Sorry for the reupload. I'm working with a different audio setup this week, so the initial upload had messed up audio-- hopefully this version is better. Also, this version should be in 2k. Sorry for all the missing comments; there are already a bunch on the previous video here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/geChkrp0xMi-iIE.html. But please feel free to write them again if you want to. Sorry for the inconvenience.

noooo, Melina is not evil she gave me a car

My theory is that FA was once attached to Caelid, at the Bestial Sanctum, and also to the Mountaintops, bridging the two. This is why you can see the same giant skeletons in both Caelid and the Mountaintops. My theory goes that FA was once the capital of the Gloam Eyed Queen, and Placidusax was her consort and Elden Lord. This is also why there are dragons all over the northwestern side of Caelid, where FA would have been attached. It's also why the Godslayer Greatsword is beneath the Divine Tower in Caelid, near the Bestial Sanctum. The statue in Maliketh's arena is the Gloam Eyed Queen, and that arena is where Maliketh defeated her. Upon her defeat, Placidusax was hidden beyond time in his arena within FA, awaiting for the return of his God, the GEQ. It's also why the Godskin Duo fight happens in FA. The tapestries in the Godskin Duo arena match the tapestries in the Bestial Sanctum, and the trees outside the Bestial Sanctum match the trees at the bottom of FA, where the wormface's are. The scatted ruins across the land have matching symbols and architecture with FA, so my theory goes that upon the GEQ's defeat, Marika/Greater Will created a tempest that ripped FA from the ground and carrier out to see, making it impossible to reach. When this happened bits and pieces were flung all across the land. This is why you find the sanctuary stones, and ruins pieces on those ruins, as well as at the secret place below the Bestial Sanctum. Marika was removing the capital of her former adversery. She made Maliketh guard the Rune of Death there, making doubly hard to get at (it's nearly impossible to reach FA for anyone, and even if you do, you then have to fight Maliketh). The GEQ was imprisoned in the Erd Tree, and she eventually was able to create/use Melina to gain access to the outside world and look for a tarnished (one who is sure to seek the Elden Ring) and use/manipulate them in to burning the Erd Tree, thereby releasing her from her prison. Any of the endings work for this, except for the Frenzied Flame, since it destroys everything, which is why the GEQ (now freed, and no longer using the vessel Melina, so she looks like herself now) shows up at the frenzied flame ending and vows to bring you Destined Death. Torrent used to belong to the GEQ, not Miquella (there are several spectral steeds, not just one, as evidenced by the skeletons of them all over the place - plus Miquella's steed is a whiter color than Torrent, and Torrent has saddle bags, Miquella's does not). This is why the GEQ, during the Frenzied Flame ending, specifically picks up Torrents whistle from the ash, with sadness and anger. Ranni sought out the GEQ, in order to learn more about the Rune of Death, and how it might be used to free her from her empyrean bonds. The GEQ taught Ranni the dark ritual necessary to carry out her plan, knowing that Ranni would need to burn the Erd Tree to be successful - which would also free the GEQ from her prison. This is why Ranni knows who Torrent's former master is, and it's why she gives you the three wolves spirit ash.

Godrick is an offshoot of Godefroy

Video so good had to release it twice.

At this point I'm very confident that Melina is everybody

radagon is marika is gloam eyed queen is placidusax is miyazaki

This didn't age too well

Since the dawn of Souls lore Miyazaki has actively gone out of his way to make the lore as hard to understand as possible, Elden Ring is his Magnum Opus in confusing/mocking us

I also find it strange that Ranni the witch has 3 wolves outside at her doorstep at rannis rise, and then three dedicated followers. Then there's that statue in malikeths boss room of a young woman and three wolves....

The fact that so many people have commented on this video being like, "The DLC says bla bla" baffles me. The dude was making predictions. Its Souls lore, all of this stuff is built on less than a novella's worth of vague item discriptions. Chill.

Theory: Torrent is Marika.

“Radagon is an anagram of A Dragon.” How have I not heard of this yet?

I love this theory! Also I think it’s weird that no one brings up that you find Marika’s “seal” which is literally an eye, in the Siofra River.

Letting you know that I’ve seen the leaked final boss and it’s godefroy he was the most important character all along

something i feel worth noting that further contextualizes the idea of divine beings producing "offshoots": there are many kami that have multiple shinto shrines dedicated to them. from the perspective of judeochristian theology, that might not seem all that significant, considering our abundance of worship buildings dedicated to a single deity, _except_ ... there's no symbolic or mystical connection between a kami and its shrine, the kami is meant to be _literally enshrined within the premises._ while kami are spiritual beings, they're also connected to the physical world to such an extent that cutting down a kotodama's tree doesn't upset it simply because it's an insult to its domain, it upsets it because you just destroyed what's both its home and its physical body. so it isn't as though kami are everywhere at once, nor do they just exist in multiple places simultaneously, least not in the traditional sense. they _can_ just up and leave a shrine to visit another, but it's still _leaving_ and the shrine is left without its principle kami. and while a minor kami attending two or three shrines through mundane methods might work out fine, even the divine start to sweat when they look at a situation like inari's and their thirty-two *_thousand_* shrines the solution to this is incredibly simple: if the single inari cannot attend all 32,000 shrines, then there simply needs to be 32,000 inari yes, kami can just be ritually divided into multiple instances, albeit "divided" describes the process moreso than it does the result. when a kami undergoes bunrei, you do not end up with two halves of the kami, you end up with two of the kami - almost like biological fragmentation ( which, yes, plants are capable of ) if both fragments instantly regenerated back to full health. the two kami share the same power, spirit, domain, and identity as the original, but importantly they _are no longer the same kami,_ and so their domain and mythos can develop fully independently from one another, to such an extent that they cease being recognized by the same names. inari, again, is a fantastic example as this, as while they've kept their name and their association with foxes throughout their many divisions, they've also become known as the kami of just about anything because the inari of different shrines have branched into their own spheres of influence, and when there's 32,000 of them all doing that, well,

So Marika, the Gloam-Eyed Queen of the Godskin Apostles who she raised to be the death of the gods was convinced she could use her dominion of Destined Death to cheat her own and become Eternal. As she began to realize her actions would leave her to Eternal suffering she began to lose blind faith in her own Order and a new alter-ego formed as Radagon who seeked perfection. And as her unwanted children were born with curses and deformities, as her Order continued to show faults, she was pushed to the brink and set a plan in motion to undo everything as to be free from the prison of Eternity she jailed herself into. As the the Night of the Black Knives and The Shattering took place, Melina also sprung forth.

The question is who *isn’t* Marika. Can you prove you’re not secretly Marika; how do I know I’m not Marika? I’m not deep enough in the Elden haze to understand this video yet

thank you for outright saying you're staying spoiler free, as am I. Can't tell you how many videos I've had to just stop early because I was unsure where they were going and it seemed like spoiler territory. You're the best, Crunchy.

99% of people have an identity crisis in elden ring. But no matter what game it is, patches is patches

Maliketh is actually Godefroy

I want to add one thing: the daughter of a queen can also be a queen. I remember Malenia being referenced somewhere as "The Red Queen"

There’s actually one key visual clue that connects Melina’s sealed eye with the beast eye. The beast eye item has very distinct three stripe markings, so far the closest match to the clawmark seal on Melina’s left eye (much more so than the deathbird claws to which many are drawing the connection!)

My takeaway from this is that elden ring does not have more than one character 😂 it's Marika all the way down

Bold choice to start the video by asking the internet not to ruin something for you

This is brilliant. I love the idea that we can use Milicent to infer where Melina comes from.

Given your discussion of snakes, and their relationship to the Erdtree, I'm surprised that you didn't point out all of the "snails" in the game are actually snakes disguised with a shell. It's clear if you look at frozen images of them, and you can fight "snail" skeletons in some of the graveyards, despite snails being invertebrates.

Calling Radagon a tool... What does he weild? A hammer. You know what they say when your only tool is a hammer? Everything looks like a nail.

I don't think it's spicy at all to say Melina is the Gloam-Eyed Queen, but I haven't heard anyone say Marika is the Gloam-Eyed Queen

Crunchy: "...but that's a story for another time" Me *checking if I was accidentally watching Tarnished Archeologist*

Again: Blah blah blah, MARIKA IS EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING WE KNOW THIS GUYS! COME ON!

She winked at me, I thought she was my waifu

We are also Marika, and Torrent, and Millicent, we are everybody in the game...

Melina is also Radagon, Morgott, Mohg, The Nameless King, Aldritch Saints of the deep and so on. Melina is Myazaki

Marika is a Snake has major Solaire is a Sandworm energy

I believe Malenia didn't let the scarlet aeonia bloom out of pettiness for losing to Radahn but that she sacrificed herself and gave in to the outer god of rot to give Miquella's new order a fighting chance. If Radahn becomes Elden Lord he would uphold the status quo of the golden order, damning all that Miquella tries to accomplish.

Is anybody not somebody else? Maybe the Frenzied Flame already won, and chaos has already taken the world… it’s just forgotten, in the chaos of it all 😂

One thing Ive never heard dicussed is Melina´s hair color, she´s the only one in the entire game with that kind of hair, and specially with the demigods you can see how important hair color is, either getting radagon´s red or marika´s blonde, but if you see Melina her hair isn´t quite red nor quite blonde, but an inbetween the two colors. Perhaps she´s the truest combinations of the genes of radagon and marika

This has some amazing points! I do think you're really missing the mark on Malenia however. Saying that she whipped out the rot just because she couldn't stand to lose to gigachad Radahn and she was just butthurt or something hugely undermines who she is imo. She has never known defeat, sure. She definitely takes pride in that. (And I agree that Millicent represents her pride which she was forced to shed in that battle) But above her pride is her loyalty to miquella and her belief in him. She unleashed the rot because Radahn /had/ to lose that fight for miquella's goals to happen. There's the eclipse of castle Sol for one, and now the fact that he's required for the dlc, which we know is basically miquella's whole story now. Malenia def wasn't fighting him for funsies. Miquella's driving motivation (or one of them) is to cure his sister. She trained with the blind swordsman. We know for a Fact that Malenia likely despises the rot. She wouldn't have let herself succumb to it over hurt pride. That's just not who she is. And while that's a lot deeper into her than you may have wanted to go in your Melina video, all too often I see this fandom fall into this really weird, mildly misogynistic, and most importantly boring read that it's the gigachad Radahn vs the soy rotcucked Malenia. It totally misses our on her character and how tight she is Plus like, Radahn is cool enough as is without needing to shit on Malenia. Brother fought space and won. Let them both be cool

...the "strawberry-blond" hair is one of the most bonkers obvious things I've never put together. Of COURSE there's some sort of Radagon/Marika stuff going on with that. Of COURSE!

Now we now that Messmer and Melina are the eldest brother and sister of the family

I still think Melina is Miquella. Marika became a sword for the Elden Beast.

So marika is not only both the father and the mother BUT HER OWN DAUGHTER, TOO!!!?? That a level of freaky and narcissism, not even Greek gods, can reach xd

We now know who is in love with Radahn lol

13:37 just for some evidence that disputes this theory. Rannis eye remains sealed even after blaidd has been killed

if killing maliketh is what opens melina'"shadow sealed" eye, then why doesn't ranni's eye open after we kill blaidd?

So, you dipped your toe into Carl Jung's human psyche and gnosticism, and when it all starts to fall into place, you pull back. The lands between is the inner world of somebody who is struggling with a traumatic event, mainly survivors guilt. The main characters are major archetypes (shadow, self, ego, animus, persona) and the demigods are the archetypes (the mother, the lover, the sage, the martyr, the hero, the caregiver, the everyman, the rebel), side characters are complexes (memories, emotions), invaders (intrusive thoughts). Melina and Millicent are examples of branching. And the Gloam-Eyed Queen seems to be the Nyx type character that we need to visit, along with the character that represents the traumatic event, the death of the twin sibling, in order to achieve individuation. Spiritual Enlightenment.

dear god he has cracked the case just in time for the DLC

Spoiler: Radika is Maragon

I don’t believe Malenia released the rot because she was losing necessarily, as they’re depicted as both fighting to a stalemate. I thought it was apparent that she released her rot in an attempt to gain favour in the fight, but it wasn’t enough to destroy Radahn. Leaving both of them incapacitated. Thus a stalemate regardless. But I guess we don’t have enough evidence to really say for sure 🤷‍♀️

At this point, we might as well say every character with a name beginning with 'M' in Elden Ring is the same person

What if the empyreans are like Marika and Radagon, two halfs of one being. Marika found this out and separated these halves of her empyrean children. She then beheaded and entombed the unwanted half's in the walking mausoleums. This could be why Malenia seems half of herself to other npcs and Miquella can't age.

so melina is marika's nobody?

Surprisingly, I disagree with almost everything in this video. Firstly, the idea of distancing Melina from the GEQ on the basis of gloam not being purple - I think it's clear based on all the Godskin's jewels that the color of the GEQ's eye is purple. Additionally, if we say that Melina has a sealed eye because their shadowed aspects are sealed away, where is Melina's shadow? Or, if Melina is Marika's shadow, why is it that neither Blaidd or Maliketh themselves have sealed eyes? Or Marika herself for that matter, though we never see her unbroken face as far as I know. Secondly, there's this idea that Ranni represents freedom from the Greater Will and subjugation to God, but in light of the fact that we need to free the stars in order to have the fate they've dictated for her come true, I'm not sure that's the case. In a similar vein, this idea that Malenia choosing to cast off her sense of self and unleash the Scarlet Rot is the result of a weakness of character. It could easily be said that if she had chosen to prioritize her pride and sense of self, that's just as much of a flaw as the opposite. Is it really better that somebody choose death over change? In this way, if we say that Marika shattered the Elden Ring and set all of this in motion to avoid becoming Radagon and to die as herself, is that actually supposed to be a good thing?

Out of all the theories regarding Melina's identity, this one makes the most sense. The Tarnished player character being Godwyn is one I'd like to see you do a video on next... It explains the reason why they're the only Tarnished that is seemingly immortal among other things (such as two of the game's endings, a certain boss' dialogue etc)

i mean, theres more than one symbolical meaning for snakes in the mythologies that elden ring draws off of so varied snake imagery would make sense. theres jörmungandr, an ourobouros like sea serpent in norse myth that brings the end of the world should it ever let go of biting its tail, nidhogg, another snake from norse myth that chews on the roots of the greattree, in christianity theres obvioulsy the serpent of eden, theres the caduceus and aesclepius, staffes with snakes (two for the caduceus one for the aesclepius) that often symbolize medicine, used in greek and roman myth aswell as alchemy and later commonly adopted by christian apothecaries, and that list can go much longer if you want to include asian serpentine dragons or various forms of sea serpents

thank god the dlc proved this wrong xd

12:40 why is he sniffing me

She is Messers sister THE ONE EYES’s they both have and ability to have fire control. + the butterflies

snake part is a stretch? imho marika the GEQ gained her immortality by slaying (maybe having a child with?) the immortal snake god. hence god-slaying flame (what god did it slay?), godskins being snakelike, eiglay church skin, etc. but the serpent hunter spear suggests there literally was a gigantic monstrous immortal serpent god in history, before Rykard found one of its children and fed himself to it. And the serpent god, formless serpent assassins etc don't seem related to the Godskins. I think that official trailer opens with a shot of Marika, the GEQ, immediately after killing the immortal serpent god and taking its divinity for herself, becoming a god, and the godskin nobles & apostles are wearing that god's skin.

Seriously one of the best lore videos I've seen. Great stuff dude! Subbed.

this is getting more and more apocryphaic.

A bit unrelated: but I don’t think Malenia cheated via being “dissatisfied” with her “undefeated” title. It’s pretty obvious that the “blade of Miquella” served their entire purpose to Miquella, her brother. Malenia even threw away her godgiven duties as Empyrean, to become Miquella’s Blade. She cared not for glory, as glory is what came with her dedication to her Brother. She cared not for the Great Runes, because she’d have Godricks by now. This was completely unrelated, I know. Sorry. But it’s just a tangential aspect of the vid I’d like to talk about, considering how much people misconstrued Malenia’s character. Yes, she abandoned her Pride - as Millicent is a representation of this. Not to win for personal glory, but more that she abandoned her honour for Miquella’s “promise”, for Miquella’s greater cause…. Whatever that means. Radahn is a mandatory death for the DLC. So we’ll learn why exactly Miquella had Malenia march on caelid

Melina is Marika before she ascended out of the shadow lands Marika had to burn her shadow to exit the shadow lands in contrast to how Miquella had to divest his light to enter the shadow lands. Failing this i think its fair to say that Muriel is responsible for the night of black knives

Maybe I’m looking too deep, but when quoting Marika at the churches, Melina calls her “Queen Marika”. When talking about her mother, she just says “my mother”.

Everyone is Marika

Melina being Marika's disguise while radagon was made to look like her so she wasn't imprisoned could make sense. Since the minor erdtree incant implies it's a secret incant of marika. Meaning only she knows this incant and no one else, so why would melina know this secret incant unless she is marika herself. Which isn't impossible since marika can choose who she moves her spirit to since everyone in the lands between has her genetics from her blood in the erdtree

so im delusional for thinking that Ranni and Melina are the same person or related or something like that?

Not the malenia slander

This aged like milk so fast.

Radagon = A Dragon Marika = A Karim Marika's true name is Karim

Ive always thought that the Shield of the Guilty a reference to Melina. The item description reads: “Shield made to venerate a maiden whose eyes were crushed by Briars of Sin before being reborn in these lands.” The shield depicts a maiden with her left eye being gouged by briars, the same eye Melina had blinded. Food for thought

Marika is everyone

I got a new theory: boc is marika

Ok so I got an alternative theory that from what I have seen nobody else has said what if the gloom eyed queen is Daedicar I mean we've seen that losing all of your skin isn't really enough to kill you thanks to Marika sealing off the rune of death and we know that the snake men aka the people who both work with and seem to have a lot of respect for the godskins are the offspring of Daedicar's promiscuity so what if the godskins are just snake men born with aspects of the crucible just like the omen are to humans I guess the only real counter point to this is that Daedicar was supposedly skinned before destined death was sealed but hey if the gloom eyed queen really was a god then who's to say her spirit couldn't keep her body sustained even despite such an injury

yes brooooo finally!! I definitely fuck with the idea that marika was the GEQ. Been doing a lot of research and that was one of the theories I had. Thanks for putting this out there!

Great video Crunchy. Can't wait for more clues from the DLC!

I'm not sure that Malenia did release the scarlet rot out of bitterness. I think the flaw in her "heroic concept" is not that she was prideful, but blindly loyal. Her epithet, "Blade of Miquella" gives the impression that she is no less than the representation of Miquella's intentions made into action. For one, I think that it's important to keep in mind what her motives were. If it was to gain a second great rune and reach the erdtree, then why would she have spared Godrick? I do think that she released the rot as a last resort, but that she was determined to kill radahn on Miquella's behalf to resume the movement of the stars (after all, radahn has to be defeated to access the DLC). Anyway, you're my absolute fave elden ring channel, your Godfrey video is literally my favorite lore video ever. Thanks for reading this!

I don't think Malenia transformed because of win or lose sense. I think Malenia had to defeat Radahn because of the Miquella. We know that god's fate holding in stars. Radahn was also holding the stars. So Miquella had to abonden his fate. So Malenia wanted to take down Radahn because of Miquella. If Miquella can't complete his fate then how he can help Malenia? SPOILERS FROM THE DLC DOWNBELOW!!!!!!! DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT ANY SPOILERSS🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰 Maybe, curing demi-gods requires more power or even fate. Because Miquella also healed a Radahn warrior (Freya) effected from Scarlet Rot. But more over, Malenia didn't effected simply from Scarlet Rot. The Rot God associeted with herself. She is it's vassal like the Elden Beast with Golden Order. So Miquella has incredibly amount of healing powers but this power even don't enough for the get rid of from Outer God's influence. So, maybe that's why Miquella abonden his flesh. Because maybe ascending to Godhood means can defeat Rot itself. Not even just sealing away maybe? Being god means you are extra powerful of course. The other interesting part is when Melina dies in the fight, she does a healing spell. And If I remember correctly, we can get this incantation in the DLC. Melina also uses incantations like Marika and has healing abilites like Miquella. So there is a highly chance she and Miquella are siblings. Also to the item description Marika tought this incantation who close to her. That incantation also an ancient one. So, Melina and Marika knows themselves maybe even face to face. They are close, so they are not in like Millicent and Malenia relationship. They know each other.

Since everyone is marika, I could argue Torrent is as well right?😂😮

Jesus, this must be the most unhinged theory I ever heard beside the mushroom theory

Me: *staring blankly into space after all that* Yeah so uhhhh Merika is Bock, got it

Glad to see another lore hunter not assume that gloam = purple! The Erdleaf Flower, fwiw, is specifically called a “dusky yellow” so technically anything or anyone with yellow eyes could also have gloam eyes, like the serpents, those who have undergone Dragon Communion, or maybe even those inflicted with the Flame of Frenzy (though that last one may be a bit of a stretch). I do like the idea of the Empyrean Shadows being their psychological shadows as well. And in the 1.00 version, the Beast Eye was explicitly called the “gouged out eye of Maliketh.” I also wonder if the motif of lost eyes could also be an allusion to plucking your eye out if it causes you to sin (Matthew 18:9).

Melina is the good in marika...which makes sense why she is so small because well....lady had a black heart.

hey man, respect on avoiding the previews, takes a lot of willpower!

I would say this: after Godwyn died Marika saw the flaw in her own order, her order could not give him a true death. So she understood that her own order had failed her own wants and desires. When she "later" says to Radagon "lets be broken together" she will try to fix her own mistake and let Radagon deal with the broken elden ring. They are both working on fixing something that isnt working properly and from Marikas point of view death has to be incorporated into the elden ring once again because that is the what she perceives to be the problem. I think the gloam eyed queen is aptly named, gloam eyed could simplemeans she sees death, she could had been the queen of death within the golden order before Marika, but before Marika had lost Godwyn she believed the world would be better without a proper death. So she asked Maliketh to take the rune of death from the gloam eyed queen so she could create her own golden order without death. Now the gloam eyed queen has no power in the world anymore but she isnt dead, she is a spirit without a purpose. So queen marika wants death within the world again, she breaks herself and her golden order so her new found purpose can find line again. We know melina doesnt know who she is, that she doesnt remember that fits perfectly with the gloam eyed queen, and her mother is that one that bring her back to life, and there is no life without a purpose to that life, which in other words means, a meaning to life. The frenzied flame represents that life should have no meaning, everything should be reduced down into the same, and if everything is the same you can not have a purpose or a meaning because those things represents something better.

SPOILER: RADAHN IS TORRENT

What if marika is actually radagon's alter ego, as opposed to the other way around. There seems to be a link between being a god and being femme. Maybe radagon was an alchemist, maybe on the fringes, who wanted to become more - by being a god. If the only way to be a god in this world was to be a woman, radagon may have used his scholastic nature to become a rebus. And perhaps, that rebus took on a mind of its own. Addendum: the term 'gloam-eyed' doesn't need to refer to color at all. Gloam (or dusk) is a transitionary period. To be 'gloam-eyed' might simply be read as 'with a focus towards twilight', i.e. the gloam-eyed queen was simply one focused on transitioning one age into the next. Gloam also includes the transition from night to day, so sunrise effectively ends the gloamy period. What if radagon was the gloam-eyed queen, focusing on bringing in the new age with his fabulous new titties and platinum hair.

Saying Malenia "used a cheat code to beat Radahn" even though it's her main ability is crazy. This is like saying "Goku used a cheat code to beat Frieza!" even though his abilities are something he was born with 😭

Interesting theory. I definitely think you’re onto something about Melina’s relation to Marika, but I’m not convinced of the GEQ as an alternate persona of Marika. There’s 3 points I’d make against the theory: 1. The language around her suggests she was more of a rival to Marika that Marika defeated than simply another name Marika used. If she and Marika are the same person, it’s in the same way that her and Radagon are - different bodies, different wills, same soul/essence/identity. The writing seems pretty clear to me that the GEQ was an early rival to Marika for the position of godhood who was an immediate threat, and who was rendered impotent by the sealing of Destined Death. 2. The Godskins are portrayed as an entirely separate culture and faction from the Leyndell society. There’s essentially zero overlap between them and Marika’s followers, suggesting they have nothing to do with Leyndell at any point. 3. Marika already has an alter ego in the form of Radagon. Adding a second on top of this feels...kinda dumb, in a way that her having an offshoot (that’s intimately related to Radagon anyways, in your theory) doesn’t. I don’t think the GEQ is anyone we meet in-game…kinda. I think that Melina takes on the form of the GEQ, or similar to the GEQ, because she is the aspect of Marika which Marika discarded in sealing Destined Death. She’s Marika’s regrets in creating the Golden Order made manifest, taking the form of someone closely tied to that decision. The GEQ was a rival Empyrean in the running with Marika for the position of Elden Ring host god, who was defeated by Marika and then prevented from ever rising up again by the sealing of Destined Death.

So much to think about. I think you've nailed a lot of valid points! What if the God of the lands between is always the same matter, just broken down and reused, like soil when growing a crop or tree? There's so much of the lore that can be contextualized in terms of crop plant genetics, where the demigods get rid of traits by selectively removing them when they regenerate through different acts. At the same time, I would also suggest Marika is also the erdtree. By the time the game starts, it's been burned at least once (see the ashes all over Leyndell), but not destroyed, just like most of the evidence of Marika. Also, Marika has two full arms while hanging from the remains of the rune arc in the erdtree, but when she becomes Radagon, he's missing significantly more of his body, like he's burning away. And finally, if his name is an anagram of "a dragon" then could her name be read as "kimara" or chimera? Since she's capable of being a mix of many things?

oh my god you mentioning blaidd being ranni's divested primal part just made me realize that he is her shadow not just because he follows and protects her or is part of her, but also because he is an embodiment of her Jungian shadow

Bro thank you for making this video. I've been theorizing the same thing recently just didn't have all the connections u made. There's symbolism and connection between so many characters and the fact that identity is confirmed to be convoluted suggests this theory's possibility

Melina is to Marika as Ranni is to Renalla. They are themselves and their own daughter.

The ending is bombastic, love your channel

Great theory and video, the Malenia-Millicent parallel is spot-on.

This might be my favorite video yet so many of the points you made had me sitting there like YOOO this might be it I can't wait for this dlc simply to see what questions get answered I know a lot of people aren't fans of the cryptic nature of the lore but to me that's the best part of these games

I see the schizo pills are lacking during the final week

This is my exact theory to a t!!!! Of course I love hearing new perspectives I never wouldve considered even when it goes against mine but... I gotta admit, it feels nice to get your own theory validated by a sick Loretuber 😅💖🔥 Thanks for what you do!

I love the just casual bomb drop at 14:00 "Mesmer is Michela" I think it's spot on this is such a a fascinating theory and I love it all!