Even Then It's Made Clear That The Sealing Power Passed Down The Royal Family Is Still Very Much A Thing.

Ingo and Akari spinoff series of the two travelling through space and time trying to get back to their present day

call it "conductor who"

I hate when people are like "What do you mean I should spoiler tag this massive plot twist? This thing has been out for years you should have experienced it already!" As if completely oblivious to the fact that new people... exist?

Shockingly enough someone that's 15 may not have had the chance to experience this game that came out 7 years ago yet. God forbid young people get the chance to experience old content too.

Thinking about how despite all the suffering Leonard has gone through, he never abandoned Radahn. He never left or stopped carrying him around. And even after all of this time he’s still just as willing to fight by his master's side as he was during the shattering. Leonard isn’t some poor old steed forced to carry a giant, and I think his actions in the fight paint a very particular picture. The first opportunity he gets in our fight he fucking charges at us, the two move so harmoniously that it’s sometimes hard to remember that they’re two separate entities. I wouldn’t be surprised if he enjoyed combat just as much as Radahn tbh.

Thinking about how despite being driven mad by the scarlet rot and long since having lost his mind, Radahn never stopped using his gravity magic to make himself lighter for his steed. How he’s gone so far that he’s cannibalised both his enemies and allies but never laid a finger on Leonard. How despite being a hulking mindless beast, the frail creature eternally beneath him doesn’t seem to have any injuries. He’s definitely exhausted and starving but he’s doing surprisingly well for himself for a steed that has seen multiple Radahn festivals and the battle of Aionia, especially when compared to how many injuries Radahn himself has.

The two of them were inseparable until the very end.

Something curious I noticed recently while exploring Farum Azula is that some of the curtains draped around the area share a passing resemblance to the fabrics seen in Marika's bed chamber, and of the ones seen in the depiction of Marika from the opening cutscene.

I'm sure this isn't a particularly new discovery, and the designs aren't exactly the same, but they're just similar enough that it got me thinking.

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Funnily enough Maliketh also shares a very similar veil to Marika's (the thing connected to his elbows and looping around his back.) His even seems to have the same golden edges as the ones from Farum azula.

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To me it seems like black fabric with golden plant detailing's are a bit of a motif with Marika. Which is nice to know, considering how little we actually know about her. (It's also pretty sweet that she has matching outfits with Maliketh)

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But if this design is a running theme with Marika specifically and not just a mistake I'm making then it begs the question. Why does this ancient, timeless, crumbling city in the sky that's presumably much older than every other area in the game have Marika's favourite design decorating its walls?

Is Marika from the time of Farum Azula? The time of Placidusax? Is Marika his missing god who he's been waiting for? That should be impossible, and maybe it still is, but she seems to have some sort of connection to this place. If not for her design adorning its walls then certainly for her godly appointed body guard living here.

Her body guard who, by the way, uses a weapon that has cultural significance to the society of Farum Azula.

You know, the society that was blasted off the map by a meteor long before the age of the erdtree even began.

This was just supposed to be a nice little post about a small detail I noticed, and now it's turned into this. I don't even know if any of this actually makes sense but I've tried my best to put it together in an understandable way.

There's still so much to go into regarding this theory (why did Marika wage war against the dragons if they have a history like this? could the meteor that destroyed Farum be one of the ones the GW sent down to bury the eternal cities? If so then could that event possibly be one of the first things that shook Marika's resolve in the GW?)

But for now I think I need to just post this and let it simmer for a while. If you got this far then thank you for coming down this rabbit hole with me. I'd love to hear your thoughts because I am thoroughly lost in just what this could mean.

It’s such a shame honestly. She’s travelling with us for the entirety of the game, across this massive world with so much to discover and talk about (barring farum azula and onward) and I’m pretty sure she has less unique dialogue (not counting Marika’s spoken echos as actual interactions with her as a character) than Ranni, who only really interacts with us within her specific questline.

Hell, Even Latenna has some pretty good travelling dialogue when we’re doing the Haligtree quest.

I felt more connected to both of these characters as travelling companions than I ever did with Melina, which is really sad because I also really like Melina but I just tend to forget she’s there most of the time. It feels like the biggest contribution she makes to the story is being a talking piece for other characters, explaining Torrent's motivations to us and being a scribe for Marika but like… I want to know about you Meli!

I am glad we’re of one mind that Melina is a character whose potential was sorely wasted in Elden Ring. I mean, it’s probably why I can’t get too invested in her.

My take on the promised consort.

I believe that Radahn held the stars in place when Ranni began fearing her fate. She never wanted to become a puppet to the two fingers, and Radahn knowing this attempted to hold off her destiny for as long as possible. Though he likely knew that it would be an inevitability. The only other two living empyreans were cursed afterall. 

There was no way that Miquella or Malenia would be able to take Marika’s place, the two fingers weren’t even the slightest bit interested in either of them. Malenia was already claimed by the God of Rot and Miquella was perpetually in a state of adolescence. Ranni seems to be the only one who was ever actively bothered by her fingers and I believe this is because they had an intense desire for her to be the next god, assuming Miquella and Malenia as lost causes due to their curse.

I think this is when Miquella came to Radahn with a proposition. He will be seeking godhood. Even if the two fingers had no interest in him, even if the world thought him too small and frail to ascend, he was going to find a way, no matter the consequences. He was determined to become the next God and lead the world into an era of abundance and peace. To fix the mistakes of the past.

He only had one simple request.

“Promise me, you’ll be my consort.”

If Miquella were to ascend then Ranni would be free of her duty. She’d be able to live in peace knowing that she’d never have to be controlled by another's will. She wouldn’t have to become a god, she wouldn’t have to succeed queen Marika. And to top it all off, Radahn would get to play the role of his hero Godfrey. Ushering in a new era alongside a new god.

It was perfect.

That was, until the night of the black knives. The night the world was thrown into chaos. The night that the first demigods fell. And the night that he lost his sister.

Radahn likely wouldn’t have known about Ranni’s plot and would have thought her dead alongside the other victims of the night. Ranni was gone, and with her, so too was Radahns need for Miquella’s age.

I believe Radahn, fueled by grief, rage and the mad taint of his greatrune, denounced Miquella and struck out on his own as a warrior of the shattering. He didn’t need peace, he didn’t need Miquella. All he wanted was to fight. All he wanted now was endless war.

Maybe that would be enough to dull the pain of his loss? Not only the loss of his sibling and father, but also the loss of his purpose.

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Now picture Miquella. Making the final preparations to begin his ascension. Only there’s one problem. His consort has abandoned him at the very last moment. As it turns out, it seems Radahn never really cared for Miquella or his visions for a new age, he was only really in it for his own gain. 

Imagine how devastated Miquella would be. Knowing that yet another one of his plans had fallen apart at the finish line. That the person he trusted to rule alongside him didn’t even hesitate to abandon him when it was no longer convenient for him.

His ascension to godhood would never happen. He would never be able to heal his sister. He would never be able to bring forth an age of compassion. He would never be able to right the wrongs of the past.

He had failed again.

Now imagine how furious this would make his people. How angry his followers and his sister would be to see Miquella rejected at such a pivotal moment. To see him mourning a consortship and an age that would never come to pass.

Is there really any wonder that they chose to march towards Caelid and deliver the promised consort by force?

y'know, it only just hit me recently but like... Marika would definitely have fucking hated modern Godrick right?

Forcing weaker and more vulnerable individuals into horrific experiments of fusing flesh is basically exactly the sort of thing she dealt with growing up under the Hornsent. The practice of grafting would have been a really sore spot for Marika, which is probably why it seems like it only came into practice during the shattering.

Godrick is lucky he started experimenting with grafting after Marika was imprisoned because if she was still around she probably would have come crashing through his roof with her hammer and make Radagon's grab attack look soft.

Considering the vast majority of the fandom calls Ranni a spoilt, selfish little princess for not wanting to play nice with the god and order that destroyed her home and drove her mother insane, it really doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that many would also not see what’s wrong with how the other races in the lands between are treated.

It seems like anyone who tries to break the status quo in the lands between is often painted out to be a villain in the fandom's eyes, unless they do it in a purely pacifistic way. Including the tarnished themselves. 

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Side note but this is also why I feel like any ending that reninstates the golden order as it was (including goldmasks ending) are some of the worst in the game. The persecution of many of the other races in the lands between aren’t going to stop if the golden order is put back in power. The golden order at its core was about trying to brute force control and "order" into the world by assimilating everyone else into it.

It kind of shocks me how people in the Souls fandom do not see Albinaurics as real people. Or even the Misbegotten rebelling in the Castle Morne as something they had to do.

Nowadays unless I'm doing an evil character run, Edgar from castle Morne has been put alongside the dung eater on my "on sight" list.

I just cannot stand him. The way he acts regarding the Misbegotten uprising makes my skin crawl. No, I'm not going to help you stomp out a slave uprising, why don't you go fuck yourself instead?

It's lucky that he's relatively unimportant to any other questlines because I just have no drive to help him at all.

insane to me how people can play elden ring and come away with the impression that ranni is cold and doesn’t care about anyone and is using people to gain power like she so obviously loves blaidd and iji and feels guilty and conflicted about the fact that her plans put them in harm’s way and yet they choose to serve her anyway and it’s supposed to be tragic that she chooses to fulfill her destiny which results in their deaths because she believes that if she has to make sacrifices to remove the influence of the greater will then so be it. it’s morally grey and messy and painful but that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t love there