There is death root in Farum Azula and it is seemingly not connected by root system.

I do think that the entry to Placidusax's arena involves turning back time in a literal sense somehow, as the storm is described as being outside of time, which is why the ancient city, in my opinion, has yet to completely fall (and why the beastmen seem to be rotting away rather than dying and being reborn as Those Who Live In Death, imo). It's even said that dragon scales resist the passage of time, which is why ancient dragons are ageless, and why weapons forged with their scales can kill gods. That said, I could absolutely see dreaming being the mechanism through which you actually go back in time, rather than a more physical trip.

If you look closely You can see a lil bit of ghost flame around the purple flowers, i figured that was the hue the item description was talking about, not necessarily the purple flower petals themselves but the aura that surrounds them.

These some very interesting interpretations, I like the idea that the Mariners are the origin of the other Those Who Live In Death since it means they are much more important in the grand scheme of things! Ghostflame once having a different colour makes sense to me as well. Maybe lying down and sleeping in Farum Azula lets the Tarnished commune with the spirits of all the Dragons who are a part of it, and bring us into the dimension where the Dragonlord is waiting for his God to return? If Placidusax is sleeping as well then this also makes his situation even more eerily similar to Malenia's.

Keep up the videos man I love your work and the quality on these is really good and it’s awesome learning about these even a thousand hours of playtime on this game and the dlc coming up!

A really niche lore topic I'm really into

Either I'm ignorant, or this is the first time I've heard someone point out that Grave Violets are "the hue of Ghost Flame." I'm now drawn to the idea that Ghost Flame used to be combined with Sleep and may have resulted in a true death. Ghost flame burns the physical body, but the soul survives while the sleep flame may burn the soul leaving the body alive. As you mentioned, Godwyn is trapped in an everlasting sleep unable to die while Ranni's soul is separated from her dead flesh. The two sides of the curse-mark may represent sleep and ghost flame respectively. Remember the purple sludge you walk across in Godwyn's chamber may relate to sleep and remember the godskin noble protecting Ranni's corpse who uses ghost flame and how Ranni's body is burnt when we find it. I dunno, maybe there's something there, or just a little unhinged speculation 😅

yo what a gem, new to your channel good stuff man

Great video! Love your understanding of death in the lands between. I think the deathbead companions give to people to be born a new and for the soul of the nobel to find another life(some sort of immortality)we can see this in the immortality of grandmasters and also the silver tear of the Nox,all of these soul manipulation is against the eardtree because it will prevent souls from returning to it. So marika by plucking away the rune of death, allowed immortality to be extended to all the peoples in the lands between. I know my understanding is a bit shake but your video helped me alot to wrap my head around the concept of death in the game. great video, and i love the way you encapsulate many parts of the lore together. Can't wait for the dlc and your theories after playing it

Godwyn don't lose 😤

The Eclipse failed because of Radahn

Hey man, I enjoyed the video, but I do have a bit of constructive feedback: I think these videos would be improved if you slowed down your speech a little bit so that way people could absorb more of the information. You can also add in more gaps for your voice recordings in post to let some of that information settle at times as well.

blaidd uses ice as ranni his emperian, so why don't malekith use holy? 🤔 he is also feared by gods, also wears white robes not skin but still lol

Great video,your explanation of where they become two entities with different motivations has to do with the effects of the due and radagon time spent with rennela. Also i think marika used a larval tear to birth the radagon persona as her being a newuman is heavily implied, and she must be well versed in eternal city magic.

They are omens for a reason. A reminder of the return to the crucible.

how does the crucible fit into all this? it seems like a pretty big part of omen lore

Only one defeated enemy is counted as a god

Dualism, Death, Dung - or, how my mornings going.

An important detail missing from this analysis is the concept of "shirikodama". It has appeared in Sekiro from the headless's grab attack and radically changes the way one interprets what the dung eater is doing and the soul, body, mind trifecta.

I think you are pretty much right in line with what ive been thinking for awhile. Even outside Elden Ring, with FS previous game Armored Core 6, i interpreted a sort of Mind Body Soul unification theme. I think elden ring might be a loose story of birth of the Mind. The body soul dualism can be considered an old methodology as well. The mind allows for the existence of Free Will. On that note, i am starting to wonder if the Greater Will is that of the One Great, which may have become corrupted with Marikas actual ascension to godhood. So what if it went something like this.... the ultimate Greater Will of the One Great is growth. This is the Primeval Current. A raw desire to flow. The One Great allowed Marika to seduce them and selfishly take the fibers of life to use of her own will. Across an incredibly vast timeline, Marika went from growing under the banner of the greater will to ultimately usurping it and stagnating the primeval current itself. The Goldmasks rune talks about men being fickle. It appears Marika may have betrayed many, including the dragons at the beginning of time, in order to secure her role as God in the Lands Between. I could go on, but i have to say again i really think you are on the right track. Keep up the good work! Edits mostly typos. No more random comments in YT for me for awhile hahaha 😂

the reason the eclipse failed was rodahn had stopped the heavens from moving, but now he's dead fate can continue i think the eclipse is ranni and miquella in the same body, i think it's why she only half in her doll body, the coming together of gold and silver. complete, its like the twins

Excellent video! I have an upcoming video about the properties of blood and how they affect the Lands Betwee and I was worried that I was late to the punch with this video, but I was pleasantly surprised with your investigation on the mechanics of Souls. My favorite observation of yours is that related to the Dung Eater and how these multiple 'cursed' souls give him this dual personality. It makes for an interesting comparison to the brothers D. Where Dungeater is one body with multiple souls inducing a sort of madness, D is two bodies with one soul and they also show dualism in their respective personalities(One is calm and collected, the other is a raving madmen, both are religious zealots) Dungeater's calm persona is also his Phantom, or his spirit, so its interesting that while it is seperated from his body he can be almost zen, sitting in a cross legged position. I look forward to watching your other videos!

Your takes are pulling some things together! Rani screwing over godwyn twice! >.>

Godwyn IS the eclipse. He is eclipsing the erd tree, corrupting the roots. Blocking the light.

Ive yet to see anyone talk about the fact that the word empyrean may come from "Empyrée" or "Ciel Empyréen" (Empyrean sky) wich comes from ancient greek, meaning "that which is inflamed" or "fire", and relates the highest plane of the celestial sphere, supposed occupied by fire. Its where god and celestian beings resides, an eternal sky. These very interesting tidbits, I take them to mean that being empyrean means to be connected to either the Greater Will or the skies where the outer gods resides, meaning they (the empyreans) are connected to godhood. Like you said, that could happen by being born of a singular god, or by other means

It had never occurred to me that the omens continuing to be birthed during the golden order was an effect of Marika getting rid of the rune of death. Very interesting take!

great video broski

Really good video

Ive never looked into the revenants. lol wow there is frustratingly little lore and their placement is weird.

you articulate alot of ideas ive had but we disagree on some of the details and motivations. great video though. mostly I dont think radagon and marika have to have different motivations. I really vibe with the idea that Radagon is the product of Marika. That her will could just manifest a new being. Ive thought it but you might be the first creator ive seen actually say it. "let us be shattered, both" was she already shattered and needed Radagon to shatter himself too? Or did they have to shatter each other for it to work? Either way it seems like he did it. So we can really only assume that their motivations align. Not much of a stretch if they are the same person. It doesnt really have to make sense. the mending rune of perfect order states "The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment."

One thing i always wondered is when someone failsafes back, is the room and things around in the state it was when they got in the box or the state when the box was turned on ? for example, if Aaron left the door open before travelling back would it be open when he gets out the box earlier that day ?

I've played Elden Ring and watched many videos about the lore but I don't think I'll ever understand it. Having so many characters with similar sounding names doesn't help either.

I feel at peace now

Awesome video but there was one thing i wanted to point out. Radagon gifted Rennala the Amber Egg, not the Great Rune. After the Elden Ring was Shattered, the Amber Egg was the thing that received the Great Rune of the Unborn which is why it is the first thing mentioned in the Great Rune description. I think it is essentially an Erdtree Womb with an unborn demigod in it that was ripped from the Erdtree. It is basically Erdtree sap afterall.

Lmao

WOW great ideas and explanation one of the best elden ring videos i have ever seen ,these comprehensions of the power of portals blow my mind specifically

Skinning Godwyns face makes so much sense never even thought of that. I was always confused about the face under stormveil

Your evascipation theory is interesting but hard to nail down. I was trying to convince my friend of a similar idea but my arguement was that the box returns you to the point it was turned on and the box is always turned on when it was empty so from the outside observer its always empty. This means if you reuse the same machine then what you describe as evascipation occurs. Think of a scenario where you go back in time at 5pm, then arrive 9am and do whatever during the day. Once your past version is about to use the machine at 5pm you stop him. It is now 5:01pm you know for a fact the machine is empty and was never turned off. What happens if you use it? To me it makes sense you would evacsipate the past version. However the movie never really confirms this and the characters seem very confident that somebody exists in a machine after its been used. Its entirely likely that evascipation doesnt work and if you tried it things like a random coma happens. The movie does literally say the problem with Grangers coma is recursive so its a recuring paradox that apparently is so bad he no longer functions. That means you indeed need to bring a machine back with you everytime you use a failsafe which would then mean 20 Aarons are indeed running around or knocked out if he went back that many times. The only logical conclusion is that Aaron doesnt go back that many times and Aaron 3 just gets the party right. Which honestly isnt as fun to me.

Look, I think what is messing everybody up is the assumption that the Gloam Eyed Queen and Marika were not one in the same person. Think about it, how can the GEQ go against Marika wielding Destined Death if it could simply be sealed by Marika? Willing to bet Maleketh was known as "Death of the Demigods" because he was Marika's right hand during the Godhunt, and when Malaketh defeated the GEQ and her Godskins he actually defeated Marika for transgression against the Greater Will because she burned the Erdtree, and that is why Malaketh has the stone right eye that is a gloam eye, because it is Marika's eye, because he took it from her as GEQ. His job as shadowbound beast to Marika is to turn on Marika should she piss off the Two Fingers. I think as GEQ she actually burned the first tree. She committed the first cardinal sin. That got not only her power sealed but a watchdog, Radagon, who could monitor her actions, become the perfect empyrean making counterpart, and serve as a perfect punishment to Marika by becoming all of he opposites in hopes of making a perfect Rebis capable of making a perfect being. Radagon, as a person, always sought perfection, not the Golden Order. I think the Elden Beast was trying to perfect itself and that is why this particular punishment was given, to make Marika the vessel. I think this is why Ranni is so willing to go to any length to shed her empyrean flesh, because of what happened to Marika. I think ever since Marika became Radagon, Radagon has slowly been taking over her over time, and that's why Radagon seems to become more active as Marika becomes less active thru the timeline of the game, and I think this seeking of perfection by the Elden Ring, thru Radagon, is actually what starts the transition to Golden Order Fundamentalism the more Radagon takes hold. I think Marika was punished twice, first as GEQ for burning the Erdtree via Malaketh and Radagon, 2nd by imprisonment in the Erdtree for shattering the Elden Ring, and this is why she mocks Radagon, saying "thou have yet to become me, thou have yet to become a god." Because at the end of the day she is the vessel not him, which is why she wins out and shatters the Elden Ring. In fact it may be the reason she is upset about Godwyn and that's the reason for it, it may be because Godwyn seems to be her only non-Omen child she didn't have with Radagon. If so, that may make him able to be the one Empyrean she could have truly outside of Two Fingers influence. If she was the GEQ, plotting against the two fingers the whole time, this would make more sense than any other reason I have heard. But why have children with Radagon tho? It may be as a Nox, she thought Radagon could become the perfect substitute for a Silver Tear Albinuric in the making of a true Lord of Night, but after having Miquella Malenia, and Melina, maybe she realized the Two Fingers would control/influence her children as well, and gave the only one who didn't have a body for the Two Fingers to control, Melina, a very special mission only she could do. Return Destined Death to the world, either by burning, or by becoming. IDK.....I think everything just makes a lot more sense this way.

The GODSLAYER'S GREATSWORD is blunt and thats odd for a sword, iji is known for making blunt weapons, could he have been involved in its creation?

4:20 I think the second is the factory born humans and gauntlet users

I already theorized this in the comments of the last video but I believe that the Gloam eyed queen is part of the first generation of Empyreans and is Marika's mother, I had also theorized that she was part of the Ancient Dynasty civilization and after she became a goddess this civilization evolved into the nox civilization, I believe she was the goddess of Placidusax and the previous vessel for the elden ring, it is possible that her hunt against the other gods was a fight to stay in power with her already being a goddess? this fits perfectly with the idea you showed about the new generations of Empyreans being made more loyal than the previous ones since the Gloam eyed queen seemed to be highly influenced by another outer god and the greater will preferred to replace her with a more loyal vessel which in this case would be his own daughter Marika, this probably correlates with the Twinbird since his Representation is found in Farum Azula and the Anciant Dynasty seemed to be influenced by him in some way, I don't believe that finger slayer blade is made of no other god than the Gloam eyed queen herself

15:27 I believe this part of Lyendell fell because of Godwyn and the Death Roots, Godwyn probably received a erdtree burial and this was the cause of the Erdtree being infected by the Death Roots, the infection from Death Roots seems to have made several parts of stormveil castle had fallen, so the very place where Godwyn would have been buried would certainly have created an infestation of death roots capable of causing an entire piece of Lyendell to fall

12:25 the holes in the castle were caused by Radahn and his gravitational magic when he laid siege to the castle

I don't think the gods have an expiration date, they last as long as they can stay in power Becoming a god probably grants you immortality but not complete immortality, just "eternal youth" you couldn't die of natural causes probably but you could be killed by someone else (kind of like in Norse mythology which is a big inspiration for elden ring ) this is why I believe the gods take by force as Rykard seems to think, the passing of power between one god and another is clearly not peaceful because it simply cannot be, your death as a god is destined to be violent, gods don't die of old age and the only way there can be an exchange of power is if the current god is killed, that's why Marika sealed destined death, she knows she is destined to have an violent death rather than a peaceful one so she simply removes the own concept of death to become completely immortal and try to be eternal

I don't know if the birth of first generation Empyreans is completely random, this is basically completely in the field of speculation but I believe that the spontaneous birth of these beings sensitive to the outer gods could actually be directly or indirectly influenced by the outer gods of Somehow, they could be creating schemes that would lead to the birth of Empyrean children that they could influence.

i loved this, cannot wait for more videos of your ideas, it's really fun to delve deeper into the world of the outer gods and the power struggle that exists even at that level. instant sub from me :D

this video is simply perfect, the only point I would like to mention is about the mechanics of being born an Empyrean, I don't believe that the two fingers create Empyreans, I believe that they only choose the Empyreans to serve the greater will and the elden ring, Ranni and Malenia apparently do not need the elden ring to achieve godhood and it would be strange if only the servants of a single outer god had the ability to make someone an Empyrean, the two fingers are simply choosing Marika's successors, I interpret that they bind the Empyreans to the greater will, Ranni is so desperate to free herself from the control of the two fingers that she goes to the point of killing her own flesh to free herself from the control of the greater will so it must be a very strong control, I would also like to say that I think we are not following the second generation of Empyreans but in fact the third, Placidusax was the consort of a goddess and apparently the society of Farum Azula was also servient to the greater will, I believe that Marika is the daughter of placidusax with whoever was his goddess

Yeeeess I totally agree with your read of the Rot Goddess Remembrance! "They are direct descendants of God, so duh of course they're worthy of the title of Empyrean. Pity about the whole rotting thing though, didn't really see that one coming tbh" On the Empyrean nature vs nurture debacle, admittedly my take on the Golden Order is super cynical, but to me it comes across as a Demigod's Two Fingers volunteering them as their "champion" and sending them to fight in the Godhood Wars. Seeing as Marika and the Gloam Eyed Queen were both Empyrean candidates despite their seemingly opposite goals, it's likely each Two Fingers has a different interpretation of the Greater Will's mysterious ways, which is then reflected by their choice of Empyrean candidate. (relatable tbh, I'm also like this with Elden Ring, sending my little theories to fight in the Lore Wars) Ranni's anger makes a lot of sense with that framing. Being an Empyrean is not an intrinsic quality of her being; she just inherited a fancy title when her dickhead dad remarried, and now all of a sudden some finger dudes are drafting her to go kill her new siblings and planning out a whole new life for her? Mate I'd be pissed off too!!! Also, wtf, I just realised as I was typing this - it's actually shocking that both Miquella and Malenia were nominated as Empyreans considering how much they seem to care for each other. Even if the title WAS some inherent, inevitable magic quality they were both born with... if I suddenly was told I might have to murder my sibling soon, I doubt I'd stick around either. "Uhhh rot can't be cured by Fundamentalism oh nooo sorryyyyy gotta go" always had the same energy as a "mum said I can't come to your house" type excuse to me lol, but it's so understandable if they were rushing out the door before the succession war could kick off.

Reminds me of Hinamizawa Syndrome in some ways, like a computer virus counterpart. Both kind of function in the same way - HS causes violence by making the victim hallucinate under extreme stress (for example, maggots) whereas the more advanced "Eraser" program running in Miyao's head is able to directly give him disturbing visions of the factory world and influence him that way. I wonder if, like her Higurashi counterpart, Vier is responsible in some way? And how would that tie into theories about her being Miyao's mother (+how would Jestress link in here?)