I'm willing to bet that as soon as you entered this place, you knew that we were going to get some answers in the Shadow of the Erdtree. And we have. There are satisfying revelations regarding Queen Marika, and Miquella, and The Omen, and Dragons, and the gods. We even now know what Malenia whispered to Radahn in this scene before her scarlet flower bloomed in Caelid. This video will only scratch the surface. It's just an overview, a teaser of new revelations and the foreshadowing of a deeper analysis to come. So let's get into it. And this time, let's begin at the end. After you defeat the final boss, promised Consort Radahn on your 400th attempt, you can read the remembrance of a God and a Lord, which states "in their childhood. Miquella saw in Radahn a lord his strength and his kindness that stood in stark contrast with their afflicted selves." The cutscene that plays here is a memory. "Lord brother, I'm going to be a god. if we honour our part of the vow, promise me you'll be my consort. I'll make the world a gentler place." And so Miquella made his heartfelt wish that Radahn would one day be his king consort. Now, this ending and the reappearance of Radahn has received a lot of early criticism. But I think this encounter does go a lot deeper than some people are giving it credit for. For example, we're hearing about Miquella's side of the vow in this scene and about what Miquella wants. But what about Radahn? What was his part of the vow? What did he want? There is evidence of Radahn being kind. Sure, but this is also a man who celebrates war. Did he truly share Miquella's vision for an age of compassion? And if he wanted to be with Miquella, why did he fight so vehemently against his death in the lands between, That would have brought his soul to the realm of shadow with Miquella? But the most chilling thing about this story, I think, is that even if Radahn did want to become Miquella's Lord, and I can see that side of the argument too, to be fair. But even if he did want that do Radahn's wants even matter in the face of Miquella the Kind, as we speculated, long ago from items like the Bewitching Branch, Miquella has the power of enchantment over others. He has the power to steal hearts. Literally, if you are embraced by him twice in the final fight, your heart is stolen and it's like a part of you dies. "Lord of the Old order. Let us go together." This effect can also be seen in Miquella's faithful band, who overcome their differences and shortcomings to fight for Miquella's cause. Until Miquella's enchantment is broken and they turn at each other's throats. And what makes Miquella a fascinating character is that he isn't manipulating others for selfish reasons. His cause actually is righteous. When he wields love as a weapon, He does it genuinely to make the world a better place without any intent to cause harm. However, such acts are still oppressive. If your want is taken away, what is left of you that remains? Perhaps the saddest example of this is Mohg, who, as we speculated was indeed under Miquella's spell "once in an attempt to free Lord Mohg from his enchantment. I challenged tender Miquella only to have my own heart rather artfully stolen. I knew not how weak I was. I believed that with sufficient mastery, even an Empyrean would be within reach of my blade. I could not have been more mistaken. "Miquella the kind is a monster, pure and radiant. He wields love to shrive clean the hearts of men. There is nothing more terrifying" in the specimen storehouse. You can find the Secret Rite scroll, which details the secret rite by which Miquella will ascend to godhood. It reads Lord will usher in the gods return, and the lords soul will acquire a vessel. Ansbach reveals Miquella's plans in full "after Lord Mohg's slaying at his dynastic palace. It appears his body has been absconded with and taken straight to kind Miquella, as if using Lord Mohg to gain entrance to the Land of Shadow were not enough. He plans to use his corpse as the vessel of his king consort. He has forsaken Lord Mohg's Soul. He desires only his empty shell." in your fight with Radahn. You might have noticed the horns sprouting from his gantlets and his tendency to perform blood flame attacks. This is because Radahn occupies Mohg's body, fulfilling the terms of the secret right at the Gate of Divinity, where Miquella will become a god. So in retrospect, Mohg was under Miquella's spell all along and became obsessed with Miquella, believing that they would ascend together as Lord and God. But Miquella had plans for Mohg, not just as a corpse, to pull into the realm of shadow as a vessel for Radahn's soul. But as Ansbach reveals. Mohg was also used as a means for Miquella to enter the realm of Shadow in the first place. A while back, I speculated that the Realm of Shadow was a sort of death dimension, and that Miquella's sacrilegious death at the hands of Mohg might have been intentional so that Miquella could enter the realm of shadow. And actually, surprisingly, those speculations were proven correct as well. Ansbach confirms that Mohg enabled Miquella to enter, and the tower of suppression makes it clear that all manners of death wash up in the land of shadow, which lies at the very center of the Lands Between. Incidentally, Radahn's return also answers one of the biggest mysteries of Elden Ring, which was what Malenia whispered to Radahn as she let the rot flower blossom at the end of their fight. According to the Young Lions helm, she whispered, "Miquella awaits thee. O promised consort." And so Malenia's Southwood march to Caelid is finally explained as well. She was there to kill Radahn so that his soul could be taken to the realm of shadow, and the vow could be upheld at any cost. Once transported to the Realm of Shadow, Miquella set off for the tower and, as his reat Rune says, on the way he abandoned everything his golden flesh, his blinding strength, even his fate. All in this attempt to bury the original sin, to embrace the whole of it and be reborn as a new God. "Miquella has said as much himself. He wishes now to throw it all away. He says the act, though undoubtedly painful, will sear clean the Erdtrees wanton sin. The truth of his claim can be found at each cross, which is evidence enough to earn my belief." But what was the Erdtree's sin Miquella died and was reborn for? Well, now we've talked about the end. This brings us to the beginning. "Miquella the kind spoke of the beginning. The seduction, and the betrayal. An affair from which gold arose. And so too was shadow born." These words come from Leda. And while she never says them in game, they're pretty damn important. Because with Marika in the footage, it's clear that this was her seduction and her betrayal. That was the affair from which gold arose and shadow was born. The same music that played in that moment also plays here in the village where it all began. The shaman village to the north east. At its center Is this, a minor Erdtree, an incantation which reveals that this was Marika's home, which she one day bathed in gold. So Erica's home was a shaman village. The implication clearly being that she herself was a shaman. This was likely a matriarchal society of other Numen women, though that's perhaps speculation. Better left for another video. Put simply, though, a shaman is defined as someone who has influence in matters of the spirit. The spirituality is what's valued here. And it's on this point that this story takes a bit of a dark turn for the message at the hidden entrance actually reads, have mercy for the spirited away Shamans. Adjacent to this message is the statue that moves aside at the sign of the "O Mother" gesture. In Messmer's Shadow keep. This emote is a clue to the truth, and it actually leads us all the way down here to where the O mother gesture can be found. This Dire place is called Bonny Village, and a phantom at the whipping hut here elaborates on just who the shamans were, or rather, the value they had. He states, for pity's sake, your place is in the jar. Nigh- sainthood itself awaits you within. For shamans like you. This is your lot. Life were you recorded for this alone. So the shamans, in the words of their abusers, at least, were accorded life for a singular purpose. And that was to be stuffed inside of jars with others, a nearby whip astrewn with rotting, misshapen teeth Elaborates on how and why it was used on the shamans. For one, it states that the pain it inflicts was used to encourage their obedience, but additionally it says that as their wounds ripen, they grow inflamed and ooze pus, and the flesh of shamans was said to meld harmoniously with others. So it is that the shamans stuffed into jars become this living amalgam of beings, presumably with the flayed shaman herself. At the fore. So now we know what happened to the shamans. They were whipped into submission and forced inside of jars. We know a little bit of the why as well. Apparently it was done so that they could become saints. But the next question I want to answer is who? Who did this to them? Well, it was the hornsent, the caterpillar mask worn by hornsent himself reveals that it was a ritual implement of the greater potentates of Bonny Village, which is this very village where we just discussed the evidence of the shamans abuse. It goes on to state that the mask was used to ward off thoughts of impurity, doubt, temptation and other wickednesses one is vulnerable to while absorbed in divine ritual. And man If you need to ward off thoughts of doubt and wickedness while you're stuffing flayed people inside of jars, maybe what you're doing is just straight up wrong. I'm starting to understand why Marika purged the realm of shadow with fire. Its as Leda says "they were never saints. They just happened to be on the losing side of a war." But if this mask wasn't proof enough of the hornsent being responsible, look at Belurat Jail. It's below Belurat itself, which was the settlement of the hornsent. And to this day the innards and the shamans remain with the shamans offering their prayers to the innards of the great jars such that they might be reborn one day into sainthood. But what is sainthood? Well, it's never explained directly. I do have some ideas, but they might have to wait for another video. What we do know is that the hornsent's were obsessed with invoking divinity, and forcing the shamans to achieve sainthood was likely one facet of that. So it's the hornsent that we need to discuss next. The hornsent are an extremely ritualistic people, with swaths of their culture devoted to spiritual research and invoking the divine, and one of the most sacred things to them is the crucible, which they have to thank for their tangled horns, which are considered an evolutionary gift. If you didn't know, The Crucible has been long established as this primordial form of the Erdtree, a blending of life that became the Erdtree's primal and vital energies. And apparently it originated in the place that became the realm of shadow. This becomes quite clear thanks to Devonia, who is the longest serving of the Crucible Knights. According to her helmet, she quested in search of the crucible's origin and departed from the lands of the Erdtree alone. Another item we can find that's a clue for the Crucible is spira, An incantation for a spiral of light. The spiral, it says, is a normalized crucible current that one day will form a column that stretches to the gods. Maybe it's no coincidence that the White Tower of Belurat is a spiral. Nor that it culminates in a divine gateway that is, a column of the dead stretching to the gods. There's also trees that include the dead. But I digress. I'm getting off topic back to Marika because at some point it seems Marika rose to prominence within or adjacent to this hornsent culture. We can kind of infer this because haunts refer to Marika's eventual purge as a betrayal, and something can only really be a betrayal if you were aligned with them in the first place, Right? So the hornsent were aware of Marika and likely her Erdtree as well, before what they call the betrayal. But how how did Marika rise to such power in their homeland, where she was presumably a shaman, one of those subjugated? Well, before there was this betrayal, there was a seduction from which gold arose. And I think the fingers had a hand in it. "I fear that you have borne witness to the whole of it. The conceits, the hypocrisy of the world built upon the Erdtree, the follies of men, their bitter suffering. Is there no hope for redemption? The answer, sadly, is clear. There never was any hope. They were, each of them defective, unhinged from the start. Marika herself, and the fingers that guided her. And this is what troubles me. No matter our efforts. If the roots are rotten then we have little recourse." Ymir is the high priest of Manus Metyr. A cathedral of the hand to the east. Once he instructed Rellana herself in the sorcerous arts, but eventually he would come to abandon this allegiance to the moon, stating that the moon was merely the closest of the celestial bodies and nothing more. "I am a glintstone sorcerer. We study the stars and examine the life therein. Are you familiar with our findings? Long ago we began as stardust. Born of a great rupture far across the skies. We too are children of the greater will. Is that not divine? Is that not sublime? And yet none can fathom its implications, its utter brilliance." In the ruins of this land and beneath Manus Metyr itself. Are the echoes of that greater truth, that Ymir glimpsed? This is Metyr herself, the mother of fingers. Her remembrance reads the mother of all two-fingers and finger creepers was in turn a magnificently gleaming daughter of the greater will, and the first shooting star to fall upon the lands between. You might recall, the Elden Ring and the Elden Beast made landfall in the lands between upon a star as well, but Metyr came even before that. So it was that this mother birthed the fingers, communing with and receiving signs from the greater will, Who occupied the great beyond. But at some point, Metyr became broken, abandoned, and no sign has come through ever since. "Do you recall what I said? That Marika and the fingers that guided her were unsound from the start? Well, the truth lies deeper still. It is their mother who is damaged and unhinged. The fingers harbored unripe children, victims in their own right. It's not clear when Metyr was broken. Abandoned. But I assume it was before Marika started taking the guidance of the fingers. Since Ymir states that the fingers were unsound from the start. Thus the greater will's guidance is outdated at the very least, and has been for all of Marika's reign. That's a pretty big revelation. Incidentally, Placidusaax was also Elden Lord before Marika, and he was abandoned by his God as well. So maybe things became broken around that time. Lots of speculation to be had there. at any rate, abandonment by the greater will or no. Marika took up the power of the Elden Ring that the fingers offered for her own reasons, and the abandoned fingers spread the glory of the greater will through her, and she through them. Another important item on this topic is the ancient seed talismans that can be found, which depicts the two fingers around an Erdtree seed. They had a hand in the birth of the Erdtree. All this while the fingers claimed to be envoys for the greater will. But that's a lie. The greater will is gone. The fingers are alone, operating on outdated guidance. This is something that many characters suspected, but most characters in Elden Ring assumed that this happened around the time the Elden Ring was shattered. It's a revelation that the fingers have been broken for a really long time, and so the tarnished too is alone. Following this guidance of grace that now likely only belongs to Marika herself, If anyone. And Marika might have played friendly with the hornsent for a time, but eventually she had what was surely vengeance when the hornsent to were purged, subjugated and betrayed. The realm of shadow became this disconnected domain of death, and the shadow tree that looms high became the realm's symbol of abandonment, not grace. Before she left, Marika bathed the village of her home in gold, placing a small illusory tree that restores the health of those nearby. She did this knowing full well that there was no one left to heal. Then she left, never to return. Not even for her son, who she left behind to endlessly enact her subjugation of the realm of shadow. So next, let's talk about Messmer the Impaler. Of course, as anticipated, Messmer is entirely loyal to his mother, who is Queen Marika. His armor reveals that on his mother's wishes, Messmer made himself a symbol of fear. Undertaking the cleansing crusade she desired, and in the end, all those stripped of the grace of gold would perish. "in the embrace of Messmer's Flame" To this end, he had his black knights, fire knights, and common infantry. Not to mention the Carian forces who followed Rellana into war on Messmer's behalf. So it was that the hornsent were purged in a war without end. A phantom at Castle Ensis bemoans "O Marika... I beg... embrace your child and give us a sign. How long must this holy war stretch on?" But Marika never returned, Testing their faith. One phantom even raises the possibility that Messmer himself has been abandoned. And he has. The final straw for him is when you, the tarnished Who would become Elden Lord, Arrives at his doorstep. "I will not suffer... A lord devoid of light. O mother, forgive me. Soon, Tarnished. Wilt thou be taken in the jaws... of the abyssal serpent, shorn of light" Like his siblings, Messmer was born cursed. In fact, the game likens his curse to Melina's, who is heavily implied to be his younger sister. Messmer too, it is said, bore a vision of fire. We learned this from the item Messmer's kindling, which describes the fire that endlessly burns within him, a dark thing eaten away at by a wicked serpent. His remembrance elaborates on this serpent, stating A malevolent snake writhed within Messmer, and so his very mother plucked out his eye and put in its place a seal of grace. So I was wrong about this eye. It wasn't the slitted eye of Dragon Communion. Instead, it was Marika's seal of grace holding back something terrible. The description continues to state that even with this seal in place, Marika's fear compelled her to secret away her child within the realm of shadow, hidden away, keeping company with the original sin and a hatred that would not be confined. There's so much more to say about this space serpent and the dark Fire. There's so much more to say about Messmer. We even learn from Gaius's remembrance that Messmer was an older brother to Radahn, meaning Messmer's birth and thus the birth of Melina as well Likely would have arrived much earlier in the timeline. And there's a ton of curiosities with Messmer's Knights as well, some of whom were loyal, some who are disloyal, and some of whom occupied this space of reluctance in between. But those stories are better off in other videos. in the interest of moving on There is one last thing I want to talk about with Messmer, and it's that in the cut dialog, Messmer notes that Miquella has spoken of us to him. And indeed, we do know that Miquella did come through this shadow keep, divesting himself The crosses all the while. Which brings us to our next topic. Saint Trina. Each cross of Miquella is a piece of himself marked with his great rune. Arms, and eye, flesh. But there's a couple of crosses in particular that I remember as a part of what was an extremely chilling moment. As you progress along the coast towards the fissure, you notice that Miquella has divested himself of his doubt and vacillation. Without these things, he was free. It seems to abandon something that was very dear to him. And inside the fissure, at what is perhaps the deepest part of the land in the realm of shadow, we realize that Miquella has actually divested himself of his love. A phantom says "kindly Miquella, I see you've thrown away something you should not have under any circumstances. How will you salvation offer to those who cannot be saved when you could not even save your other self" his other self, his love, his fate was Saint Trina. So to Miquella, who was one of Marika's kin, having a second self is nothing new really. We've now even learned from the shamans that their flesh melds harmoniously with others after all. Actually, the fact that Saint Trina was able to be discarded might even suggest that Radagon could have become divested from Marika in a similar way. But Miquella's other half was truly special, and she was renowned for granting peaceful sleep to many in the lands between which I imagine would have been very much appreciated. In this land that's filled with the weary undead. So Saint Trina naturally had many followers, and perhaps at the fore was Thiollier, whose obsession with Saint Trina returns almost immediately. When Miquella's enchantment finally breaks. "’m feeling rather lost. Haunted by memories. Of St. Trina. Her visage. Her scent. The lure of velvety sleep. Would Kindly Miquella chasten me? For falling for St. Trina, while knowing that she was the discarded half? The problem is… I simply cannot help it. I would sacrifice everything, just to gaze upon her, one last time." Saint Trina is blue, defended by a putrescent knight who is basically tainted flesh once given eternal rest that now serves Saint Trina Die enough times to Saint Trina's nectar. And you will hear her words. "Make Miquella stop. Don't turn the poor thing into a god. Godhood would be Miquella's prison. A caged divinity... is beyond saving. you must kill Miquella... Grant him forgiveness." All of this makes you realize that if godhood really would be Miquella's Cage as Saint Trina believes, then it really might have been Marika's Cage as well. It echoes what the soreseal's suggested long ago, that solemn duty weighs upon the one beholden, not unlike a gnawing curse from which there is no deliverance. In the end, Marika's caged divinity is likely a part of why she shattered the Elden Ring, and so Miquella's divinity would surely come at a cost to him, and he would essentially be sacrificing himself to bring about that gentle age in the name of everybody who would fall under his enchantment. And this enchantment is a tendency that Miquella regains when he returns in full force as a god. Because once charmed by Miquella, a circlet of light adorns your head, and according to the description of the circlet of light which you receive after Miquella's defeat, this enchanting circlet would have been the foundation of Miquella's age of compassion, not the Elden Ring. Presumably, in his age, all would be charmed, but Miquella found one that would refuse to be embraced. You. No wonder as one God and one king Consort is all the world needs. And you're the chosen Elden Lord of a different age, whatever ending that may be for you. So naturally, you would have refused to be embraced. Thank you for watching. And thank you for listening to me, even with my nasally Covid voice. Sorry about that. Before i go. Displate currently have a limited time sale for 27% your first Displate, and 37% off for any Displates after that, and you'll get that deal just by clicking the link below. I've commissioned a new design to celebrate the Shadow of the Erdtree. This one is called Eclipse, and its this gorgeous black and white illustration commissioned from Nico Delort. This one has a lot of easter eggs and references hidden within it. how many can you find? and if you're looking to pick up a few more Displates to make use of that discount, check out my other store offerings as well, I love commissioning these designs, and Displates are honestly great, convenient products that just make any space more interesting. So check that out, and thank you for watching. Please subscribe for more shadow of the Erdtree lore, because I've really barely scratched the surface here today. I really had to restrain myself from going deeper into all of these topics. In the interest of providing a concise overview of all of the lore, and I didn't even cover all of the lore and It was still tough. Honestly, the most fascinating content is yet to come. I still want to talk about how Bayle, the new dragon in the DLC, is actually the father of the Drakes and how he had a war with Placidusaax. I wish I had time to talk about the abyssal forest and Midra's Manse, which the hornsent locked away. And then there's Godwyn, whose story we can actually say has come to a conclusive end just by virtue of the lack of new information we've received on him. There's so much more to every single thing I've talked about today, and I encourage you to go through the item descriptions and seek these answers yourself if you're interested. Because ideally, you know, I won't be the only source of information that you go through. Support other creators. Think critically about all of the content you consume. But thank you for watching mine, and I look forward to exploring all of this with you in the months to come. Look for another upload soon. Cheers, guys!