Shadow of the Erdtree | Episode 4

[@emperman]

St.trina has to be one of the most beautiful models I've seen created in this medium. No cap sometimes i just sit for minutes just looking at it in awe and with the music and the lore it's just a magical experience

[@possiblymaybe6711]

I just wish we got to see her in her prime. I wish when you sleep with her potions u fight her in a dream realm or something idk

[@thospe-f8x]

(speaking with a level of knowledge limited to Quelaag's at the beginning of this because I haven't played much farther ahead of her) I went in to the DLC expecting the colonialism narrative and the general Miyazaki themes about coming to peace with the impermanence of things and all that. I was NOT expecting the story to pivot into a youngest child destroying themselves and potentially everyone around them in a doomed attempt to fix their family and correct the sins of their parents or for that to be written in such a devastating manner. The ghost kneeling by Miquella's cross broke my heart.

[@MyImaginaryTiger]

I adore the way that Messmer says his little "catchphrase" when he kills you. Like he's absolutely sick of hearing people say it over and over and you can hear the annoyed smile in his voice.

[@Baconomics1]

yes! like he's literally mocking his own followers. he sounds absolutely DONE

[@jai249]

@@Baconomics1 yeah he really has that service-worker-who-has-to-say-the-company-motto-line vibe to a T

[@reeceborgars]

I love how after getting so excited about the Ruah ruins and wanting to explore them so much, Que uses the shackle to just skip the whole area lmao

[@aranthur]

The most revered of the hornsent are the sculpted keepers, who can host within them spirits from the divine realm like the dancing lions. Perhaps this connection between horns, spiritual power, and suscepitibility to possession from beyond the divine gate is what made Mohg the perfect tool for Miquella's plans

[@typhonyx_was_taken]

22:00 for Dancer of Ranah 2:41:43 for Curseblade Labirith 7:02:36 for Golden Hippopotamus 7:39:10 for Romina, Saint of the Bud (wife) Sorry if I missed any, my som

[@juanjusli9839]

5:51:30 messmer

[@possibly12]

Quelaag really got me with the relation of chronic pain to Thollier beyond him just being a sleep-addicted dude. And then she says she has cluster headaches and I myself have chronic daily migraines that's disabled me I just- I just fuckin can't, GOD. I already loved Thollier and NOW HHH. LOVE INCREASED.

[@denniscarr9234]

the wrong backseating about getting below bonny village is so infuriating

[@Jack-we5xw]

every moment of que saying I CALLED THIS makes this dlc so worth it all the speculation and theory crafting

[@Raised_Skeleton]

lol the chat members were so confidently wrong about getting to the Abyss part of the map that it lead to quelaag being confidently wrong, and led to an hour-long goose chase. And then a "my build was different!" cope from the advice giver. This is why backseating is bad!

[@beansnrice321]

The red fire wizards in the flooded keep reminded me of ingward from DS1 in New Londo.

[@Haden475]

berserk lore: when griffith is dissolving into soup to become femto, it explicitly states that he abandons his love. and when he becomes reincarnated at the tower of conviction, merging with the demon fetus/moonlight child, he regains it, becoming his fatal flaw.

[@estikai]

Still can’t get over the fact that Ansbach is named after a small ass town in Bavaria not far away from my hometown

[@Photoloss]

2:15:00 up close the symbol on the pot nuggets looks a lot like Messmer's spear, with two arcs forming an "eye" and several additional lines forming "eyelashes". Granted that symbol could also be the result of overlaying Marika's rune and the rune of Death. 6:18:50 wait, are the "tutelary deities" the Remembrance duplication sarcophagi, which also have fingerprint markings? 6:23:15 so far it still makes sense for "the Omen" to be post-Age of Plenty, the dregs of the much older "hornsent" civilisation which somehow got absorbed into the Erdtree but couldn't be processed by it. (AFAIK we haven't actually learned the name of the overall civilisation/people yet? The term "hornsent" seems to specifically refer to those with substantial horns and power?) 6:32:30 how closely do the Messmer Viking funeral boats match the Tibia Mariner boats? Ignoring the obvious matter of "chair" and "skeleton ghost". The markings on the side look a bit like the Rings of Spectral Light you found WAAAY down near the mariner at the Cerulean Coast. 6:38:10 god's "return"??? So who or what was Marika returning, assuming that "divine gate" is the corpse pile from the trailer? Marika would go on to become the god, and she herself was a vessel, so did she just usurp ALL the roles to take the Elden Beast inside herself or something? Was Hoarah Loux her lord _before_ she became god-queen? 6:49:25 wait wait wait, _revive?_ Was Castle Sol aimed at Radahn not Godwyn? Did the ritual fail simply because Radahn wasn't dead, and thus his soul remained in his still-living body? Surely if Miquella has the power to "revive" Radahn _now_ without another demigod to sacrifice he would have used that same capability on Godwyn by now? (Using Godwyn's own body in place of Mohg's if need be) - granted the old "halted fate" theory still works, but there's been preciously little mention of Godwyn so far especially in relation to the main plot/Miquella.

[@egadsrpg]

Re: Castle Sol, we’ve seen that Miquella was pursuing a whole range of different projects to help his siblings and the disaffected, ie Castle Sol, the Mausoleums, exploring Fundamentalism, etc etc, so I think it might be a case of using similar means to different aims. Godwyn’s soul couldn’t be revived because it was killed with the Death-rune-inscribed black knives, whereas Radahn may have had to be killed in combat to access the Shadowlands (thanks to Que’s latest video about Helphen that came out the day of this comment), hence his battles with Melania and us. The Eclipse and Mausoleum items specifically refer to soulless demigods, and Radahn’s soul was seemingly still intact until we kill him although possibly ravaged by the rot. I think by this point, Miquella’s journey to ascend to godhood was a last-ditch effort to try and help their siblings as none of their many, many, other projects to bring back Godwyn’s soul, cure Melania’s rot, etc had worked.

[@rocki_bb]

I remember the statues you mentioned at 2:46:54 and I totally understand why you shifted topics. I find the various ecstatic practices/traditions of different cultures incredibly interesting. One that comes to mind is the Sun Dance ceremony as it was practiced by the Okeepa. I'm sure it looked incredibly gruesome to outsiders who did not understand the importance of the ceremony to the Okeepa

[@ChrisPyre]

One thing I feel is getting lost in a lot of discussions (perhaps for the better considering all the chuds emerging, even in your own KZbin chat) is the amount of not just queer subtext in the dlc, But Queer Text. St. Trina as the feminine persona of the already androgynous Miquella. Miquella having a gay childhood crush on Radahn (which I personally believe was required, but I recognize the jury’s still out on that.) Ymir using he/him pronouns while also referring to himself as Mother. There seems to be an added layer of queerness everywhere in the DLC that made feel particularly seen, but also makes Miquella’s downfall all the more tragic.

[@Baconomics1]

long search for missed armor in Bonny Gaol ends at 2:54:35 search for other missed item ends at 3:01:28

[@GrayCatbird1]

Regarding the review bombing, I have to say there’s something deliciously ironic about a community that has kept touting “git gud” every corner to have a part of it become so whiny about difficulty. On the other hand, it feels like we’ve been here before, and I think this vibe will die down, like every time before.

[@Everest111]

:makes the game harder for themselves by not using summons :complains game is too hard

[@bossofthisgym6842]

Seems it's mostly the new more casual audience that Elden Ring brought in that seems to be hating on the difficulty of the dlc.

[@Skibbutz]

Has it ever occurred to you that maybe the people saying Git Gud are in-fact a different group of people than the people upset about the difficulty

[@Knuckles2868]

I think it's alot of newer people where this is their first fromsoft game. Alot of new people have played this game compared to the other releases and aren't familiar with the original games

[@Eternal_Placidity]

People are just salty that they can’t cheese the dlc with bleed and magic.

[@prisoner817]

They weren't just stuffing the dead into those jars, as evidenced by the fleshy bois climbing out of them trying to kill us, and the ghost that begs not to be put in one.

[@ZacChilds]

3:26:34 To the people saying no, we straight up have one of the writers of the guidebook in the chat, and they are wrong, so you can skip to 4:34:53 (break from the wild goose chase to do ruined forge at 3:43:12)

[@HighPriestessofPie]

By my lord. Will I ever make sense of this jumble?

[@cadoized]

Just had a thought that is probably entirely off track but going off what Quelaag was talking about around 43:20; if Miquella did need to severe himself from St. Trina to reach godhood at the divine gate, what does that imply with Marika and Radagon? Surely she would have had to do the same thing, yet Radagon persisted. Spoilers for endgame now but Miquella also needed a lord at the divine gate-where was Marika's lord? Perhaps it's not something that's required right away, but given how the ending made such a big deal about Miquella's lord it doesn't sit quite right.

[@SoI_Badguy]

Or Marika went to the divine gate without a Lord, and wound up having one created from herself... which was Radagon

[@craigpuckett4690]

I don't think we have evidence that the removal of one's second self is required, but I do think there may be implications that Miquella having gone through this process may be a mix of a death by a thousand cuts, and a slippery slope. Because at first Miquella is removing parts of his physical being, and then his emotions. Before this, we see him remove his doubt and vacillation (going back and forth about things)...I think that may have been the tipping point. Once he removes his doubt, and his ability to consider other ideas, then he loses his love next, and at that point, he just becomes power and ambition.

[@MarionetteDuAuguste]

My understanding of Leda’s “they were never saints, they just happened to be on the losing side of a war. But it’s still a damn shame” line wasn’t to excuse the genocide, but to caution against glorifying the Hornsent culture prior to Messmer’s crusade. Did I miss something? Because she basically outright says that it’s a shame that they were genocided…

[@prisoner817]

She skipped that part of the line like she skipped most of Leda's dialogue after deciding she didn't like her

[@GaliantSilver]

There's not actually an alternate route to the Abyssal Woods, right? You have to go through Shadow Keep?

[@aranthur]

I may have mentioned this already in a comment on another video and forgot lol, but the marking on the pot people's foreheads continues to look to me like a combination of the rune of death, Marika's rune, and the spiraltree sigil stacked on top of each other, which would be very interesting if true

[@sparkletone_]

when quelaag was staring at the jar women and wondered aloud if they have the rune of destined death, smash mouth immediately popped in my head… “she was lookin kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb….”

[@AlasdairGR]

So Tanith is 100% a former dancer of Ranah who lost her passion and flame after meeting Rykard, right?

[@soulbro55]

Did you read the item description of Rellana's armor?

[@thanosmat]

It just me or someone too curses when she get a item with a interesting lore description and does not pay attention or forgets, because she is not looking at the game, but reading chat or rambling about random things?

[@padraigg7147]

Love the audacity of 2 spiked mace. ❤

[@pop_x3]

Another 7 hours. Im so happy. 😭

[@mathewmontavon9079]

You asked a really interesting question about Radagon's thorns either in this stream or the last. It struck a chord, and I've been sitting up with it. It has to be for the same reason any plant has thorns. Roses, Blackberry, Raspberry, Marionberry, Rose Hips, Nettle, and Thistle are all fantastic examples of plants that have fruit that can be harvested provided you have enough fucking sense to avoid the thorns. They're, there to protect the fruit from the ignorant, malicious, and greedy.

[@Photoloss]

A lot of thorns actually exist to specifically NOT protect the "fruit", but rather the rest of the plant. Most of what we call "fruit" is specifically adapted to be eaten, though sometimes only by specific species (e.g. birds aren't affected by capsaicin, and unlike most curries they excrete the seeds unharmed thereby helping the plant propagate). The herbivores which eat the rest of the plant aren't really "greedy" either, they just eat to survive like everything else.

[@mathewmontavon9079]

@@Photoloss right, but if the rest of the plant isn't there, the fruit or what have you can't for for reproduction in the first place. Also, several plants that I'd listed don't "fruite" in any traditional sense. I'll grant you, my use of greed there was unusual, but given enough space, most animals will also avoid grazing an area to death.

[@void.sawyer]

So messmer and his followers are kind of like a play on the Templars. Cool

[@emm4456]

oh my god the sister armour moment really got me xD

[@BigMitchyD]

[@stuartz3118]

May I ask why do you skip unseen dialogue? Really weird thing to do, specially for someone so into the lore

[@07thfan35]

I swear, y'all ask the same question in every video. If she is skipping dialogue, that means SHE HAS ALREADY READ IT BEFORE. People asked the same question in another video, asking "why skip Leda's dialogue??" when in reality she had already exhausted all that dialogue in the previous video/live. Do you genuinely think a certified lore buff/enthusiast would casually skip over meaningful dialogue? Be for real.

[@brantelope_1531]

​@@07thfan35 breathe homie, it's gonna be ok

[@Tausami]

She's excited and she reads fast imo she's just reading the subtitles and skipping to the next

[@thanosmat]

@@07thfan35 No. She skipped dialogue she didn't read yet, in more than one occasion. I think she read the subtitle and skipped

[@TheQoogle]

@@07thfan35 last episode with leda she litteraly read subtitels and reacted to it then and there she did not know it before

[@deepstonecostco]

6:51:20 wait is this what the failed eclipse thing in the base game was about? 🤯

[@cameronrodriguez8795]

Yes she's talked about it in videos

[@abdullahalaa9691]

loving the streams also can you use another source for tips that doesn't need paypal

[@dylan-qf2ch]

A THREE HOUR TOUR. A THREE HOUR TOUR. 4:27:42 poor quelaag

[@ferr9981]

Vod squad vod squad vod squad!

[@Baconomics1]

vod squad reporting in! long work hours mean i have no time to play the DLC myself but quite a bit of time to discretely watch these streams in a second window for a few hours each day. i keep lagging further behind but this is how i want to experience the DLC so i am avoiding all content elsewhere

[@ferr9981]

@@Baconomics1 thank you for your vod squad report! Thats a cool way to experience the dlc, I hope you get to play soon!

[@Baconomics1]

@@ferr9981 thanks!! i love how quelaag focuses on exploration and the environment just like I do. most streamers are in too much of a hurry for my tastes

[@puzzleheaded6195]

5:51:52 pure comedy.

[@Tausami]

Wtf is the final boss gonna be radahn in mohg's body?

[@possiblymaybe6711]

Well…. Lol

[@psykodactyle]

My favorite part of the stream was when she insisted there was another way to get to the last area of the map other than the shadow keep lol

[@graysenm1320]

You like spiders and scorpions but hate water?? What in tarnation 😂

[@jjohnfnchf7535]

Quelaags take about Mesmer and genocides and invasion is really strange. Like obviously it’s evil and bad but she says “you cannot do that” as if there’s some divine power up above that’s going to stop that from happening, and also as if it’s not the natural thing that occurs everytime to groups are put next to each other. Maybe I’m misinterpreting something

[@PrattlingPate_]

You do not have a basic moral obligation to conduct an unprovoked attack against anyone, so therefore you shouldn’t. It’s not very hard to understand and pulling whataboutisms is sussy.

[@liarwithagun]

It's probably because of whatever her IRL ideology/values is/are. She just finds it to be something completely intolerable so becomes less objective/reasonable about the subject.

[@teagancombest6049]

Yes it's called morality, you know the rules that people use to guide their behavior so they don't do things like murder and genocide.

[@HighPriestessofPie]

Lol, she's not saying it literally can't be done. It obviously was done. She's just saying it can't be justified. Genociding a group is always gonna be a bigger evil then basically anything that group could have been doing.

[@jjohnfnchf7535]

@@HighPriestessofPie but it can be justified at least in elden ring? The ruling society of hornsent was clearly abusing and torturing the smaller group of shaman

[@anthonyrodrigobright6563]

Crazy how queelag was prescient about the impressions changing with time. Turns out the hornsent were responsible for their own demise and Messmer wasn’t a complete evil genocider