[yournextflame]

What signals did Metyr receive from the Greater Will?

I’ve encountered numerous theories attempting to determine when the Greater Will abandoned Metyr and the Lands Between. Everyone seems to have their own take on it, but instead of just focusing on those moments of abandonment, why not dig a little deeper into how the Greater Will actually communicates? What kind of “language” does it speak, anyway?

The Mother received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm. Despite being broken and abandoned, she kept waiting for another message to come.

In Japanese, they use the term 波動 (hadō), which translates to "waves" or "vibrations." It gives this sense that there are fluctuating energies at play. Here's just one example of how this word is used:

(波動はカオスと秩序が入り混じった不変のダンスの中で続く。

Fluctuation continues in the eternal dance of chaos and order)

However, the most common meaning of the word usually refers to the physics, radio waves, 波動説 (wave theory) or 波動方程式 (wave equation). This 波動 concept is fascinating because it leaves the door open for interpretations related to physics, like wave theory and wave equations. You can almost picture it like Metyr tuning into a cosmic radio station, trying to catch those signals that travel through the expansive unknown of existence.

An interesting detail is that even though Ymir called Metyr "unsounding from the start," he actually couldn't communicate with the Greater Will at all, as Ymir's Maternal staff shows:

小宇宙を模したであろう水晶球は だが、波動を受信することはない The crystal ball, which is supposed to imitate the microcosm, but does not receive the vibrations.

Ymir's Maternal staff is very similar to Ymir's tail, however, while the ball (the microcosm symbol) of Ymir's tail is full of light and look like a modern representation of the Observable Universe, while Ymir's crystal is a pure black.

On the opposite side, the Fleeting Microcosm sorcery conjured by Ymir resembles the shimmering orb found in Metyr's tail, yet it exists for only a fleeting moment. This phenomenon seems to echo themes from the GW universe, reminiscent of a cosmic event akin to the Big Bang. The transient nature of the sorcery encapsulates the dual essence of creation and destruction, subtly alluding to the underlying reasons behind the Greater Will's absence. This fleeting magic serves as a metaphorical reflection of the balance between life and decay, suggesting that the very forces that govern the universe are intricately linked to the cycles of existence. The momentary brilliance of the sorcery, much like the Greater Will's enigmatic nature, invites contemplation about the inherent complexities of power, intention, and the profound mysteries that shape the cosmos.

Hyetta's dialogue, Ymir's reflections, and the descriptions of the fleeting microcosm all suggest that the Greater Will's interaction with the Universe was but a brief moment during its creation. However, there are still fluctuations that Metyr continues to receive.

What might these fluctuations be?

Even after the Greater Will's departure, the initial surge of creative energy might leave behind residual echoes that permeate the fabric of the Universe. A real-life analogue would be the Cosmic Microwave Background, the microwave radiation that permeates all of space within the observable universe (microcosm). Just as the CMB represents the afterglow of the Big Bang — an echo of the violent birth of the universe — Metyr's experiences can be seen as remnants of that primordial moment.

The fluctuations Metyr receives could be echoes of that primordial moment, much like the Cosmic Microwave Background enables us to witness conditions from long ago — around 380,000 years after the Big Bang.

The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation is approximately 13.8 billion years old. Given that some descriptions portray Metyr as a not very intelligent creature — illustrated by phrases like "a tiny wart-like eye gazes vacantly into the beyond" —and considering visual cues that support this image, such as her having four fingers instead of the more common five, it's plausible that Metyr could mistake the remnants of gravitational waves (GWs) from events that occurred eons ago for actual signals. 

To put it bluntly, Metyr mistook the reflection in the mirror for the real thing.

To wrap up this post, I want to briefly discuss another pair of broken antennae: Two Fingers. Much like their mother, they appear to have struggled to establish contact with the Greater Will and grasp the bigger picture. However, I believe that despite being unfortunate offspring of a flawed being, Two Fingers genuinely endeavored to reach out to the Greater Will; the barrier lies in their language.

The furtive inscription appears to hang in the air; the language of light spoken by the Two Fingers (Cipher Pata)

Assuming that the Fingers use something akin to light waves for communication, it's no wonder they encounter difficulties in interacting with the Greater Will.

The Mother received signs from the Greater Will from the beyond of the microcosm

Microcosm refers to the part of the universe that we can see and measure from Earth, limited by the distance that light has traveled since the Big Bang, which occurred approximately 13.8 billion years ago. Because light travels at a finite speed (about 299,792 kilometers per second or 186,282 miles per second), there are regions of space that are beyond our observational reach.

As a result, the observable universe is approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter, encompassing all the galaxies, stars, planets, and other celestial objects whose light has reached us. This means we are seeing these objects as they were in the past, since light takes time to travel across vast distances. For example, if we observe a galaxy that is 1 billion light-years away, we are seeing it as it was 1 billion years ago.

Beyond the observable universe, there may be much more that we cannot see due to the limitations of our current technology and the stretching of space itself, which can push distant objects beyond our observable limits as the universe continues to expand.

What problems could arise in the world of Elden Ring if their universe is as vast as ours? This implies that the Finger Reader's suggestion that it would take thousands of moons for the Fingers to connect with the Greater Will was a significant understatement.

There is a theory that the Fingers were previously in contact with the Greater Will, and that the shattering of the Elden Ring led to a severing of that connection. However, according to the description of the Coded Sword, the Two Fingers maintained their stability for quite some time, even amid the beginning of the war between the demigods. This suggests that the Shattering was not the definitive event that caused their breakdown. As Gideon mentioned, they likely simply grew old, never truly functioning as intended, and merely created an illusion of interaction with the higher power.

Hidden sword once granted to the Tarnished of the Roundtableby the Two Fingers. A formless cipher comprises its blade, which deals holy damage no shield can repel. Champions would gather at the Roundtable Hold in days long past, when the Two Fingerswere masters of oration, their flesh yet full of vigor.

Well, this does contradict the Narrator's assertion that the Shattering war led to the eventual abandonment by the Greater Will. However, this raises a topic worth discussing in another post: how the inhabitants of the Lands Between might misinterpret the true nature and significance of events.

In fact, one could argue that another name for the Elden Ring could be Broken Phone: The Game

[doubleescapeskeleton]

Does a Black Hole Want Anything?

Count Ymir is aptly named for the primordial giant of Norse myth who lived in a yawning gap before there was a heaven and earth, from whose flesh and bones the gods fashioned the earth, a jotun who himself was mother to generations of jötnar, which he first birthed from his armpits. For the high priest of Manus Metyr, the name is evocative. A broken mother, the birth of the world, the unreachable true essence, of which our physical world is only a simulacra. The count is a nice nod to some historical figures who forwarded the theory of the "big bang," echoing their proposals of an explosion that seeded generations of stars, and the crystallization of matter: "Long ago, we began as stardust, born of a great rupture far across the skies. We, too, are children of the Greater Will. Is that not divine? Is that not sublime?"

We are reminded of Lemaître's primeval atom, or the infinitely dense primordial singularity at the birth of the universe in Hyetta's revealed "One Great." From the first explosion succeeded generations of supernovae, our star the sun, life itself, and all else in the universe. Indeed, putting this summation of the big bang in the mouth of a priest gives a satisfying foil to the mediatory Two Fingers themselves. While they propitiated their God, signs from which might as well have been the pulse of the universe being pulled back together by gravity, Ymir focused his telescope on constellations further and further beyond the moon. The "lightless void," represented in the negative space in the relief on Ymir's hat, is his discovery: a black hole. While Metyr, a spaceborne, perpetually pregnant and birthing bundle of human fingers, and her progeny, conjured this same image as their communication with the divine, Ymir observed it, empirically.