"I don't want to get bogged down in the details." - the content creator I turn to for details

27:50 I like to think that the Ancient Dragons freeze lightning in TIME to wield it. But the Dragonkin Soldiers can't replicate this time-freezing ability, so they use ice magic to freeze lightning in place in order to wield it.

In regards to the Mausoleum Knights and their headlessness, the game makes it fairly clear that the powers of the Lands Between (The Frenzied Flame, The Grace of the Greater Will, the Cursed Blood of the Formless Mother) gathers within the eyes. Our eyes change color and shape when we join the Frenzied Flame or Mohg's Covenants, or when we devour too many dragon hearts, and loose Grace gathers within the eye sockets of skulls strewn about the lands, as well as creatures with abundant Grace having it literally spilling from their eyes. The Mausoleum Knights cutting off their heads essentially removes the ability of any force to control them likely literally "tieing them to the land" by removing their ability to be reborn. It literally "Drains the Color" from them as the eclipse does the sun, with the Color being synonymous with the different powers of the Lands Between. To further connect this with the obvious Celtic influence of the Lands Between as the Celts believed the HEAD was where the soul was kept specifically. Also, to further connect Renalla's rebirthing to the Nox and the Albinaurics: All of her sweetings suffer the same curse the first generation Albinaurics do. Their legs are withered and they cannot walk.

Albinauric silvery blood and the Nox/ Silver Tears have more to do with liquid silver, aka quicksilver, aka _argentum vivum_ (living silver) - mercury. Mercury mixed with tin was used on the back of mirrors, and was called quicksilvering. It makes sense that a silver liquid metal associated with mirrors and life in our world would be the thing used to iterate and emulate life in Elden Ring.

46:13 I don't think that's "Blaidd as the Baleful Shadow." The Baleful Shadow is a completely separate entity from Blaidd, probably just like the one who's mask we find near Seluvis's Rise. This is to trick Ranni into a false sense of security, or to make her feel bad from her bond with Blaidd, or to show how beastmen are used as tools (whether that be as shadows for empyreans or as assassins) of the Two Fingers. Honestly I think From probably reused Blaidd's model for convenience rather than making a unique Baleful Shadow, similar to how Godefroy reuses Godfrick's model. That's why we fight Blaidd after the whole quest is finished at Ranni's rise. He doesn't know that she left her tower, so he went there looking for her (probably while resisting his urge to kill her) and that's when we find him.

Regarding how the Nox imagined Mimicry could create a lord at 3:54: I heard a theory somewhere that they did succeed and that Radagon is a mimic of Marika. Mimicing the current god would indeed create a being powerful enough to be a lord. And the line referencing that a mimic does not imitate the summoners will seems like a great clue to Radagon fighting with Marika over destroying/repairing the Elden Ring.

Nice, the last protagonist strikes again!

At 34:45 discussing the Unalloyed Gold Needle. It would seem gold is the catalyst on or through which one’s will is projected. Unalloyed or pure gold would mean a clean slate, unaffected by any other’s hue. (Red Gold, etc) Runes that dictate the nature of our souls are shards of gold, and so with the Unalloyed needle, we replace the Will of the Frenzied flame possessing us and start over a blank slate.

You're added to my encyclopedia of Smoughtown, Honored Madman, Tarnished Archaeologist, Quelaag, Hawkshaw and Crunchy for Elden Ring worldbuilding/context. Love you all.

Thx for the video. Ants cultivate mushrooms in the real world. The purpose is food or to strength the structure of their hives. There exist a lot of glowing mushrooms and Ants prefer to build there hives under trees especially the red one wich remindes me on typical forest Ants. They chose often trees for theire rootstructure because the earth is not soft thanks to the roots. Tunnels are more stabile this way. The roots are often then cultivated with different kind of mushrooms. The question somone should ask wich kind of light length are possible that Plants can grow underground absent from the rich spectrum of the Sunlight. Its really sad for me that a lot of lore hunter don't look into botanic because a lot of the elden ring themes have to do with plants. Like the jarpeople or why they play music to the plants.

Maybe someday I’ll learn why the snails are immortal and can summon crystalians

An important note on ghostflame is that is formed by burning bones. I argue the difference between it and the BFoDD is that the ghostflame comes from dead things, while the BFoDD is conceptual. It is the very concept of death, while ghostflame is simply fueled by dead things

It blows my mind how many interpretations Elden Ring accommodates. Blood, emotions, color, precious metals, liminal spaces, they are all mixed up and sometimes contradict one another. Are ancient dragons associated with gold because they are powerful, or does gold literally grant power?

Was not expecting a Super Troopers joke in there, bless you hah

Despair inviting outer gods is exactly what happened to Griffith as he summoned the Eclipse. Miyazaki once again making homage to Miura.

45:45 From The Great Kenneth Haight: "...under the Erdtree, commingling with the demi-humans is made possible." So maybe the fingers play a part in influencing the ability to commingle and Kenny doesn't know it or fully understand that aspect?

Your channel is so underrated. I think you're onto something with your interpretation of gold.

Probably the best lore channel for Elden Ring hands down

It's that time of the month again boys

9:50 you can find a bunch of glintstone crystals poking through the ceiling of the Lake of Rot, they can best be seen from an overlook near the Ainsel River Downstream site of grace, right next to Nokstella. As for Nokron, the Siofra River runs right under Caelid, Mohgwyn Palace specifically is right under Sellia, which has the nearby Sellia Crystal Tunnel and Sellia Hideaway, both of which are full of glintstone crystals. As for the Nameless Eternal City, it’s night sky was stolen by Astel.

🎉

One of my favorite lore videos for sure. This was a variety box of lore and really well put together.

I would really really love it if you made an in depth video discussing the changes in version 1.00. I played through on the disk version and I was amazed at how different it is.

Also!! I have to suggest as far as rebirth goes, perhaps that directly relates to why the shattering happened, that godwyn was slain, and due to rebirth being a crime in the eyes of the golden order, marika realized that she created the very order that stopped his return, and attempted to shatter the order she created that made her son’s perfect resurrection illegal, and miquella’s assumed attempt to bring godwyn back via the eclipse that failed, was what made miquella realize the golden order’s fundamentalism couldn’t help him, for if marika’s order wouldn’t allow the rebirth of her own dear lost son, why would malenia be spared her rot?

Its interesting how the concept of Will or losing will is similar to humanity and hollowing. Also the therm Greater will could have some interesting implications

Ah, I see, so the Twinbird god of the Death Birds is actually Ho-oh AND Lugia, yes, it all becomes clear....

I don't think the Nox made Albinaurics, the Sorcerors did trying to recreate their techniques.

I wonder if astronomy can help you further in your theory of light being equivalent to life? Things to draw inspiration from: the spectra from the moon is the same as the sun, electromagnetic spectra and the properties of photons, The Rayleigh Scattering, doppler effect of astral objects, how light is "waves" and how Thomas Young first used water to understand this concept. Love the video.

I like the way you handle translations. There's some other popular souls content creators that just say 'the Japanese says' and then never speak Japanese, compare descriptions or show the Japanese characters or words they're talking about so we just have to trust they know some secret hour long story from one item description lol

This video is awesome, let me first state, generation 2 albanaurics do speak, it’s an extremely hushed whisper, and they say things like “punish every living thing” (look it up it’s very hard to hear unless isolated) and that’s actually in retail, which may be why thops’ line was cut from the game, when it comes to the Albanaurics at large? I believe there’s a basin somewhere, probably once existed within the nameless eternal city, or perhaps quite literally is the fluid we walk in, but this silver basin, it’s like an anti crucible, while the crucible sprouts unchecked life, this silver crucible spouts unchecked life as well, but not of the same source, and it’s also very odd to notice that the golden order seeks to control, yet this would allow one to create controlled life, and maybe that’s why it was a good enough weapon to challenge them, a power to rival their own, a power of creation, which may also explain a timeline of the Nox, placing them after gransax’s attack on lleyendell, and each of the creatures they made were in response to the creatures the greater will pitted them against, copying their trolls and soldiers with mimic tears, making “pale imitations” of the dragons, perhaps in mockery of the religion or as an effort to counter the draconic tree sentinels, the fingerslayer blade to crush their envoys, and perhaps the albanaurics arent guided by grace, but the red grace of the helphin, as the mausoleum knights connection to the nox opens potential connection between the nox and helphin steeple

Nice touch using the madman's knowledge icon for your spoiler warning~

Of course Miquella's unalloyed gold would be associated with willpower, and him being the Unalloyed is very fitting. He invented offensive incantations, grew a second erdtree, and even looked to sever the connection to outer gods, all because he had the reason and therefore the will to do it. All hail Miquella

So many good points in this. I was really impressed by your observations on the gash running down the deathbirds, gold representing will, and the screaming bodies potentially living in death. Maybe this is why the bodies are completely motionless? I thought this just an example of the animation not keeping up with the voice acting, but now it seems like it could be intentional. Some of those who live in death, like Godwyn, are motionless. Also, if Melina has a Twinbird mark on her eye, would this make her a paradoxical "third twin" to Miquella and Malenia?

Incredible work, and still the reigning king of deep Souls lore.

The idea that faith is governed by the stars or that someone's destiny is written in the stars is an old quote by a roman nobleman and it is used in the literary works of Shakespeare.

I think this is a great way to cover Elden Ring and I appreciate how you improve your content with every post. Well done!

0:11 "we'll examine silver and gold" WONT SAVE MY ROTTING SOUL wait no wrong game but also kinda fits

amazing one of the best elden ring videos out there! def gonna end up watching this a few times.

Wow Malenia breaking Miquella's needle in that fight with Radahn makes a lot of sense and would answer the question of what exactly she's doing in that moment

Thank you! 🙏🏾

I said this somewhere else, but fire is a lot easier to understand in the context of the game if you think of it like blood in Bloodborne. It is a medium through which power can be expressed, but the actual fire part of the flame is not controlled by a deity. Even the giants use the "Flame of the Fell God" not fire. It just so happens that he's the red guy, and fire being red, we assume he owns all fire since all fire is red that is not owned by somebody else.

Another stellar video! You are seriously one of my favorite Fromsoft Lore channels

7:50 Philosophically, I also think that this is the story writers mirroring their concerns with how humanity may treat artificial life. In Elden Ring, the Albinaurics are said to be cut off from the Erdtree (the natural way of things) and thus are said to live impure lives. I'm unsure, but "impure" may be more analogous to "amoral", if that's not simply a better word to use in its place. I can only speculate, but a modern concern with the possibility of AI coming into consciousness somehow, or some other form of artificial life being created, is that computer-driven thoughts aren't built off of biological instinct. They don't feel, and they aren't biased by their emotions or some moral conscience. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but if this was the writers' intent, then I really like how they managed to take what's usually a sci-fi talking point and make it work within a medieval/magical framework. And they did it without resorting to automatons or metal men (since the mannequin soldiers literally are the automatons in the ER world, not the Albinaurics) who are just living suits of armor. This little detail is one that I really appreciate in the lore.

Good stuff, loving this long ass vid

I assumed that the reason why the Elden Beast looks like a dragon is because the Elden Beast is the building block for all life in the Lands Between. Everything was conjoined and mishmashed as the One Great until the Elden Beast was sent into the Lands Between, turning the One Great into the Crucible which created diversity in life. Some of the very first life forms were the ancient dragons, since the dragons are often used as analogues to dinosaurs in FromSoftware’s games. This could also explain why certain other creatures that are connected to the Crucible, such as the Crucible Knights, the Misbegotten, and the Omen share some draconic qualities.

Could it be possible that the Helphen Tree was one of the branches that grew out of the Crucible, but was "cut away" when the Erd Tree became the dominant trunk? Tarnished Archeologist makes a lot of really good points about botany and the irl aspects of plant grafting that I think are really well-founded.

21:10 rebirth is forbidden because they're using the souls of the dead to forestall the weakening of the Erd tree as fuel but officially it's because "rebirth though means other than the Erd tree lacks holy grace".

This is a great video. You are good at analyzing themes in stories.

Top tier, as usual.

Thanks bro! Great video, I actually learned a lot from you!

I think the albinauric ant connection is correct. We just tend to think of them as frogs because we first see them in water in Liurnia. Water-frogs. But I think the implied generations of the albinaurics also hint at them being more like eusocial insects like ants wasps or bees: they spawn in generations, not from a single female spawning them one by one, but communally hatched in generations, just like these insects. They have a short life span as these types of insects usually do, less than a year in cold climates where the drones and workers cannot survive over the winter. They seem to have gendered divides like eusocial insects as well: the females are workers and warriors and the males seem to be useless like in some eusocial insects. It seems Latenna's sister is being turned into a "new queen" in her quest, as she is given a birthing droplet to make new albinaurics. Just like eusocial insects get royal jelly to become new birthing queens so their hormones will make them sexually mature. Maybe albinaurics are supposed to have wings? It would explain why their legs fall apart: they aren't supposed to use them as much as they are so they deteriorate too soon.

The lorr states when they were put down there, there were granted a false night sky. I think to mock them saying you will never get your story told like how ranni needs the stars. Something like that it's states. And astel took the night sky from the city he destroyed

The Numen and Albanaurics are the same concepts, but one for gold and one for silver. They share a lot of the whole "seldom born, deficits and differences between men and women". The crucibles knights probably are male Numen. Probably one of the most important lore videos I have seen, your arguments on the division of souls, wills and bodies enlarged my understanding of the games lore, my headcanon is improved

When it says drained of color. I think back to Hawkshaw's color theory video. The implication being that gold is a refinement of brown, and brown is a mix of every color.

Great lore video!

Nice work. Love it.

I have a nit to pick. The mausoleum knights don't need to be protected from Destined Death nor are the wandering mausoleums meant to protect from Destined Death. Destined Death does not render one soulless; Under normal circumstances it just kills you. Godwyn is in a very unique position of despite being soulless having been taken into the Erdtree, giving rise to some undead problems (I don't actually know in how large part it's Godwyn and how much it's the Golden order or those combined, but anyway, Destined Death just happened to make him First of the Dead. So no one else needs protection from Destined Death (Don't f with Marika lololol). The Mausoleum seems to be meant to protect the soulless demigods from coming into contact with the Erdtree, with all the benefit of hindsight. The mausoleum knights while not soulless are also cursed to not become part of the Erdtree and it is this curse with which they imbue their weapons and that allows them to serve for all time. I think they behead themselves to enter this cursed state. OK so why are the other demigods soulless if Godwyn became soulless because Ranni hacked the ritual? I don't know! I would assume those were also killed in the night of the black knives.

My take on the origin of the albinaurics is that they were created by the academy, but using a ritual inspired by/taken from the Nox. This would explain why they're less advanced than the silver tears in terms of their abilities at mockery. And further explains why they are killed- they are failed experiments at replicating the power of silver tears.

I still don't think there was a tree before Marika. Or at least not when they were starting out.

Amazing content!!

Curious that the Erdtree in it's era of abundance produced "golden tears" which were important for birthing people who are blessed with grace when people were still being born and the world was not a stagnant hellscape. Silver is always second place to gold and the Nox are an older and displaced religion that seems to be jealous of the golden order and wants to imitate and achieve what the Golden Order/Greater has.

Holy crap this is great

Idk if this is interesting to you, but the Frenzied Flame Mirandas are also found in Ainsel, right after you pick up the Ranni doll

i think you are on to something with the black moon and the eclipse

The ants and mimics both have face shields

Always quality content

Jesus Christ... 🙄 The 'pale gold shadows' emitted by shadow lure are a site of grace/humanity sprite. I love FromSoft's consistency.

Thank you for making such awesome videos

Starting with a conclusion and trying to find supporting evidence is literally how science is done every day. Not the scientific method, actual science, paid for by corporations or grants. It’s the foundation of our modern economy and the basis for everything we hold to be important or relevant.

Awesome work.

Wait, an hour+ lore video about Elden Ring has spoilers in it? *gasp* Color me shocked!

Small note about the regalia of eochaid’s copper colouration: you say the kanji used in the japanese text is outdated for the sake of reinterpretation; but the english version of the game uses “gaol” and instead of “jail”. I take this to mean the writers intentionally use old language to sell the fantasy setting.

you have a great cadence :)

does white-graying hair like the two fingers has indicate influence of the two fingers like the base of the two fingers with mushrooms indicates it has influence via rot

The nameless city under leyndell reminds me of light pollution. Like it's under the Erdtree and thus we can't see the stars og glimtstones. I don't know. Maybe

I thought the design of the Elden Beast was just a reference to Datatsushi from Forbidden Siren

It would have been 10/10 hilarious if they had called the them Argentines instead of Albinaurics

Here is a off-topic Q... 🙂 Why is Godricks and Morgott' great runes both called the anchor rune of the Elden Ring...? 🤔🙂🇩🇰

The snozzberries taste like snozzberries!

Doesn’t it make more sense that Ronnie took a hit out on herself and Godwin, because it doesn’t make sense for her to carve that symbol into her own back. I guess I’m just saying that doesn’t seem possible for a human to bend like that.

I missed You.

so the missing sun is hidden behind the dark moon at the start of the story?? that would explain why that one ghost is mourning the failed eclipse plan, implying the eclipse already happened/is still happening??

Nice

My man, you read it wrong. The blue silver chainmail armor doesn't state that its born from the same METAL but from the same MOTHER. Could mean other implications. :)

I figured that Albinauric referred to the Albino condition in real life. Though I figured the creators added frog traits to the second generation Albinaurics to help keep their legs and make them stronger than the first generation Albinaurics.

Where is this thing about Mog doing something with Miquella stemming from?

What is the armor you are wearing (for example at 1:30)? I keep seeing it in many YT videos but I'm now entering Leyndell and still havent found it.

31:15 Red gold is basically gold nano particle. So the true color of gold is red

It's ah Mastahpiece! And I think you should trust one or two more of your conspiracy takes especially about godwyn! (But I'm sure you're not surprised to hear me say that :p )

Honestly the Erdtree in the game doesn’t even appear to be real, it seems like Goldfrey, a projection by the Greater Will because the original was burned by the Black Flame of the Godskin apostasy. You see the small wooden section and the roots are still there, but the rest has been destroyed.

Gold is bad for the Greater Will as it weakens it’s ability to manifest its desire in the world. That’s why Leyndell’s rooftiles and statues are painted gold instead of being made out of it.

What if the Twinbird has some sort of deal with Renna and Melina? Ranni body was made in the form of Renna, the Snow witch, and Melina wants to burn away along with the Erdtree. Fire and Snow, Life and Death. Maybe the outer god whose the Twinbird is an envoy of is the God of Duality or Disparity, linking to the disparity of the first flame of Dark Souls.

On the topic of blaidd the two fingers never actually control him. the baleful shadow is not blaidd, it is an apparition (or possibly even a black knife assassin) that is sent in the form of blaidd to attack and crush the will of ranni. When you actually fight blaidd back at rannis rise he is not there to hunt ranni rather he is in a blind rage attacking both friend and foe. The two fingers couldn't control his will rather they corrupted his mind.

Yurrrrrrrrrrrrr

According to soap

Is the Beastman's Jarshield translated properly? Assuming it was translated properly, the statement is obviously false and it is not worded as conjecture. No rational archaeologist would ever make that statement. Nobody makes a gd amphora, breaks it, and then uses it as a shield as their shield making strategy. The statement's only function is to make all item descriptions unreliable because obviously the game doesn't obfuscate well enough with a single trustworthy source of vagaries.

Godwyn isn’t ranni’s brother

Man your videos are so good with such interesting ideas and observations, but the way you read your script with such a weird overly deliberate cadence is really off-putting. Compare these scripted videos to the live streams where you sound like a normal person. Sorry if that comes off as rude, it's just really hard to not notice and get distracted by for me.

Great video mate loved every second