I like to think the Black Knife assassins force him to drink it since they also go after two later on once the questline is over. Just so he can get a taste of his own medicine, literally.

@@HeinzBeanz2002 Black Knives were betrayed by Ranni IMO. Alecto lost her daughter escaping Leyndell and Ranni locked Alecto in an Evergaol on Moonlight Plateau.

Thought this ar first, but even if you don't do his quest he is found lifeless the same position. Either way I love that it can be up to your own interpretation!

Yeah that's what I assumed too

Preach

Very subtle but wow, you can really hear it with the "i"'s

That's what I always assumed. Gideon doesn't know about Pidia, so I assume that Seluvis was a human suit for Pidia so he could be among the masses without persecution.

@@minespatch I don't think Pidia's an albanuric though, his blood is red not silver. That could be an oversight, but it makes me think Seluvis tried something above his ability and paid for it harshly. It also wouldn't be the only time in the story that someone utilized multiple bodies at once.

The blood being red makes me think of the black flame on Iji, so you might be onto something. @@knotgradaunknown7414

​@@knotgradaunknown7414 Could be an oversight. I think in case of some attacks Albinaurics (hope I spells that right) also bleed red.

It should come as no surprise. Once you have the power to bend anyone to your will, the possibilities become endless. Especially for those without a moral compass

Yeah. He’s a pervert. What’s up with Ellen and then his bed…

This was my thought the first time through. I assumed he was referring to seeing me coming through the manor from up above And I guess the archers seem to be summons, if we think about how our summons work. And I assumed the preceptor that invades in the divine tower where Ronnie's body is after we turn it upside down, I figured that had something to do with seluvis. Maybe it's his old han form and he was turned into a puppet at some point

He'd not be fit to put up a fight if he was a real person. If he was, he would not resort to subterfuge.

@@NickCombs I see. He does seem like the type that doesn't like to get his hands dirty

Woahh I never even noticed that, what a neat little detail

@@NickCombs Definitely someone as arrogant as him would've tried to destroy some lowly Tarnished but he runs away like he has no pride. That cowardly nature suits Pidia and even more so if they were the same person.

That’s actually a pretty solid theory.

It's been awhile since I did Sellen's questline. I know we did something similar with her soul. Could we not retrieve her soul again after *her questline is complete to place it in another doll?

Tried this multiple times on 2 different files. Could not get it to trigger the same way. Maybe an issue with playing on PS5 vs PC? Not sure.

Not sure. You do have to have acquired two starlight shards already - I forgot to mention that. I don't know of any other requirements myself, though@@square-table-gaming

lol cosby jr

​@@square-table-gaminghe offered me other puppets after summoning the one he gave me and letting it die

That seems to be implied as Varre's doing, as he is thoroughly aware that we lack a maiden

@@zipzapper0 I suppose. However, Ranni seems to have some apparent connections with Melina. And Melina needed a conveniently maidenless tarnished. And it isn't like Ranni wasn't paying attention to the area either, since she shows up. Also, I am forced to ask: What does Seluvis actually... do? I mean, he ostensibly serves Ranni, but what is his job? If his job is covert operations like this, then his service makes some degree of sense, as well as Ranni's wariness of him.

​@lemeres2478 Maybe he helped maintain Ranni's porcelain body and made the miniature Ranni?

The Finger Maiden puppet he sells does have a note about never finding her partner, and us never having our maiden... Maybe it's just a big coincidence.

Hosts Trick Mirror, or whatever it's called.

@@lettuceprime4922 the host trick mirror is between two tarnished in each other's worlds. So for him to look "normal" with the mirror, it would mean he is merely visiting in this world and is here summoned by someone else. He needs a host to mirror.

@@twinlyplays - or he has a version of the trick mirror that doesn't involve traveling to another world 🤯 🧠

I don't see how the first one really plays a factor since that's only the case when you're summoning them remotely as Spirit Ashes because you can't exactly carry around 6 bodies to fight for you. You're not actually using the puppet itself just an apparition of it. Seluvis would have been the actual physical puppet just like the ones that killed Pidia. Likewise it's likely that Finger Maiden Therolina was already a puppet when you encounter her during the Radahn Festival and the physical puppet was sent to help you and Blaidd fight on behalf of Seluvis. This is why she doesn't say anything and just bows. After all what other reason would she have to be there?

I like the idea but it seems like puppets don't use the original bodies of the people they were made from.

​@@square-table-gaming they do if you give the Dung Eater the Potion his body will wander to Seluvis's Hideout

Yup, if you try to make her a puppet then keep talking to her she murders you.

@square-table-gaming wild how weak we truely are compared to her despite us going on a demigod murder spree. Then again none of them are in their prime so i dont wanna imagine how powerful they were 😶

Im pretty good at that, huh?

Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams!!

@@monsterzero9238 Oh jeez what a fool i would be to do that to myself. Lord help that guy, huh?

Nowhere in the lore does it specify puppets can't talk. That said, if they do, you'd likely hear the voice of the person controlling the puppet, which makes perfect sense as Pidia and Seluvis are voiced by the same person.

More of a personal opinion here but I think if the intention was to insulate that Ranni made him drink the potion the player would’ve been able to pick up the newly created Seluvis puppet from his death site. The voice actor highly implies he’s the same guy and puppeteer

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It's the same voice actor

We actually do see a puppet masquerading as a person in Caelid during the Radahn Festival. Finger Maiden Theolina, a puppet of Seluvis' stands with the other champions in the gathering area before the battle begins and she doesn't speak. I believe she doesn't speak because if she did, we'd here Seluvis/Pidias voice.

Another problem i have with sel being pidias puppet is the fact that we have pretty extensive lore on seluvis life as a tarnished of the roundtable and on his motivations and (lack of) character. There is a whole story about him being part of a love triangle with gideon and delores and how his jealousy led him to turn delores into a puppet just to spite the both of them after being spurned by her. Then when we meet him he sends us on a quest to kidnap gideons adoptive daughter meaning he still holds a grudge and taking one woman in gideons life away from him still isnt enough for seluvis, he need the other too. Seluvis is obsessed with Gideon, he is spiteful, he is more than happy to hurt bystanders in his personal quest for revenge, in fact he seems to prefer doing so, given he never targets gideon directly. And we know he has been like this since a time where the roundtable housed more than a handful of tarnished. If pidia has really made seluvis his puppet sometime after he left the roundtable , this implies he has been extremely committed to impersonating him to the point where he continues acting on seluvis's grudge against a man that should mean nothing to pidia himself and frankly i dont know why pidia would bother to go to such lengths. If he wants to ingratiate himself with ranni for some reason, indulging in seluvi's personal grudges has the risk of jeopardizing her plans by attracting gideon's attention. If he wants to get closer to ranni to turn her into a puppet, why not impersonate someone she actually trusts instead of someone everyone clearly hates the guts of and is only tolerated?

@@square-table-gaming Good point. The fact that we see a direct puppet employed by him that don't speak and adding that Seluvis is a puppet, they both share the same voice actor so that means puppets can be talk by ventriloquism but since he has a old man's voice can't speak for 'Theolina.'

You missed the opportunity to call this a nice helping of Lore-eos 😂

Do you mean the small sheld that can be found in Demi human forest in the weaping peninsula of Limgrave ? No, I don't think so because there is no description for the red star, or sorcerer Alberich, or the one eyed fell god.

@@Hoarahchadtheallgrabbing To be clear, the Blood Star and the Fell God of the Fire Giants are two different entities, right?

@@alexandermorgan5958 I think there is a connection between them, because thorn sorcerers are always found with Fire Monks and Fire Prelates who were a followers of the Fire Gaints and their One Eyed Fell God before their defeat against Godfrey and his Crucble Knighs.

Thorns in ER often sign at heresy and crime, so its likely just a coincidence

There is no reason why Ranni would kill Seluvis if you never did his quest but he becomes a corpse but she also kills Pidia too. This can only be explained if Pidia was controlling Seluvis as a puppet and she was killing Pidia as a loose end before she continued her journey.

The amber starlight was a demigods fate as the carians believe fate is written in the stars.

Nope. I’ve gotten both puppets without talking to pidia, and then the third (dung eater), and then had selivus die, and then got pidia’s bell bearing when the puppets master no longer controlled them, due to dying, and killed pidia.

Grammatically it says Seluvis' which implies his ownership. I would I'd love to use this for my theory but I'm also a grammar dude

You can get it even if he dies

I mean..... Ranni's old master was The Gloam-eyed Queen

Ranni's teacher was almost definitely not the gloam eyed queen as they wielded very different powers. From a timeline perspective it wouldn't work either as Marika defeated the Gloam Eyed Queen well before Ranni was born.

People aren't turned into puppets by having their actual physical bodies turned into puppets. Also, nowhere is it said that puppets cannot speak. If anything, Seluvis and Pidia having the same voice actor heavily implies that we are hearing a modified version of Pidias voice through Seluvis. I don't see how any of the points presented here contradict the idea that Seluvis was Pidias puppet. Also, the idea that Ranni has the ability to turn Seluvis into a puppet actually does contradict established ideas that Ranni needed Seluvis due to his ability create and control puppets.

For clarification, if Ranni needed Seluvis to control the puppets, how could she have made the puppets turn against Pidia?

It's very likely that Seluvis helped get Ranni her doll body so it'd be an odd detail for him to overlook

You cannot kill Pidia without breaking the game. Unfortunately it seems no line of code was made to connect them in that way because it's supposed to be impossible.

i see, how odd.. but i love the interesting connections we find everywhere else, thanks for all the interesting research!

It's not possible as any and all ways of dealing damage can't be done while in his room. In order to kill him you'd need to break the game using mods, so there was clearly intent to make it impossible to kill Pidia so as not to interrupt the quest.

Thank you! It's been a while I don't play the game, so I didn't remember he was in a safe room. So I stand corrected, the theory in the video makes 100% sense!

Does that include drinking the physick with an explosive tear?

@@basedchicken779 haven't tried! But it definitely falls outside of intended use from the developers.

The assertion that Ranni made him a puppet is pure speculation with nothing concrete to back it up. The theory of Seluvis always being a puppet has far too much evidence to be coincidence.

not at all. Seluvis could sell us items, of course he would have a bell bearing, puppet or not.

I mean... Shes already a doll, you cant turn a doll into a doll now can you?

Possible, but it ignores Pidia lieing about his proclivity for the dolls as well. The idea here is that Pidia wouldn't want anyone to know he's a mastermind, it's an act.

@@square-table-gaming There's no way I'm hell Pidia an Albinauric a dude (puppet) or whatever is capable of all that. Seluvis was always a traitor but had his uses for Ranni when he didn't any more she just took him out and then his puppets went on a rampage to kill Pidia

@@Ang3lD0wn why is it impossible? We know albinaurics are talented with magic and the female variations are very strong. Not to mention, they weren't always legless, their legs fade over time, so Pidia hasn't always been so pathetic looking.

@@square-table-gaming Maybe or maybe not doesn't matter great video as a always 👍

My liege!

Blaidd.

Ranni turns Pidia's puppets against him and deactivates Selivus

It's a good observation but I'd argue that Iji's pose is slightly different. Also he's covered in Black flame and implied to have been killed by the black knife assassins.

@@square-table-gamingboth are on their knees arms at side head tilted back. Not to mention we know that human selivus made the first person-puppet we know of (aside from nox ladies), which he gave to pidia. He made this puppet before joining the carian family, so he couldn’t have been working for pidia.

I enjoy your content though.🙂 Keep up the good work.

You actually can't! They made pidias location a non-combat area, presumably to prevent this.

Or selivus sent her there to assist, since defeating rahdan is required to give ranni a fate, which is required to puppetize her…

This could make sense, but his death pose is definitive proof he is a puppet

Likely not, as puppets are not made from a person's original body. The puppets of nepheli and Sellen in Seluvis' quarters are evidence of this.

@@square-table-gaming fair point yeah.

Definitely not. You can run through Sellen's entire questline, have her turn into a graven mass, and still have Seluvis alive and well.