This theory is dope as fuck

A really good game mechanic that adds credibility to this theory is right in our faces, if you think about it. Holy magic was supposed to become the thing that brings true death just as it is the only thing to give life; and the holy light spells and healing spells are the only thing that can be assured to force those who live in death to die a true death. The dead do not rise again after the light of Gods has burned them. How would that be the case if Marika was only responsible for keeping everything alive? She was trying to put death back into the golden order under her control, this time, perhaps.

Melina lives cuz u just became Lord of FF and just started the job to "create the Great one" to bring everything in to one great again. So u start the real job after the game...and melina will hunt u till u burn away her too or she get rid of u. I think...

WOAH! Few go THIS deep into things, New Sub!

so many loretubers popped up after dlc release, could someone tell me how to recognize if one is legit or full of bs?

This theory also goes along with the golden orders theme of “All that converge, much regress.”

Shes cool and everything. But honestly Before elden ring came out, i thought melina was gonna be our new "level up lady" AND she IS, BUTT, she shows up in places few and far between. There were times in my first playthrough that i was surprised melina was still around. I had forgotted about her purpose 😢

Yes someone who thinks like me. Good video.

Hooray.

Awesome.

Dope.

Subscribe you people.

This channel deserves much more attention.

1:24 WHERE DID YAH COME FROM COTTON-EYED JOE

1:16 Cotton eye Joe

How can Hyetta be Irina if Irina’s body remains in the same place for the rest of the game after her death.

There were two trees. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge. But the tree of knowledge represents death. So one could say that you have a tree of life and a tree of death. The cycle of life and death in the lands between is completely disrupted. So the tree of death was literally moved to some sort of parallel dimension, still connected to the lands between but separate. The space that exists in the main map of the lands between in the middle where there is nothing but ocean is where the so-called shadow lands used to reside. The Divine towers were used as a mechanism to remove the tree of knowledge from the physical world of the lands between and put it in a parallel world, thus disrupting and perverting the cycle of life and death in the lands between. This caused the great upheaval, and it is why the lands between looks like it does now. This game is filled with a bunch of esoteric occultism. It draws from things like Zoroastrianism, Kabbalah, and gnosticism. It also has elements of the abrahamic religions in it as well. This concept of the two trees is born out of many of these different occultic and abrahamic religions.

I dont like it because the Elden Beast factually came down to the world after Metyr. Of course, it's a matter of debate as to when exactly the Elden Beast came crashing down, but if we were to say that it happened after Metyr's abandonment... well this whole theory is debunked. In that case, the Greater Will did not die/leave, it just ditched Metyr and replaced her with the Elden Beast

15:33 Yes. iirc in JP text, the word "lightless abyss" that describes the Greater will is the same word as what Azur saw. So yeah what Azur saw is surely GW's abyss. Interesting, it is also the same word in "Eternal Darkness" that symbol of the downfall of eternal city, which we know they invoked GW's ire and got grounded. Also it is a different word from 'darkness' in Dark Moon, messer's abyss serpent, etc.

Melina is a Deathbird Priestess at a minimum, given the deathbird talon on her eye. She would have been a custodian of spirits, helping them on their journey. Examples of her role can be found statues in the four Chapels (Aspiration, Stormveil, Lleyndell and Sol) and Meliketh's arena in Farum Azula, where she's surrounded by 3 dogs (a gift from Torrent's former master). More likely than being anything Miquella had control over, it's far more likely that a spirit tender like herself would have access to a spirit animal like Torrent. When Renna gives you the Spirit Bell and Wolf Spirit Ashes, she even says she was asked to give it to you by Torrent's former master, and Melina is the one riding Torrent in the previous cutscene. That we discover Melina is the Queen of Farum Azula, or a very damn important person there, after her sacrifice and after the final boss puts the nail in it for me.

This was ABSOLUTELY incredible I have about 4k hrs in and am writing my own timeline and you literally took the words out of my brain! Good show!!🎉

One small thing ive wondered for a while, not a concrete theory by any means but im throwing my two cents out there. Given the themes of repeating cycles and simulacra, i couldn't help but spot this parallel: Greater Will (Marika) fractures (shatters) the One Great (Elden Ring) And if the GW imprisoned Marika via the Elden Beast, then possibly the reason the GW "abandoned" the Lands Between is that it was in fact imprisoned, by its own greater will equivalent of some higher plane.

Your entire theory feels very similar to our current view about the universe - that it was once an infnitely small and infinitely dense point of energy called 'singularity', which expanded, creating universe filled with matter and energy, giving birth to stars, planets and eventually life. One of the theories in physics suggest that if universe expanded from singularity, it will eventually shrink back to the same point (Big Crunch theory I believe). Your explanation sounds like Greater Will was that singularity - a infinitely dense point of energy suspended in the abyss - where no matter, energy, time or anything existed, and when it expanded and created universe it realized (assuming it has some sort of sentience) that it was a mistake and it wants to shrink back to the singularity point. I can't devise any theory of my own about why the Greater Will chose a vessel and brought the age of order, but I think that Flame of Frenzy goals are Greater Will true goal - to burn and melt everything - matter (flesh and land) and energy (soul, since the Flame of Frenzy can melt even the eternal concept that is a soul) into what Greater Will was in the first place. And maybe choosing the vessel and bringing order to the worlds was one of the steps to bring everything into one - first to conquer lands, tribes and nations into one nation under one ruler, have one faith etc. And eventually it could order the vessel to claim the flesh and souls of the living to become one, singular being, that was suppossed to be melted away by the Flame of Frenzy along with the world, effectively bringing Greater Will closer to its inital form. And the Abyss that Lusat and Azur saw could be the future where Greater Will succeded in melting away the worlds one by one, eventually leaving cold, dark, empty abyss.

I think Marika was raising Miquella to take her place so she could die and escape the cage she herself created. In the DLC ending, it seemed to me that someone had TOLD him he was going to be a god (his mom) and Godfrey would be his consort. The original vow. But I think as he aged Miquella no longer was dancing to his mom’s tune. So, instead of allowing her to set the groundwork for his Godhood, he betrayed her by tipping them both off. Marika ruined Ranni’s plan and Ranni Ruined Marika’s plan. I think she shattered the Ring because she realized Miquella had not only rebelled but was also laying a new groundwork for his own ascension. She had no choice but to use her Trump card and shatter the ring preventing Radagon from taking over, and summoned her immortal army into the lands between to wipe the slate clean.

A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light and other electromagnetic waves, is capable of possessing enough energy to escape it. I belive the "Greater will" is not dead, it is taking back what it gave. Wile the chaos flame burns it away like a supernova would expand and burn stars and planets away like butter. I do think both are one and the same but not THE SAME. One wants to create and birth the other wants to burn and wipe everything out. You can not create a painting with out having a clean canvas. Some belive a blackholl is not the end it at some point becomes crittical and collapses in on it self and creates what some call "The Big Bang" Now i do not have a degree in space laws of physics nor would i claim to have it but im a nerd and i love this idea of both "The Greater will and Chaos flame" beeing the same thing or at least both are painting on the same canvas. (Sorry for my broken english i do not speek it well i hope you understand me.)

Before I watch. I wanna say, duh? The Greater Will is name as such due to its desire to exist. Choas adheres to nature and wishes to follow the natural law of regression. When frenzy found a foothold in the lands between, The Greater Will abandoned the world out of self preservation.

Ringed Finger

I love ER lore videos, but this one seemed to me just a restatement of the game I already played, rather than focusing on lore. I couldn’t make it past 10mins. That’s just me though.

Idk if Why the greater will disappeared is the question Especially when we don't know of the greater will was ever there ???

The microcosms look just like Runes.

A note on the power of Death: it might actually be an energy, similar to the energy that gives beings life. If the Erdtree is, or was, related to the Crucible, and the Crucible provided Life to the Land, then the Erdtree's counterpart - the Scadutree - is what provides Death. This assumption can be based on more than just being the counterpart of the Erdtree, as the Scadutree is comprised of two colors mixed together - black and gold - which we find mixed together in all things relating to Death, or more specifically Deathblight.

Perhaps torrent knows we will eventually confront miquella again or "save him" from becoming a god. There's a possibility he wants to tag along with us to reunite with his former master. Maybe he knew his former master was going down the path of darkness and he saw kindness in us similar to what miquella used to have. Its s plot hole

Did you just cotton eye Joed? 1:18

I think the crucible is the dead bodies piled up together. The aspects are probably the result of using certain creatures with those traits. The tree seems to be a catalyst or a way to gather and collect the energy from the bodies. The euporia can't get energy from reanimated bodies because the energy is gone. Burning the tree the first time cleared the crucible, erd tree burial was controlled and limited. It seems to fit with the underground cities and farum azula as well. The bodies were used to focus life energy into whatever they were working on. Crucibles by other names. The rune of death being removed meant no new crucibles could be made. It makes me think creatures are created instead of being born.

I've been saying for years the Erdtree is a fake, that the actual tree is just a stub you can see at the throne room and underground, with regular wooden roots in the catacombs, but every golden part is just an incantation, and no one believes me. In several parts we can clearly see the tree is transparent but people tell me it's not. I thought I was going mad!!!

The gold/yellow of the Frenzied flame could be whats left of the Greater will and the Frenzied flame is keeping that golden/yellow colour as a trophy or as a way to mock the greater will's followers

The descriptions of the microcosm related items imply that from within the microcosm there are the same kind of beings, agencies, and complexities as outside of it, except one of them is extremely fleeting and short relative to the "real" reality where Metyr produced it (consider also that Metyr--and all the rest of Elden Ring and its denizens--exist in our real world, themselves a small microcosm). The idea is to both feel sorry for the ephemeral beings that lived within the microcosm because they never knew their memories, lives, and world were basically a complete nothing in the larger context of things before they popped out of existence like a meaningless and fragile bubble; the subtext is that we should consider how horrifying it is that we may exist within one of these microcosms, ready to disappear out of existence at the whims of a more base reality (earning us a modicum of sympathy).

i like it

This sounds like one of those movie gags where Marika told Ranni who told Miquella who told Godwyn who agreed with Ranni who told the Black Knife Assassains who scared Miquella who told Marika and and betrayed Malekith who was not in the know of any of this

My conspiracy theory is that the Greater Will never existed at all, as there is absolutely no evidence of its existence aside from the claims of the Fingers.

I think the erdtree is spitting out the sun it swallowed in the chaos ending. Its in the abyss with Midra untill then. Is it me, or can you see the shadow sunflower looking through the rift? I also wonder about Bayle, why does it fall from the sky even though its wings are gone? Was it falling from farum azula?

Its insane how much lore there is in 1 game! This is a masterpiece that takes years to understand

Nice video! Should maybe also added how dna and spirals fit. also no beginning and no end

I do not think the greater will can die. It’s a will lol. It’s nature itself. The cosmos and its laws. Greater will, willed the one great to fracture. What the sorcerers saw was the impeding end.

The frenzied flame IS the greater wills other half. The law of regression to its law of causality

*sigh* Dammit, Tzeentch. I told you not to mess with the Lands Between...

Just wanna say, irl, our galaxy and the ones around is are _being pulled torwards something we cannot see._ And to my knowledge, we still have no idea what it is. That void might well swallow the world we live in, as well...

Ranni's Dark Moon isn't what her two fingers wanted. That's why she kills her two fingers.

But what about the fell god being the original horned being from the furnace visage? Is the fell god itself the crusible's vassel? Like how the elden beast is the greater will's?