Is the Land of Shadow an Interstice? | Elden Ring DLC

Obligatory KZbinr take on the latest Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree trailer. This week I'm posing a question that's been on my mind since the DLC was revealed.

[@user-ot7gb6gw5q]

the corpse pile is made of bad red men whom marika betrayed to make elden ring accessible to casuals

[@Crit-Multiplier]

💀

[@Malxer]

lore accurate

[@glowindark64]

Ya marika did nothing wrong

[@TheAmyrlinSeat]

I wonder if we'll get to see more of the formless mother. It would be cool if we get to fight her avatar kinda like how we get to fight the greater will through the elden beast.

[@emotionaljonxvx]

I'd love any elaboration on the Outer Gods, especially the Gloam Eyed Queen, though with zero mention so far of anything related to base game content beyond Marika and Miquella, I'm not so sure we'll get any.

[@TheAmyrlinSeat]

Yo, i didn't know you did lore stuff as well as talking about pvp. This is so cool

[@emotionaljonxvx]

Yeah, I don't know how much interest there is in this sort of thing but I figured I'd give it a shot with the DLC so close. I try to keep my options open

[@Malxer]

@@emotionaljonxvx Keep it up, your passion is really palpable in your videos. Also I'd even go ahead and tell yuo to explore further and beyond elden ring. Try bringing other passions of yours into the channel.

[@emotionaljonxvx]

@@Malxer Thanks, that's really encouraging to hear. I definitely want to branch out once the DLC hype simmers down and I'm feeling adventurous.

[@VAL420]

think of Miquella as a reverberation of Marika's, existent to explain her own motivations and question everyone's plots. I think Marika's and Miquella's magics are essentially similar - hers is illusion, his endearment - both are a state of not seeing things with a logical, fully aware state of mind. The similarities around trees and such are more to do with how the world works physically and their roles as Empyreans. I think Miquella is by his nature manipulative, and we're essentially to see his different states and fads as him coming to terms with both the natural effect he has on people and the world, and the role he has to play because no one else will/can. I think who the villain is will rest on who you, in the end, most identify with and their own battles. I think Miquella choosing to do what he considers "right" will overall endear the player to him more than Marika's motivations. I do really like the idea that the Land of Shadow holds some sort of secret into achieving godhood. I kind of take "can't be put into song" implies that the spirits are stagnant there in some capacity, something about music and the bells and horns in the game seems poignant there but I can't quite put my finger on it.

[@makochama0]

I hope they add a shadow version of the invasion item that has no notable differences from the other two aside from the name. It will be tremendously sad, but also very funny.

[@Krow_Lenin]

An interstice or Jungian shadow of the lands between. Sorcery by Steve Jackson and Muira's Berserk are a strong influence of Miyazaki's dark fantasy worlds.

[@TDanks]

If I don’t get a Red Carpet walk like Queen Marika at the end of this DLC I’ll be sad 😢

[@emotionaljonxvx]

Yeah, an ascension ending would be a lot of fun, even if it's only ceremonial. I always loved the infant Great One ending in Bloodborne

[@egg_64.]

Good theory! Keep up the content :D

[@TheAzul_Indigo]

I’m excited for the myrmidon looking armor! Also I think the miquella runes are probably graces.

[@emotionaljonxvx]

The golden runes being graces is something I hadn't considered. Part of me expects them to just put regular graces in for no real reason because it's less work, but it'd be really cool if it was lore-appropriate to have Miquella's residual grace be the only grace in the Land of Shadow.

[@ianwilliams2632]

Interesting idea, that the Land of Shadow is the most physical part of a realm like Helphen that connects the physical world TO Helphen. The google translate results of Miyazaki's Feb. 21 Famitsu interview renders his japanese term for the Lands Between as "The Land of Interstice". Interesting.

[@emotionaljonxvx]

Yeah, I'm obviously not sure of any of it and it's just the way I passively have read into it while playing and seeing all the DLC information. There's still too much we don't know about, well, everything but it's something I've thought about for a while.

[@jeebeeheebee]

The Lands Between is an interstice itself. The Japanese word for the lands between translates to interstice.

[@emotionaljonxvx]

Yeah, I know that's the translation but there's just something about the way they're presenting the Land of Shadow (or at least the part Messmer's in) that makes me think it can't be an outright astral or spirit world. It's far from my area of expertise and I could be completely wrong. I think there's plenty of merit to saying The Lands Between is the interstice and the Land of Shadow is the overlapping Astral world, though I don't know what they intend to be the overlapped physical world beyond the distant lands we don't go to. In either case, just something the trailers have made me question.

[@danielled8665]

When you say "we tarnished as physical beings", are we though? "Ye dead, who yet live!" We had to die, and be reborn through Grace, to be allowed back into the Lands Between. Did we not divest ourselves of our flesh as well? When we die, we dissolve into Grace and return at the sites of Grace. We travel between the sites of grace in a less than physical manner as well.

[@emotionaljonxvx]

That's certainly a possibility. I've never known for sure if the Lands Between is supposed to be the physical world or itself the interstice, hence the video pitching maybe the Land of Shadow is the actual interstice and the Lands Between is a staging ground buffer of sorts. But as far as physicality, I guess it depends on how FromSoft wants to define those realities. To me, it's not especially clear how we'd be non-physical and also summon spirit ashes who can only exist around special monuments. There's a dozen possible explanations I'm sure but it's all open to interpretation.

[@alastortheworshipperofkhorne]

Yeahh i doubt there'll be any covenants and much significant changes to pvp but hey at least we'll have new weapons ashes of war and spells to play around with

[@LyllianaTV]

I never fully understands the lore of elden ring i just let the schizo do their thing on the lore

[@emotionaljonxvx]

I usually like to give the lore a once-over in every game and I always love watching content about it, but with Elden Ring so many pieces don't seem to fit together right or too many things have multiple purposes I just feel like it's not meant to come together the same way Dark Souls or Bloodborne tends to. This trailer makes me think the DLC is just gonna have an almost entirely detached story so they don't have to try and clean up any of the base game lore.

[@skittermode1668]

Yeah, it's not worth trying to throw out anything but the obvious. Tried throwing out an idea just for fun and immediately got chewed out for details I 'overlooked', even though I wasn't being super serious about stuff.

[@LyllianaTV]

@@emotionaljonxvx most of the dark souls lore were about gwyn and his age of fire. although i like ds2 lore more they have interesting bits about the war with the giant. then aldia and him being a mad scientist type of thing, bits of lore about other lands like mirrah, forossa. meanwhile ELDEN RING feels like other continents don't exists or doesn't even have something other than the lands between. there's nothing interesting about each of the "kingdoms" in ELDEN RING like the one in DARK SOULS where they usually represented with their unique armor, spells characters, or weapons, at least what they each are known for. and land of reeds thing is kinda underwhelming too. i started to not care when i saw that many of the elden ring lore feels just a rehash from dark souls being mixed with george r r martin writing.

[@emotionaljonxvx]

@@LyllianaTV I think that's a valid enough point. I'm certainly in the camp of not being nearly as enamored with Elden Ring's lore as I was with the previous games. I really wish there was more identity to each of the Demigod domains in Elden Ring, in their soldiers, castles, etc. but I really think FromSoft couldn't decide who goes where so it all ends up feeling a little generic. Still, there are interesting bits and characters, and I'm hopeful SotE will give us a better throughline for a lot of the fragments.

[@LyllianaTV]

@@emotionaljonxvx watching the trailers of SOTE and saw that they finally add some actual knight looking armor for their common soldiers/knights. then ofc the player characters armor too the one that looks like roman soldier armor. although i coulda wish they do elaborate soldier and knight designs and use real life ones as inspirations and work the design from there. there's no shame on taking some real life armors like they used to back in demon's souls and souls series. instead of blindly using imaginations to create something as hideous like the bull-goat set, or the lionel set, although lionel is not that bad defense wise but the bloated look just weird for me when you can compare it other dark colored armor like black iron set that just looks right or even the night cavarly set that set looks like an actual armor at least for me it was fan fav as far as ican see. then we have banished knight set that actually looks like something that we have in real life.

[@ismaellucas960]

No pvp video? ☹️

[@emotionaljonxvx]

Don't worry, friend. I shall PVP more. I just wanted to talk about the DLC trailer because it made me think about the interconnectivity of the game's world. It helps me get into the mindset of why I'm fighting.

[@ofcatarina]

I've actually been having a hard time abandoning the idea that popped in my head that miquella IS Marika. Why does miquella have blonde hair? Isn't Marika eternal? And where the fuck is Marika? We go in the tree her husk body falls. We fight radagon and elden beast and we just accept that Marika is..... where?

[@ofcatarina]

Oh and miquella is eternally youthful... and if that isn't Miquella in forum statue who is it Marika? Whoever she was before being marika? Just one ETERNAL golden shape/name changing being perhaps?

[@emotionaljonxvx]

It very well could be. The more I think about it, the less certain I am of them being separate entities. It'd be the most Elden Ring reveal for them to be like "Every god is the same person. That's the secret."

[@dippking4638]

Lmfao, Marika is radagon,they share one body and Marika was put to sleep after the shsttering, radagon takes over in the fight to protect the elden ring.

[@ofcatarina]

@dippking4638 so the answer to "where is Marika" is so obvious to you that it is hysterical, but where do you get this idea that she was put to sleep after the shattering? If you cite something it might help me see with your eyes. On the other hand it is very easy to come to any comment or video and say "You're obviously wrong." The safe bet is that 90 percent of what everyone thinks is wrong. Don't be safe and boring. Tell me why my idea, which I'm not attached to, is wrong. Have you come up with any interesting questions or ideas?