" the first Perfect and only child of Marika Is the First one that Dies is beyond tragic. Having said afliction just makes this weaker; However, I want to point out that Gransax has no wound; All Other dragons that fought someone or something have wounds: Greyoll is Rotting Placidusax lost 3 Heads BAYLE lost an Arm and a Leg The Drake on Charon's Grave Has a Stone Spear through his chest The ancient Dragons of the Dragon Cult churches around the Game all are mutilated Gransax has nothing?! Nothing! It's like he fell form the sky attaking Leyendel and Died?! There is something wrong there
It could be that Godwyn had some sort of spell that allowed him to take the life of others, and this ability would end up becoming the death blight in game. When affected by destined death that is
really cool note that great runes seem to be able to be birthed (maybe there’s some symbolism there too) - like Fia’s and Dung Eater’s runes. the implications of that for the other great runes might be something to look into 😳
When I first learned of the theory that Godywn was afflicted with deathblight before the night of the black knives it was such a mind-blown kind of moment. I still think it’s one of the best and under looked lore theories! Great video
@apophisstr6719 All the lore in the game points to the Death Blight being a product of Godwyn's soulless, undead body polluting the roots of the Erdtree, not the other way around.
Messmer had snakes inside his body. Godwyn probably had death root inside his body. When his soul was killed and his body absorbed by the erdtree via erdtree burial, the death root contaminated the root system and spread throughout the lands.
I would like to point out two things that work well with your theory that i just realized recently. A.) The royal remains armor speaks about a soulless lord called ensha B.) Their are both worm faces and ancient beast men who live in death in farum azula, but no deathroot as far as i am aware. I think deathblight existed before godwyn was even born, and the base game substantiates it. Godwyn inherited deathblight in the same way malenia inhereted rot. And beings like godwyn have exsisted that filled a similiar role. Of course i could be wrong and there is actually deathroot in farum azula that im unaware of
Are you sure the second dancing lion gives off death blight? When I played the dancing lion was surrounded by the death lizards. Once me and a friend killed them…there was no death near the dancing lion.
Here be my take. We learn from the DLC that Queen Marika was ultimately self driven and pursued the Golden Order because of the promises made to her. Would it not be valid to come an assumption that the reason she removed the Rune of Death was not because she was doing it for her people but, as a consequence of such? And if it was driven out of selfishness, what could it have been? The answer I've come to is that Godwyn was in fact cursed. His curse was that as the first child, he was fated to die. Marika realizes this and decides in that moment to separate the rune of death from the Golden Order(This is when Maliketh acquires it.) We see several changes to the Golden Order occur over time, ending with the Order of Fundamentalism. Symbolism in the churches show the order of when the rune of death was a part of the Order and when it got separated. I personally like to believe this lines up with the time line pretty well. The night of the black knives wasn't just a moment of grief for Marika for her perfect son. It was a moment of grief for herself, finally coming to terms with the idea that the Golden Order could not provide her what she wanted. Fate, Whatever the source of it, would always have the upper hand and therefore something she couldn't control no matter how powerful she became. A broken promise of control The outer god tried to make her believe. I could be completely wrong about some of the timing on this but, this is the assumption I've come to on the matter. Removing the rune of death doesn't mean people don't die. It means the natural order of life of death is interrupted. Nobody dies naturally anymore. If you do die, you only return by grace as you go through the reincarnation process of the erdtree. The whole purpose of the jars reflects this. This is why Marika's enemies probably wouldn't have survived despite the rune of death being removed and why they were such a force to be reckoned with. It's why the Crucible knights were nearly unkillable. Because they were, at some point, despite their skill being more than enough to keep them alive. TLDR; Godwyn was cursed with death and was fated to die because of this. This making Godwyn the only child of her own in which Marika managed to "save" from her cursed womb by removing the rune of death but Ranni fulfilled fate regardless (Further into the future). Showing Marika that the promises of complete order given to her by her Outer God were false and have created a situation that has made her a trapped divinity. Since he died in soul and not body, an attempt was made to return him to the foot of the erdtree to be reborn similiarly to how Jars are but, it failed (Spreading him everywhere). In defiance, the shattering occurs some time after.
UPDATE: I tested both the Bewitching Branch and the DLC's new Charming Branch and as far as I can tell, they do NOT work on Those Who Live in Death. (The Scarlet Rot zombies in the Haligtree can be charmed though.) So that could offer another reason for Miquella's rejection of Those Who Live in Death.
Thanks to everyone who brought that up in the comments!
If Godwyn was cursed with Death Blight. Then what was Rhadon Cursed with?
@@OleDirtyMacSanchez Radahn is Renalla and Radagon's kid, not Marika's
The reason for mohg and morgott, malenia and miquella is because they are twins, and twins are cursed (I don't remember where in the game this is stated, but it is)
my english isn't that good, but as far as i understand, they still didn't added Godwyn boss fight, right?
that's bad.
@@gundamdetractor337 I agree my friend
"my haligtree is a haven for all persecuted people"
"what about those who live in death?"
"I said people"
Heard this in Miquella's voice
You also don't find any omen there lmao
Speculation is that the hailig tree was actually a prison for Malenia.
Rot secure locked away.
@@_Hal9000exactly he was never coming back
We kill mogh and morgott
Malenia was abandoned
Because If he cannot control you
You will die
He tells us this
As we are The representative of marika
@@_Hal9000 yeah the tree put her to sleep until you show up
Godwyns curse was that his life WAS golden and perfect, but his death would be dark and marred, worse than any other.
@@T.e.a.k his curse was being an honorable character in lore written by GRRM 😂
@@djbeema bingo
@@djbeemathe jorah affect😂😂
@@trippymlgjunkrat5749 I'd say the Ned Stark effect, Jorah Mormont isn't as honorable lol
@maykomarquez true but jorah had way more time to flourish still hate ned was killed off in 1 season but that's GOT for ya
"They're right behind me, aren't they?"
-Godwyn the Golden
"Huh, Queen Marika? ...you might wanna see this..."
A fellow Creepcast enjoyer I see
You forgot the "*GULP*"
what's crazy was, Godwyn was a powerful mf, but i guess when 10 Tiches are slicing yo ass up, that won't help u
I imagine just grtting cut once by something tainted with the rune of death, or deathblight, or blackflame even, would be quite draining on a person. Possibly sapping the soul slowly.@patrickgeovanni4981
"Godwyn wasn't afflicted" isn't that kinda the point?
Like out of all of her kids Godwyn was favoured because he wasn't born weird as so it's much more devastating when he dies in the most horrific of ends?
Thats exactly the point. He was the golden child and thats why he had to die, he being afflicted makes the themes of his story much weaker.
glad to see someone else calling this obvious thing out 😂
There’s a recurring theme in Elden ring that the Golden order is built on a lie. It has this perfect “golden” appearance that it portrays to everyone, but underneath the surface there is always something horrible or rotten going on. I think Godwyn being cursed fits this theme.
Examples: Leyndell is this shining golden city that looks perfect from the surface, but underneath in the sewers there is a whole cesspool of Omens, frenzied flame curse, and other suffering.
The erdtree is a giant golden tree that looks beautiful, but the roots are rotten and it’s dying from the inside.
Even with Marika herself, she’s portrayed as this eternal golden goddess, but when you actually find her body in the erdtree it’s broken and destroyed.
Wouldn't his death be considered a kind of curse? As in, even though he was not afflicted, his fate was to die in soul.
I guess a lot of people missed that point.
I heard someone say that Godwyn is like black mold.
You have a dark place that's kinda humid and before you know it... there's a godwyn growing in the the corner.
honestly if i ever see mold in a corner even resembling Godwyn a little the house is burning.
damn
"Your room is untidy once again son, clean it up or Godwyn will start growing on your wall"
@@mr.glitch5547 Actually that might work on gamers better than just ask them to clean their room
The fact that Miquella do not accept Those who live in death, could that be because he cannot charm skeletons?
I'd imagine most of the demigods have problems with Those Who Live in Death, they were all raised in a world without death, and find what godwyn has become to be vile, if they know. Miquella tried finding ways to give him a true death but nothing to indicate how long after the night of black knives or how far along in his changes godwyn was at the time
They ded. They go against Grace, which he is still about.
No heart to steal.
Haligtree means Holytree in that one language I cannot think right now. The skeletons don’t like holy stuff.
Miquella is basically just Seluvis, so him actively lashing out against those he can't puppeteer would make sense, with Radahn being another case of that. Of course, he'd probably phrase it more kindly, but less accurately.
The real question I have is where are the two fingers of other empyryans and their shadows?
You mean Malenia and Miquella?
@@donovan4222milena is also an empyryan
are they not at their divine towers?
@@MrAlexx17231 whered you get this now?
When you activate great runes there are two fingers isn't there?
I really don’t think Godwyn was afflicted before his assassination, to me it’s like despite being born pure and golden, even he was cursed in the end just not in the way expected.
But when you think about it, the more you learn about the golden order, the more you realize it was never “pure and golden” there was always some horrible secret underneath the “golden” surface.
There is literally NOTHING that is pure and golden in elden ring. Even the erdtree. Makes zero sense for godwyn to be the exception. Since when has miyazaki actually made exemptions?
@@donovan4222 I know but Godwyn was supposed to be a sign of a better age, instead the curse came for him later in an unexpected way.
@@richardrussel4567 cool opinion, the point is he was meant to be hope but that hope was brutally murdered and blighted.
@@Archangel1994 Well Godwyn being cursed doesn’t actually affect his character as a person, he could have actually been “pure and golden” as in being one of the only demigods who was genuinely a good person. He could still be a sign of a better age while hiding his curse. Because if Godwyn did actually avoid being cursed somehow, the question would be why? Just random?
I think it’s funny irony that the only demigod that was perfect, ended up being the most messed up
so funny bro hahahaahaaaaaaaaaa XDDDDDD
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA
usually how it goes with fromsoft.
yeah, i guess everyone is kinda justified for being assholes, i mean, ain't nobody looking to be the next godwyn in this b
"... please die a true death" may be it is not kind words at all, the state of godwyn is probably a big problem for the age of compassion, I need to verify if skeletons can be affected by miquella's power.
Oh that's a smart theory and it could also imply that miquella was flawed even before he discarded his love. Compassion should be given to all, and miquella seems to have hated those who live in death.
That could also be when his change began from a kind man to the most fearless empyrean. He failed twice at saving people dear to him so he embarked on his journey to godhood
@@ghostly_number I tried to charm skeletons or mausoleum knights and they're immune, Miquella's power are useless against those who live in death, Gowdyn existence is the biggest issue in Miquella's plan
@@MsieurDooM yeah it even matches with st. Trina, her sleep powers soothe those who live in death and could be another reason why miquella discarded her. Maybe st. Trina was born as one of the failed attempts at trying to kill godwyn
He's praying for the competition to be gone
As empyrean @@ghostly_numbermiquella has 2 bodies and 1 soul, st trina is miquella but represent his kindness, love and compassion
i never knew godwin used spells to protect fia. i never attack friendly npcs
The Eclipse did work...the whole time, right in front of us, the Mending Rune of Death IS Godwyn, reincarnated!
I really like that interpretation! It fits in quite well with Goldmask's Mending Rune looking like a grossly incandescent sun and the Dung Eater’s sun medallion.
@@GothicPrincessAlice what’s that got to do with the eclipse? The mending rune of death is created through Fia’s quest line and has nothing to do with the eclipse.
@donovan4222 Fia's dialogue indicates that Godwyn was reborn as the Mending Rune of Death and that us brandishing it and adding it to the Elden Ring would fix the issue of Those Who Live in Death. Additionally the rune itself looks like an eclipse and we know of Castle Sol and the whole thing to get Godwyn's soul back.
@@GothicPrincessAlice Ah ok gotcha yeah I agree that Godwyn is basically reborn with Fias quest but I think that was because she tried a different method than Miquella. Miquella probably couldn’t use a mending rune as his consort anyways.
the Duskborn
oh wow I never noticed Godwyn protecting Fia 😳 that’s such a cool detail. and mentioning the real life story of a person with a locked-in syndrome was very insightful, this is a great theory 🩷
Thank you so much! And it's wild you have to do something so heartless to see something so heartwarming. But this is a FromSoft game...
I had no idea that could happen because I never attack NPCs, except by accident.
well ofcourse i have no idea, i'm not a monster.
When I saw the Godwyn face at the end of my first DLC catacomb I literally asked my TV screen: "Wait, what the hell are _you_ doing here?"
Same!
@@FranzbroetchenGaming but what about the one at the bottom of Stormveil? why doesn't no one talk about the giant fish face their after you fight the tree spirit?
@@BigCityNightsMusic Because people already talked excessively about that. Look up Vaati VIdya.
@@BigCityNightsMusic are you being sarcastic?
@@BigCityNightsMusic The one being down there does make more sense. If Godwynn recived Erdtree Burial, his body would be regenerated. That is why we have those two Godwynns, the Erdtree is trying to bring Godwynn back but keeps failing due to his soul being killed. The reason that Godwyn being in the DLC is so shocking is because the Land of Shadow is not supposed to be connecte to the Erdtree. We are all confused on how his body regenerated here dispite there being no Erdtreee root or Erdtree burial in the Lands of Shadow. Does that make sense?
I actually REALLY like the idea that Godwyn always had deathblight.
For me it fits, he held it back like f.e. Malenia while alive, and when his soul died it "took control" and spread freely.
I don't
he is suppose to be the golden child
the perfect child as he is the first and only perfect child
kinda defeats the purpose of being the "perfect child"
or one could say him being the perfect child is his curse ig but I still prefer that he is perfect
and within his death it causing one of most problem in the world itself
because Ranni made it so that his Soul is permanently destroyed but his body alive and live in death, causing the death blight then they tried to cure/ fix it by putting Godwyn being buried on the root of the Tree then it spreads like an infestation, his twisted face manifesting, his eyes and hair maninfesting on the environment
@@lag00n54 i think its perfect and resemble the irony of Leyndell. A perfect goldish order capital that hides catacombs of chaos under it. The same way Miquella The Kind but the truth is he charmed everyone to boast him as Kind. Godwyn the Golden was spoken to be perfect but the truth of himself should be connected to Deathblight as his dark side.
@@lag00n54 Womp womp, dogshit headcannon preventing you from critically thinking
In my theory maybe deathblight was something completely different and became DEATHblight when his body was killed with bits of Rune of Death, basically some ability getting mixed with Death and then spreading like that
I'm sure Miquella eyed up all the demigods as potential consorts, and I'm willing to bet he didn't get his first choice because so many of them disqualified themselves by either dying or messing up their bodies. Godwyn got knifed and became zombie compost, Rykard jumped into a snake, Godrick was cringe, and the omen twins were living with the ninja turtles and then Morgott was in the witness protection program as Margit. As fellow empyreans connected to other outer gods, Malenia and Ranni couldn't be his consort, plus Ranni had already reverse-pinnochio'd herself. Melina was a free-roaming bodiless spirit, so she might have been able to be installed into a vessel, but as she had a sealed eye, maybe she was also an empyrean (gloam?) and not able to be a lord? Same with Messmer and his abyssal serpent?
Realistically, only Radahn and Mohg were left for Miquella to consider as a consort by the time he embedded himself in the Haligtree.
And the fact that Mohg is literally the perfect vessel to serve the purpose of "invoking the divinity" at the Gate for Miquella's ascension, because he was the only demi-god whose body also inherits the Aspects of Horns whilst fully embraces it (didn't cut them off and despise them like Morgott)
Probably not because he’s like Griffith obsessed over Guts. He could have chosen us in the DLc we’ve known for our strength and poised to be lord of the old order
@@yudistiraliem135 he won't ever choose the player. He is, as you said, already set his sights on Radahn quite some time ago and planned his ascension accordingly. He's not changing his plans on the fly like Ranni. He is never at a disadvantageous position like Ranni to need to acquire and negotiate external assistance to reach her objectives.
Miquella can charm literally anyone and had them do the work for him. If the Tarnished player isn't there, he could have just have some other schmuck to kill Mohg for him.
Scarlet Rotted Radahn, after all, was literally taken down by an entire group of Tarnished ganging up on the demigod.
As far as Miquella is concerned, the Tarnished player is nothing more but a tool he uses to get Radahn free of the Scarlet Rot and kill Mohg for his use. The only thing he doesn't expect is us capable of killing both him and Radahn, alone, at the pinnacle of their power.
And thus, noble Radahn and pitiable Mohg were Miquellested, falling prey to the devious wiles of the femboy.
@@norasyikinali6283 Miquella probably never expected someone who wasn't part of his charmed group would be so persisted at finding him just for an answer, let alone one that is a god slayer.
Is death effectively a sea? Those giant caskets that look like ships. The caskets that use waterfalls and rivers. Godwyn's body is morphed as some aquatic entity.
...the mariner...
And we have the spirit jellyfish too!
Death floats up at the shadow realm. This is in-law with the supporting pillar or whatever it is
This is most definitely a styx river and a charron reference imho.
@@Lamren
Looking into Alchemy, it might also be an alchemical concept of the use of water. It might be the blackening process of making/using the philosopher stone/Magnus Opus/ Great Work
@@majdjinn5042 If you google "River styx charon" it becomes even more apparent imho, now that I think about it within that concept the river of styx is considered the place where the souls of the dead linger and return to the cycle, so if the Undead boatmans are a reference to Charon, I wonder if godwyn turning into an aquatic monster is somehow linked to that concept (the river) too... Since he's supposedly the prince of death.
Damn this sucks that we don't get a more definitive closure on godwyn's fate.
To me the fact that Godwyn is in the Realm of Shadow clearly tells the lands were veiled after his death, soon before or during the shattering
Specially considering Radahn knew Messmer
There's no reason to believe the death blight can't pierce into the realm of shadow.
The Tower of Suppression plaque says all manners of death make their way to the Realm of Shadow, but it doesn't say this stops happening after the lands were veiled.
@@JayWhipp1e following that logic there's no reason to believe every piece of lore is just a lie to begin with
@@JayWhipp1eyea it managed to find its way into farum azula so it definitely could in realms outside of the lands between.
"all manners of death" are probably speaking about death rituals and burials. Godwyn was "buried" at the roots of the erdtree and thus it would allow him passage to the land of shadow. It also explain why his death knights are skeletons they committed suicide and followed him into the land of shadow.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes. It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. -Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
While I’m still a bit iffy on the idea of Godwyn being born afflicted with Deathblight, him being born afflicted with it could be the explanation we needed as to why Ranni and the Black Knives chose him as their assassination target.
Knowing he would be buried at the foot or roots of the Erdtree based on the burial practices of Marika’s era, they must have known that his Deathblight and Deathroot would have inevitably spread across the lands through the Erdtree roots, harming Marika’s Order.
Though this does raise some questions, especially if Marika did have some role in the Night of the Black Knives.
And also, technically wouldn’t Godwyn make more sense if he was born uncursed? Also, technically Godrick’s lineage could be argued to have been born without any curses, though that line of lineage would curse themselves much later in life through grafting.
After all, Godrick’s body pre-grafting is that of an old man, and he was able to disguise himself as a woman fleeing Leyndell. Grafting seems to be something passed down from his ancestors up to Godfrey and perverted through time, likely since he couldn’t match up to Godwyn himself.
And wouldn’t Godwyn being uncorrupted from birth also help tie him to his Norse inspirations, like how he could arguably be compared to Baldur from Norse myth? A golden child of a God that cared for him immensely only to be killed off by a leaf/plant? We know Norse mythology did have an influence on Elden Ring’s lore.
WAIT GODWYN CAN FIGHT BACK?!
Actually yeah if you attack FIA when she's sitting at the foot of Godwyn...you're attacked and FIA seems to state she's not doing it so it implies it's Godwyn
I just thought of something. You know the cathedral in the DLC where Ymir is? It's called Cathedral of Manus Metyr. Manus = hand in Latin, while Metyr is self explanatory. Metyr is the name of the creature that lives underneath the cathedral. But what about it's Liurnian counterpart at the Moonlight Altar, Cathedral of Manus Celes?
If we go by the same formula then wouldn't Celes be the name of Ranni's two fingers considering they live underneath the cathedral, making them the only two fingers in the game with a (known) name? Ranni's two fingers are also a lot bigger than the ones at Roundtable Hold so maybe Empyrean two fingers are special, more powerful and deserving of unique names? Do all fingers have names or is that exclusive to really important finger creatures such as Metyr or Empyrean two fingers?
Metyr means mother, as she is the mother of fingers. Celes means heavenly, I guess referring to the sky above or something.
Miquella: Don't worry Godwyn! I'm going to grant you a true death!
Godwyn, blinking: Actually, these dead guys are my boys, and I kinda like being the Elden Ring equivalent of the Lich King.
Miquella: Damn it! Onto Radahn!
Excellent work once again! As a Special Ed teacher, I loved the connection to speech pathology. Great job bringing it back to his tolerance of the dragons, too.
Dude, did you just leak the script from the HBO adaptation?
And thank you so much!
I really like the cursed Godwyn theory it makes a lot of sense that Godwyn may of been suffering from deathblight before his death. Perhaps his “golden” description was just kind of a facade and he was rotting underneath the surface, just like Leyndell and the Erdtree.
Marika would have thrown him away like garbage like she did every other one of her children if that were the case. She wouldn't have had the most earthshattering crashout in existence and literally break the Elden Ring if he was doomed to spread deathblight.
@@Akiraspin Godwyns curse could have been similar to the golden order in that he looked golden on the outside but had deathblight on the inside. She could have not known he was cursed at first, or just been in denial about it.
If Godwyn wasn’t cursed, how do you think he avoided it?
@@Akiraspin I've seen it suggested elsewhere (sorry to whoever I can't remember who) that his curse/defect was in his fate rather than apparent on the surface. She wouldn't discard him like the others because she was unable or unwilling to accept the curse without witnessing the actual effects. It would thematically work with the "gilded, but rotten" recurring motifs in the lore.
@@Akiraspin I don't think we have evidence of her doing that to Miq & Mel, only the Omens. I think that was specifically a response to Mohg and Morgott being born with Hornsent traits
@@kenkokoszka1743 people see how much she hates hornsent and think she does that to everyone now. Its crazy.
I don't think he was born cursed, but I do find myself agreeing that he must have had a change of heart and fully accepted his role as prince of death. In the lore Godwyn has been shown to be a Chad, not just a Chad in fact, but a Gigachad. I haven't found a single instance of Godwyn treating an individual cruelly or unjustly in any of the in game texts I found so I think it's very plausible that he sympathized with these people who were being brought back to the land of the living and immediately persecuted. One of the interpretations I've always had for his name "Godwyn the Golden" anyway is that he was a shining example of what a demigod should be rather than just a symbol of the Golden Order. The Golden Order is cruel and sees nothing wrong with tormenting and cruelly punishing their enemies, but Godwyn doesn't do that. Godwyn befriends Fortissax and probably all other Ancient Dragons not only because he kicked their asses, but because he treated them with dignity and fairness after achieving his victory. Being stuck in a state where all he can really do is observe, Godwyn has had nothing but time to watch the persecution of those who live in death and to me it just sounds like something Godwyn would do after spending god knows how long watching the kind of suffering the Golden Order inflicts upon his people.
I think Godwyn was the grim reaper my boyo. That’s why he was so noble his the giants look like they was deathblighted. He probably showed up, fucked up the giants and went about his day slaying dragons in bed
Godwyn has no agency. He's simply a corpse growing out of control. His soul died a true death, but his body lives on. That was the whole point. Souls in Fromsoft games are what give things agency and sentience. He's literally just a cancer. The only person that calls him the "Prince of Death" is Fia, and she's obsessed with Lordship and a place in the Golden Order for Those Who Live in Death. It's more symbolic than anything, or delusion at the worst.
So godwyn is basically Nito the first death ☠️
Or the Scholar of the first sin lmao
Godwyn doesn't lose
He just keeps wynning
CZcamsrs saying melina isn't messmers sister because it's NOT confirmed are honestly beyond coping and stupid. How could the game be anymore up front cmon. Things can be confirmed without saying it out right you ninny
Someone give this man a "true...'"
@@DonutSwordsman who’s saying that?
@@donovan4222 the devs removed the sister part in an update lol
@@ramoraid That was actually a hoax screenshot, the devs never changed the description
@@donovan4222 yeah it was the other way around. they added it later. so its definitely suppose to be there.
I just realized that the Knight of the black knives makes ganking canonical smh
Ranni, Rykard and Radahn were not cursed from birth. They are Marikas children since Radagon is Marika. Every demigod is directly spawned by Marika but not all are cursed from birth, so Godwyn could very well be born without a curse.
They are cursed by the fire giants the red hair is a symbol of that curse, but I think radahn in is frenzy wild state started to gain the giants rage and hight.
@@jamesroberts5163 If red hair is a curse, I would choose that one over the others 😆
It's all a bit vague, but it seems likely Radagon wasn't just an alter ego for Marika but actually a distinct entity sharing her existence somehow, like they were two aspects of the same being. Miquella apparently inherited this trait, being able to manifest as St Trina. Note that Miquella was able to cast Trina off, and even after that Trina seemed to retain her own personality and she even disagreed with Miquella's plan. So, it's possible that being a child of Radagon is somehow different from being a child of Marika - at least enough to negate whatever curse was plaguing Marika's bloodline. Say, whatever caused it required Marika herself to carry the child? Really, who knows?
@@Batman_83 Heck, Radahn actually really liked his red hair because he thought it had "heroic implications."
the three carian lineage that
1 killed their siblings
2 went full blasphemy
3 held the fate of the stars
i believe theyre cursed by their self-righteous greed!
The second lion dancer is near or on top of a deathroot, that's why it seems to be using deathblight. You can find hidden Godwyn roots in a few places.
The last part of the video is such a huge revelation on Godwyn and Miquella's changing agendas that i'm just astonished by it, it makes perfect sense.
I'm not sure if Godwyn really had the Death Blight before his death, but regardless of that, the rest of the theory you present makes perfect sense, Godwyn seems to be conscious in Death, even without a soul, and he seems to now favor those who live in death, just like he favored the Ancient Dragons when he forgave Fortisaxx, which explains why Godwyn's Death Knights seem to protect his faces and also still wield Ancient Dragon Lightning.
12:10 Miquella made his vow when Godwynn was still alive because it was before the Shattering when the Promised Consort was still Young
Though, according to Rogier, the Night of the Black Knives occurred "long before the Shattering." So, it doesn't seem like those two events were actually related.
@@RelativelyBest i thought the death of godwyn was the last drop for Marika and the catalyst for her decision to shatter the ring. So even if the events werent close id say they are still definitely connected
I'm honestly glad that someone pointed out why Godwyn can't come back properly and backed it up more than the standard reason of the rune of death.
Finally, I don't Miquella had given up on Godwyn. In Castle Sol, after the boss of the castle, you find a spirit who says: "Lord Miquella, forgive me. The sun has not been swallowed. Our prayers are lacking. Your comrade remains soulless…I will never set my eyes upon it now… Your divine Haligtree." Maybe Miquella just never told Castle Sol that he was giving up on that scheme, but to me it seems more like they had failed.
I'm kinda sad about how lacking the eclipse lore is to be honest. It's super intriguing that an Eclipse in the Elden Ring universe might have the power to bring back a soul from Destined Death or at least grant life to soulless bones.
I love how this community keeps coming up with new interesting lore theories! Great vid man!
Thank you so much!
Mawika
Godfwey
Something to note: Morgott and Mogh's curses may not have been that they were Omen, but that they were both touched by the Formless Mother. Morgott is the only other Omen besides Mogh who uses bloodflame, which suggests that were either of them Empyreans, they could have become gods of blood akin to Malenia.
It is interesting that the Empyrean Grandam references the Onen curse specifically though I really like how the Formless Mother could be involved!
Mogh only saw the formless mother once his horn pierced his eye like the thorn sorcerer's in the base game. Morgott probably saw her when he cut off his own horns, you need to harm yourself in order to begin communion with the formless mother.
I always thought the other children where legit jealous of Godwyn as he was seen as the perfect one.
I love Godwyn's idea. The one thing that reminds me of Godwyn is the movie Super Mario Bros where the king was turned into a mushroom and as a mushroom his fungus covered the land.
While Godwyn may retain intelligence, I think he's still dead. A soul is pretty much the essence of your being, your identity. When Mohg's soul is forsaken, his body becomes an empty husk for Radahn to fill. Godwyn perished in soul alone, and while his body and maybe a mind still live, it's not really Godwyn anymore. Whoever Godwyn really was, his personality, etc, that's all gone. The flesh lives on, and maybe the mind too, but without a soul, it would surely be a husk of a person, a zombie.
Slime molds are interesting organisms since they form neural pathways and structures similar to animals with brains. Some slime molds can learn and have been shown to make decisions in laboratory experiments. That's rather like thinking or having a mind, yet the slime mold is a very primitive imitation of an actual mind, its "intelligence" being closer to a computer than a living thing.
My point is, I think Godwyn is a similar case. We know his flesh/body is still alive. Whether he still has a cognitive mind is debatable, but there's definitely an argument to be made. Still, the Rancorcall to defend Fia could be something done instinctively or without thought. Our brains and computers are not so different. What separates an AI from a real human is that we have souls, and I don't mean that in any spiritual sense. We have identities, creativity, imaginations, and traits that define us and separate us from all being the same. The brain can think and the body can move all it wants, but without the actual individual who's piloting it, that mind and flesh would be more like a zombie or AI program than a living person. I think most sensible people would describe AI art as "soulless" since it lacks the creativity and unique imagination of a real, living human. It's art made by a computer that lacks a soul and is not really alive. Prince of Death Godwyn is that AI program, literally "soulless," thinking and acting but lacking the actual human behind the actions.
In any case, no matter what life and intelligence that thing retains, it is not Godwyn the Golden anymore. Whoever Godwyn was before died on the Night of the Black Knives. So, in my opinion I think pre-assassination Godwyn and Prince of Death Godwyn should be treated as two different beings with different identities and goals. The person piloting the mind and body of the original Godwyn died, and now the mind and body are on autopilot, lacking any human aspects. I think one of the best real-life comparisons to Godwyn would be a virus.
"Viruses are considered by some biologists to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection, although they lack the key characteristics, such as cell structure, that are generally considered necessary criteria for defining life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as 'organisms at the edge of life' and as replicators." - Wikipedia article about viruses (the info here is good despite Wikipedia not always being reliable, as this info is in line with the biology classes I've had)
I think Godwyn is basically a virus, an "organism at the edge of life" as it were. The way his eyes and surrogate cadavers replicate endlessly and infect everything is very similar to a cancer or virus, and I think that comparison is intentional. Cancer and viruses don't have souls or minds, they're more like a computer program. Prince of Death Godwyn is much the same, as all he does is replicate and spread death. Does he protect Fia out of love, because he's conscious and retains human emotions? Or does he protect Fia in the same way a virus protects a cell through lysogeny?
"Lysogeny is characterized by integration of the bacteriophage nucleic acid into the host bacterium's genome or formation of a circular replicon in the bacterial cytoplasm. In this condition the bacterium continues to live and reproduce normally, while the bacteriophage lies in a dormant state in the host cell."
That last sentence is key, since I think that's what Fia and Godwyn's relationship is. Godwyn uses Fia as basically a host cell to transmit his death and replicate further. Perhaps since Fia dies in the end the relationship would be more comparable to the lytic cycle, where the host cell explodes and the new baby viruses swarm out of its ruptured corpse, basically. Fia lays with Godwyn, gestates and gives birth to the Rune of the Death Prince, and dies, presumably during the birth. That rune is basically the viral genome that is the catalyst for spreading and replicating, as putting the rune into the Elden Ring would presumably cause the Prince of Death's essence to spread to everything, maybe without needing Deathroot anymore. Deathroot gets the job done, but the Prince of Death's influence is seemingly slow and hasn't taken over on the same magnitude of the Scarlet Rot in Caelid. Relying on the tree roots to spread is fine, but using Fia as a means to spread quickly and completely would be most optimal, which is why he protects her. He doesn't love her, she's just the most optimal path for his replication.
Dusk is a time that has some qualities of day but also some of night, which I think speaks to what the Age of the Duskborn is, more specifically Godwyn's nature as the Prince of Death. Godwyn has qualities of a living being (his still living flesh and mind) but also lacks some qualities of living things (a soul and conscience) that make his existence hard to categorize as alive or not alive, much like a virus - a being on the edge of life, the sun on the edge of night (dusk).
One final note: lysogeny could explain Godwyn having deathblight before the assassination. In lysogeny the host cell continues to exist normally, but with the virus genome dormant inside it, waiting to replicate. Perhaps Godwyn always had undeath lying dormant within him, which is why he doesn't appear afflicted from the outside and no one would have known. His death was maybe the trigger for the deathblight to activate, for the viral genome to wake up and start replicating alongside the host cell.
Sorry for writing so much, but I kept having more thoughts and felt like I had to write it all down lol.
Godwyn is even more gone than Mohg, because unlike how "natural death" occurs in the Lands Between, where souls simply return to the Erdtree to awaits rebirth, his soul was permanently wiped out by Destined Death.
There's probably no method to bring Godwyn's soul back like how Miquella could bring Radahn's soul to a new vessel to revive him.
@@apophisstr6719 indeed. This is why it annoys me to see so many angry people saying stuff like "Godwyn should have been revived not Radahn, this story is trash!" Would Godwyn have been cooler than Radahn? Personally, I think so. But would Godwyn have made sense? No! His soul was literally destroyed, there's no way to bring him back. Miquella already tried to do it before with the Sol eclipse, and that didn't work. Even as a god, Miquella couldn't bring back Godwyn. He could revive Radahn because Radahn's soul still existed. He can't revive Godwyn since there's no soul to revive.
@@LtCdrXander Not only Miquella tried to bring Godwyn's soul back with the Eclipse, he even attempted to bring an end to his body because the ritual didn't work in the end.
The only thing Miquella thought he could do after Eclipse is to let Godwyn rest in peace with True Death, but even that seem to had failed as Godwyn's death root cancer continue to spread.
@@LtCdrXanderthere is no reason to assume that destined death is “true death” destined death was a part of the Elden ring before the age of the erdtree but “true death” still didn’t exist. Therefore it makes no sense that destined death would magically be able to perma-kill people when it was never able to do that before.
Unless there's a Von Erich curse thing going on, I think it's silly to think of everyone's curses as being Marika's original sin because they're all disperate. Miquella's eternal youth isn't a curse, he can not age because he's constantly leaking rejuvinating dew everywhere. Which could explain why he does seem to visibly age once he abandons his flesh. Malenia was chosen from birth to be a vessal of the Scarlet Rot, an Outer God that's also a mystical plague, not anything innate to her. Omenhood is not a curse, it's what life before the Erdtree looked like, only Marika's prosecution of them makes people think they're cursed. If Godwyn was cursed with deathblight the whole time, someone would have noted it. He'd be Godwyn the My God! Good Sir, your legs have fused into a mermaid tail of rotting tree branches!, not Godwyn the Golden.
i feel almost like godwyn being conscious and aware of everything that's happening in the lands between and to his own body is almost more nightmarish than him being mindless alongside being soulless.
Godwyn more like godLOSE lmao (ill see myself out)
Black Knife member alt account:
Weakest Ranni co-conspirator burner account.
One of the best CZcams comments I've ever seen😂
👏
2 fucking years and i never thought to make this joke
Here’s my theory:
Godwyn was actually cursed by the Crucible, his lower body being a fish like mermaids. The Crucible does not only manifest with horns, but also scales and wings. Godwyn was not viewed as cursed because Marika only hated those with Horns due to her past. Godfrey/Marika children seems to be only the affected by this, while Radagon/Marika children were cursed by the Outer Gods. Some “Death” Outer God probably took over Godwyn’s body as it is now vacant due to his soul dying. This “Death” Outer God existed long before Marika’s reign as Death Sorceries are known to be long forgotten rites. I think the Outer Gods are not from a foreign place or realm but concepts that have been pushed “out” by the Golden Order. Death, Rot, and Blood should not have been foreign to begin with. Also here a funny thought:
Rings of Spectral Light (A Death Sorcery) -> Discus of Light (Gifted to Radagon by Miquella) -> Radagon’s Rings of Light(Is in the Golden Order Principia)
Godwyn is confirmed to have fought and bested a dragon, who can fly and breath fire. I highly doubt he could have done so from the ocean against a fire and lightning wielding dragon. And also he is the head of of the dragon cult, how could he be a master of lightning while confined to the water?
Godwyn is a war hero. How could he have fought dragons as a fish? Not to mention that Marika probably would have thrown him in the dumpster if he was.
That's *your* theory? 👀 Very interesting!😌
@@blizzardgaming7070this guy's totally unique theory was on some Elden Ring lore video in the algorithm this past week😂
@@blizzardgaming7070He may have still done so despite his fishy lower half. We never have seen his lower-half before his death and the black knife assassins did have to lift him up when they were inscribing the cursemark onto him. Maybe he was riding something when he was fighting the dragons?
The Diving Bell & The Butterfly is such an amazing underrated book & movie. I urge anyone who feels like life is not worth living, alone, unappreciative, depressed, or even on top of the world to watch it. It can change your perspective and I think it's a perfect metaphor for Godwyn being locked-in.
i don't think godwyn was born from godfrey he was born of the boughs of the erdtree, probably as all the souls (grace) get sucked up to become a lord, like death bed companions or jar saints, and used the golden egg to birth him, it's why we never see his legs, and probably why he wasn't cursed wasn't a true birth, hes like a golden alburnric or a sweetling, we see all artificial life loses use of its legs
has anyone pointed out jars in the main game gold and red and male, the ones in the dlc are silver and blue and female, also in boney village the men are crying at the loss of the women, in windmill village the women are skinning men and having a party, seems to be hinting at duality, not sure how it fits, interesting and i doubt its on accident must have some kinda meaning
Godrick is a descendent of Godfrey so its hard to imagine Godwyn not being between the two, but I really like what you've said about duality. Truly interesting parallels.
@xm4339 yeah the naming convention seems to line up nicely i agree, but then mogh and morgott are the opposite, and it never actually connects him as his father In game but I'm pretty sure he's left this game way more open ended than previous games. Hopefully for sequels 😁
Is a lot of duality or as you put it, parallels, in the base game and dlc, it must have some thematic reason
Seems most gods come after someone in suffering let's go of their pride, in mogh, fire giant, malenia, rodhan, messmer, I feel like miazaki is trying to hammer home a point, what exactly that point is I'm not smart enough to work out yet lol
No
Whats interesting is the night of the black knives is sort of like beginning of Ragnarok. A prized son thought to be immortal killed in a deceptive manner. Ranni would be loki
Dude your lore videos and speculation just hits different. Thanks for all your hard work and contributions.
Thank you so much!
It's the accent. Feels like a man of the people, not some snobby academic
(Just kidding... Sort of 😂)
The thing is, Godwyn is the only child of Marika whose name starts with G, like Godfrey
Godrick says no
@@kayhaich godrick is his descendant.
@@tonylawson2222yes the golden lineage, too bad we don’t know godwyns children as they’d be much stronger
What aboit Giquella, Gelania, Gorgott, Gohg, and Gelina?
It's probably the hair. Golden hair, Golden Order.
None of Marika's other kids have golden hair like Godwyn.
Among all of the lore channels, you are the only one that actually makes sense 100%. Subscribed.👍
Garrulous Goldmask so peak as always damn. I kinda wish we could mix and match different mending runes and create unique endings.
I always thought your theories where good, but this one blows it out of the park. Ill subscribe now lol
Also to add onto your theory, maybe miquella knew about godwyns curse and tried to kill him completely using the eclipse, which didn't work, so he tried stealing the rune of death, but ranni caught on and high jacked his plan. We know that when you die, it's not a legit death, and you can be reborn through and erdtree burial. It would explain why marika decided to give miquella her blessings, because she thought miquella could cure his deathblight. In theory, it may have worked. But godwyn didn't really die, so because the plan failed catastrophically, marika lost her mind and shattered the elden ring. Why else would marika support miquella, when he's so anti marika and golden order?
Maybe that's why marika removed the death rune in the first place, to prevent this very thing from happening?
one connection I've not seen anyone make is that the omen powers (the non blood ones) look identical to the golden death powers (the ones that deal deathblight instead of cold damage)
The cursed children thing reminds me of Game of Thrones; Cersei being cursed to watch her children die etc. Curses can come in many forms. I feel Godwyn's curse is primarily one of irony. He was supposedly the perfect god who did no wrong. He was noble, kind-hearted, courageous and beloved. Yet his death wasn't honorable, it was perhaps one of the most treacherous things that can happen to someone of his character. He was killed in the dead of night in a plot by his own kin, who murdered his soul. Ansbach even suggests that forsaking the soul is an extremely humiliating act. It sounds like Godwyn was perhaps a Robb Stark of this universe, and the Night of Black Knives was his Red Wedding. Kind of like how Radahn was a warrior who likely wanted a true and honorable death in battle. Yet the Scarlet Rot forced his body and mind to become a mindless undying zombie and when we killed it, his soul just went straight in service to Miquella where I imagine he was still not wholly free. Tragic irony.
Ranni's ending getting more and more likeable over time. That said I'll buy part of this. Specifically the "Alive but soulless" theory. It also makes sense in that death stuff requires INT/FTH and no ARC to operate. Same stat build, but Order vs Death. Same person, different skills.
Ranni simps will find any leg up to act like they're not simping
Alive but soulless also has a precedent. Ensha.
Ranni's ending, is not that bad, as a matter of fact, it's better for people.
The problem is what it takes to get to her era.
@Oznerol1234 yes, by any means nessecery. Ranni is a cold witch by default.
Him being cursed before dying doesnt make sense.
Godwyn was the golden child aka perfect. Only time she had a relatively normal kid. Thats why shes breaks when hes killed.
Every single one of her childrens were "defective" when compared to godwyn, to the point that marika chose a tarnished as lord rather then any of her kids
Man, she was the one behind his death
@@Daniel-eq8vn that's a theory man, all we know is that Marika shattered the ring after his death, that godwyn was the perfect child, and that ranni used black knives to kill him. They are numen and related to Marika and therefore she planned it all, from ranni to the black knives, Marika being the mastermind Is a big stretch. It's like if my sister killed my child and for some reason I'm the one who planned it. You realize it sounds stupid right
Seems to me that Godwyn wasn't initially into the whole "Duskborn" ending but becoming the Prince of Death left his soulless body unable to do much else. Wether Godwyn decided to seek the Duskborn age or was left with no other choice is hard to say.
Just found your channel, pretty good!!! Awesome to find new and good lore videos!
Thank you!
Imagine trying to explain 2:22 - 3:07 to someone who doesn't know Elden Ring 😭😭
Very good another amazing speculation video, keep it coming.
Godwyn curse was being mortal, thats why he was the choice of the black knifes, he was vunarable.
Well I did no know about the Godwyn attack. The more you know.
Imagine Godwyn was alive all along but wore the mask/identity of the Dung Eater? I thought it was strange that when you progress the Dung Eaters quest, one of the lines he says is
"my fate was the grandest, the most brilliant of them all!"
But Godwyn IS alive. His body kept living after his soul died.
sounds cool and all but doesnt really make much sense 😅Dung Eater sought to rid the world of curses... BY CURSING THE ENTIRE WORLD! I doubt Godwyn would have any connection to the crucible other than his twin brothers... wait... hmm... What if he saw the treatment of the Omens? Still wouldn't make sense ngl.
lol I always killed D immediately after he killed Fia, never even occurred to me to attack her. WHY DIDNT GODWYN STOP HIM
Cause by then he is in the rune you are holding.
Maybe Godwyn had sympathy for D as a golden order servant? D has a pretty sympathetic reason for becoming so zealous after all.
Maybe his power doesnt extend into the round table hold
I can't believe that out of this entire video, i was most surprised by Melina being Messmer's sister... So she's the Gloam eyed?
Whoa, I never knew about the attacking Fia interaction, that's pretty damn important. I wondered the same thing about the Godwyn faces in the DLC. I was honestly really hoping for Godwyn to come back in the DLC in some form, but the only mentions of him are in the items and catacombs you showed. It feels like a HUGE loose thread, but with Godwyn and the gloam eyed queen, theres plenty of material for a sequel I guess. I think this all makes great sense, but not all of Marika's children were cursed. Radahn and Ranni seemed to make out ok initially. Not sure what it changes, if anything though
YOU JUST LIT A CANDLE TO MY THEORY. Miyazaki didnt want godwyn&miquella duo boss even tho he first considered it. Why? Because it would be too much like lordran and lothric. First of all, theyre two golden boys, blonde and radiant, and their primary powers are light, and light(ning). I believe from a game design standpoint miyazaki wanted something more contrasting and didnt want the screen to be filled with too many similar visuals, he wanted the duo boss characters to be heavily contrasting, complimenting eachother uniquely. Your theory that godwyn was always cursed and essentially crippled from the waist down makes complete sense, as it would then literally be a lothric twin princes clone fight
And even if he wasn't always lame from a curse, he certainly was now with that mermaid tail.
Speaking of, imagine if they did use Godwyn's current form for the fight, that horror show casting holy magic everywhere
Imagine if the reason why Ranni severed Godwyn’s soul from his body so he will not suffer a painful death from death blight (because there is no cure other than dying and being born anew with a different body much like what happens with us, the Tarnished). Maybe she respected him, and thus killed him that he may not also suffer from being another tool by Marika’s skewed propagandas; only to have been declined and so came the night of black knives.
To top it off, Godwyn may have planned to disobey his mother since he wants to return death back into the world. And that she does not seek to fight her. Ranni may have known this, and thought of a plan where Godwyn will not witness his mother look at him with disdain.
Ranni simps always trying to make her seem noble. She's evil bruh
The two dualities of man
She would have expressed that sort of altruism and theres absolutely nothing to support this theory. She absolutely did not have godwyns best intentions in mind...her mentor was a witch.
@@Unknown-mj4woyeah it's established she makes cold and calculated decisions to further her agenda at cost of lives, which she sees as the ultimate reasoning for any terrible, much like Marika. It's established this stuff is cyclical and ranni can't just say the cycle isn't like that. She even works with Rykard and possibly Marika.
Love the video! ❤ 1. I love the point you brought up about the Shadow realm being split off after the night of Black Knives which makes sense although it's still weird because it would mean that Mesmer would've stayed around for a rather long time which would make it allthemore curious nobody in the proper lands between knows him. The relation between the Shadow Realm and the lands between is probably the most irritatingly unclear part of the DLC lore imo.
2. I'm still not convinced about Godwyn being cursed with deathblight before his death. He was worshipped as Marika's perfect son and his followers (the dragon cult knights) in Leindell only use the dragon lightning and not death blight attacks, which implies that the latter was smth adopted later on by his most loyal comrades. The reason Ranni's corpse isn't struck by death blight is probably that it was her body that died, so she doesn't live on in death, because overall the transformation of Godwyn's corpse seems more like it was a result of his f*cked up death.
3. I love your comparison to the locked in syndrome. You've made a very strong case that Godwyn might be conscious although i wonder how it works since his soul died. I'd guess his thoughts and motivations would be a lot more basic/instinctive, even less than that of an animal than actually fleshed out thoughts
They still have so much potential for a 2nd dlc with Godwyn. Since his soul is dead someone could still take over his body as that part of him is still living.
Pretty sure they swore this would be the only dlc. Although I guess if bamco shoves enough money under their door that could change
We already fought Godwyn or G-wyn in dark souls.
Nah his the nameless king
Wow we going cross-game now, speculation gone insane
a) Messmer didn't invade the lands of shadow until after Godwyn was born, and we've known since base game that Miquella and Malenia were cursed because they were born of a single god, not because of the Empyrean Grandam. The entire premise for you to theorize that Godwyn had deathblight before dying is flawed from root to stem.
b) Godwyn's entire characterization is ABOUT being Marika's only child that wasnt cursed.
This theory is......just obnoxious for a lore tuber to come out with. There's no reason for it. There are so many actual mysteries, why invent one that's not there...? Like...come on man.
That's this game right now. We need someone to do an alternative deep analysis to answer the actual questions in the game, not deep speculation. I don't hate story time, I just don't like how often it's presented as real.
The biggest flaw here is that Mogh and Morgott aren't really cursed. They are blessed by the power of an age Marika want suppressed. Marika cursed them by deciding their horns meant evil things when they didn't previously.
...except even the Hornsent consider the Omen a curse. From the Empyrean Grandam: "The curse of the omen shall strike thee down"
A. This doesn’t contradict the theory though…the night of black knives obviously happened after Godwyn was born. The question is how the death knights in the shadow lands know Godwyn is dead…since the shadow lands were sealed it could be that they didn’t get sealed until after the night of black knives.
B. There is a recurring theme in Elden ring that everything Marika and the golden order portray as “golden and pure” was actually rotten under the surface. You see this with Leyndell and the sewers, the erdtree on the outside vs the roots, and how Marika is portrayed to the lands between vs how we find her body in the end game…there is a theme that nothing is really “pure and golden” and it was all based on a lie. That fits with Godwyn actually being cursed the entire time.
It does support the theory to a degree, but just because a theme is recurring, does not mean it is absolute or the rule.
But how do we know that Godwyn wasn't cursed? Nowhere in the game is that stated IIRC. Just because he's called the Golden does not really mean much...Marika was called Queen Marika the Eternal and look how that turned out.
So tempted to make a Necromancer now.
Hey someone FINALLY paid attention to my Godwyn theory! Though you still think my analysis of Godwyn as a "bad guy" is off. Thats silly. Do people still think there are good guys in this game? I thought Miquella being revealed as bad would have fixed that. Oh well.
You still used all the evidence I used in my post! Though not the evidence that Ranni definitely didnt kill Godwyn and could not care less about him at all. But almost...
Hey something else. The image of Godwyn being killed by the Black Knife assassins. His pose in the painting... The one with his arms out. He is in EXACTLY the same position in the Deepfoot Depths.
He is still in that same position. He hasnt moved. He was already down there.
Promised Consort “Should’ve been Godwyn” Retcon-Radahn
It was pretty obvious godwyn was dead. Nothing to be retconned you were just hit with misdirection.
??
only people who literally know nothing about the lore say that, you already meet godwyn in person in game, hes just an undying corpse, as stated over and over and over again
@@HonorBolt if Miquella can just toss the soul of one boss we killed, into the body of another boss we killed, who’s to say he couldn’t try again to accomplish a proper Eclipse and grant Godwyn a true death, then take his returned soul to the Land of Shadow and put it in Mohg’s body? It’s all fiction, they can explain or incorporate whatever they want into their story and eventually it will settle with the community as canon. Just because what I think should have happened, didn’t happen, doesn’t mean it would’ve been impossible. In fact I believe it’s what was going to happen up until late in the DLC’s development. They just chose a different narrative and wrote in new explanations and justifications for the new narrative. Late enough into the development, however, that they had to rush which meant using Godfrey/Hoarah Loux’s character model, copy pasting Radahn’s base-game textures (with a bit of tailoring), and tacking on a couple of Mohg horns to the arms.
Boom, easy fan service, apparently. (With how many people are defending the decision so vehemently, I worry they actually hit the nail on the head with that one… Elden Ring used to always hit that good balance of mass-appeal and classic souls insanity, whereas PC Radahn felt like he was just there to hype up all the Radahn fanboys and, well, appeal to the masses… it’s a shame we didn’t get the Godwyn/Death-themed DLC we deserved, SOTE was very very good in other ways, but kind of dropped the ball when it came to lore (except for Marika’s story, that was cool asf).
SOTE was good but not great, it didn’t do the base game justice, as badly as I wanted it to… I think Elden Ring deserves another DLC to fill out the holes left in the lore and provide actual, satisfying answers to at least a couple of the hundreds of questions you could ask about it. I’m not asking FS to answer everything, but they should’ve answered more than they did. And some of the few answers they did give were either underwhelming, confusing, or so sparse they could barely beget speculation.
This wasn’t the classic, “intriguing mystery on top of another intriguing mystery and maybe a solid answer or two” souls DLC formula, it’s to a level that it crosses the line from fun and intriguing to tedious and frustrating. Why do they barely touch on any of the base game lore? Why is there so much random stuff introduced, that isn’t referenced ANYWHERE in base game? Again, SOME new stuff is understandable and even ideal, but SOTE doesn’t strike a good balance between old lore and new lore…
In the Elden ring trailer cinematic you can see malenia speaking in radan's ear something, that which we now know is "miquella awaits thee, o promised consort"
That was on the first one
That guy is not alive i tell you
Sure he is deader than the dinosaurs... but nothing can convince me a fight with his mutated corpse wouldn't be an epic conclusion for his story.
@@Jerry-iw9sn "self" you mean corpse?, it would be fire if it had a Ludwig moment evne though its kinda imposible at this point
He’s technically not any more dead than Ranni is, his body is very much alive.
@donovan4222 but theres no soul in his body anymore
Exactly. He's somewhere between eternal death, undeath, and some sort of limbo.
I feel like godwynn might have been the scadutree avatar. Sunflower represents light, his moniker is “the golden”. The thorns, while not inflicting deathblight, seem to have deathblight-like visual effects. I think that Sunflower Godwynn was there to protect miquellas great rune
Great video! I especially appreciated the idea that Godwyn's mind is still alive.
Personally the DLC has put me on a bit of a tear on looking for elements of ancient Egyptian mythology in Elden Ring. I've mostly been looking at serpent, bird eye and scorpion symbols but I''ve found so many things that appear to be linked.
Considering your video was about the price of death I figure that it might be worth mentioning at Osiris the lord of the dead and the first mummy.
Osiris's story in a nutshell kind of starts with his murder by set by tricking Osiris to climb into a coffin that fit only him. Set then locked him in the coffin and threw him in the Nile. Osiris wifi Isis finds the coffin embedded in a cedar tree that was being used a pillar for a palace. Some stories say that Set then cuts up Osiris's body but either way Isis wraps Osiris's body in linen and uses a spell to bring him back to life. She then conceives a child (Horus) with Osiris before he has to return to the underworld to be the lord of the dead.
All of that really reminds me of Godwyn and Fia. It's not exact but there is a lot of overlap.
One other related thing I found was an old talisman associated with Osiris and mummies. One was placed on every Mummy as a protective ward and the symbol was Osiris's two outstretched fingers, side by side. Anthropologists call them two-finger amulets.
I'm not sure what it all means but I hope I've been able to return the favor in food for thought. =)
Never thought about Godwyn be conscious... damn, that's messes up.
One theory I had is that Miquella's eclipse was his attempt to bring about the age of the Duskborn. The eclipse image is very similar to the mending rune of death, said to be Godwyn reborn. Perhaps he lacked the cursemark, and changed his plans to pursue godhood
Wow I never even heard someone else bring up D, the bringer of death and his twin. That’s a really compelling argument to be made
Finally a theory on spot and not just some clickbait delirium
I also have to disagree about the idea that Godwyn's presence implies something about the timeline... The Suppressing Pillar at the center of the Shadow lands states: ""The very center of the Lands Between. All manners of Death wash up here, only to be suppressed." Combined with the lore of the Cerulean Coast and the fact that killing Radahn is required to enter the DLC, it is implied that despite how well hidden this place is, Death is attracted here inevitably.
Also Ensha and this black and gold armor mixed with bone seeeeem sooooo related
Yes! Especially with the Blessed Bone Shard from the DLC, which signifies the “greatest honor that can be granted to the dead.”
@@garrulousgoldmask i wonder if the ensha we fight is a resurrected Lord. The person in the armor is not even supposed to be Ensha. Wonder if he is a product of Gideon’s research. Seluvis made puppets creating vessels out of the bodies void of souls and offnir practiced necromancy putting souls into vessels. He has the same tomes in his study that are in marikas bed chambers that are in mesmers storeroom. Trying to learn the secrets of marika and stumbled upon the rites of the land of shadow. They did part ways over one of the puppets.
Oh, that's a great idea! Especially since we do find a puppet in Rabbath’s Rise in the DLC.
Not all demigods are cursed: Godfrey was the first Elden Lord in the Golden Order Era but he came from the Crucible Era, and for this reason two of his three children he had with Marika were omens, labeled by the Mother Tree as "wrong" and therefore persecuted, but in the DLC we learn that horns were once a symbol of the divine. The three demigods that Radagon had with Rennala were all healthy, including Radahn who had no curses and was the strongest of all, Ranni who was an empyrean and also without curses and for Rykard there is no evidence that he had curses himself, he was just a little blasphemous. The only demigods who have these imposing curses are Messmer, Melina, Malenia and Miquella, all born from Marika and Radagon who are the same person and for this reason somehow linked to the deadly sin that is often mentioned when talking about them. also Godwyn is often described as the one who was closest to perfection, and the fact that he died in soul but not in body reflects the dynamics of undeath. I may be missing some details but this is the idea I have
You really said "Rykard was just a little goofball" lmao
@@vilek_7235 "just a little blasphemous" was a compliment 🤣
I am seeing some people pointing out that Godwyn having a afliction of Death dulls part of the story where Godwyn being "The Golden Child" the first Perfect and only child of Marika Is the First one that Dies is beyond tragic. Having said afliction just makes this weaker;
However, I want to point out that Gransax has no wound; All Other dragons that fought someone or something have wounds:
Greyoll is Rotting
Placidusax lost 3 Heads
BAYLE lost an Arm and a Leg
The Drake on Charon's Grave Has a Stone Spear through his chest
The ancient Dragons of the Dragon Cult churches around the Game all are mutilated
Gransax has nothing?! Nothing! It's like he fell form the sky attaking Leyendel and Died?!
There is something wrong there
It could be that Godwyn had some sort of spell that allowed him to take the life of others, and this ability would end up becoming the death blight in game. When affected by destined death that is
Bro cooked way to hard with this one🔥
really cool note that great runes seem to be able to be birthed (maybe there’s some symbolism there too) - like Fia’s and Dung Eater’s runes. the implications of that for the other great runes might be something to look into 😳
When I first learned of the theory that Godywn was afflicted with deathblight before the night of the black knives it was such a mind-blown kind of moment. I still think it’s one of the best and under looked lore theories! Great video
@apophisstr6719 All the lore in the game points to the Death Blight being a product of Godwyn's soulless, undead body polluting the roots of the Erdtree, not the other way around.
Messmer had snakes inside his body. Godwyn probably had death root inside his body. When his soul was killed and his body absorbed by the erdtree via erdtree burial, the death root contaminated the root system and spread throughout the lands.
@@JayWhipp1e doesn't death rite birds afflict death blight even tho they came before marika and godwyn
I'm still mad we dont actually see an animated godwyn prince of death, let alone fight him.
9:08 In 600 hours, I've never once tried to do it
I would like to point out two things that work well with your theory that i just realized recently.
A.) The royal remains armor speaks about a soulless lord called ensha
B.) Their are both worm faces and ancient beast men who live in death in farum azula, but no deathroot as far as i am aware.
I think deathblight existed before godwyn was even born, and the base game substantiates it. Godwyn inherited deathblight in the same way malenia inhereted rot. And beings like godwyn have exsisted that filled a similiar role. Of course i could be wrong and there is actually deathroot in farum azula that im unaware of
Are you sure the second dancing lion gives off death blight? When I played the dancing lion was surrounded by the death lizards. Once me and a friend killed them…there was no death near the dancing lion.
Very fascinating insights! I agree Godwyn is alive in some manner! The game explicitly mentions: Dead in body but not in spirit
Here be my take.
We learn from the DLC that Queen Marika was ultimately self driven and pursued the Golden Order because of the promises made to her. Would it not be valid to come an assumption that the reason she removed the Rune of Death was not because she was doing it for her people but, as a consequence of such? And if it was driven out of selfishness, what could it have been? The answer I've come to is that Godwyn was in fact cursed. His curse was that as the first child, he was fated to die. Marika realizes this and decides in that moment to separate the rune of death from the Golden Order(This is when Maliketh acquires it.) We see several changes to the Golden Order occur over time, ending with the Order of Fundamentalism.
Symbolism in the churches show the order of when the rune of death was a part of the Order and when it got separated. I personally like to believe this lines up with the time line pretty well. The night of the black knives wasn't just a moment of grief for Marika for her perfect son. It was a moment of grief for herself, finally coming to terms with the idea that the Golden Order could not provide her what she wanted. Fate, Whatever the source of it, would always have the upper hand and therefore something she couldn't control no matter how powerful she became. A broken promise of control The outer god tried to make her believe.
I could be completely wrong about some of the timing on this but, this is the assumption I've come to on the matter. Removing the rune of death doesn't mean people don't die. It means the natural order of life of death is interrupted. Nobody dies naturally anymore. If you do die, you only return by grace as you go through the reincarnation process of the erdtree. The whole purpose of the jars reflects this. This is why Marika's enemies probably wouldn't have survived despite the rune of death being removed and why they were such a force to be reckoned with. It's why the Crucible knights were nearly unkillable. Because they were, at some point, despite their skill being more than enough to keep them alive.
TLDR; Godwyn was cursed with death and was fated to die because of this. This making Godwyn the only child of her own in which Marika managed to "save" from her cursed womb by removing the rune of death but Ranni fulfilled fate regardless (Further into the future). Showing Marika that the promises of complete order given to her by her Outer God were false and have created a situation that has made her a trapped divinity. Since he died in soul and not body, an attempt was made to return him to the foot of the erdtree to be reborn similiarly to how Jars are but, it failed (Spreading him everywhere). In defiance, the shattering occurs some time after.
The moment I saw godwyn’s face I went like “the f is he doing here?!”
He finished shadow of the uurdtri
All of Marika's children are cursed in some way except for Godwyn which is why his death is all the more tragic.