I should mention Maliketh's AI is named BlackSwordMariques, just to help solidify the "Marikesu/Maliketh" connection, it's all just different romanizations of the Japanese rendering of the name. What it would actually have meant for the lion on Godfrey's back to have been Maliketh the whole time is hard to consider. It always felt like something was a little off about how Godfrey fit into the story though, and these changes may have played a part in it.

Fighting Godfrey with Maliketh on his back before swapping to Horah Loux and letting Maliketh join the fray as a dual boss was too terrifying a battle for them to consider.

I know it’s not the case but the idea of Gold Mask being a 9 foot tall barbarian is hilarious

i like that underneath all of godfrey's lordly armor made by serosh, he's still dressed as a chieftain of the badland. he ruled as an elden lord while still wearing his Nikes.

I’m just imaging us fighting Gold Mask instead of Godfrey, and he’s just silent the entire battle until his second phase where he just screams and turns into Hoarah Roux, a massive warrior

For some reason Serosh just hanging off Godfrey's back gnawing on his shoulder amuses me. It's such a cat thing to do that it makes me laugh. My cat used to do the same thing whenever he was on my back like that.

The most interesting part of this video is the revelation that Fia was called Yuliya. Completing the cycle of “Yuria” in Demons Souls, “Yulia” in Dark Souls, “Yuria” again in Dark Souls 3, and now “Yuliya” a variation of Yulia in Elden Ring.

Godfrey was supposed to have a more personal role in relation to the player at one point, according to some interviews pre-release, where he was mentioned to be a sort of 'mentor' figure to the player, and more or less being the impetus for the player to travel to the Lands Between at his behest. Which makes a lot more sense than just simply waking up in the chapel with no fanfare, or real goal or motivation.

All I know for sure is it's a serious disappointment that we never got to interact with Serosh in any way other than watching him get his jaw ripped off. He's apparently super important but he enters the story as a backpack and leaves immediately after as a corpse.

Kinda funny how u fight both of Marika’s husbands back-to-back

I've always felt that even if narratively Godfrey's slotted into the game kind of awkwardly, *thematically* his inclusion and execution is perfect. He's the perfect penultimate battle, this fellow human who respects you as much as he wants to defeat you, who too was victimized by the events of the story and given this massive weight/responsibility

What separates them is that shadows are constructed entities, beasts are… well, could be equivalent to the beastmen. Serosh is a Lord of Beasts so who knows. Maliketh became a clergyman of the beastmen despite being a wolven shadow, so I guess anything is possible.

That's so odd. It is worth mentioning though, I personally think your idea of Maliketh being bound to Godfrey probably isn't too far off. If Maliketh was meant to serve a similar role as the bearer of destined death, it would be literally making Hoarax carry the burden of death on his back. As though he was so powerful the only thing that could hold him back was *literally being eaten away by death,* as Serosh's animation is him always gnawing on Godfrey's shoulder.

It’s important to remember not to think of cut content in a vacuum. It’s easy to think of name changes like this in the context of our story, the one that we got in the final game, but it’s significantly more likely that the version of the story that uses these names was entirely different from the story we have now, in ways we can’t even speculate on.

Ill try to keep this concise, I think the implication now is that Serosh is the image of kingliness that was projected onto him when he became part of the golden order. Lions as a symbol (especially in reference to a king) generally represent majesty, courage, might, etc, and he's strong but this still doesnt quite apply to horah loux, chieftain of the badlands. Godfrey is an image he projects, and the symbol of the lion is taming his image, rather than presenting his real brutal self. The biggest implication of this, to me, comes from Radahn. Radahn strives to embody the lion, looking up to Godfrey, wanting to become like him, but not even Horah Loux was everything Godfrey was. Radahn is upholding a stagnant image, he's trying to keep the golden order the same, but stagnation leads to rot and he succumbs. There's a lot I brushed over and can elaborate on for clarity but 50/50 nobody sees this anyway lol

I think something to consider is that Miyazaki did admit they stuck closely to Martin's bible of what comes before the Shattering. The switch arounds may have been From's efforts to write the story of the Shattering and the game only to have to switch things around out of a desire to more closely adhere to Martin's contribution.

Zullie, I know you get a million comments, but I just want you to know I’m a long time fan of all of your work. I watch every video as soon as it’s available to me, and it’s people like you that keep the best games alive through hard work and curiosity. Please never stop being you

They robbed us of buff wrestler Goldmask

Nepheli being a last-minute entry feels right; it's pretty rare for an NPC to just walk around in stock starting class armor. Even Corhyn has the altered wheel prophet set from the network test. I wonder if Goldmask no longer being Hoarah Loux also meant his and Corhyn's quest was a late addition. Even the whole Regression puzzle wouldn't involve much in the way of new assets, just flipping one commonly-used statue for another.

Meanwhile the dev that originally just duplicated the maliketh mesh asset to stick onto his back as a placeholder to see how it looked but never redid the name after properly updating to the new mesh for it is just snickering about how people are making all these speculations because of his random forgetting to rename an asset. In all seriousness I could see this being the case for this one, I've done stuff like this myself on many occasions, copy another asset as a temp, and never truly rename or replace it fully but just update it partially to look good in game and once it looked good I never went back to clean up/polish the code since since I had other things to still focus on and then forget eventually since no one points it out as something needing to be fixed later on in development since in game it looks fine at least.

Godfrey/Hoarah Loux is one of my favorite characters in Elden Ring. He's just unequivocally badass in all possible ways. The thing that constantly has me scratching my head though is this... Godfrey, was the first Tarnished. But before he was "Godfrey", his original name was Hoarah Loux. When the Long March began, he was still Godfrey up to a certain point, where according to the in-game intro and his remembrance, he shed the identity of Godfrey until he died as all tarnished were fated to as "Hoarah Loux." You can see clearly his corpse along with Serosh's in the intro. So when he was resurrected by Grace, it also brought Serosh back as well, and thus restored his identity as Godfrey? Does that make Serosh also a tarnished or just tarnished adjacent? Did he also kill Serosh himself back then so he could revert to Hoarah Loux? Who on Marika's Earth managed to kill him in the first place? Was Godfrey only known as "Lord of the Battlefield" after dedicating himself to lordship or was that his title as Hoarah Loux, too? So many questions!

One thing that I've been wondering: where are Malenia and Miquella's Shadows? As Empyreans, they should have them, but there isn't any mention of them as far as I'm aware.

I always thought it interesting that Nepheli shares the name “Loux.” Is it a family name, or perhaps a title?

The cape of the Beast Champion armor has the exact same color as Godfrey's cape. It's an interesting connection when you consider Godfrey's connection with beasts.

I love that you use Twilight Princess music. Probably the only Zelda game I’ve ever played and it’s such a good one. Very nostalgic.

That shift might be why Hoara Loux/Godfrey seems so weird to me. Like, he's been banished for ages but somehow in game you can find numerous paintings of exactly how he looks like when you meet him near the Erdtree. Despite being one of the "main characters" of the game he doesn't appear until the very end while all the others have main quests attached to them, 3 out of 5 having their own ending and Gideon being one of the cornerstone of Lore-building (and being teased to have his own story in the future with Miquella). It really feels like Godfrey/HL has been slapped last minute because he was promotionnal art and thus they had to find a place for him.

It's interesting to see how the story was rewritten. This in addition to Godfrey's cut dialogue suggests he had a different role in the story beforehand, and a lot was changed later on in development, especially the implications of the family name of Loux. Giving Godfrey the name Hoarah Loux may also have helped them later in creating Nepheli's questline, as it gives her legitimate claim to Limgrave's throne.

Wow, just think how this would’ve changed that boss fight. Imagine instead of Godfrey tearing Serosh from his body, Maliketh emerges from him the same way Serosh attempted to in the phase transition. Then have the second half of the fight be dedicated to Maliketh. Now THAT would be a brutal but very cool back to back fight.

The model of the lion with its teeth sinking in is so awesome. From Softs character design is top tier.

Question: is it possible to “detangle” rykard’s model in order to get a better idea of how he’s put together?

Might be interesting to know, that (according to Google-translate) "mari kesu" means to cancel out. And when we look at Serosh, he certainly seems to suppress/cancel out Hoarah Loux.

"Such a lust for battle." "WHOOOOOOOOOO!?"

Hey Zulie, re-watching one of the trailers for Elden Ring shows the Fire Prelate without its robes inside what seems to be the Red Wolf of Ragadon's boss arena, indicating that it was supposed to the boss there originally instead of the wolf. I just wonder, is it still there but dummied out like the alternate bosses for the start of the game? Is there anything else there?

It does make some sense that Godfrey's role was a bit slapdash and altered a lot. He's more or less just plopped into the game with zero build-up. Sure, the implications to his character are neat. Barbarian playing as Regal Lord who then abandons the facade. But it's just a concept given to us by item description. Kind of highlights one of those issues with the Souls series. Sure, the lore is interesting and it's cool to figure it out through item descriptions and context based on location, but with how From often changes their mind about story elements, it does leave the story suffering in places. Such as a really important character feeling forced in.

This Loux lineage is very interesting, and it made me remember something that Margit said to the Tarnished about "warrior blood", was that just a compliment or did it mean something?

Idk how you find enough stuff to post vids everyday, it's very commendable. You have my respecc !

this makes perfect sense, i saw a comment suggesting hoarah loux was based on cu chulainn because he gave up his name to serve his lord and can enter a berserk rage, he killed a lords hound and asked to be its replacement. i felt like this kind of adds up with the other dog imagery. maybe at some point before the age of the erdtree hoarah loux defeated maliketh and asked to be marika's lord and thats why

It was John elden Ring the whole time

I want a mod changing Horah Loux’s model to gold mask. Same moveset and everything, just different model

Even if cut content stuff is of dubious applicability from a lore-analysis standpoint, it's also always fascinating to get a peek into the development cycle and some of the changes a game goes through.

Makes you wonder if our western site of the fan community doesn't spend tens and tens of hours that we'll never get back, trying to decipher cryptic lore about things, that weren't that cryptic at all possibly and just got messed up in translation from Japanese.

Maliketh being bound to godfrey could explain the nature of the "Long march" where godfrey and his soldiers left the lands between and travelled as far away as they could. This could've been to secretly dispose of maliketh.

Having you focus on the rings in Maliketh’s arena around 3 minutes is so amazing. I love you work and your eye and attention to detail are phenomenal!!

Why are these videos so oddly soothing to watch?

I’m wondering how much of the inexplicable lore of the Souls series comes from these kind of rewrites. Note to self - before you release an Epic play musical chairs with the names to give it that touch of mystery.

I think... originally the story was split into two time periods - this is supported by some of the cut dialogue from Godfrey, where he talks to the player and sends them on their quest. I think it was originally that the player was going to go out into the world of Elden ring, gain to great runes, and then based on which factions they destroy to get those great runes, the rest of the story would follow (probably in a similar vein to the way Lyndell has two settings- golden and ash) We would get two runes, then set the Erdtree on fire, then fight the factions in the future after we get mortality/time running again. 1) this fits some of the early promos that advertised the player choice being more important, stuff that ended up mostly cut. 2) It explains a LOT of the cut Covenant stuff 3) It makes sense to cut in a game this size, since from a design perspective since making all those changes to the world (and locking the player into a chosen area for the end) both balanced and fun would be HARD. 4) Something similar actually happened in Dark Souls 1, wherein the player could get stuck in the painting and be unable to get out until they beat the level. Many players didn't like it... NOTEABLE: Logically it would follow that certain areas might have originally been end game states of the world. I'm guessing mostly the areas that inexplicably have to be warped to when Fromsoft usually has you walk. But some of the regular areas might also count. Caelid and the Mountain of the Giants might have been representative of the end game following certain factions proceeding to the endgame at one point. While Nokstella, Faram Azula, The Halgitree, and Deeproot Depths also have arguments in favor of them being representative of an endgame state, due to how you reach them. Interestingly, each still roughly corresponds to an ending that ended up incorporated in game. 1) It would explain Caelid's... everything, really... 2) Caelid - siding with Malaina (or maybe Redahn) and events ion the backstory proceeding as they ended up in the game. Faram Azula - Siding with the Flame of Frenzy (Order is breaking down and the world breaking up/being destroyed.) Nokstella - Ranni's ending possibly. Deeproot - The Ones Who Live In Death lord ending - yes, you can get to it without warping, but I think I'd still count it. The Halgitree - Possibly Miquila... It's different enough from the rest of the game, and reached in that same warp-to-new-place thing that seems to indicate tacking on assets. ... Anyway. that's my theory crafting for today.

Now I just have the image of Hoarah curled up like goldmask in the intro with the narrator saying "The ever brilliant Hoarah Loux"

I feel like the Hero class and the Warrior class had their names switched around at some point, seeing as how Nepheli goes on and on about being a warrior and stuff. And the hero set doesn't really look much heroic.

I've always found it difficult to rely on repurposed or removed content for clarity. Ideas get shuffled and cut for many reasons during a games development. Sometimes last minute additions are made but fit into the game nicely and sometimes they are shoe horned in there terribly. I don't think overall it's a representation of the final product or what MAY have been and it's simply devs just changing things for either the sake of time constraints or issues discovered during development and nothing more. It's fun to speculate but at the same time I wouldn't put so much serious thought or form theories about cut content.

I've just made the connection: when you're panning over the mysterious lady with the three wolves, that this must be the original owner of the Spirit Caller Bell and of Torrent that is often mysteriously mentioned. Why? The motif of three wolves is also seen in the (erroneously named) "Lone Wolf Ashes," which is an ash that summons 3 wolves and is given to you alongside the spirit caller bell. Idhafc what that implies more broadly, but it's something.

Your Twilight Princess music makes me insanely nostalgic and I love it!

I find something strangely beautiful about the way this subverts a lot of media which portrays characters having some sort of “Inner Beast” or whatever having the “Beast” part symbolize aggression or bloodlust, with the “Human/Human Equivalent” part being the part that has to Hold The Beast Back… when in reality, most animals, and ESPECIALLY Apex Predators like big cats, are actually EXTREMELY cautious about picking fights, as wasting energy and/or opening themselves up unnecessarily to injury often turns out to be a death sentence? The fact that the BEAST is the one in this duo trying to keep the HUMAN under wraps… just feels *correct*, y’know? It’s a take I wish I saw more of.

Really hoping the DLCs ties many things together and expands on lore. I feel the ER lore doesnt paint a overall picture the way that Ds did.

I much prefer what we got, Serosh is rad and Godfrey being the chieftain of the badlands is also a nice twist. I can't really see Goldmask being this massive gigachad that somehow led a bunch of rowdy bandits lol

Best soft soft tutorial for beginners on KZfaq! I'm an absolute beginner and all the other tutorials I've found on KZfaq have been so

I want Nepheli to be a DLC optional boss. Imagine fighting a more badass version of her but with the Stormhawk King clinging to her back like Serosh.

I would love to see something like an elden ring director's cut in the future where everything removed is included.

I never even picked up on the Hoarah Loux / Nepheli Loux name connection until this video, and I have over 300 hours in Elden Ring and did her whole questline. I'm stupid. 😶

I first-tried that boss (thanks to gold NPC summon), so I couldn’t absorb much. But I felt the lion was actually puppeteering Godfrey at first. And AMAZING that one of the lore names in the game didn’t start with M or G!! (Honestly, I lost track of all the similar names: Malania, Maquella, Michelob)

I just found out that in Zoroastrianism there is a "yazata"(divinity) called Sarosh, who is considered the patron spirit of conscience. His role involves opposing the "daeva"(demonic creature) Aeshma, which is the patron of wrath and bloodlust... I know this video is old now but i immediately thought of Godfrey's lion being renamed and thought this might be the reason. Someone probably stumbled upon this piece of mythology and found the parallels too perfect to pass up.

Godfrey/Horah Loux always reminds me of Hawkwood's dialogue from DS3 about Aldrich: "And they made him a Lord of Cinder - not for Virtue but for Might." It may not have been the original concept but I think the duality of Godfrey makes him a much more compelling and almost sympathetic character. Marika needed an unstoppable warrior and that's exactly what she empowered Horah Loux to become. Yet as the goddess of the Golden Order, once the last great enemies were slain she needed a Lord to match to perfect order that she desired for the world. A Lord that embodied the perfect, virtuous order of Marika but in the end neither Marika nor Godfrey could escape the reality that Horah Loux had been made into the First Elden Lord, Godfrey, "not for Virtue but for Might." And in his final battle with the Tarnished, he finally gives up facade of Virtue that he's been trying to uphold even after Marika banished him from the Lands Between.

I always thought the answer to this mystery was contained within that statue in Maliketh's boss room, but no theory I can think of makes sense either. I used to think that Maliketh, The Beast Clergyman and Serosh were fractions of Marika's shadow. That doesn't make sense though since The Beast Clergyman and Maliketh are the same in all but choice of attire. It just doesn't add up...

It all adds up once you realize Godfrey is the narrator. Compare how they say 'Tarnished' during the intro, ending, and his death monologue. Same voice and intonation. Like the ringing of a bell, the signal was given, and the chosen Tarnished began their progression to the Elden Tree, fattening with souls acquired during the trek. The harvester awaits those souls, as it means a fight with the baddest warrior in the lands is to be had, exactly what Godfrey wants.

Writers: Boss, our storyline is still a mesh so the… Miyazaki: The game is finished, we will release it. Let Witch Zullie & Vaati Vidya figure it out.

Its sad that we don't get to fight Sherosh. Maybe the alleged DLC will make us travel back in time (like pretty much every Miyazaki DLC) and fight the Lion in its prime.

Love your vids, thank you for taking the time to find all this for us!

Working on games is definitely a lot different than other mediums because once an asset is created, it can be reshuffled, edited, and reworked to fit into other places, but the code is almost always there.

Ah, Twilight Princess music ... this was a nice trip down memory lane

Why does it seem like every aspect of this game was suddenly and haphazardly changed like a month before release?

My only question about Godfrey is, how did he died in the badlands, how powerful are the creatures in the badlands that even Godfrey couldn't handle them. I really hope we get a badlands dlc somewhere in the future, maybe even get a different ending by helping Godfrey survive and fighting elden beast alongside him, becoming Godfrey's loyal right hand.

YOURE MAKING ME CRY WITH ALL OF THE TWILIGHT PRINCESS SONGS

Awe, I thought this was going to explain how Godrey's Ax is already broken in the giant painting of him in Stormveil.

Even if it's just a theory, damn you came up with a pretty good one. So many ramifications just from this detail. The idea that Marika binded her beast to Godfrey is a pretty cool one, but then I suppose if they went along with it they wouldn't be able to have Maliketh as a boss, along with many other changes.

Ah, the classic problem in "a game where you piece the story together from clues" being that sometimes you can't even know where what you're supposed to work with ends, and where older development begins. It kinda ruins the fun a bit IMHO.

It seems more likely the earlier version of the story probably had Godfrey somehow posing a threat to marika’s empyreanship, so Maliketh would have been employed to change that aspect of him, seeing as Marika was married to him.

I still just can’t get over the fact that his stand was a handicap.

The "story" for this game was made as an afterthought. I think the developers must be laughing their asses off when they see all the conspiracy theorists dumping countless hours of their lives into figuring the "lore" out.

I think its pretty obvious Goldmask was originally supposed to just be Godfrey's new identity... until they made Goldmask an entirely new character. Considering others has the same thing: Gurranq and Maliketh, Margit and Morgott..

i really appreciate your videos, they always share something interesting and you always make it straight to the point. very relaxing vibe too, thank you

I want to imagine that the (demi)gods all had stands, but the mechanics for everyone else got nixed and piled onto Godfrey.

6 seconds gang

I have a much less grand and speculative idea. They just had a lot of names and kept moving them around until they were satisfied.

This has got to be one of the coolest channels on KZfaq. I would not have nearly as much of an interest in these games had it not been for your videos. Thanks for the awesome content

First you gave us the horrors of all the various creatures riding other creatures, but now my nightmares will be filled with visions of Beast Clergy riding Godfey to go into a second phase of Maliketh and Hoarah Loux coming after me >.< Thanks Zullie, Witch indeed lol.

God hearing that music I genuinely thought I was watching a twilight princess video and when I turned and looked at the screen my brain was so confused. Shot me back to 2007 like I never left.

Honestly I dont mind because the backstory with Godfrey, Marika, the tarnished who have lost grace, and the foreign lands are all so *chefs kiss*

that one employee who forget to change serosh's mesh name : 🙊🙊

Would’ve been interesting thematically if Goldmask and Godfrey still were the same person still. If the time travel shenanigans in Farum Azula was always a part of the design, I can see a through-line where Godfrey was made unable to fight after Maliketh bound himself to him, eventually realizing Marika’s disregard for others to fulfill her goals and becoming disillusioned with the golden order. Would’ve made for some interesting themes.

Your research clarifies so many aspects of the game, making for a much greater experience inmersing into the lands betwen. So thankful Zullie ❤❤🤗🤗

Watching your series on Elden Ring has been most bittersweet Zullie. Typically your thoughtful examinations make me have an "a-ha!" moment or two, but I feel like unearthing cutting floor ideas and content on this game in particular's story is reclaiming the true story amidst all the half measures of this game's core narration.

The beastclaw great hammer description might imply that serosh started the beast incantation line.

I still remember finding your channel when lobos jr shouted you out years ago, it's great to see how much the channel has grown

At minimum I come to your videos for the music, but I always end up with some great knowledge about the story :3

We could all be calmer people if we had our own shoulder kitty.

If Maliketh's current role was a late addition, it might also explain why the whole thing with Destined Death makes so little sense. The justification for going to Farum Azula is a flimsy addition to the already flimsy justification for going to the mountaintop, and releasing destined death should have had a ton of consequences in many areas, such as ending respawns for the player and enemies, probably ending those who live in death, and restoring the lost power of the black flame incantations.

The little bite on the shoulder Serosh's giving Godfrey makes him hilariously look like a domestic cat.

This explains how Malekith have that giant lion hammer. Well...Serash is very...boring? There is to feel information about him that, he seens quickly put in the game...

Whole thing that's confusing about Souls lore is Mitsubishi-san changing his mind about the lore during development.

90% sure the that Tarnished warriror who broke his axe is actually us using some time travel shenanigan on a future DLC

Just gonna say, I love the twilight princess music in the background. It's my favorite zelda game and at least the music you have playing is so calming