Video není dostupné.
Omlouváme se.
The Shadowlands Keeps Me Up At Night
Vložit
- čas přidán 7. 07. 2024
- SORRY I'M ENUNCIATING WEIRD/STUTTERING IN THIS VIDEO.
I suffer from cluster headaches and my symptoms got really bad on the day I was recording this video. Folks who suffer from them will sometimes appear as if they're having a stroke or will speak very slowly. Apologies.
Thumbnail by: x.com/LilChurc... (THEY ALSO DO AMAZING LORE CONTENT)
Editing by: Videowwaves
Music from Signalis
Buy the OST here: signalis-ost.b...
Join this channel to get access to perks:
/ @quelaag
![The Elden Ring Map Keeps Me Up At Night [Ramble]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NL296BVG2QA/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Elden Ring Map Keeps Me Up At Night [Ramble]](/img/tr.png)
The allusions to Valhalla, the realm of shadow as an afterlife in general, and the presence of a character named Freya really helped validate my belief in Radahn's willingness to be Miquella's consort and the battle with Malenia being part of that vow. It genuinely recontextualizes the entire fight as Radahn being given a death in battle so he can be ushered into Valhalla by the Valkyries (Malenia and the Cleanrot knights)
AGREED!
Freyja's line: "Yes of course, I see, as the festival of war concluded, general Radahn's soul met an honorable end, but kindly Miquella wishes to revive it? which is fine by me, i know it would pain old Jerren but war has always suited general Radahn best. and certainly far more than any honorable death, endless war to invigorate the soul, as befits general Radahn, the Great Lion."
makes me feel like the Festival of War was a celebration of Radhan's vow, and Malenia / Us killing him allowed him to transcend to godhood via a festival battle.
"As I awaited his return" feels different now
That was kinda my first thought but then what I don't understand is why Malenia needed to nuke all of caelid in the process. Is it because she couldn't beat Radahn otherwise?
It's further added by the fact that the Valkyries weren't glorified in most Norse texts, they were something to be fought against. Some older texts call them "corpse stealing witches". Some translations of Freyja also translate to "Lady of the Slain" though later translations make her name out to simply mean "Lady"
Holy shit
12:10 Placidusax is also shown with his remaining heads held in a Spiral-like position while awaiting his god’s return.
Makes me wonder that if the “God” that “fled”, in question, was actually the Greater Will. His heads are twisting in the same way Metyr’s two fingers are. And now that we know that Metyr is attempting to contact the Greater Will - which fled from her call too - it would make sense that Placidusax is trying to make contact.
Yeah that is what I was thinking as well.
EVERYONES CELLPHONE IS BROKEN SOMEONE HELP
😂😂😂
@@quelaag With the whole "fingers communicate by light", connection of faith/int, celestial entities and outer gods, and communication with the greater will being cut off: the item description "The hat of Count Ymir, High Priest. The circular design at the top represents the Greater Will and its lightless abyss, imparting increased intelligence and arcane to the wearer" supports the idea that the greater will went from visible light to invisible. Metyr has an attack that looks like a pulsar, a type of young neutron star that reliably pluses light like a signal. These neutron stars quickly (in a cosmic scale) stop rotating, and cool down to stop emitting light. The Greater Will may be a pulsar that just aged out of sight of the land between
It's starting to worry how you even sleep with all these things keeping you up at night.
i dont
@@quelaag Fun!
This is why Quelaag is a must-follow if you're into souls/elden ring lore. No other lore content creator is doing this stuff, no one's coming at it from this kind of angle. Other creators are probably working on videos trying to hash out who Charo is - when that was never the point. Quelaag just gets it, man.
Quelaag and Tarnished Archeologist my go to souls lore tubers. Both do things that I wish more lore tubers did instead of just giving lore summaries.
"Babel" has the etymology of "God's Door" Bab-El. AKA Gate of Divinity
Enir Ilim and Belurat also generally has some near-eastern inspired vibes. With the name "Enir Ilim" sounding vaguely Akkadian, or generally Semitic, but also Sumerian, "Enlil" or "Elohim"
I read on some reddit post that enir ilim can possibly mean "temple of a lord or god", which fits it pretty well.
@@crown_clown
Could make sense, I just assumed that the word was nonsense since I doubted FS would actually use some real Semitic word for it
I know you will all walk away from this video with more questions and I PROMISE I'll go into everything more in depth as a publish more videos. I'm going to do them ROUGHLY in this order:
- Rauh Regional Lore
- Belurat / Bonny Village / Shaman Village Regional lore
- Miquella and St Trina Video
- Marika and Messmer video
Will there be a St Romina video? Is she perhaps Malenia's shadow? I'm really curious about her.
thank you
@@tangledfish Yes there will be! I want to make sure I tackle those larger ones first :>
1hr long video analyzing the Dragon Priestess' (my beloved) pronunciation of Placidusax pls
(Kidding, excellent video and I can't wait for the others!)
Any timeline for the new crab lore? Genuinely crazy stuff.
I like how you called the pillars the “J and B” pillars to prevent a repeat of what happened on stream, where everyone was asking about Queen Marikas BJ pillars
12:10 On that note, the Relic Sword (made from Radagons spine) is also spiral-themed, and held up by the Elden Beast pointing towards the stars
Anyway thought this was a great video despite the headache! Tbh as a fellow social worker with a day job your work ethic to make these after a 9-5 is lowkey inspiring
One cool thing I saw on Reddit - the shape of the blue and red groves of flowers in cerulean/charon looks like the twin birds when you look at it from the dragon
🤯 woah
Omg I'm running back to my PC I manna see that
The red and blue flowers also match the color scheme of the red&blue feathered brachsword talismans as well as the twinbird kite shield.
One of my first speculations when reaching the blue and red fields was: "Blue and red make purple. In here we'll find the two halves of St. Trina". Still thinking that could be a nice touch. The red fields were a bit under-utilised...
@dimosdimakopoulos3884 my dream is that they release a mini dlc that expands on fissure depths. Something about the size of the Siofra River area. That leads to under the suppressing pillar, where all of our questions will be answered. That area seemed so big, but it turned out to be so small; it didn't even have a map. I'm also confused ass hell by this dlc, and need more lore.
one thing ive noticed its, in the base game, Miquella is supposed to be at the very base/bottom of a citadel, while in the dlc he is at the very top of one. its a nice parallel, maybe simbolizes his "rise"
quelaag you’re very inspiring to me in how well spoken you are and how well informed u are. never get discouraged
I NEED your St Trina video. I am so fascinated by St. Trina that I'm basically Thiollier fr fr. The idea that she is Miquella's 'love' cast away, and she seems like she is genuinely a benevolent being (especially given the game's insinuation that she brought peace to the Merchants below Leyndell by singing them a lullaby). This also explains why Miquella becomes so cold and devoid of the concept of 'love' by the end (he can't tell the difference between forced subjugation of the heart vs actual love).
Ok, so the Mariner we fight in the Hidden Grave of Charo is likely Charo itself seeing as it drops a Cookbook that lets us craft an item that allows us to summon Those Who Live in Death. Cool stuff!
I love your dives into the Helphen lore. Feels like an ancient culture that was there before even the Hornsent. Forgotten, but with whispers of it still around in the form of mariners and deathbirds. So damn cool, and it’s crazy how deep into the mythology FromSoft thought about.
I wonder how Ravenmount fits into that
Is anyone else seeing St. Trina and GEQ parallels? The “gloam” color itself seems to be a washed out purple, and a lot of Trina’s lore alludes to an eternal sleep. I wonder if Miquella was poised to repeat his mother’s mistakes in some way by sealing away death.
Yes! I dont think St Trina is the GEQ, but I think she is transitioning into that role given the rotting putrescence and her soft lavender turning into "Velvet purple". Her new sword description gives some hints on that!
@@quelaag yes I agree I think it’s more an allusion to the cyclical nature of things then “x is x”. That’s been the hardest part lol is trying to discern just how much Miquella’s ascension would mirror Marika’s, looking forward to your theories!
Edit: lord I didn’t even know about that new sword 😂 thanks for the tip
Believe it or not, apparently the Putrescent Knight is named as "gloameyeknight" or something similar in the files. Granted, file labels are about as informative as cut content, but I found that to be fascinating, despite the many contradictions there would be if Trina was involved with the GEQ.
@@Zythryl Well in ER, sleep is very, very, very closely related with death. If you think about it, death is just infinite sleep. Remember Fia as well. She literally goes to sleep with dead or dying nobles to transfer vitality to them. So it wouldn't surprise me if there is some symbolic or cyclical connection between the GEQ and Trina.
I firmly believe that St. Trina was the way the world had to rebalance the absence of true death, by the introduction of the closest thing possible: eternal sleep.
That would explain all the correlations between sleep and death in this game (cough - hypnos and thanatos - cough), the gloam color and, in a way, why Miquella discarded both Trina and his Love in the fissure: the act of laying someone to rest, in all the various meaning such phrase can take, is an act of care and ultimately of love.
Not sure what to conclude from it, but Morgott has a lot of connections to the Curseblades. Obviously they dress similarly and both have horns, but Morgott wields his cursed sword when we fight him, the curseblade mask boosts dexterity (which Morgott sword sword requires a lot of), and both jump around like maniacs in combat.
What really stood out to me was the Curseblade mask description stating “causes the blessing of the Erdtree to become nauseating”, which none of the other hornsent helmets state, and Morgott literally begins retching during his fight. There might not be too much behind this aside from the obvious parallels, but haven’t seen anyone else make this observation yet
I WAS GONNA SAY!!!! also the idea of being ascetic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! morgott wears rags and deprives himself of like every sort of comfort or pleasure or desire and self flagellates, both emotionally and potentially physically. he is literally an ascetic... which is what the curseblades were also called.... i don't think he took practices directly from them or is actually connected to them, but it made me crazy bc it feels like an effect of generational trauma that he happens to parallel them
Omens have nightmares about "horned ancients" acording to Omen Killer set, which I believe means that they dream about the hornsent in general
Maybe Morgott's dreams were particularly haunted by the curseblades, and even if subconsciously, he started mimicking their style
On why Mohg's body specifically - Omens are haunted by spirits, plausibly angry/vengeful Hornsent spirits, and I believe the JP text describes them as being particularly sensitive to spirits (struggling to find the source for this now, though). Also as you touch on, the Hornsent were the ones using if not constructing the gate prior, so using a Horned vessel certainly makes sense, with its association with the divine of the crucible and gate.
Oh my god it’s a Helphen video!!!!! Now I can shut up about my stupid helphen-tree theory. Never been so excited to be dead wrong.
explain your theory? do you mean you think there's a helphentree similar to the erdtree and scadutree?
I want to hear your stupid Helphen tree theory, because I've had a stupid Helphen tree theory for so long but I'm also not entirely convinced it's been put to rest yet
Would it have anything to do with it looking like a conifer? Because I sure think it does
In one statue, we see a woman who seems to be burning, pulling a tree like thing out a tree stump that's been grafted on. Didn't know what to make of that one. Symbolism of merica removing death?
@@curtisfarley6558 Good ol' 'Merica, removing both death AND communism from the lands between...
4:41 those boats are also beside the secret passage to abyssal woods! It’s a coffin like the ones between waterways below the lands between (and the coffin ships on cerulean coast), and I think that passage was used to ferry the burned ashes down into the abyssal woods. The dlc revealed that the frenzied flame melts away spirits, so this may be their attempt to halt the formation of those who live in death! It would go some way to explaining why D’s cape is decorated with two snakes when they’re typically considered enemies of the golden order
The spiral columns are a frequent element in baroque opera set design, which given the divine stage setting for the Lion dancer fight might be relevant. Also, I personally think the Formless Mother is supposed to represent a sort of liminal goddess of transgression and opening of forbidden paths to knowledge or other esoteric truth as much as one of violence and bloodshed, which makes Mohg's chamber as the entry into the shadowlands make a lot of sense, as well as perhaps explaining in part why his body is able to be transported there and Radahn's is not (assuming there's a reason beyond just the fact that it's wracked with scarlet rot.)
Jerma reference 10/10 video
11:40 its fun that this is shown in mechanics too. miquella's incantations only require faith now and dont keep skeletons from resurrecting.
The otherworld rebirth cycle reminded me of specific lore from Ireland, too. I remember a few tales where it's said that when faeries die, they are reborn in the human world, and vice versa. There's one story where a man takes a faerie wife, and she cries at births and laughs at funerals because of this.
*starts break dancing as you’re breaking down lore*
On asceticism and suffering bringing connection to divinity - the bloodfiends in the DLC also find the Mother Of Truth in the "shadow" of their local tutelary dietty (hornsent asthetic religious leader) after being burned in the crusade.
Notably too, the Hornsent ascetics ritually bloodlet (Curseblade description) as part of their attempt to become or invoke divine power.
I saw someone reference this in another video but the spiral imagery also harkens to DNA double helix 🧬 and the crucible ritual of having combatants fight to death and spill their primordial fluids (blood) in order to activate the Divine Gate.
We see Marika walking on bloodied corpses in her ascension to Godhood. The divine gate is riddled with corpses.
So it made me think of how did Miquella achieve this? Well he compelled a band of followers to come to the land of shadow. And upon having the bewitchment break, we all conveniently slaughter eachother in the sand pits right before Miquella ascends to godhood. So it makes you wonder if this was the motive for him bewitching all of these people for this sole purpose, and he knew they would fight one another upon regaining their memories
another example of boat burial in the lands between is found beneeth stormveil. Near the lesser Godwyn husk is found the remnants of small boats as well as gravestones and a scarab with a rancor spell.
Love that you used Charon imagery from the game Hades , such a beautiful art style. Great video quelaag
My editor is the best! They chose most of the visual depictions but I love that interpretation of Charon too
This video has everything, smooth ambience, BJ Pillars, even a Jeremy jumpscare, Lore is back baybeeey!
Its just a thought but I always wondered why Mogh announced his dynasty at his end as Moghwyn as if he knew what his role was within Miquella's plan was (obviously he was under his control but aware of the plan as Miquella's puppet) But I believe that he was under the impression that it would be his soul that would reside within a new host body more specifically his brothers Godwyn, hence Moghwyn. Its a stretch and I doubt this is the case but I think there is strong president for it.
The editing on this is great, loving the new format!!
Speaking of columns: the outer god heirloom (talisman) also reminds me of the Priestess tarot you mentioned. It seems to depict a tutelary deity posed in front of an archway with columns, except that there's something sinister about the background of the archway (looks like roots taking hold of it). Yeah, the Outer Gods seem to be able to manifest through feelings of extreme suffering, which is sort of Berserk-esque (shock!). Great video - already so much to revisit on my next jaunt to the Shadow Lands.
This video was such a joy. I'd already made the connection of the tibia mariner's boats in the shadow keep, but never thought the the keep might itself be the Helphen. Now I have the need to check each and everyone of its rooftops until I see the one depicted in the sword. Thank you, Quelaag.
The line about the seduction and betrayal is actually ripped right out of berserk, it’s what Griffith did to the band of the hawk. He seduced them all in to help herald his dream and then of course, betrayed them. The scene of the gates of divinity being made of a literal mountain of bodies is berserk imagery in its finest as well as metaphorical to the idea of “the great rising upon a stair case of corpses”
The seduction and the betrayal also harkens to Christian mythology, the snake seducing and then betraying Eve, I mean hell there’s even a tree involved 😅
I think Elden ring flipped the script though, I think Marika seduced the eternal serpent and then betrayed it after being traumatized by the genocide of her people. It would answer a lot of questions as to why messimer has snake aspects and why the serpent is supposedly “the enemy of the erdtree”
I mean, even messimer’s fire, the eternal serpent lives in a volcano. It’s also clear Rykard knows about the lands of shadow from the virgin by that fort I can’t recall the name of.
I’m working on my own theories regarding all this, but I think it’s all connected, the fell god, the dragons, the eternal serpent, the (new) abyssal serpent, the gloam eyed queen and marika. Oh and Melina too. I think both her and messimer are visages of marika’s bloody rise to the throne that came through, which is why both their “bad” eyes are sealed.
Hell yes!!!!
i followed Gene here
just wanna say i love the jerma tibia mariner voice clip. OH DUDE SICK BOAT ENCOUNTER
Enjoyed the ambient melodies that accompanied the lore dive. Fits the video well.
I love the idea that suffering allows to commune with outer gods.
I found that it's weird that we get 2 instances of a burned down place and a "new" finding of a god. Romina is one example, but there is the sigil that boosts arcane, that also states they found in the burned corpse their new god. I believe that is linked to the formless mother, as the location is full of bloodherolds.
Which to me is a nod to fromsoft's usual idea, that fire brings a new age, like in darksouls.
Melina is an alter ego to Messmer. Like st. Trina to Miquella, like Radagon to Marika. There. ER explained. Thank You, I'll be here all week.
Another thing that you have mentioned before on stream is that the tower in Belurat and the spiral motif is very reminiscent of the Tower of Babel. In a lot of artistic depictions of the Tower of Babel it’s shown as a spiral; reaching towards heaven. That seems to be why spiral objects, like Metyr’s tail, are able to communicate with the outer gods.
Another instance of Divine Suffering is the Blood Fiends in the Land of Shadow. They saw the Formless Mother in the corpse of one of their kin during a great tragedy. It's also possible that the Blood Fiends are transformed Demi-Humans because they drop String and they get red eyes at night! So they may be a splinter of Demi-Humans who found the Formless Mother during divine suffering!
13:47 I always thought Malenia stabbed herself to break Miquella's needle that's why we find it broken in Caelid where they fought.
“oh wait ew stinky” HAHAHAHA cuteee
You pointing out that the sealing tower marks the very centre of the lands between gave me a huge realisation. Looking at the map of the lands between, what is in the centre? Nothing. Just ocean. A big gap. If you filled in that ocean, you'd get a landmass with the Erdtree just off its northern shore. And sure enough the Shadowlands map is a single landmass, with the Scadutree just off its northern shore...
There is a post on reddit where someone overlayed both maps this very way (with the pillar between the divine towers). And well, it fits almost perfectly. After taking into the account that parts of the land may have crumbled after being separated (and a lot of time that passed) then we can safely assume that the Land of Shadow was in that gap
This DLC has given me so so much to chew on theme-wise, the sheer amount of mothers and especially children reacting to being abandoned by their mothers and either being lost or resolving to become new mothers just kills me. Both Messmer and Miquella have this towards Marika, Metyr and Ymir have this towards the Greater Will, even Romina becomes a surrogate mother for the children of the scarlet rot. It's so insanely cohesive in building up what grace & kindness & night all mean and it contextualizes the thousand-year voyages (Miquella & Ranni) so much.
Also, I'm still so thrown by the Blackflame sigil being *really close* to Metyr's face/main finger? It's absolutely buck wild. I don't think Metyr was the Gloam-Eyed Queen, but maybe it's like a Marika/Two Fingers situation with her guiding them.
Also, like, the five-fingered hand??? Did Metyr do that??? It would explain why she's dysfunctional, she's not making proper five-fingered hands anymore, and it'd give a reasonably long timeframe for her to work and then be abandoned.
I'm just like, chomping at the bit on this one. So much juicy stuff.
The fates of the Carian royals (not just Carian Empyrians) is determined by the stars. The stars are "promising" that the fate of Raddahn is that of Miquella's consort, whether Raddahn likes it or not. He clearly doesn't, since he stops the stars and therefore his fate as Miquella's consort, so Miquella sends Malenia to kill him making all the star-stopping pointless.
Your lore videos are the best! There is so much lore in this DLC it's crazy. Can't wait to see what you have next!
Regarding the suffering part, I think it's interesting that the lamenter is described as "the state of a denizen of paradise." The upside down buildings in Enir-Ilim also remind me of the Eternal Cities.
I find myself speculating on the relationship between the Tower, beasts, divinity, and order:
- Divine beast seems to be a lion, judging from the Belurat boss and the Divine Beast Warriors in Enir Ilim
- Storm appears to be important, possibly part of divine power (or wrath), used by Belurat boss and Divine Beast Warriors in Enir Ilim
- Serosh is a lion, white like the beast depicted by the Divine Beast Helm, and is associated with Stormveil
- The thing in the trailer from which Marika plucks gold fabric doesn't look 100% like a white lion but could be close
- Maliketh is a beast and, as Guranq, gives you a hammer that directly references Serosh
This is still tin-foily, but I wonder if Marika's betrayal has something to do with stealing the life of the divine in the form of gold.
If the gold is of the divine beasts, then perhaps using it as a fundamental component of the Elden Ring indirectly weaves the fate of beasts into Marika's order and maybe all forms of order governed by the Elden Ring (meaning, all endings in which we mend the ring).
Still very undeveloped, but it feels like there's something here.
It's not only lion.
The first known divine beast was actually bird-shaped.
Messmer's army kinda slaughter these beasts, and by the suggestion of some of his underlings, Messmer had their corpses kept in Shadow Keep's specimen room.
She’s so cute and smart 🥹🥰
Lovely stories with a beautiful voice.
I’d never figure this lore out in my own.
She just like me fr
Maybe the suffering of those who were sacrificed to create the Divine Gate is what allows it to have those divine properties to begin with
Ok so what is going on with Miquella mechanically?
1. He was in the tree in a cocoon. In the intro we see Mohg carrying the cocoon AND Miquella’s childlike body separately.
2. We find a corpse (Miquella’s?) in the cocoon in Mohgwyn palace.
3. Apparently Miquella was wandering around the realm of shadow in childlike form in the flesh discarding of his flesh, including St Trina separately.
WHAT is going on here? This leads me to believe that is not Miquella’s corpse in the cocoon but I don’t know what it would be. Thoughts?
the jerma tibia mariner throwback really makes this video for me
the lore is great too
That tower with the note that claims to be "the very center of the Lands Between" is my white whale of lore now because of the second part of the note: "All manners of Death wash up there, only to be suppresed."
It refers to the Lands Between as the place where "All manners of Death wash up," at least at the time when the tower was built (which is presumably before removal of the DD from Elden Ring and before separation between TLB and Shadowrealm). It recontextualizes so much of the lore and certainly keeps me up at night.
Naw. "All manners of Death wash up here" where "here" refers to the land of shadow. It's explained in this very video. TLB is not where all manners of death wash up, TLS is.
@@TheBlaringBlue why then does the first part of the sentence refer to the tower as the center of the Lands Between, if in the very next sentence it talks just about the Lands of Shadow without referring to it by name?
If tower was built after the separation of TLB and the realm of shadow, it doesn't make sense to refer to itself as "the very center of the Lands Between." If it was built before separation, the second sentence should refer to the Lands Between as a place where "all manners of Death wash up."
@@mr_jyggalagI agree with your assessment and it does indeed recontextualize many things.
TLoS is or was part of TLB. It was “phased” out with the veil that Marika places over it. But yes at one point they were all on the same plain
@@TheBlaringBlue No. The message refers to the Lands Between not the Land of Shadows
@@mr_jyggalag you see any death “washing up” in TLB? You see any death washing up in TLS? This should answer your question
Also, the spirals being methods of divine information makes a ton of sense when you consider their similarity to the double helix structure of DNA.
The Crucible is the source of all organic material, thus it makes sense for it be depicted (or perhaps literally take the shape of) a double helix.
There are some implications that the Greater Will what was planted the Crucible, making it the progenitor of all life.
This ties back into the spiral or double helix structure of Metyr’s tail staff and the Elden Beast Sacred Sword (which pairs the heaviest resemblance to a literal double helix)
The Divine Gate reminds me a lot of Rodin's masterpiece sculpture, the Gates of Hell. It's a big gate with depictions of Dante's Inferno. It's where the Thinker comes from.
It's also interesting that the Gradham mentions sculpters a lot. That's probably a reference to the bodies that build the city.
Also, the bodies at the Divine Gate appear to be the same kind of stone that Fractured Marika is at the end of the game. Assuming the bodies are Shaman bodies, this would make sense. A lot different than the red bodies seen in the trailer.
The bodies in the divine gate have horns so they're Hornsent and not Shamans
@@JoeDower101 no, they’re a mix. It seemed like a cultural practice where they would willing sacrifice their own people (Hornsent), but also use any foreigners whose flesh they’d deem as worthy of being able to meld flesh together (Shamans)
The most interesting thing to me is how the inside of the gate forms Marika's rune.
And how that rune is kind of similar to Metyr's microcosm-holding appendage.
Perhaps it symbolizes contact with the Greater Will. Or, if the Greater Will really is gone/silent, perhaps it symbolizes drawing power from it/the plane in which it exists. The shape is also kind of like a funnel, after all.
Another possible nod to the afterlife theming can be found around the shores of the Cerulean Coast. You can come across some hornsent stacking stones into cairns. This could be in reference to a part of the Buddhist hells where children who die before their parents go. They stack stones to try and climb out of hell, but the stones always get knocked down by demons. This was actually referenced before in Bloodborne, at the entrance to the Fishing Hamlet.
Quelaag, idk if you've heard anyone else say this (haven't caught up to your streams too), but Enir-Ilim gave off huge Tower of Babel vibes for me. Like, the hubris of people constructing a divine tower to reach Heaven in order to ascend to godhood, much like Miquella and Marika had done
I'm not as well versed in other lore as you or your audience so I could be totally wrong, but I thought it was a neat allusion :)
Also the Outer God Heirloom says that "The clan, who lost everything in the great fires, peered upon the corpse of their ancestor, normally an act of sanctity, and saw in its shadow a twisted deity. The clan had suffered such torment that the horrible thing was taken as an object of worship." Another great example of how great suffering opens you up to take influence from divine sources. Reminds me a lot of different stories I can vaguely recall where characters in great pain would cry out and those would basically act like signals for different divine sources to pop in and offer deals/assistance.
It's fascinating to see someone explain fiction like this.
A little addition regarding the flowers, they're called Higanbana in Japanese and Higan is tied to the Sanzu River, which is sorta like the Styx, Higan being the distant shore of the afterlife
My personal theory is that Charo is the dead dragon, and that area is it's grave considering how all of the red flowers look like spilled blood that flowed out from it's corpse when you look at the area on the map. I kinda wish we were given a bit of lore in game about that. The name allusion to Charon is a really neat discovery!
Babe wake up Quelaag talked about Helphen!
One thing I found interesting that isn't necessarily apparently until you defeat Gaius and view the Shadow Keep from the back, is that there appear to be at least 2 distinct architectural styles in the Keep's towers, with the area that is the Specimen Storehouse looks much older, like a medieval castle, while the parts that have all of the snake iconography and Messmer insignias appears to be almost gothic in design (I am not a huge architecture buff so I mainly know the distinctions from your other videos).
The older-looking part is connected to the ruins of Rauh and has the Specimen Storehouse, so all the stuff in there makes me think that the Keep was at one point in time a Hornsent castle, which was eventually taken over by Messmer's forces who added the newer, gothic architecture with the flying buttresses. I also feel like that makes sense since that style of architecture in Elden Ring is linked to the Eternal Cities, which have connections to Marika as well. The DLC has if anything made the timeline EVEN MORE CONFUSING to me but this seems to make sense to me idk
This is why Elden Ring, to me, is the greatest From Software game: the lore! Thank you for making such an insightful video :) looking forward to more
3rd comment in a row but-
Something I noticed that was quite visually distinct is that Enir-Lilm also has many steeples of similar design to "Helphen" and the Black Keep. They're not black, of course, but they're architecturally similar.
The Nox's architecture actually also uses this motif a fair bit, but its not quite as similar looking?
I recently saw a video suggesting that Radagon is a parallel to Loki with the possible connection to giants and with his children having parallels to Loki’s children. With that train of thought he suggested that Radagon may be a shapeshifter who possibly imitated Marika to orchestrate some of the conflicts like the war against the giants and banishing Godfrey
I’ve been longing for a video from you eagerly ever since the dlc came out. Went in with the helphen great sword as my main weapon so this couldn’t have been a better topic
I want to point out that the red and blue flowers match the color scheme of the red&blue feathered brachsword talismans, as well as the twinbird kite shield. Really gives me Valhalla vibes with warriors who died a good death and tenaciously clung to life end up on the cerulean coast.
had never before noodled the connection between Miquella’s needle and the staffs’ reception of messages from outer gods and now we know why Miquella would be so terrified of outer god influence, especially Frenzied Flame (which could melt away his spirit)
It's actually Amazing how a lot of the game items have a spiral on them, starting with the elden star incantation. Even the elden ring depiction in Farum azula has something similar in the middle
Hey Quelaag, I absolutely enjoy your lore content. Its by far my favourite since you're kinda very close to how an art team usually works with all those references and brainstorming. I've been working in agencies exactly like you're doing in Miro to create concepts. You're analysing a piece of art as I've learned when I studied design, reading symbols and putting it into context. I'm a hardcore nerd for mythological stuff privately and a rather quiet lore enjoyer. But your historical/mythological/theological analysis are always astonishing and so much on point.
What I want to say is: Your videos keep me up at night :) Keep up your awesome work!
Notably, the staff of the great beyond and other divinity-invoking spiral imagery depicts spirals in unison. Their spines wind parallel. But the needle of Miquella, which blocks the influence of divinity, winds in opposition. The spines intersect, creating a distinctly different shape. It's important to not get the two confused. I wonder where else we could find these spiral motifs?
I love your videos. They are my favorite way to consume Elden Ring lore, archaeology, architecture, and connections to history. Your voice is lovely and you have such a chill way of presenting things. I think people reading scripts gets old. I feel like you’re just chatting with me. You’re the best!
The only thing that casts doubt on the spiral shape needed to communicate in my mind is the Two Fingers stand straight up when they're trying to commune with the Greater Will.
OHHHHH THE HORNS OF THE CRUCIBLE MIGHT BE THE LINK THAT WAS REQUIRED TO BRING ANOTHER SOUL INTO THE BODY
Since they’re heavily tied to evolution and constant change the omen might just be the perfect vessels
One thing that I have never seen spoken about is Golden Girl by Frank Frazetta. He’s a well storied classic fantasy artist. His works have been in countless table top role playing games and things of the like from the 80’s and 90’s. Check it out and tell me you don’t get Elden Ring and Marika vibes from it. The painting or drawling shows three wolves, like the statue in Farum, a woman in a field of flowers, much like the shaman village, mushrooms, twisting and winding flower stalks, and a panther or shadow being as I see it with my Elden brain.
Imagine an Elden Ring show (I know, I’m getting our hopes up); each demigod gets a small slice-of-life scene every once in a while.
Both Radagon and Marika could be seen sewing. Marika in her bedchamber, perhaps Radagon somewhere in Raya Lucaria. A perfect little tease of how they’re different but also one.
The spiral is easily the most important symbolism in Elden Ring to date. Serving as one of the oldest and most interconnected of symbols in the entire story and I’d love to hear a deep dive on it from you. I definitely have some thoughts on the shadowlands and specifically the spiral which seems to point towards the essence of creation within Elden Ring, on a spiritual and cosmic level.
First and foremost, the spiral is associated with the Hornsent culture and its people. The spiral incantation type is unique to the DLC and specifically unique to the Hornsent inquisitors, but for most of us deep divers we immediately see the correlation between the spiral and all sorts of groups in Elden Ring. Marika and Radagon are first to mind, especially when the Elden Beast forms Radagon into a sword which is designed as a torso with a spiraling interconnecting golden blade. But we also can see connections to the Scarlet Rot, whose distinctive Aeonian style world tree is comprised of a spiraling trunk. The Scadutree itself is twin trunks spiraling together to form a cohesive whole. Why is this symbol so inherently important and consistently applicable symbolically in game?
From the Spira incantation item description: “The spiral is a normalized Crucible current that, one day, will form a column that stretches to the gods.”
I do not want to make this comment incessantly long, so to give my opinion on this description now.
In our own reality, the universe sprung forth from the Big Bang (presumably). This unknown explosion caused a temperature inflation, and expansion of matter followed by the onset of a cooling. The earliest elements of the universe began to form nebulae, from which stars are born. These nebulae are swirling clouds of cosmic dust, and the most elementary particles of the universe, that smash and mix together creating new elements and eventually forming physical bodies in space. Like our own sun.
Our solar system is tied to the Milky Way galaxy, a SPIRAL barred galaxy that is not stationary in space. We are moving all as a great whole, a greater will if you would. Across space and time, physical representation of what our solar system looks like moving through space, is a spiral.
Spirals are the essential motion that created the universe, and are driven by a combination of cosmic forces spawned in the moment the Big Bang occurred, when all the fundamental forces became separated and not a single unified force as most scientists believe.
So essentially, the Hornsent had a grasp on the essentially fundamental force of the universe on a galactic scale. It also tells us the greater will and all life in game spawned from a singularity, of infinite nothing. A gaping abyss….
Welcome back Dark Souls.
Finally a channel that paints all of the esoteric and occult themes behind ER lore! YESSS!!! I found it cool that you mentioned the two pillars, as in a lot of Kabalistic guided dogmas and magic circles that come in touch with Hermeticism even, the foundations of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life is comprised of a Right Black Pillar of Severity and a Left White Pillar of Mercy (respectively represented by the letter J & B sometimes, which you depicted in the Tarot card, that should read 'Jachin' and 'Boaz', the main outter pillars of the Solomonic temple). Lastly there is also a third middle pillar representing the self / self-highness, thus the connection of the mundane with god.
From watching lore videos here’s my theory: It is Godwyn in the cocoon not Miquella. The night of Black Knives served another purpose, it turned Godwyn into a gateway that allows someone to access the Shadowrealm. Which suggests perhaps Miquella had a part in it. Radahn haulted the stars to stop his fate which was his vow to Miquella. Malenia was sent to challenge Radahn because his haulting of the stars was interfering with Miquellas plan.
Extreme sensation, either pain or pleasure, that disrupts the ego's sense of self and allows contact to greater cosmic forces is known as ekstasis in Hermetic/Hellenic mysticism. The use of hallucinogens, self-flagellation, fasting, exposure to hash elements, esoteric rites of pleasure, all of these and more have been used in RL mysticism to achieve this state of temporary transcendence for a variety of reasons.
One interesting idea I had regarding Ymir and Metyr communing with outer gods and the greater will, how Ymir talks about how the glintstone sorcerers read the movement of the stars and the life there in. It reminded me of the Guild Navigators in Dune, how they can use their super intelligence to read safe passages in fold space, and how paul has visions of his future, but unlike Dune Elden Ring has cosmic horrors lurking out in the void, and the outer gods use this reading of the stars as a way to influence those in the lands between.
Also I've never thought of Tarot card readings with Elden Ring, but the High Priestess card symbolizing Marika in a way is really interesting. I looked up some other depictions and they all have a crescent moon shape to her feet, which is very similar to her Great Rune. Also the word used for the Shaman in the game in Japanese is Miko, or "Priestess", I think the Shaman were women of the Numan with spiritual significance related to Tree worship. The women having a sort of reverence makes sense why they have a statue dedicated to "The Grandmother". interesting if the The Shaman Village is where Marika is from, she could in sense have been a priestess, and becoming a God would make her the High Priestess in a way.
the center of the faram elden ring, the fingerslayer blade and the radagon sword in elden beasts hand are spirals
and the scadutree too
Another point to add to the argument made at 1:00. The Realm of Shadow fits perfectly in the ocean in the center of The Lands Between if you compare the maps. The Trees even match up.
After all this time, we really did go to the center cloud in the DLC
Adds up with the suppressing tower inscription too, which says that it's at "the very center of The Lands Between".
No it doesn't
Queelag's videos keep me up at night(it's deep dead night here and storm rages outside)
Came here from VaatiVidya, to keep on exploring theories and conspiracies of Elden RIng... My god this f*cking game trully keeps me up at night. And I mean I played the original 2 years ago for almost 300 hours and here we are again 420 hours deep and on the verge of starting another playthrough. And I wan't, nay... I NEED more. I want every f*cking little thing there is to know about it gah damn iiiiit. And who knows how long until Elden Ring 2 comes out (if ever?) gah...
Anyways, I haven't watch the video yet even, just thought I'd vent a bit into the void of the internet and if by chance you see it, I thank you deeply, for all the work you put in this channel and into the whole research, so that I and many others don't have to do it and instead we can just watch it and maybe speculate about it a bit more.
Anyways... Thank you for doing this. Thank you.
Foul tarnished.
I'm fascinated by the possible interactions that were had between Miquella, Melina and Ranni that result in us acquiring Torrent and the Spirit Calling Bell. It seems Miquella bet on us to be the one to kill Radahn (likely not the only candidate). It would seem Ranni would be happy to help, but she seemingly didn't know about her fate and the stars at that point (unless we and Iji were left in the dark till we worked it out). I wonder if Miquella summoned Ranni and Melina from the realm of shadow with the Calling Bell and their actions were initially repayment to him (before both decide to use us for their own plans).
Finally a Quelaag dlc video, still waiting for the Tarnished archeologist.
I look to these two for understanding of the world and maybe Vaati for the more poetic, emotional, character perspective.
13:58 another example of suffering being the catalyst for communication with the outer gods is mogh and the blood fiends
I meam...Messmer is the "king" of the shadow lands, only has one eye and uses a spear. Kinda like odin
Subscribed. I'm only at the twin sword knight woman so I'm getting tons of lore spoilers from this but whatever a of Miyazaki's work is intentionally vague anyway, usually.
Oh another ramble I might as well put here just because you talked about Radahn and Miquella a little bit, I feel like there is a ton of visual similarity between Miquella riding Radahn's back as a spirit to Sarosh riding on Godfrey's back. I don't really know what that means necessarily (if anything), but I think it's interesting since Hornsent warrior culture places great emphasis on the storm, hawks, and lions, all of which Godfrey and the Golden Lineage seem to have basically ripped from them likely as part of the Hornsent's defeat.
Sacred bloody flesh tells us the blood of the formless mother never rots and gigachad Radahn can make an eclipse any time he wants.. Maybe Miquella played buildabear with his two brothers to save his other siblings (Godwyn and Malenia) 😅
Also the combining of a body and a different soul at the Devine gate to make a lord reminds me that placidusax’s heads had different genders and the twinbird carvings in farum and I’m not sure how to unpack it
The only thing about miquella "dying" in the lands between is why he would even need to discard his flesh in the shadow realm if he already essentially did that.
One thing that interests me, is that the Larval Tears in the DLC are the "real" ones, and all the Larval Tears you find in TLB are manufactured
Oi, i just wanna mention, the Song of the Bats who live in the ruin strewn precipice basically sing about the whole thing that happened in the shadowlands with marika. Its likely that most of the people didnt even know what they were doing wrong.
Marduk bears a lot of similarity to Marika. Though I’ve been dumpster diving wikipedia for clues… Hathor was a horned Egyptian goddess linked to Horus and Ra. Ra being the sun god and both son and consort to Hathor. Ra also bears a lot of resemblance to other ancient father gods Anor Elim & his counterpart Dagon. Both trace back to a gnostic creation myth of the Demiurge which is a Lion + Snake hybrid said to weave matter out of chaos and is closely associated with the hermetic spiral.
The suffering/Buddhism bit also applies to the Man-Flies, they consider their suffering to be a part of their humanity and while the metamorphosis into a fly is horrifying, it removes their human suffering.
The tiny gremlin avatar to edit all around footage has made you so powerful