Between Meanings: Celestial Color Theory | Elden Ring Lore

[@Iris-ib3qe]

Nah I think you cooked with that blueshift theory

[@aquero8169]

DUDE! The stars moving towards the LB makes so much sense!! The Astels are the stars, and radahn must have been holding them back for this very reason.

[@tonylawson2222]

That blue shifting is Genius, as is your "horseshoe theory"-esque observations regarding red and violet, and yellow and gold.

[@ziopera9601]

Bro is cooking so well he gonna get a fallingstar of Michelin beast soon 🙏🏻

[@XanthousChaos]

You and tarnished archeologist are the two youtubers that consistently hit the nail on the head. Keep up the great work.

[@jerrbear5958]

You should watch scum mage infa and Nameless singer as well :3

[@zeppie_]

Add Centered Tarnished to that list as well!

[@Aladyn377]

The Alchemist, too

[@NihilisticRealism]

check out nameless singer

[@Jadizi]

This is literally my favorite video on Elden ring lore. This concept being applied in the game so well is just so beautiful to me.

[@actingchica]

The connection to azurite and malachite warmed my little chemist heart. Awesome content as usual Ellipsis! Keep it up!

[@actingchica]

In the spirit of your out on a limb vibe- Wondering if there's also a connection to be made with primordial red-tinged gold and the fact that the smallest colloidal gold nanoparticles also appearing red and shift to appearing more purple as the nanoparticles increase in size?

[@christopherl7624]

The big crunch

[@Drahcir361]

Today's sermon was a banger

[@sidharthmak]

Bro casually dropped on the lore scene a month ago and is consistently delivering bangers! Great work as always

[@HanahaUp]

My goat has dropped another banger 🙏🙏🙏

[@allthe1]

You go on a world tour on that limb, Mr Ellipsis, the sky is the limit

[@tinnasell4161]

The entirety of stars falling at you is terrifying. I didn't hear anything like this before and I'm genuinely scared now.

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

If it helps, in the real world they aren't falling toward us. But they are all falling away from us. Which is its own kind of existential terror.

[@NeverUseAnApostrophe]

​@@Silent_EllipsisYup! Our universe's greatest force is pushing things away from each other, like causality, which will one day entirely separate our pockets of the universe by eternal dark voids that allow no light or energy to pass through.

[@adawg3032]

Videos like this completely transform the way you consume Elden ring and it’s a testament to fromsofts ability to somehow make even the color of lighting effects matter to a point of large significance

[@foomr6097]

I’ve wondered about the green/blue sorceries forever, thank you

[@drgreat]

Yearning for more limbs like Godrick over here

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

You actually got me with that one.

[@LucidRecluse]

5:22 Stick Drift PTSD Activated

[@michalnowacki1489]

Love to see someone expand on the colour theory, Hawkshaw's video was one of the most influential for me and it really changed how I looked at the DLC in my first playthrough. I don't think your theory is insane, FromSoft are particular about the use of colour, nothing is a coincidence here.

[@gridlock489]

Awesome breakdown! High level analysis like yours helps me understand what I’m looking at as I replay Elden Ring. To this day I’m shocked at just how cohesive the Lands Between are. Also: 15 minutes was a great length! Keep these up!

[@wrainb0]

loving your grand unified theory. so happy your proper videos were recommended to me. it makes so much sense! can’t wait to cuddle up and sink my teeth into this one!

[@Killamajigg]

You've really came out swinging with your Elden Ring theories my guy. I look forward to every video, long or "medium"

[@MrJonathan107]

These branches are wonderful. Please keep it up. Absolutely my favorite ER content lately!

[@mostrote]

The "gold" god made a deal with marika to take over everything by making her a god, the elden beast is a parasite on the big tree, thats why the golden light is not on the roots, and thats why the golden order push out every other god, the "primordial gold" is the color of all the gods together, and the new gold only has the color of the god that take over

[@PauperPrincex]

Ranni actually laughed & said "Oh you thought I was only sending ONE Falling Star at you??"

[@lillonerboi504]

I am so glad you mentioned blue shifting. I was getting my comment ready to bring up both blue and red shifting because I think of both as a part of this unified theory of ER being a parallel to the inner world of man, and just from a literal interpretation the addition of light wave shifting is important and adds to the lore. To add to it, if blue shifting is an implication that all of the stars in the sky are falling to the lands between, then red shifting to me is an in game representation of these sources of light being returned to the stardust that all life came from, and even deeper, the “one great”. Which I believe is the void, or as Ymir puts it “the great rift in the skies”. As for yellow and the Frenzy flame? I think I have an idea. In color theory, yellow is actually a rather optimistic color, with the major difference between yellow and gold being that gold is more relative to royalty and power, and a sense of sophistication compared to the more simplistic yellow. So in a context, order/gold/the inner light of stability is a more sophisticated inner light or ideal. Yellow/chaos/the inner light of absolute change and creativity is a more simplistic and energetic ideal. However, the contrasting or complementary colors to gold and yellow (order and chaos) is purple or violet. Which we know is the color associated with death before Marikas age. Order and chaos are to me, the two factors of what makes “life.” Take a mass of chaos, swirling and ever changing and add order to it, structure. Add a pull between these meanings and you get similarly to our own universe with spiral galaxies and nebulae, a living universe where life can be born. To complement life, death, the combining of returnal and arrival, red and blue into one. The transition, the twilight between this life and the next, the return to stardust. Too much of any one color throws the entire system out of balance, at least from a perspective of your average person in the lands between. If we do away with order, and death, and fully embrace the yellow, we see the world return to the “one great”. The swirling mass of chaos returns all of existence into its original state before order. And one last note, since this is more of a quick tirade than a genuine sort of thesis I’m making. Redshifting = returnal to the stars. So it makes even more sense why the flame of frenzy is not only yellow, but is filled with subtle red hues as well. It is the ultimate force driving existence back to its origin.

[@virmirus]

If ALL of the stars are blue shifting because they are getting closer, then that would make the lands between the epicenter in the inevitable collapse of the cosmos*. That fits in really neatly with the Law of Regression, actually. The inverse of this would be the universe of the past when it was still spreading, still operating under Casualty. Obviously this universe works differently, but those spreading stars would be redshifted, one might say amber. Wonderful video! Obviously we loved the limb. *Literal center of the universe, then?

[@tennoio1392]

This was the best theory about primeval current I've heard.

[@SuzumeMizuno]

I really love your voice and your editing. And now I'm totally sold on your theory. Damn, it sends shivers down my spine!!

[@ElMasCaporo99]

About yellow, mi theory is that the sun felled and that was the greater wills mistake. Midras phase change attack looks like a sun falling down and he has an attack where he summons two flaming spheres similar to the flame of the fell god incantations. Both the furnace golem (which depicts the fell god) and the frencied flame can burn body and spirit too...

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

Honestly, I've been thinking along similar grounds.

[@ElMasCaporo99]

@Silent_Ellipsis i look forward your video about the frencied flame then!

[@LAK_770]

Color theory needed more attention. Hawkshaw’s video was impressive in how huge, comprehensive, and early it was, but it basically amounted to “this is this, this is that”, just stating facts about color associations, with minimal if any analysis beyond that. Great work here, and with this whole series

[@fahimtajwaar2521]

Just finished work, boutta walk home along the canals with a nice blunt… see this uploaded 2 minutes ago. Not to mention, me and the boys all got into the Nightreign ONT. Oh yeah, today’s a good day.

[@Codename_aether]

Blessed life

[@adawg3032]

A good smoke and some Elden lore is healthy for the mind Elden lore teaches you so much

[@PauperPrincex]

Amsterdam?

[@tapewormcorndog6350]

The idea of the stars all moving menacingly towards the Lands Between actually made my heart rate increase. That is so dreadful and scary wtf

[@jimbo_13]

Wonderful video. Especially like your reading of the blue/green dichotomy. It's a good stretch, I think. I was going to say blue + gold = green but That's nothing 😅

[@ElMasCaporo99]

Your observation of the green sorceries being related with copper oxidation relates with the lore of verdigris. Maybe green stars are older?

[@HitscanSedan]

God i cant wait for your next video. Youre making my first replay of elden ring so much richer than i expected

[@handandless7115]

Great stuff! You've quickly become my favorite ER lore KZbinr -- or at least tied for first. Keep it up!

[@brokensanity5252]

Just what i need for my lunch break, thanks for the great vid😁

[@nolnsphere7182]

Absolutely excellent first episode for Between Meanings. Quite enjoyed the dive into Blue/Green. One point that occurred to me while watching that section is that the overlap of Blue and Green may at least in part come from a linguistic influence, since Aoi (青い) is often used for blue, but sometimes for green, or blue-green as well. It also has meanings like "pale color" and "fresh". Anyway, the overlap may be a nod to this bit of linguistics from Japan. In game, if we look through the lens of "freshness" we can also note the pieces of lore which describe the stars as a source of life and energy. Another thought that occurs to me is that in our world, there are no green celestial objects - due to the physics of stars and light emission, they can't be green.

[@agxryt]

Crazy this game is still getting assessed and studied and written about. It came out years ago now

[@sjokkodokko]

Fascinating analysis :O. Keep it up! I'm really loving the way you narrate and explain your theories. its also just really refreshing to have some new takes and someone who is willing to not just regurgitate the same takes everyone else has had

[@HomeWingGamer]

Hmm. Putting the stars as an approaching threat to the Lands Between definitely puts in prespective what “fate” they are meant to control specifically.

[@OK25000]

This is really incredible. I enjoy your theories so very much, especially how they make me want to engage both with the story and actually research stuff ive fought about. Great series! Hoping you'll one day do an episode on the Stars and the Magic associated with it.

[@BXRNT_TOAXT]

I'm so excited for this video, been crafting a "unified theory" of Elden Ring for months and I've been waiting for someone to really get into the color symbolism

[@Petey0707]

Day. Dusk. Twilight. Night. Dawn. But you forgot one. You forgot the most import of all celestial cycles. Cat.

[@agxryt]

Amazing find with the quirks of lusat and azur!

[@OK25000]

In the end, what i find most brilliant is the simple of idea of taking out red from the spectrum. If plants arent exposed to light or not to full its full spectrum, its hamper their growth. Both infrared and UV help plants grow. Not sufficient enough light, too narrow on the spectrum of lighr is not enough for a lot of plants. Not mentioning the allegory to narrow and zealous way of thinking, shrinking down other ways of thoughts, who are further on the spectrum

[@ethanwarren9006]

My mind was completely blown by your analysis in the last grand unified theory. However, this videos script was much more digestible. The breadth of real world theories from Freud to alchemy in the last couple of videos can sometimes get tedious when you have a big long video like the grand unified theory. You will probably get better at making the long scripts the more you keep working on them but I really enjoyed this medium length content.

[@ThatArrow]

Oh boy, it’s the video I’ve been waiting for!

[@tastyboi77]

Hell yeah, clicked within seconds m8. Perfect to eat my breakfast to ❤ color theory is one of my favorites too

[@Nap-55]

Literally same

[@josephhovley804]

I wanna see some more wild limbs like a giant inflatable waving tube man.

[@jackmcnulty4155]

I love how good the community has been at recognizing the work of other creators. Great video! Also, it's worth mentioning that at release, destined death was actually purple. Fun fact.

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

@@jackmcnulty4155 I think the color they ended up with has a faint shift toward purple in there (while still being primarily identifiable as red). The more I look at it, the more impressed I am by how closely the hue matches the sunset-fading-toward-twilight moment in the Realm of Shadow I show.

[@tonysladky8925]

The Yellow vs. Gold thing is interesting to me because of the specific definition (or perhaps more accurately, goal) of Madness in Elden Ring is, in a certain sense, order. All that there is, burned, universally burned into ash or melted down into one combined substance. There is order in that, in a Horseshoe Theory kinda way... Or to put it in Dark Souls terms, if you took the Fire that brought Disparity to the world and maximized its intensity so that it consumed everything, you would come back around to there being no Disparity, just as there was during the age of Stone Dragons and Everlasting Archtrees. Edit: Go as far out on a limb as you can. Crazy-ass FromSoft lore theories scratch the same itch as all my favorite crazy conspiracy theories about the real world do without all the crappy baggage.

[@leperface]

The Sky and the Cosmos are one.

[@Sebastian-xb5hj]

I like that you go out on limbs, but I also like the disclaimer and the fact that you are open to being wrong.

[@noamias4897]

One thing I love about Elden Ring’s lore is that gold is seen as a symbol of status, and intelligence is represented by fingers, just like in our world. Only in Elden Ring it’s for very different reasons than in our own

[@CrimsonFeatherz]

Blue and green: this is partly linguistic! Japanese has used the same word for colors we call blue and green for hundreds of years. Only recently have they been forced by contact with other countries and languages to come up with a more specific word for green.

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

I was tempted to bring this up, actually. In fact, I've heard that in many languages, green is the last "major" color to be named.

[@danielled8665]

The stars approaching would explain why Radahn was holding them in place. If he learned the truth, that the stars were all going to crash into the Lands Between, he would commit himself to stopping it. So... in killing him, uh. Also shows why Ranni wanted to just Get Out Of There

[@SanAntonioJoker]

keep it up these are sick

[@Er404ChannelNotFound]

Small correction I wanna make, the stars do indeed move. The moon is static but the layers of textures the game uses for the stars in the background move in the same direction as the sun in day time (which is from Northeast to Southwest). It'd be seen most obvious in a timelapse but you can notice it in-game by using UI elements as a guide. I use the compass by moving the camera so it's on-top of a star and that makes its movement obvious.

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

@@Er404ChannelNotFound Oh, I'll give that another look, then. I'm spending an increasing amount of time staring at the sky in game.

[@Er404ChannelNotFound]

@Silent_Ellipsis Lol yeah it's quite fun. I had a prolonged time looking into how the game handles the movement of the sky. From the devourer's scepter and my own observation I concluded that the game's world is a globe that rotates around itself like ours. Furthermore I concluded that the Lnads Between must be in the southern hemisphere considering the northern arc of the sun's movement. Lastly there's around 40 degrees of inclination between the magnetic north and true north, leading to this Northeast to Southwest movement of the sun. This holds true in the land of shadow as well.

[@mycology5242]

Keep up the good work!

[@saiuan4562]

Only downside, is that this video is only 15 minutes long. 15 blissful minutes

[@NihilisticRealism]

the stars do move in multiple places but notably manus metyr

[@IsaKDot]

Hell yea

[@josh_is_fine]

Are we thinking that the Elden Ring may have been more red-ish (primordial gold) before Marika removed the rune of death? Maybe she replaced the rune of death with whatever gold she gained at the gate of divinity. Also, does the red lightning also hint to primordial lightning used by the dragons, when they held the original Elden Ring?

[@tylercafe1260]

I find it interesting the colors represent the characters very problems when you associate meaning to these colors. Radogan and Melania being Red and Red meaning Body actually show how their Body is the problem. You'd think being more associated with the color would mean you're stronger in that aspect but it appears the opposite. Even the Fire Giant had to sacrifice his Body in order to fight back. The Mages lost their minds despite being more associated with Blue. Purple is meant to symbolze the Afterlife but it's commonly found amongst those who no longer wish to be alive and cannot have a true death. "Golden Order" doesn't seem very functional and is actually more chaotic in the end. I find it more interesting Frenzy Flame is Yellow in parallel to Golden Order but Yellow is clearly meant to represent an "Emotion" rather than a concept. Yellow = Fear. I do find it interesting Miquellas Golden Needle interacts with Frenzy Flame. Does that imply Miquella wanted to obtain the Frenzy Flame? Perhaps he feared it the most for he knew he could not control it? There's definitely a deeper connection with Gold, Unnalloyed Gold, and Yellow. Just to even use Miquellas Needle requires you to do all the secret bosses in the game but that shows a crazier connection between all of them. What's Miquellas connection to Farum Azul? People claim Marika is the statue in Malkeths Boss Arena but in my opinion it's clearly Miquella and this is showing us perhaps Miquella isn't... Marikas child?

[@BigSadSky]

You said red is related to banished knight, totally thought you were going to say rot lol. Also yellow and gold are two sides of the same coin, which also relates to the 2 and 3 finger being of the same hand but having much different ideologies attached to them. Same, but different.

[@HeyGuy4321]

i love Gold-Tinged Excrement

[@bsademax5135]

Good video! Get all the way out on the limb, dude!

[@gygaxthecat2448]

If you break gold down to its liquid form it is red!

[@fernandorayonhierro6947]

Wild theories are the best, but protect yourself This sounds absolutely bananas to me... but I think when Marika became a god she became susceptible to control by those powerful or knowledgeable enough. Divinity always requires a god and a lord, apparently, so even when you are a deity you HAVE to have a husband. This is a weak spot. I like to think that Marika didn't truly want either Godfrey or Radagon. First she took in Godfrey and used him to defeat enemies, then kicked him out of the house and the land Enter Radagon! A multidisciplinary genius (at the time married to another genius) and, you know, he somehow took over with his insane skills. Marika shattered the Elden Ring to get away and when we kill Radagon we free Marika, BUT, she can tell; she knows we are Tarnished, we are strong and we are here to take, so she attacks While writing the comment I've convinced myself and it's not wild at all, is it... I like your video :D Also: Do you have a color theory on Radagon's hair turning red right in front of our very eyes?

[@smittyk1378]

buss it down

[@mamasteakmilk]

Maybe this has been discussed before, but looking at your video, it occurred to me that the World of Elden Ring might be geocentric. The stars don't move because Radhan kept them in place, but even at night the sky does not change. This might imply that the World is not spinning on its own axis, but rather everything else is orbiting around it. I'm just spitballing here though, so if I'm wrong, please forgive my speculation.

[@yanakaizzz9335]

I would enjoy a deeper analysis on the motives and actions of the characters in Elden Ring based on their colours if the interest takes you. In my mind: it's like a great Greco-Roman work of art depicting a great tragedy of beating hearts and betrayals, of fiery ambitions and sweet surrenders expressed in the most human way at an impossibly grand scale. Truly the domain of God's! As for the Frenzied Flames yellow being closest in proximity to the Order of Gold perhaps it's helpful to reconceptualise this as a status quo: that being order or something other than order - pure disorder. So the gold is the status quo rather than specifically Order. Thoughts?

[@andersanders47]

There's a recent video kzbin.info/www/bejne/nYaVimlqbdibgKssi=AOX0qIrRYmvhKe2V Where the essayist discusses how primordial gold is red for a variety of reasons. Molten gold would also be red, connecting blood to molten/primordial/"raw" gold. I think it's worth considering some of the alchemical and actual chemistry implications brought up by this discussion.

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

Ooh, I'll check that out, think that one's new to me.

[@wombatjack3995]

It’s clear by the first half (of an hour long essay mind you) that most of the conclusions are derived through the lenses of gender critical materialist world views. For me that’s enough to write it off as pseudo intellectual drivel from an academic busy body looking to subvert works of popular fiction by injecting their own ideas and throwing out any evidence that contradicts them.

[@falgalhutkinsmarzcal3962]

My color theory was that Destined Death was originally a Purple flame (as it is in version 1.0 of Malekith's fight) and that the Purple color was chosen specifically because it is created by mixing Red (vitality, hp, Life) with Blue (Starlight, Fate, direction of the stars). In other words, someone's Vitality is destined to end according to this or that constellation of stars, thus he would succumb to the velvety twilight of Death as was writ in the stars. The gods, on the other hand, do not have a Destined Death written in Blue starlight, but Amber, or Gold, which is why Miquella cast away his Great Rune, a Great Rune that depicts the Pleiades on the Scadutree Avatar. Clearly, the Greater Will imposed its Amber fates on the demigods, which is why Ranni had to dispossess herself of her redblooded body and its Vitality to escape her own Destined Death.

[@joshuacollins9648]

HI! I'm a big fan of all of your videos, and I was wondering if I could get your opinion on something. There is this excellent video, kzbin.info/www/bejne/jKS7YYmEmKqnfZY, that you may or may not have seen. It is by a creator that supposedly does not interact or watch content from any other fromsoftware game content creator. I feel that you are one of the best of those "other" creators right now, and I just wanted your opinion on his idea of the story (if you have the time to watch it). He makes some crazy claims, for example, that the finger readers, nomadic merchants, mouse marais, tanith, and some others are all albinaurics. He says that ranni is a bastard (truly born of marika and radagaon), and that the godskin hunt happened after ranni gifted the rune of death to melina who wounded metyr with the fingerslayer blade. In my opinion he had very little evidence to back these claims up. TLDR or if you don't want to watch the video: how do you feel about creators that claim to have "solved" the entire story? I feel that given the mysterious, cryptic nature of the game, it can never be fully "solved." In the comment section his attitude is along the lines of "you can ask questions, but trust me, i've figured it out so if you disagree with me you're wrong." Anyway, thanks for doing what you do. I always look forward to your videos :)

[@joshuacollins9648]

Side note, as an astrophysics Ph.D. student I loved your blueshift analogy. I've been hoping someone would tie in actual physics/astronomy terms that seem to show up as themes within the game.

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

Firstly, this is my very first Super Like, so thank you! That is exciting for me. As to your question, I do intend to watch the linked content, but in the meantime, I agree that there will always be some interpretive room in Elden Ring, which is why I keep use the word "interpretation" for my own theory. I'd like to be right about everything, but what matters to me is crafting something that adds to the total experience of playing the game. In short, I'm willing to listen to a story, whether it's set in Elden Ring lore or otherwise, if it leads me somewhere and gets me to see the world from a new perspective. If on the other hand, a theory gets caught up on a couple data points and insists on messy, unsatisfying connections...well that's not what I'm aiming for at least. And I'm glad that the blue shift point landed with someone who really understands it. :)

[@michal_wojtowicz_]

Another awesome video - especially the blueshift idea! My perception of lore was shifted once again thanks to you :) P.S. Green stars can't exist - from a human perspective at least. I highly recommend video from Cool Worlds channel called "The Star That Can't Exist" for a detailed explanation. (Prof David Kipping is amazing science communicator!)

[@Silent_Ellipsis]

@@michal_wojtowicz_ Oh yeah, I've actually seen that video and found it fascinating! Could have even been a relevant connection to bring up in retrospect.