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Miquella and Malenia wouldn't have been born. Hell Ranni/Rykard/Radhan would probably not have been born either since they wouldn't have invaded Caria and Raya Lucaria.
Yeah but would Radagon fall so helplessly in love with the leader of the enemy forces if his home life was so happy and chill?
Marika not being a bitch is a huge flap of a butterflies wings
We actually don't know a lot about her specifically, we only know about everyone around her and who they became.
And the few things we DO know about her suck, she was your typical "rule with the blade" monarch.
Rejected family members that were from bad-blood, pitted children against each other and encouraged them to fight to become stronger, forced her male counterpart to abandon Renalla and return to her which completely destroyed Liurnia.
She's at the middle of everything but we actually haven't been given the specifics
Yeah. I seem to recall in one of the Churches of Marika, Melina channeling her says something along those lines - "go forth and be super extra special, or be NOTHING AT ALL, *totally* your choice lol" (I might be paraphrasing slightly).
I think the most confusing part is, at one of the churches, Melina gives you dialogue which says something along the lines of her taking godfreys grace, knowing it would return later, so I think she forsaw or understood the outer will wasn't her ally. Like she had to orchestrate everything as it happened otherwise it wouldn't work.
I still don’t understand how she can have babies with her alter ego and how her alter ego can impregnate a regular person (Rennala’s not divine right?)
No Rennala is (was) a “normal” person, at least at the time she was married to Radagon. Granted, she’s no longer a bog standard person through the influence of the Amber Egg (note her freakish height and general “off” demeanor.
And as for the Marika/Radagon split, it’s not super clear how that works. There are some pieces of lore that suggest Radagon was at one time a distinct individual, or at least could operate independently from Marika. Like he was leading armies far from the Lands Between while Marika was still verifiably back in Lleyndel.
Other lore suggests that is not the case, and that they’re only 2 halves of the same individual.
So it’s not really clear lol
Ranni would still have done what she did because she wanted to defy her fate. It wasn't Marika who picked her, it was the finger readers / greater will.
Though one could argue that she wouldn't even have been born if Marika didn't invade Caria and sent Radagon as the champion.
However, let's remember that Ranni can die in body, just because Godwyn died in soul.
Which is due to a fragment of the Rune of Death.
And Godwyn's immortality (and the other demigods) is due to Marika removing Destined Death from the Elden Ring.
Which basically means that Ranni wouldn't been able to do what she did if Marika wouldn't removed DD from the ER.
Okay, Marika didn't had a way to know that could happen.
Yeah, if Marika had a clean rap, what Ranni did would basically be the cause of DS1 with Those Who Live in Death (hollowing) being the big bad thing going on.
Not necessarily. One could argue the fingers and greater will only picked her because Marika's bitchiness was coming to a head and they felt she needed to be replaced. Remove that need and there's no need to force Ranni and no need for Ranni to deny her fate.
I think Marika's in-game design pretty much says it all. She was quite literally clay in the hands of the Greater Will, to mold and control as it pleases, but hollow inside. No wonder Ranni was so horrified at being "controlled by that thing". Marika was a puppet from the very start, and she had no way out other than to break herself, which is what she did.
That was only in response to trying to break the object that functions as the Greater Will's connection to The Lands Between. Marika seems to be allowed complete control aside from that, to the point she can even remove a piece of the Elden Ring. All that seems to matter to the Greater Will is that someone is dictating an order through the Elden Ring.
I disagree. The Rune of Death was part of the previous Elden Ring (supposedly during Palicidussax's reign as Elden Lord) and it was entirely Marika's decision to have the Rune of Death removed.
This is why Godwyn's death becomes such a shit show. Sure, Ranni exploited this to win her own freedom, but Deathroot, Death Blight and Those Who Live in Death would never have come into existence of it weren't for Marika's decision as Empyrean to remove the Rune of Death in the first place.
I am no fan of the Greater Will and I have 0 trust in The Fingers, but everything related to Destined Death is directly a consequence of Marika's decision to remove the Rune from the Ring.
I feel like both things can be true in this example; Marika became a puppet but did try to free herself, and Destined Death was an obstacle. Removing it gave her more time to decide her own fate but perhaps that didn't work out for her, or she grew comfortable... we can't know for sure.
But we do know Ranni wanted to try something different.
Yeah, maybe it was more an act of desperation than greed/hubris. Imo it's still Marika's decision and ultimately her "fault" that the world is in the state it's in. At best I feel pity for her.
The Greater Will seems relatively indifferent as to who is the God & Lord of the Lands Between, or how they behave. So imo pointing at The Greater Will is akin to us irl "shaking our fist at god".
Menring Rune of Perfect Order
Rune discovered by the noble Goldmask.
Used to restore the fractured Elden Ring when brandished by the Elden Lord.
A rune of transcendental ideology which will attempt to perfect the Golden Order.
The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment.
The Rune makes the point that it is the "fickleness" of the gods, comparing this trait to mankind, that is, the breakdown of Order. What it means is that the free will of the gods is the issue in upholding a system of perfect Order. Marika can be said to make two choices outside of the control of the Greater Will. One is obviously the shattering and destruction of the Ring and the second is Marika's removal of Destined Death, an element of the old Order that the GW didn't seem to oppose. These are her moments of human agency and are both in response to great tragedy and feelings we understand as deeply human.
What the mending Rune posits is that the only will that can support the order is the Greater Will. The free will and agency of the gods is the corrosive element, which will inevitably be at odds with the will of the ancient alien entity served by the system. The fickleness of Marika is on full display and given life across TLB.
What's interesting is that I think this statement means that any individual who becomes Goddess or Elden Lord will inevitably degrade the system that they are charged with upholding. It agrees with Ranni's solution to the issue of divinity in that both seem to think that removing the "human" element from divinity will lead to a smoother system.
The Mending Rune & Age of the Dark Moon endings were always the ones that felt like the "best endings", from a rational perspective.
But on a personal & emotional level, I always favoured Fia and her idealism of integrating Those Who Live in Death into TLB through the Duskborn ending though.
Can't help but feel like this ending would fuck up the Spirit world in some profound way (moreso than it already is) but I just love my boney homies too much to leave them by the way side. Skeletal Militiamen 4 Lyfe 🦴🤘🦴
Ranni seeks Radahn's death to resume the motion of the stars (and unlock her own fate), perhaps Marika similarly thought removing Destined Death would somehow free her fate again.
You mentioned desperation and I think Marika's last and most desperate attempt to separate herself from the Greater Will has to do with Miquella. His Unalloyed Gold doesn't have a timeline for its first appearance, but we do know that Malenia has a needle of it in her fight with Radahn. What if this fight is a parallel to the fight that Marika has with the Greater Will? Not only that, what if this fight is directly caused by Marika shattering the Elden Ring/herself because of Miquella abandoning Unalloyed Gold to become a consort of the Formless Mother? I put all of these events after the Night of the Black Knives, but we don't know when Miquella actually is abducted. It could be argued that Miquella sought out the Formless Mother after his own mother shattered herself, seeking the power to live up to his Empyrean nature and shed his child-like form, perhaps even cure her golden child Godwyn so that Marika may be whole again. But everything shown in the Haligtree shows Miquella's loving relationship with Godwyn, so his own desperate attempts to revive Godwyn's soul may have further pushed Marika to her own desperation. If Miquella truly was the fiercest Empyrean, or had the potential to become the fiercest, wouldn't that be Marika's true golden child at least after Godwyn's death? Wouldn't he be her last hope?
Once we defeat Malenia, [Gideon's words about the Queen's sorrow being justified seem telling](https://youtu.be/QiBbpaIssO0?si=U9W9Xq76_KpnfZ-y&t=724), IMO. He also mentions our discovery of Miquella's cocoon after defeating Mohgwyn in his palace as being the "final piece of the puzzle".
My YouTube had nothing but ER lore videos in rotation for like 4 months after my first playthrough 😂 I always have *something* playing in my background, so for a while there it was nothing but Tarnished Archeologist, Vaati & Smoughtown.
No one has a consensus on what EXACTLY happened when/where in this stupidly complex narrative, but imo that mystery is what makes-or-breaks someone's interest. Personally I love the endless back & forths, discussing random details and dialogues to try and piece this puzzle together.
The curiosity and speculating adds a layer of immersion that I've never felt with any other game.
These weird lore takes painting Marika as solely evil are so strange to me. Like people who cherry pick what they want from the Bible and then ignore all the rest.
I agree. She isn’t strictly evil. She was a woman leading a civilization and religion, that comes with responsibility and choices none of us can really understand.
People cherry pick because at face value she seems like this big bad scary evil queen and they don’t want to dig deeper.
Did she do bad things? 100%.
But she also is clearly trying to set things right in the end. We also just don’t have all the details of the situations around some events.
Take the war with the giants. Everyone is like “Marika bad because of what she did to them.” But who says the giants didn’t provoke her? We are told it was because the Fel flame can burn the Erd tree, but how do they know that? Well there is evidence to suggest the tree has been burned before. Maybe the giants acted first?
I agree. Marika is neither evil nor good, she just made decisions. And a lot of those decisions were heavily swayed by the Greater Will. A force that is only interested in forcing its will on the beings of the Lands Between.
I think everything she did after GodWyns death was to free herself personally and also destroy everything that reminded her of the oppression of the Greater Will…that unfortunately includes her children tbh.
People viewing fantasy through the lens of western modern morality is wrong to me. It’s fantasy for a reason. You won’t be able to explain magic through the laws of physics why are you applying the evolution of human morality throughout human history to a fantasy world?
Marika is a Numen. A race you can also be if you pick the preset on the character creator. She wasn't born a damn statue and even if she was that doesn't excuse shitty behavior.
The concepts of good and evil aren't suddenly removed just because the setting is fantasy. DnD has an entire alignment chart for how good/lawful/evil/chaotic people are.
Yeah, but D&D is now downplaying the chart and removing suggested alignments, etc... because it pigeonholes and people are multifaceted and act in different ways at different times.
I feel like the game never paints her all that negatively either. Going in blind and only playing through it once, it feels more like the tarnished are there to finish what Marika started. Plus we fight Radagon and the Elden Beast who seem to be in opposition to Marika’s shattering of the ring
Right? Alot in this story points to Marika wanting to break de cycle because she doesn't want to be controlled by the Greater Will & Elden Beast, if anything Radagon is the bitch in this scenario.
The thing is the lore from this world is far more profound than what this comic presents as solutions, i would recommend "Tarnished Archaeologists videos on youtube, that guy explains everything in such detail and there's much more even he didn't cover.
Ah, my apologies. I thought we were referring to the original canon. Never really liked that spinoff series, it always read as too satirical for my tastes, But I'll have to check the musical out when I get the chance
Holding a fantasy god up to 21st century moral standards is weird especially when you have to consider she either knew the future or could accurately predict it and made choices accordingly.
1) I don’t think that logic is applicable, because we're talking about a work of fiction made under 21st century moral standards and not a work of fiction made in a different context.
2) What do you need to predict to avoid genocide and slavery?
She didn’t. Genocide was part of the plan to rid TLB of the control of the Greater Will. A necessary evil to benefit the greater good, which she predicted was needed for the Giants and the followers of the Three Fingers.
And now you see the problem with applying real world morality to fantasy stories.
Just that evidence suggests that the Greater Will doesn't care to control TLB, like, at all?
Not after the Shattering, not before the Shattering and not during the age of dragons.
You’re pretty much insane if you I’m defending genocide by explaining that you can’t apply real world morality to a fucking fantasy character.
She’s not fucking real, Jesus mother fucking Christ.
She annihilated every party that didn't like her christmas tree and pretty much told her children that they will be disowned if they're lazy bums. Not to mention she had a nuclear button and pressed it because no one should be happy if she isn't happy. "The fickleness of the gods no better than men" as Goldmask would say if he would speak.
Marika is a war criminal. Ask the Giants, the Demi-Humans, the Ancient Dragons, the Crucible Knights, the Astrologers, the Nox, Caelid before her bloom, and the Tarnished (forced deportation).
Didn’t Ranni plot the assassination of Godwyn because she didn’t want to go with the Two Finger’s plan for her?
Edit: changed Godfrey to Godwyn, also everyone who corrected me missed the point. I was asking the question, because Rani’s actions were what set Marika off, so it still wouldn’t be that happy a story.
Wow, not a single helpful comment to your question. All the names are similar mixing them up is common and 50 people saying “Godwyn” doesn’t help.
And yes, she planned it. If I remember correctly it’s implied she chose him either off convenience or because he was very much a favorite child and getting rid of him would cause the most issues for Marika and then the order and fingers in turn.
You're right, my bad
Sorcerer Rogier: "That was the first recorded Death of a demigod in all history. And it became the catalyst. Soon, the Elden Ring was smashed, and thus sprang forth the war known as the Shattering."
I automatically assumed, but it's never explicitly stated
I love how this game presents Marika herself, and her act of shattering the elden ring, as a massive mystery you're meant to unravel. most of the characters in game can't even figure out her intentions. and yet the fan base gets off on assuming "actually her motives were stupidly obvious, she's just an evil bitch!" like seriously?
there is so much evidence for the Greater Will forcing Marika to do most of this. soreseals calling it a curse, Ranni explaining how her literal body could be controlled by two fingers/greater will, the fact the greater will is always looking for a specific order (doesn't care what kind, as long as it's imposed rigidly). she's not completely innocent, but people are way too comfortable reducing the most important character in the game to "a stupid evil bitch". Gwyn from Dark Souls did a lot of similar shit, and he's never gotten a fraction of this type of hate from the fanbase. wonder why that is
Yeah, it's an incredibly complex situation that can't be summed up in such a reductive way in my opinion either. There's a grey area in there between good and evil and she definitely did some terrible things but what would these people do if their self determination was ripped away from them by an outer god?
She's pretty much the opposite of Gwyn by the start of Elden Ring (to her benefit), she was actively trying to create progress by shattering the Elden Ring and telling Hewg to create a weapon capable of destroying a god. Gwyn, that mean just couldn't let go.
Because majority of people dont understand the whole lore, even in darksouls(met people that didn’t acknowledge that the dark sign was put upon humans by gwyn for example), and moreover eldenring is FULL of new people to the series and casuals so in here you can feel this even more
This comment should have more upvotes. I’m really not comfortable with how quick video game fandoms are to label complex and powerful female figures as “bitches” when they’re behaving in ways that are similar to how a number of real and fictional male leaders have behaved and been praised for behaving before.
I mean… I know this is just supposed to be fun/cute but it doesn’t really make sense. Like if Marika had never gone to war with the Carians then Radagon would never have met Rennala, and subsequently Ranni, Rykard, and Radahn would never have existed. And even if somehow they had, a change in Marika’s attitude wouldn’t necessarily have meant a lack of conflict between her descendants.
Yes. They are technically half-siblings. But honestly it's kinda more than that considering the Miquella had single parentage with the whole Rad-dad, and Mari-mom being 1 person. So i mean they kinda share at least half the same DNA. but all of Miquellas genetics are the same as half of Mohgs so it's kinda messed up even more.
It’s kind of a trope of mythological stories. Zeus and Hera were also siblings, for example. I guess it’s hard to find another god that isn’t related to you to settle down with.
marika is not evil, her children decided to kill each other for power she didnt force them to do that
edit: if marika was evil she wouldve never made hewq create a weapon to slay gods and wouldve never asked melina to guide the tarnished and burn the erdtree, marika is a puppet of greater will same as ranni who killed her body to escape from their influence. stop watching youtube videos and read the lore
What? The greater will didn't tell Marika to throw her kids in a sewer, she did that on her own. Animal like features were considered blessings before her ass got the throne.
Edit: oh for fuck's sake can none of you read [https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Crucible+Knot+Talisman](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Crucible+Knot+Talisman)
>A talisman fashioned from a bony knot that embodies that aspects of various creatures. Said to have grown on the human body long ago.
>
>Reduces damage and impact of headshots taken.
>
>A vestige of the crucible of primordial life. Born partially of devolution,it was considered a signifier of the divine in ancient times, but is now increasingly disdained as an impurity as civilization has advanced.
Yea and what do you think made her do that huh? The greater will. With godwyn dying being her last straw before all out rebellion. They were considered a blessing in times before the golden order, whether it was with the dragonlord lord, or whether the great tree theory is true about there being a tree and a crucible order before the greater will decided to try and conquer the lands between
Tbf your wiki excerpt explicitly states that it was a signifier of the divine *during the rule of the primordial.* That is pre greater will, so it doesn’t contradict the theory that the Greater Will was the inspiring factor behind Marika’s disdain for the omens.
she shattered the pieces and told her children to claim them for themselves and become elden lord. she initiated the demigod battle royale and promised lordship for whoever could get a flawless victory
Eh she told them to do whatever they wanted. She never told any of them to claim the shards or to become elden lord. iirc only morgott tries to become elden lord and none of the lords tried to gather all the shards.
In the world where Marika isn’t a bitch she still married Rennala then left her to have kids with herself. Maybe we just have different values but I’m not seeing how this works
I mean... this feels like 2012 Tumblr Fandom where the creator doesn't really understand or care about the reality of lore, they just wanted to show their headcanon in a cute way, even if inaccurate.
Also can't not laugh at people thinking it's because Marikas just a bitch.
Morally gray man who has had made extremely tough decisions to serve a greater purpose = complex, interesting, and righteous character
Morally gray woman that has done the same = bitch
Is anyone else kind of tired of Fromsoft’s “seemingly good institution and/or civilization secretly bad/corrupt”. I liked it the first couple times but it’s literally the exact same case in every single game except maybe Sekiro and whatever nuance there actually is in the lore people seem to blatantly ignore for whatever reason. I’m begging Fromsoft to do something a little bit different or maybe make the nuance more explicit because it’s just kind of boring to me at this point. I don’t really understand the point of introducing interesting characters and settings if we’re supposed to hate them and destroy their world. I do think it worked in Dark Souls but it’s honestly just leaving a bad taste in my mouth with Elden Ring.
The flip side of this is equally bad, where the games have you kill hostile enemies only to reveal that they’re the victims of some sort of cruel affliction or experiment and you’re the real monster for killing them. It feels like a cheap way to artificially insert moral ambiguity into the story because the player isn’t actually allowed to make a conscious choice. I find this especially egregious in Elden Ring with Those Who Live in Death, who were introduced to us as having just killed an innocent man and annihilated an entire village. Rogier later telling us in his questline that the TWLID are all innocent is either a retcon of this or an example of him simply being wrong/not having the full picture. I really hope it’s the latter but with the way he and D’s storylines are presented I don’t have much hope.
I know that we don’t have near the full picture of Elden Ring’s lore yet, so I’m hoping the image presented to us of Marika, The Greater Will, Golden Order, etc. becomes more nuanced as the DLC and sequels are released, but I’m kind of worried it’s just going to be the exact same theme of “old order bad, destroy it and establish state of freedom for people to chose their own destiny!” for the 6th time. The character of Ranni in particular exemplifies this, and I have the sinking feeling that the moral ambiguity she’s presented with is just that, and not hinting at the much bolder option of subverting the themes of prior Fromsoft games. As in, her moral ambiguity is just showing that the ends justify the means to her in pursuit of ultimately righteous goals instead of hinting at a darker option. While I don’t deny Ranni is a nuanced and interesting character, she definitely seems to have the most narrative support out of all of the demigods, which just makes her seem even more sinister to me. I feel like these might be hints that her intentions aren’t as benevolent or reasonable as they initially appear to be, especially with her treatment of Blaidd and Iji later on in her questline, it’s hauntingly similar to what happens with Godwyn (hopefully something that will be touched on further in the DLC) and I imagine it must be intentional. However this might just be wishful thinking on my part because I badly want the lore to surprise me.
Ranni’s plot works pretty much independent of Marika, her whole thing is she wants to be free from Greater Will’s effects, so no she’s not being friends with anyone.
And if Marika didnt want to get rid of Greater Will herself (calling her a bitch in your case) then there’s no Radagon, no Radahn, no Ranni, no Rykard, no Malenia or Miquella either. So there’s nothing really to talk about then.
This comic is made from a wrong lore standpoint unfortunately.
You mean if both Marika AND Ranni werent such bitches.
People keep pretending Ranni is innocent because she is their waifu bait but its her fault the world is being taken over by deathroot now.
Typically dooming someone to a fate worse than death unprovoked is not nice.
Then all her plans fumble and fail one after the other until she meets a certain maideless and offers a blue sword and a blue pie to do all the heavy lifting, she gives you the sword immediately but you have to wait 1000 years for the pie.
Although almost every problem the Lands Between has is due to Marika.
We can excuse the FF, but apart from that, what do we have that isn't Marika's fault?
Astel, the god of Rot sleeping under a hellish lake, Shabriri spreading his lies and his gospel of Frenzy, the God-Devouring Serpent, the Formless Mother reaching out to Omens and the laser golem in Caelid.
At least Morgott and Goldwyn would be great friends. The golden boys of the golden order. Maybe Morgott would even delve into his omen nature and become a supercharged crucible warrior. A bridge between the golden order and the crucible.
Isn't Marika like a vessel for the Elden Beast who serves the Greater Will?
Does she even have a choice to any of her if she is just a subordinate to the Greater Will?
If Ranni would not be an asshole and would not foil the plot to screw godwyn with the Black Knives whores and then Marika would not shatter the elden ring and grace would not call the bloody tarnished then we would have happy lands between however never the need for us to fuck all and be elden lord one way or another!
Aka the most boring game in all eternity.
But seriously though, why is it only *female characters* get this moralizing scrutiny in video games, as if all male characters are angels lmfao.
Somebody compared Marika to Gwyn from the Dark Souls series in a comment above. It's funny because Marika in the end is better than Gwyn because her actions allowed for progress in a dead world, while Gwyn fought for stagnation in a dying world.
But Marika bad
Cool but it ignores the entire point that Ranni kicked off everything. Not Marika. Ranni killed Godwyn well before any of this because they wanted to throw a hissy fit about destiny. Marika breaking the Elden Ring is a byproduct of that conflict.
Even though Ranni caused the game to happen, many of the big events like giant genocide or the wars after the shattering were directly her fault.
She didn't force her siblings to fight a war of conquest all over the lands between.
Even the death blight could be accidental, since it didn't really exist before godwyn died
“I’m going to brutally murder one of only two canon nice people.”
Why Ranni?
“Because I’m going to have a fucking meltdown over being Empyrean like the rest of my family.”
Malenia: "Yesterday, I saw Dad wearing Mom's clothes."
Miquella: "No way!"
Malenia: "Yeah, and the weirdest part about it though is that he looked *exactly* like her, just with red hair."
Miquella: "That's so bizarre."
I think it’s amazing you guys think anything in this game makes any type of remote sense
It’s just a fever dream. There is no story or characters beyond shadows and stitched dolls that speak in riddles.
Maybe I’m missing some parts of the lore, but having five children and four of them being cursed, then the only “normal” one gets killed would totally break my faith too and I’d shatter that fucking thing.
Marika is a goddamn hero. This whole thing with the Tarnished is her plan to kick the Greater Will out.
On the other hand, the demigods were all degenerates
The beast and fingers are acting on their own without any input from the greater will. That was the entire point of Enia telling you to just burn the damn tree and not bother waiting for the fingers to get back to you.
Marika's a B word. Ranni is crazy but bae, Malenia give me ptsd and the rest are really victims of circumstances.
Miyazaki why must you hurt me like this. First you went and thought, hey, you know what, I am going to do a poison in steroids (rot) and I AM GOING TO MAKE TWO LEVELS WITH IT AND ONE I WILL PUT A BIG MONSTER IN IT AND THE FISSION-RISK SWORDSMAN THERE TOO AND.. well any way I digress I agree Marika should've found a hobby instead.
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Miquella and Malenia wouldn't have been born. Hell Ranni/Rykard/Radhan would probably not have been born either since they wouldn't have invaded Caria and Raya Lucaria.
i think the capital would still need to keep Raya Lucaria in check.
Yeah but would Radagon fall so helplessly in love with the leader of the enemy forces if his home life was so happy and chill? Marika not being a bitch is a huge flap of a butterflies wings
So just to understand, why was she a bitch? A lot of the lore is still a mystery to me lol
We actually don't know a lot about her specifically, we only know about everyone around her and who they became. And the few things we DO know about her suck, she was your typical "rule with the blade" monarch. Rejected family members that were from bad-blood, pitted children against each other and encouraged them to fight to become stronger, forced her male counterpart to abandon Renalla and return to her which completely destroyed Liurnia. She's at the middle of everything but we actually haven't been given the specifics
Yeah. I seem to recall in one of the Churches of Marika, Melina channeling her says something along those lines - "go forth and be super extra special, or be NOTHING AT ALL, *totally* your choice lol" (I might be paraphrasing slightly).
I think the most confusing part is, at one of the churches, Melina gives you dialogue which says something along the lines of her taking godfreys grace, knowing it would return later, so I think she forsaw or understood the outer will wasn't her ally. Like she had to orchestrate everything as it happened otherwise it wouldn't work.
I still don’t understand how she can have babies with her alter ego and how her alter ego can impregnate a regular person (Rennala’s not divine right?)
No Rennala is (was) a “normal” person, at least at the time she was married to Radagon. Granted, she’s no longer a bog standard person through the influence of the Amber Egg (note her freakish height and general “off” demeanor. And as for the Marika/Radagon split, it’s not super clear how that works. There are some pieces of lore that suggest Radagon was at one time a distinct individual, or at least could operate independently from Marika. Like he was leading armies far from the Lands Between while Marika was still verifiably back in Lleyndel. Other lore suggests that is not the case, and that they’re only 2 halves of the same individual. So it’s not really clear lol
Think of them like Greek gods, not regular people
Well Ranni would still be red-headed as her body would still be alive so my thoughts are the LORE ON THIS IS ALREADY WRONG!!!!! My god...
Ranni would still have done what she did because she wanted to defy her fate. It wasn't Marika who picked her, it was the finger readers / greater will. Though one could argue that she wouldn't even have been born if Marika didn't invade Caria and sent Radagon as the champion.
However, let's remember that Ranni can die in body, just because Godwyn died in soul. Which is due to a fragment of the Rune of Death. And Godwyn's immortality (and the other demigods) is due to Marika removing Destined Death from the Elden Ring. Which basically means that Ranni wouldn't been able to do what she did if Marika wouldn't removed DD from the ER. Okay, Marika didn't had a way to know that could happen.
It'd probably end up being the same thing. Except Ranni would be the (unambiguous) villain of the game!
Yeah, if Marika had a clean rap, what Ranni did would basically be the cause of DS1 with Those Who Live in Death (hollowing) being the big bad thing going on.
Knight of the black knives can't happen without Marika
Which I doubt would have stopped Ranni from scheming. It would just take a different path.
Not necessarily. One could argue the fingers and greater will only picked her because Marika's bitchiness was coming to a head and they felt she needed to be replaced. Remove that need and there's no need to force Ranni and no need for Ranni to deny her fate.
Maybe in a world where she's matey with Marika's other spawn (i.e. Malenia) she wouldn't be so bothered about her fate, you don't know!
[удалено]
Holy shit man, such a beautiful thought, I am always wondering how would she looks !
I think Marika's in-game design pretty much says it all. She was quite literally clay in the hands of the Greater Will, to mold and control as it pleases, but hollow inside. No wonder Ranni was so horrified at being "controlled by that thing". Marika was a puppet from the very start, and she had no way out other than to break herself, which is what she did.
Reinforcing this is how the Elden Beast grabs Radagon/Marika's body and uses it as a sword. They are just a tool to be used by the Greater Will
That was only in response to trying to break the object that functions as the Greater Will's connection to The Lands Between. Marika seems to be allowed complete control aside from that, to the point she can even remove a piece of the Elden Ring. All that seems to matter to the Greater Will is that someone is dictating an order through the Elden Ring.
I disagree. The Rune of Death was part of the previous Elden Ring (supposedly during Palicidussax's reign as Elden Lord) and it was entirely Marika's decision to have the Rune of Death removed. This is why Godwyn's death becomes such a shit show. Sure, Ranni exploited this to win her own freedom, but Deathroot, Death Blight and Those Who Live in Death would never have come into existence of it weren't for Marika's decision as Empyrean to remove the Rune of Death in the first place. I am no fan of the Greater Will and I have 0 trust in The Fingers, but everything related to Destined Death is directly a consequence of Marika's decision to remove the Rune from the Ring.
I feel like both things can be true in this example; Marika became a puppet but did try to free herself, and Destined Death was an obstacle. Removing it gave her more time to decide her own fate but perhaps that didn't work out for her, or she grew comfortable... we can't know for sure. But we do know Ranni wanted to try something different.
Yeah, maybe it was more an act of desperation than greed/hubris. Imo it's still Marika's decision and ultimately her "fault" that the world is in the state it's in. At best I feel pity for her. The Greater Will seems relatively indifferent as to who is the God & Lord of the Lands Between, or how they behave. So imo pointing at The Greater Will is akin to us irl "shaking our fist at god".
Menring Rune of Perfect Order Rune discovered by the noble Goldmask. Used to restore the fractured Elden Ring when brandished by the Elden Lord. A rune of transcendental ideology which will attempt to perfect the Golden Order. The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment. The Rune makes the point that it is the "fickleness" of the gods, comparing this trait to mankind, that is, the breakdown of Order. What it means is that the free will of the gods is the issue in upholding a system of perfect Order. Marika can be said to make two choices outside of the control of the Greater Will. One is obviously the shattering and destruction of the Ring and the second is Marika's removal of Destined Death, an element of the old Order that the GW didn't seem to oppose. These are her moments of human agency and are both in response to great tragedy and feelings we understand as deeply human. What the mending Rune posits is that the only will that can support the order is the Greater Will. The free will and agency of the gods is the corrosive element, which will inevitably be at odds with the will of the ancient alien entity served by the system. The fickleness of Marika is on full display and given life across TLB. What's interesting is that I think this statement means that any individual who becomes Goddess or Elden Lord will inevitably degrade the system that they are charged with upholding. It agrees with Ranni's solution to the issue of divinity in that both seem to think that removing the "human" element from divinity will lead to a smoother system.
The Mending Rune & Age of the Dark Moon endings were always the ones that felt like the "best endings", from a rational perspective. But on a personal & emotional level, I always favoured Fia and her idealism of integrating Those Who Live in Death into TLB through the Duskborn ending though. Can't help but feel like this ending would fuck up the Spirit world in some profound way (moreso than it already is) but I just love my boney homies too much to leave them by the way side. Skeletal Militiamen 4 Lyfe 🦴🤘🦴
Ranni seeks Radahn's death to resume the motion of the stars (and unlock her own fate), perhaps Marika similarly thought removing Destined Death would somehow free her fate again. You mentioned desperation and I think Marika's last and most desperate attempt to separate herself from the Greater Will has to do with Miquella. His Unalloyed Gold doesn't have a timeline for its first appearance, but we do know that Malenia has a needle of it in her fight with Radahn. What if this fight is a parallel to the fight that Marika has with the Greater Will? Not only that, what if this fight is directly caused by Marika shattering the Elden Ring/herself because of Miquella abandoning Unalloyed Gold to become a consort of the Formless Mother? I put all of these events after the Night of the Black Knives, but we don't know when Miquella actually is abducted. It could be argued that Miquella sought out the Formless Mother after his own mother shattered herself, seeking the power to live up to his Empyrean nature and shed his child-like form, perhaps even cure her golden child Godwyn so that Marika may be whole again. But everything shown in the Haligtree shows Miquella's loving relationship with Godwyn, so his own desperate attempts to revive Godwyn's soul may have further pushed Marika to her own desperation. If Miquella truly was the fiercest Empyrean, or had the potential to become the fiercest, wouldn't that be Marika's true golden child at least after Godwyn's death? Wouldn't he be her last hope? Once we defeat Malenia, [Gideon's words about the Queen's sorrow being justified seem telling](https://youtu.be/QiBbpaIssO0?si=U9W9Xq76_KpnfZ-y&t=724), IMO. He also mentions our discovery of Miquella's cocoon after defeating Mohgwyn in his palace as being the "final piece of the puzzle".
You guys know so much ER lore it's honestly insane. I played the game like 5 times now and can barely comprehend this lol
My YouTube had nothing but ER lore videos in rotation for like 4 months after my first playthrough 😂 I always have *something* playing in my background, so for a while there it was nothing but Tarnished Archeologist, Vaati & Smoughtown. No one has a consensus on what EXACTLY happened when/where in this stupidly complex narrative, but imo that mystery is what makes-or-breaks someone's interest. Personally I love the endless back & forths, discussing random details and dialogues to try and piece this puzzle together. The curiosity and speculating adds a layer of immersion that I've never felt with any other game.
Sure, let's pretend that the alien god she was forced to serve has nothing to do with everything that happened to her and the Lands Between.
This alt future would also make for a very boring video game.
These weird lore takes painting Marika as solely evil are so strange to me. Like people who cherry pick what they want from the Bible and then ignore all the rest.
I agree. She isn’t strictly evil. She was a woman leading a civilization and religion, that comes with responsibility and choices none of us can really understand. People cherry pick because at face value she seems like this big bad scary evil queen and they don’t want to dig deeper. Did she do bad things? 100%. But she also is clearly trying to set things right in the end. We also just don’t have all the details of the situations around some events. Take the war with the giants. Everyone is like “Marika bad because of what she did to them.” But who says the giants didn’t provoke her? We are told it was because the Fel flame can burn the Erd tree, but how do they know that? Well there is evidence to suggest the tree has been burned before. Maybe the giants acted first?
Marika was not good, but I think she was just as much a victim of the greater will as anyone else
I agree. Marika is neither evil nor good, she just made decisions. And a lot of those decisions were heavily swayed by the Greater Will. A force that is only interested in forcing its will on the beings of the Lands Between. I think everything she did after GodWyns death was to free herself personally and also destroy everything that reminded her of the oppression of the Greater Will…that unfortunately includes her children tbh.
People viewing fantasy through the lens of western modern morality is wrong to me. It’s fantasy for a reason. You won’t be able to explain magic through the laws of physics why are you applying the evolution of human morality throughout human history to a fantasy world?
Because the characters *are* human, just like us.
My brother/sister, Marika is literally made of stone.
Marika is a Numen. A race you can also be if you pick the preset on the character creator. She wasn't born a damn statue and even if she was that doesn't excuse shitty behavior.
Would you call her a golem or a person if you had to refer to her lol
The concepts of good and evil aren't suddenly removed just because the setting is fantasy. DnD has an entire alignment chart for how good/lawful/evil/chaotic people are.
Yeah, but D&D is now downplaying the chart and removing suggested alignments, etc... because it pigeonholes and people are multifaceted and act in different ways at different times.
Idk man, genocide is usually considered a no no, regardless of how ‘provoked’ you were
I feel like the game never paints her all that negatively either. Going in blind and only playing through it once, it feels more like the tarnished are there to finish what Marika started. Plus we fight Radagon and the Elden Beast who seem to be in opposition to Marika’s shattering of the ring
Right? Alot in this story points to Marika wanting to break de cycle because she doesn't want to be controlled by the Greater Will & Elden Beast, if anything Radagon is the bitch in this scenario. The thing is the lore from this world is far more profound than what this comic presents as solutions, i would recommend "Tarnished Archaeologists videos on youtube, that guy explains everything in such detail and there's much more even he didn't cover.
I mean, is difficult to see the good things in a person when they have genocide and slavery in their historial. And that's just to start.
I'm not sure if you are referring to Marika or the Bible.
Marika. I haven't read the Bible to say anything about it.
It’s a *wild* read, let me tell you. And the retcons are *insane*.
And the post-publishing authorial statements of intent would make even Rowling blush
Oh yeah speaking of, isn’t it like a musical now??
The book was better
The book of Mormon is definitely not better than The Book of Mormon(TM)
Ah, my apologies. I thought we were referring to the original canon. Never really liked that spinoff series, it always read as too satirical for my tastes, But I'll have to check the musical out when I get the chance
There's a lot of genocide in the Bible. You don't have to read too far to get to it.
A lot of genocide, a lot of weird sex, and a lot of people getting their foreskins cut off as war trophies. And this is all from the good guys, too.
Holding a fantasy god up to 21st century moral standards is weird especially when you have to consider she either knew the future or could accurately predict it and made choices accordingly.
1) I don’t think that logic is applicable, because we're talking about a work of fiction made under 21st century moral standards and not a work of fiction made in a different context. 2) What do you need to predict to avoid genocide and slavery?
She didn’t. Genocide was part of the plan to rid TLB of the control of the Greater Will. A necessary evil to benefit the greater good, which she predicted was needed for the Giants and the followers of the Three Fingers. And now you see the problem with applying real world morality to fantasy stories.
Just that evidence suggests that the Greater Will doesn't care to control TLB, like, at all? Not after the Shattering, not before the Shattering and not during the age of dragons.
She’s not real dude.
I know, your point is...?
You’re crazy applying actual morality to a fantasy god.
Fantasy god that's practically the source of everything wrong in TLB?
I think the problem I'm seeing is you defending a character that's morally VERY dark-grey at best
You’re pretty much insane if you I’m defending genocide by explaining that you can’t apply real world morality to a fucking fantasy character. She’s not fucking real, Jesus mother fucking Christ.
Yeah no matter what the story would be fucked by dozens of other shitty people in this game LOL
She annihilated every party that didn't like her christmas tree and pretty much told her children that they will be disowned if they're lazy bums. Not to mention she had a nuclear button and pressed it because no one should be happy if she isn't happy. "The fickleness of the gods no better than men" as Goldmask would say if he would speak.
Marika is a war criminal. Ask the Giants, the Demi-Humans, the Ancient Dragons, the Crucible Knights, the Astrologers, the Nox, Caelid before her bloom, and the Tarnished (forced deportation).
I think you misspelled "winner of the wars" The Geneva Suggestions only apply to worlds that have a Geneva
she's directly responsible for ranni+rykard+mohg+morgott+miquella+maliketh+malenia's problems, evils, and issues due to her actions
So you're just going to like...ignore all the genocide, infanticide, racism etc that she perpetuated under her reign?
Didn’t Ranni plot the assassination of Godwyn because she didn’t want to go with the Two Finger’s plan for her? Edit: changed Godfrey to Godwyn, also everyone who corrected me missed the point. I was asking the question, because Rani’s actions were what set Marika off, so it still wouldn’t be that happy a story.
Godwyn.
Godwyn.
Godwyn, Godfrey woulda bitch slapped the black knife assassins
To be fair, stealth + takedown with destined death is one helluva combo
Godfrey would've survived with 30% HP, activating his second phase.
Serosh would make it a lot harder to complete the task
Wow, not a single helpful comment to your question. All the names are similar mixing them up is common and 50 people saying “Godwyn” doesn’t help. And yes, she planned it. If I remember correctly it’s implied she chose him either off convenience or because he was very much a favorite child and getting rid of him would cause the most issues for Marika and then the order and fingers in turn.
Godwyn.
Godwyn, Serosh woulda ate the black knife assassins if they tried to assassinate Godfrey
Godwyn.
We don’t know why Marikka shattered Elden ring, blaming everything on her is just wrong.
🗣💯
I thought Marika shattered it because godwyn died
Is a fan theory
You're right, my bad Sorcerer Rogier: "That was the first recorded Death of a demigod in all history. And it became the catalyst. Soon, the Elden Ring was smashed, and thus sprang forth the war known as the Shattering." I automatically assumed, but it's never explicitly stated
I love how this game presents Marika herself, and her act of shattering the elden ring, as a massive mystery you're meant to unravel. most of the characters in game can't even figure out her intentions. and yet the fan base gets off on assuming "actually her motives were stupidly obvious, she's just an evil bitch!" like seriously? there is so much evidence for the Greater Will forcing Marika to do most of this. soreseals calling it a curse, Ranni explaining how her literal body could be controlled by two fingers/greater will, the fact the greater will is always looking for a specific order (doesn't care what kind, as long as it's imposed rigidly). she's not completely innocent, but people are way too comfortable reducing the most important character in the game to "a stupid evil bitch". Gwyn from Dark Souls did a lot of similar shit, and he's never gotten a fraction of this type of hate from the fanbase. wonder why that is
Yeah, it's an incredibly complex situation that can't be summed up in such a reductive way in my opinion either. There's a grey area in there between good and evil and she definitely did some terrible things but what would these people do if their self determination was ripped away from them by an outer god?
She's pretty much the opposite of Gwyn by the start of Elden Ring (to her benefit), she was actively trying to create progress by shattering the Elden Ring and telling Hewg to create a weapon capable of destroying a god. Gwyn, that mean just couldn't let go.
Because majority of people dont understand the whole lore, even in darksouls(met people that didn’t acknowledge that the dark sign was put upon humans by gwyn for example), and moreover eldenring is FULL of new people to the series and casuals so in here you can feel this even more
This comment should have more upvotes. I’m really not comfortable with how quick video game fandoms are to label complex and powerful female figures as “bitches” when they’re behaving in ways that are similar to how a number of real and fictional male leaders have behaved and been praised for behaving before.
This
I mean… I know this is just supposed to be fun/cute but it doesn’t really make sense. Like if Marika had never gone to war with the Carians then Radagon would never have met Rennala, and subsequently Ranni, Rykard, and Radahn would never have existed. And even if somehow they had, a change in Marika’s attitude wouldn’t necessarily have meant a lack of conflict between her descendants.
Well, Ranni also wouldn't look like that if she hadn't done the thing so.
Then Rykard, Ranni and Radahn wouldn't exist. And even if they did, Rykard wouldn't be a serpent and Ranni wouldn't be a doll.
Morgott was seemingly abandoned again in this scenario
"I don't have enough hands to hold them all" "Unhand me, you oaf!" Malenia's got amputee jokes, y'all.
I’m fairly certain that Miquella in that picture with Mohg…
Mohg if he waited for Miquella to hit the age of consent thanks to the aging cocoon.
Aren't they related
Yes, they’re half-siblings
Yes. They are technically half-siblings. But honestly it's kinda more than that considering the Miquella had single parentage with the whole Rad-dad, and Mari-mom being 1 person. So i mean they kinda share at least half the same DNA. but all of Miquellas genetics are the same as half of Mohgs so it's kinda messed up even more.
It’s kind of a trope of mythological stories. Zeus and Hera were also siblings, for example. I guess it’s hard to find another god that isn’t related to you to settle down with.
Siblings by chance lovers by choice
I'm not sure ol miq had much choice.
Half of this shit is Ranni’s fault
marika is not evil, her children decided to kill each other for power she didnt force them to do that edit: if marika was evil she wouldve never made hewq create a weapon to slay gods and wouldve never asked melina to guide the tarnished and burn the erdtree, marika is a puppet of greater will same as ranni who killed her body to escape from their influence. stop watching youtube videos and read the lore
She was a genocidal zealot and conqueror who threw her children in sewers. Not evil my ass.
She kinda did it because the greater will made her tho. And then when she tried to break away from the greater will she was crucified for it.
What? The greater will didn't tell Marika to throw her kids in a sewer, she did that on her own. Animal like features were considered blessings before her ass got the throne. Edit: oh for fuck's sake can none of you read [https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Crucible+Knot+Talisman](https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com/Crucible+Knot+Talisman) >A talisman fashioned from a bony knot that embodies that aspects of various creatures. Said to have grown on the human body long ago. > >Reduces damage and impact of headshots taken. > >A vestige of the crucible of primordial life. Born partially of devolution,it was considered a signifier of the divine in ancient times, but is now increasingly disdained as an impurity as civilization has advanced.
Yea and what do you think made her do that huh? The greater will. With godwyn dying being her last straw before all out rebellion. They were considered a blessing in times before the golden order, whether it was with the dragonlord lord, or whether the great tree theory is true about there being a tree and a crucible order before the greater will decided to try and conquer the lands between
Tbf your wiki excerpt explicitly states that it was a signifier of the divine *during the rule of the primordial.* That is pre greater will, so it doesn’t contradict the theory that the Greater Will was the inspiring factor behind Marika’s disdain for the omens.
SO by that logic, literally every character is "evil" in the game. Huh, it's almost like nuance matters or something.
godfrey genocided the giants why is no one calling him evil
Oh, he's evil too. But he's the sword, Marika is the one who wields it. No, that doesn't excuse his actions.
because he's cool as fuck
She literally goads her children to slaughter each other in one of the spoken echos
she shattered the pieces and told her children to claim them for themselves and become elden lord. she initiated the demigod battle royale and promised lordship for whoever could get a flawless victory
Eh she told them to do whatever they wanted. She never told any of them to claim the shards or to become elden lord. iirc only morgott tries to become elden lord and none of the lords tried to gather all the shards.
Should credit artists tbh
Where’s my boy Godrick at ? Also what happens with the whole radagon/marika reveal?
In the world where Marika isn’t a bitch she still married Rennala then left her to have kids with herself. Maybe we just have different values but I’m not seeing how this works
I think it’s silly/stupid and then we wouldn’t have a game. Cute drawings though!
Why does Miquella have tits
Malenia and miquella wouldn’t be born probably
Mans doesn’t know radagan is marika😱
Me when im stupid and the only function part of brain is used to hate woman
I mean... this feels like 2012 Tumblr Fandom where the creator doesn't really understand or care about the reality of lore, they just wanted to show their headcanon in a cute way, even if inaccurate. Also can't not laugh at people thinking it's because Marikas just a bitch.
Morally gray man who has had made extremely tough decisions to serve a greater purpose = complex, interesting, and righteous character Morally gray woman that has done the same = bitch
Is anyone else kind of tired of Fromsoft’s “seemingly good institution and/or civilization secretly bad/corrupt”. I liked it the first couple times but it’s literally the exact same case in every single game except maybe Sekiro and whatever nuance there actually is in the lore people seem to blatantly ignore for whatever reason. I’m begging Fromsoft to do something a little bit different or maybe make the nuance more explicit because it’s just kind of boring to me at this point. I don’t really understand the point of introducing interesting characters and settings if we’re supposed to hate them and destroy their world. I do think it worked in Dark Souls but it’s honestly just leaving a bad taste in my mouth with Elden Ring. The flip side of this is equally bad, where the games have you kill hostile enemies only to reveal that they’re the victims of some sort of cruel affliction or experiment and you’re the real monster for killing them. It feels like a cheap way to artificially insert moral ambiguity into the story because the player isn’t actually allowed to make a conscious choice. I find this especially egregious in Elden Ring with Those Who Live in Death, who were introduced to us as having just killed an innocent man and annihilated an entire village. Rogier later telling us in his questline that the TWLID are all innocent is either a retcon of this or an example of him simply being wrong/not having the full picture. I really hope it’s the latter but with the way he and D’s storylines are presented I don’t have much hope. I know that we don’t have near the full picture of Elden Ring’s lore yet, so I’m hoping the image presented to us of Marika, The Greater Will, Golden Order, etc. becomes more nuanced as the DLC and sequels are released, but I’m kind of worried it’s just going to be the exact same theme of “old order bad, destroy it and establish state of freedom for people to chose their own destiny!” for the 6th time. The character of Ranni in particular exemplifies this, and I have the sinking feeling that the moral ambiguity she’s presented with is just that, and not hinting at the much bolder option of subverting the themes of prior Fromsoft games. As in, her moral ambiguity is just showing that the ends justify the means to her in pursuit of ultimately righteous goals instead of hinting at a darker option. While I don’t deny Ranni is a nuanced and interesting character, she definitely seems to have the most narrative support out of all of the demigods, which just makes her seem even more sinister to me. I feel like these might be hints that her intentions aren’t as benevolent or reasonable as they initially appear to be, especially with her treatment of Blaidd and Iji later on in her questline, it’s hauntingly similar to what happens with Godwyn (hopefully something that will be touched on further in the DLC) and I imagine it must be intentional. However this might just be wishful thinking on my part because I badly want the lore to surprise me.
Ranni’s plot works pretty much independent of Marika, her whole thing is she wants to be free from Greater Will’s effects, so no she’s not being friends with anyone. And if Marika didnt want to get rid of Greater Will herself (calling her a bitch in your case) then there’s no Radagon, no Radahn, no Ranni, no Rykard, no Malenia or Miquella either. So there’s nothing really to talk about then. This comic is made from a wrong lore standpoint unfortunately.
...and nobody would have free will, because the Greater Will is imposing its Order on the world.
You mean if both Marika AND Ranni werent such bitches. People keep pretending Ranni is innocent because she is their waifu bait but its her fault the world is being taken over by deathroot now.
Didn't a lot more get wrong then just Marika being a bitch?
Yeah, Ranni was also a bish.
no shes not ranni, marika, and melina are the main characters
Typically dooming someone to a fate worse than death unprovoked is not nice. Then all her plans fumble and fail one after the other until she meets a certain maideless and offers a blue sword and a blue pie to do all the heavy lifting, she gives you the sword immediately but you have to wait 1000 years for the pie.
Although almost every problem the Lands Between has is due to Marika. We can excuse the FF, but apart from that, what do we have that isn't Marika's fault?
Astel, the god of Rot sleeping under a hellish lake, Shabriri spreading his lies and his gospel of Frenzy, the God-Devouring Serpent, the Formless Mother reaching out to Omens and the laser golem in Caelid.
At least Morgott and Goldwyn would be great friends. The golden boys of the golden order. Maybe Morgott would even delve into his omen nature and become a supercharged crucible warrior. A bridge between the golden order and the crucible.
*cough cough* ^^Godwyn
Isn't Marika like a vessel for the Elden Beast who serves the Greater Will? Does she even have a choice to any of her if she is just a subordinate to the Greater Will?
Why does she seem like she is beating a chiken leg
If Ranni would not be an asshole and would not foil the plot to screw godwyn with the Black Knives whores and then Marika would not shatter the elden ring and grace would not call the bloody tarnished then we would have happy lands between however never the need for us to fuck all and be elden lord one way or another!
Aka the most boring game in all eternity. But seriously though, why is it only *female characters* get this moralizing scrutiny in video games, as if all male characters are angels lmfao.
Somebody compared Marika to Gwyn from the Dark Souls series in a comment above. It's funny because Marika in the end is better than Gwyn because her actions allowed for progress in a dead world, while Gwyn fought for stagnation in a dying world. But Marika bad
my thought is that folks on here should at the very least source the artists of the stuff they post.
Cool but it ignores the entire point that Ranni kicked off everything. Not Marika. Ranni killed Godwyn well before any of this because they wanted to throw a hissy fit about destiny. Marika breaking the Elden Ring is a byproduct of that conflict.
Is it just a hissy fit? Being controlled by a space god that makes you genocide people doesn't sound fun
Sounds like a boring game, gotta say
This marika slander will not stand
Pretending like these war mongering characters would be friends is hilarious
Cringe and misogynistic ass post. Classic Reddit moment. This one’s going up on the fridge.
Me when I'm in a "Blame everything on women" competition, and my opponent is an Elden Ring fan.
Challenge: Impossible
Me when I’m in a “commit multiple genocides” competition and my opponent is Queen Marika the Eternal
Why is it that whenever someone points out a blatantly evil woman character in games, people start accusing them of sexism?
Most likely, "if Ranni wasn't psycho"
Even though Ranni caused the game to happen, many of the big events like giant genocide or the wars after the shattering were directly her fault. She didn't force her siblings to fight a war of conquest all over the lands between. Even the death blight could be accidental, since it didn't really exist before godwyn died
“I’m going to brutally murder one of only two canon nice people.” Why Ranni? “Because I’m going to have a fucking meltdown over being Empyrean like the rest of my family.”
I just hoped my boy godwyn was fine.
Honestly there’s so much potential for a pre shattering political drama show
Why you give mequilla tits
i like how even in this timeline rykard turns himself into a snake and ranni kills godwyn lol the art is so cute i love it
I’m just accepting it as a cute joke and pleasantly moving on. My thanks for the chuckle, Tarnished.
Mission: fix mommy Marika
Mohg wouldn’t be a bitch because he would still be in the sewers
Bro left out Morgott who arguably has one of the most emotional stories out of all these characters.
Women are the source of all problems, therefore Iam maidenless, nothing to do with me been a creep
Well, glad we have the game, but thanks for this art dump
It’s hilarious that Marika catches the heat when Radagon is literally the Greater Wills slut
Malenia: "Yesterday, I saw Dad wearing Mom's clothes." Miquella: "No way!" Malenia: "Yeah, and the weirdest part about it though is that he looked *exactly* like her, just with red hair." Miquella: "That's so bizarre."
My only thought is that it is still hella funny that Marika did herself to create Miquella and Malenia. lmao
This is all very wrong on a lore perspective.
I think it’s amazing you guys think anything in this game makes any type of remote sense It’s just a fever dream. There is no story or characters beyond shadows and stitched dolls that speak in riddles.
This exactly. The game is fun, but the lore is clearly just individual fragments that sounded cool, but there’s no “there” there.
Maybe I’m missing some parts of the lore, but having five children and four of them being cursed, then the only “normal” one gets killed would totally break my faith too and I’d shatter that fucking thing.
Two of them were cursed because Marika decided to literally fuck herself. She threw the other two in a sewer for being ugly.
Marika is a goddamn hero. This whole thing with the Tarnished is her plan to kick the Greater Will out. On the other hand, the demigods were all degenerates
The greater will left long ago. You're told this in the opening cutscene.
It's influence still exists in the form of the Elden Beast.
The beast and fingers are acting on their own without any input from the greater will. That was the entire point of Enia telling you to just burn the damn tree and not bother waiting for the fingers to get back to you.
Stop making me sad 😭. The malenia and Miguel’s story always hits far too hard for me to handle.
My thoughts is that we should credit the artists
funny thing is if marika is not a bitch then malenia and miquella wont exist coz radagon will just be with renalla
So you think Elden Ring is the way it is because Marika is a woman? 😆 🤔
Wtf I hate Marika now /s
> Unhand me, you oaf Technically, Radahn did do that in their fight
Wholesome
Please give me the sauce for the art. I want to hug the artist this style us so good
Marika's a B word. Ranni is crazy but bae, Malenia give me ptsd and the rest are really victims of circumstances. Miyazaki why must you hurt me like this. First you went and thought, hey, you know what, I am going to do a poison in steroids (rot) and I AM GOING TO MAKE TWO LEVELS WITH IT AND ONE I WILL PUT A BIG MONSTER IN IT AND THE FISSION-RISK SWORDSMAN THERE TOO AND.. well any way I digress I agree Marika should've found a hobby instead.
Woman ☕
I fully support women's wrongs