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Elden Ring Pinned Post

Links under the cut to various topics that I've written about on environmental storytelling, thematic examinations, parallels to specific literature (mythological, fantasy, musical), and FromSoft metanarrative.

#elden ring #media analysis #environmental storytelling

Many times when I see people dragging up the discourse that "Mohg is bad queer rep!", I ruminate on how did we get here as a society. That's like saying that "A Devil in a Midnight Mass" by Billy Talent is bad queer rep when (spoilers) it ain't a takedown of queers, it's a condemnation of specific person American serial child rapist and Catholic priest John Geoghan:

"A devil in a midnight mass He preyed behind stained glass A memory of Sunday class Resurrected from the past"

A not insignificant number of child predators have been spawned from the exact same institutions that raise moral panics and endorse kidnapping queer kids to try and "fix" them through conversion "therapy". Why is that never talked about with regards to what was done to Miquella, who was kidnapped and transported to a very ominous setting and attempted to be converted into something else through blood? I mean I already had a pretty good idea about this one - it's because people fell for the conspiracy theory that Miquella used mind control. Because it's easier to understand than the historicity in which the reason we even have words like "charm", "bewitch", and "enchant" to apply to fantasy settings is because people with poor emotional control would use them to appeal to the supernatural as an excuse for their behaviour in a time before psychology was better understood. Did FromSoftware cast a spell of "compel fandom" to get you to play the DLC, or did you make the decision to play because it attracted you? For anyone who has ever experienced the "Heart Stolen" death animation and immediately queued up another run, congratulations: you've overcome Miquella's "mind control".

Now move on to thinking about art as having something that it's trying to express about real world society where "mind control" isn't real, but an awful lot of people act like there are omniscient supernatural forces out there that can read minds and manipulate people.

#elden ring #media analysis #food for thought: interpret through the lens of “mental conditioning” by systems instead of fantasy “mind control” by individuals #also surprise: the framing of the Shadowlands is a peak into the prion disease ravaged mind of a cannibal #there's actually way more to support this I just don't want to get too side-tracked on this post

Decided that a good use of my free will was to speculate on the remaining "voids" in Nightreign that would be most available to be filled by a second DLC. And a few meme options (like...Radahn 3.0). In case of some kind of games announcement on the weekend.

Just kindof extrapolating/interpolating. If the "Forsaken Hollow" DLC is thought of as a step backwards in time and perceiving "an Abyss" where there used to be information, then the next available place to go would be to rewind a step back even further in time for a version of the tree what existed before it was Hollowed out. And 12 would be a nice round number of Nightfarers considering the detail on the Recluse's Darkness garb where there are 8 constellations on the underside of her hat but 12 silver medallions in the perimeter around the top, outside of her sight.

#Nightreign #Not that I'm starving for more content #Haven't actually finished the Great Hollow DLC because it's hard and my usual trio doesn't play often enough to get a rhythm #Treating this like a puzzle in the newspaper where you get the solution in next week's newspaper #Although in this case idk if there will even be a next newspaper

Me, thinking late night Elden Ring thoughts: so if Rakshasa's face data is styled like Sephiroth FFVII, then why does Yura have the ridiculously long Sephiroth sword?

Also me: oh, because Shabriri is like Jenova. In the sense of being an entity that can influence people who have been infused with its cells to make them better soldiers, and drives them to madness and/or manipulates them when they are in a vulnerable mental state. And listening to it would doom the planet.

..."Sephirot" and "Shabriri" sure are two concepts from Jewish mysticism and myth, huh

#elden ring #theory synopsis #Though numen aliens falling from the sky and causing mass extinctions and such is a thing that happens a lot more in Elden Ring #Is the impression I get

Elden Ring - The Omenkiller as a Fallen Hero

Turns out that I had more thoughts as a follow up to this previous post.

Why does Nepheli Loux focus her attention on the Omenkiller? Nepheli's questlines are themed around challenging the methods of previous generations in her lineage. Her interactions with the Banished Knight, Godrick, the Omenkiller, Sir Gideon, and Godfrey all play into this theme. So, what might the Omenkiller represent for Nepheli?

#elden ring #environmental storytelling #media analysis

gilgardian

The Road to Castle Morne

I've found that the shore of Agheel Lake gives the grandest view of Stormveil. The bulging clouds above give great context to the castle's name.

Bridging the gap to Weeping Peninsula, this bridge gives substance to the current ruler of this region; the bannermen of Godrick The Golden impede you from crossing. This fight is unavoidable.

On the other side, a young girl sits next to a ravaged carriage. The servants of Castle Morne have rebelled, and Irina's father, the castellan, is still at the stronghold, defending the castle's legendary armament.

Although the road to Castle Morne is short, it seems the dark of night can hide adversaries around any corner.

Nightreign: Round Table Hold Zodiac

After Nightreign was announced but before it released I had solidified my speculation about the Round Table hold being structured as both a 12-tone octave and 12-part zodiac. Since then, I've been working on my "zodiac" guesses for Nightreign.

Character set "A":

Ironeye [Capricornus]

Raider [Taurus]

Wylder [Gemini]

Guardian [Cancer]

Character set "B":

Executor [Libra]

Recluse [Scorpio]

Revenant [Pisces]

Duchess (Priestess) [Aries]

Character set "C":

Undertaker [Virgo]

Scholar [Sagittarius]

Character set "A" are the ones that I am most certain about, Character set "B" I am less certain about, and Character set "C" are my best guess based on the remaining options. Notably: no matter which way they're divided up "10" is too few for the full "12" of the zodiac. Which implies that the possibility has been left open for a 2nd DLC to come along and round out the set.

#nightreign #fromsoftware meta narrative #just wanted to get this locked down before Summer Games Fest #will adjust if more information arrives #update: was in a funk earlier and forgot to link some things. Fixed now.

Shadow of the Erdtree - Finger Ruins

"Hello darkness, my old friend I've come to talk with you again Because a vision softly creeping Left its seeds while I was sleeping And the vision that was planted in my brain Still remains Within the sound of silence" - "The Sound of Silence", by Simon and Garfunkel

As I've said before multiple times, I think that Shadow of the Erdtree operates according to a far more surreal set of rules than base Elden Ring. It thrives on referential storytelling. It is the kind of place that will take poetic music lyrics and make them literal.

Each ruin yields a "seed" talisman. Which only reveal themselves after the sound of silence is broken by the sounding of the hanging bells.

The first simple map given by Ymir corresponds to the Finger Ruins of Rhia, from which is retrieved the Crimson Seed Talisman. These ruins are flecked with blue both on location and on the world map, and when reporting back to Ymir he delivers the "Beloved Stardust" Talisman which holds a blue chip in its hand.

Thinking further about this talisman design what stands out about it? The hand is unnaturally pale and withered. As if it's the hand of a body drained of red blood. And what happened to that blood that was drained? Perhaps it went into the making of the red glintstone used in the Crimson Seed talisman.

The second simple map from Ymir corresponds to the Finger Ruins of Dheo, from which is retrieved the Cerulean Seed Talisman. A causal link is implied, by which the Cerulean Seed talisman was fashioned from the stardust excavated from the Rhia Ruins and planted to bring about the vision of gold matching the gold flecks at the Ruins of Dheo on the world map.

Which is also like the gold that Messmer's Eye is made of. Which he grasps in a hand dripping with blood.

I spent some time last night wandering through the area in front of Shadow Keep cleaning up item pickups that I missed previously, and guess what colour of flecks can be observed as filling the sky over the Cathedral of Manus Metyr: the reddish embers of Messmer's Flame.

The embers emanate from the Furnace Golem standing in the middle of the camp in front of Shadow Keep. So the optical illusion is best viewed from a particular vantage point at an Ember of Messmer located on the hill where the Black Knight who drops the Black Steel Twinblade is fought.

Also notable that there is a downed Furnace Golem to the side of the Shadow Keep entrance, which is being patrolled by Messmer Foot Soldiers. Three furnace visages can be pillaged from the ground in this area - one in the location of the first photo, the second in the hand as shown, and a third a short ways closer to the Shadow Keep entrance. I also got one to drop from a Messmer Soldier trapped in the confined space around the right-side arm - uncertain if it's a guaranteed drop or just part of the 8% chance drop table. It's right side leg is detached. There are also good views of Manus Metyr from this location.

Or there's the alternate optical illusion from the other Ember of Messmer in this area, where the floating embers instead encompass both Manus Metyr and Jagged Peak. And indeed if one were to travel to Jagged Peak they would find embers floating in the air at that location.

It's even quite fitting that these embers are associated with optical illusion because that's always what the "Golden Seed" item has been associated with:

"A golden seed, found at the base of an illusory tree. Increases a Sacred Flask's number of uses."

Its Nightreign counterpart the "Golden Sprout" has the following description:

"A golden seed harboring a warm blessing. This one was found on a steep and snowy peak. This seed sprouted despite the harshness of its environment, like youthful potential blossoming in the crucible of adversity. Or, what may be called a miracle."

In short: 1. The Crimson Seed may have been made by draining a body of blood and planted in the ground to attract "stardust" 2. The Cerulean Seed may have been found among the stardust and planted in the ground to attract "runes". 3. The illusory Golden Seed formed by the runes are "planted in the brain" and generate either more crimson or more cerulean depending on flask allocation choices.

I think, however, that it is still a valid question of whether either Manus Metyr or the Jagged Peak are the place most relevant to the origin of the "blood" or "red glintstone" initially used to craft the Crimson Seed Talisman. The other obvious candidate with the far better colour match for it's airborne floating motes would be Charo's Hidden Grave. Which is a thought to follow up on another day, as that is quite the enigmatic area.

It should be noted that the name "Ymir" is in fact a hint at Count Ymir's perspective of all of this. Ymir is the name of the progenitor of all giants in Norse Mythology. The oceans are said to be made from Ymir's blood, and there are conflicting accounts of whether the earth is made from his flesh or the earth is personified as the goddess "Jörð" - mother of Thor. Odin explicitly believes that the earth is fashioned from the flesh of Ymir, as this was a question that featured in a game of riddles between himself and the wise giant Vafthrudnir. Perhaps in a fantasy story it can be reconciled as both, such that after having blood drained and bones removed the remaining flesh became a giant who was elevated to a goddess through association as partner to Odin.

Perhaps Count Ymir believes that as the reincarnated soul of that dead primordial giant it is his right to forever claim ownership and control over what has become of its constituent parts. Even though from his perspective like a Ship of Theseus the "flesh" from his former life has evolved into a form that is unrecognizable, alien, and impossible to communicate with - as expressed through the form of Metyr. Ymir's ego is not satisfied with being a mere obedient child of this "mother earth", he rebelliously wants to become her. And the ridiculousness of that desire is expressed through him getting this grotesque wish granted as Mother of Fingers.

#elden ring #shadow of the erdtree #analysis of art design #environmental storytelling #I love how jank the +1 Seed talismans look compared to base game #the details are all muddy and oops the brass is starting to tarnish to green in a corner #Always a question of how strongly are these SotE observations reflected in the similar Seed talismans in base game

Elden Ring - Iceberg Theory

I recently took a stab at making a lore iceberg for Elden Ring. In the process of researching how people typically create lore icebergs I was generally....underwhelmed. As it turns out the vast majority of icebergs are terrible because they start with the obscure fan theorizing even in the top above surface layer, so rather than a gradient of obscurity they end up being a collection of all fandom conspiracy theories all the way down.

But in between the fandom chaos, I also found a Wikipedia entry about "Iceberg Theory" or "Theory of Omission" for writing: "If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing."

I wonder if FromSoftware have been thinking about this theory of writing for a good many years. Because what better way to test a literary theory than to test it on a blind audience. To keep a firm rule that the writers must not "go Hollow" - must always know what is in those seven-eighths below the surface - and then sit back and see how much of a "feel for things" the unprimed audience is truly able to absorb.

The term was coined by Ernest Hemingway, who wrote the novel "For Whom the Bell Tolls", which features the protagonist "Robert Jordan", which is the pen name under which The Wheel of Time fantasy series was written. From my perspective there are a good many references to The Wheel of Time in Elden Ring. And I find that Elden Ring and Dark Souls both have grafted dozens of references to other fantasy novels into their worlds - all while omitting a textual discussion of how this ties into their persistent themes about research and scholars. All of this context seems to me a demonstration of how an iceberg writing style can contain hidden depth that exists as a vague feeling until a person digs deep enough to grasp the language that more concisely describes the feeling.

Which I guess also says something about the validity of the iceberg theory: the flaw in the theory is that you can't omit literally anything and still communicate intentional meaning to a passive audience. Sure, there is potential for some people who share background elements in common with the writer to feel their meaning quite deeply. To pick up on the symbolic and linguistic cues.

But there are probably a lot more people who latched on to one superficial aspect and are content with assuming that the rest is a hollow that they can imagine as being filled with anything. They have seen sea ice before, and assume that the iceberg works the same way. Unlike a sailor on a ship that strikes a real iceberg, there is no consequence for a bystander dipping their toes into the water on the shore if they fail to identify the scope of what exists under the surface. Though it does tend to result in a "blind leading the blind" situation as ignorant people rarely admit to ignorance if they can acquire more capital by telling comfortable lies about what the iceberg is made of.

In the best written fantasy worlds the magic systems tend to work like the iceberg theory. The flashy spells that the author shows off are the visible 1/8th. The other 7/8ths of the iceberg are the societal consequences of the magic - psychology, biomes, etiquette, evolution, finances, etc. It's this subtext that I think tends to really confuse people unfamiliar with this characteristic of fantasy settings.

As soon as the idea of magic is introduced it must be considered that physics works differently in the fantasy world - and therefore there are characters in universe who operate according to "right" or "wrong" answers about the nature of their own reality. It's an exercise in futility trying to force all of real world physics, genetics, etc to apply exactly as expected in real life to a world which has magical beams and ghosts that can be summoned to fight for you. Rather, fantasy is a collection of "what if" questions that inform the worldbuilding. "What if the dominant lifeforms were tree people and subject to tree lifecycles and pests?" "What if the materials and colours that people wear are a sincere reflection of the principles that they follow (and thus the magic they are capable of)?" People in the Lands Between are a product of their magical environment, and cannot be expected by default to be bound to the same physical and mental restrictions as people in the real world.

It is my observation that some players want the aesthetic spectacle of magic, but they don't want to consider the invisible psychology of magic. So they simply reconcile these desires by ignoring the 7/8ths of the iceberg that informs psychology and replacing it with something more desirable. Then they stumble upon a fringe concept or question in the lore and find that they can't answer it - because they've accidentally shattered the causal link into a disorganized pile of ice chips in the process of blindly excavating their hollow into the iceberg.

Like how one wrong assumption early in a Sudoku puzzle might not reveal itself until several moves later. Then the choices are to either try to backtrack to where the mistake was made, start fresh with a new copy of the puzzle, or give up and try a different puzzle in the future.

#elden ring #environmental storytelling #media analysis #Thinking about both Shadow of the Erdtree and Nightreign in terms of how they iterate on the iceberg #The “Dreglord” within “The Great Hollow” seems relevant #lore sudoku

goldzweige

Haligtree 🥀

#mushrooms #fungi #elden ring #enchanting Haligtree

Clicked on a video the other day discussing Bloodborne in the context of "The War on Drugs" because I do enjoy other freaks who will do a "hear me out" on comparing elements of FromSoftware games to real world phenomena. A fun meta game of "is this intentional inspiration, or convergent evolution of ideas?"

Decent video, so I checked out what else the gal has worked on and saw this video driving to answer the question "Why is the armour set of Havel the Rock found near the Stray Demon?"

I think that she came up with a really thoughtful storyline. And it got me thinking about why this set piece is like this in the metanarrative context.

From my perspective, the reason why to have a Havel Knight at Archdeacon Peak is to strengthen the connection to the Realm of the Elderlings books from which the original Dark Souls probably got the inspiration for the stone scaled dragons. Like, that the reason why the Havel Knight went through Oceiros and learned how to get to Archdragon Peak is not only that they are eager to slay dragons, but that they were trying to learn more about the origin of the legendary Havel the Rock from whom the armour was inherited.

In Dark Souls 3 alone these are parallels that I note to Realm of the Elderlings:

There's a ruined dragon city in the mountains that can be reached by teleportation, similar to Archdeacon Peak

Dragons metamorphose from serpents in hard stone cocoons spun from sand (and they are "scaleless" until they re-absorb the cocoon to become their adult stone scales), similar to item descriptions about serpents being failed dragons and Seathe and Oceiros being "scaleless" dragons

Some people find the cocoons and harvest the material to build ships - which could easily apply to Havel carving his stone armor considering his enmity with Seathe the Scaleless. Which is re-iterated in DS3 by Oceiros being an optional side boss.

People who become awestruck and live near to dragons physically change into humanoid dragon forms - the titular "Elderlings" - like the function of the dragon torso and head stones.

Pilgrims go to the mountains so that they can become winged creatures in imitation of dragons for a single flight before they die, as the turtle-like pilgrims seem to be attempting and failing because the bridge is broken

1-2 of those features alone is coincidence, but it starts to add up when there's so many in Dark Souls alone, and like 10 other parallels in Elden Ring.

The Stray Demon is one of the few examples in Dark Souls 3 of a boss creature that returns from the previous Dark Souls games. Only in this iteration it is like it's simultaneously calcified into stone and become overtaken by mouldy decay.

The Stray Demon soul being transposed into Havel's Ring may be alluding to it having consumed and absorbed the apparently rock solid foundational philosophy started with Dark Souls that "the more of other people's fantasy fiction the game developers absorb, the more inspiration they have to fashion bizarre and novel weapon and armor sets for their games" - which metaphorically translates to "higher equip load".

As the Stray Demon is also looking quite decayed, perhaps because some aspect of this gimmick had started to fall out of favour with the designers by end of development on DS3. Maybe just the impatience with having Dark Souls 3 as a sequel, meaning that they felt obligated to bring back certain sets for a last hurrah in higher graphic quality, which splits focus with design of new items and ended up that most returning items didn't get a much better explanation than "time is convoluted" for the ways in which they were implemented. Like, this is basically what the video ultimately ended up with for the explanation of how the Havel Knight ended up near the Stray Demon.

Overall, the concept of "equipping more ideas" is similar to what can be seen in Elden Ring with Godrick the Grafted. He has all these hands (and the head of a dragon) and can thus theoretically hold more weapons, but he's still the weakest of the Demigods because he lacks focus of concept. And among other things I find that the shape of Godrick's great rune comprising 3 partial rings that overlap in the middle is a neat shorthand for acknowledging that Dark Souls is a trilogy. Yes you can play each game in isolation - as well-written trilogies of books often are structured so that one can read any part first and then circle back and read the earlier parts to find out more context for what you just read.

#dark souls #media analysis #Something something “people's experience shapes their perspective and how much they understand”#Cold take: Dark Souls was intentionally obtuse via presenting the weirdest worldbuilding in popular fantasy without context #Literally Miyazaki has been on record saying his goal was to recreate the feeling of confusion due to loss of information in translation #And this is one way of accomplishing that goal

Elden Ring - Mountaintops Hand that Smashes a Crow

A strange little setpiece that occurs just outside the "Foot of the Forge" site of grace. There's a crow stabbing its beak at a body on the ground (which holds a Smithing Stone [7]). And then as you approach the crow gets flattened by this hand that was clinging to the side of the giant skull above.

The Finger Creeper lacks the typical gold ring, though it retains the indents where the ring would have been. This particular one is also unusually passive, I watched from a distance as it wandered downhill, then back uphill and retreated into this shadowy corner. And only after it had done this did I notice the tiny cave right next to it.

Approaching the cave leads to two small finger creepers emerging:

From the vantage point of the corpse posed in this cave, there is a thorny obstruction across the southern access point to the Fire Giant arena. The corpse holds a Golden Rune [10].

Back to the vantage point of the corpse that the crow was stabbing at. To the west, there are more large finger creepers on a rock outcrop. To the east the corpse is looking at the chain leading to the Giant's Forge, bisected by some trees. Looking up towards the skull looming above the corpse, and there's an optical illusion that the giant has been impaled in the back by one of the thorny effigies that typically pierces the smaller Fire Giants.

#elden ring #environmental storytelling #idk I'm trying to think of ways to tease information out of the more challenging areas for reading the environment.

Bloodborne - Astral Clock as Timeline

The following is the planned structure for this post and the next couple posts:

Demonstrations of how the sequence of 14 runes on the Astral Clock are used to tell a story of the history of Yharnam (11'o'clock to 5'o'clock)

The mechanics of the Astral Clock as a "Time Machine" & How History is Abyssal from the perspective of the present

The remainder of the 14 runes on the Astral Clock, and what the clock overall communicates about the nature of Oedon (5'o'clock to 11'o'clock)

As a graphical illustration of what's come of this theorizing, here's my current understanding of the critical path experienced by the player navigating the game. Dashed lines indicate jumps forward or backwards in time. The yellow loop is vaguely the projected time span of the detour to Old Yharnam to retrieve the Phthmeru Chalice.

0) Blood Ministration // 1) Father Gascoigne // 2) Vicar Amelia // 3) Shadows of Yharnam // 4) ROM // X) Timeframe glimpsed through Lawrence's Skull // 5) The One Reborn // 6) Micolash // 7) Brain of Mensis // 8) Mergo's Wet Nurse // 9) Gherman // 10) Ludwig & Lawrence // 11) Living Failures // 12) Lady Maria // 13) Orphan of Kos

Probably best approached after reviewing the below: Part 1: Astral Clock Basics Part 2: Astral Clock Research and Analysis

#bloodborne #environmental storytelling #analysis of art design #I should emphasize: some story stuff is also flat out not represented on the clock because some runes are not on the clock #But naturally those runes also fit into the historical timeline between the gaps #Also just occurring to me to wonder are the gas lamps an Étant Donnés reference? That's a sneaky one if so.

One of my Elden Ring posts stuck in editing hell is - generally - about Wolves, Old Fangs, and Shadows.

The problems with this post is framing. I want to talk about how the Genesis album "Trespass" has some evocative lyrics about wolves in the song "White Mountain", and I suspect that other songs on the album inspired something of the narrative in Caelid and Mountaintops of the Giants. But part of the reason I came to this conclusion is as the result of a very whimsical series of decisions that are absurd to justify. Which means that to do the topic justice I feel that it needs to also point at a specific character (or characters) who can match that level of whimsy.

So, I'm just going to ramble a bit to myself about the information gathering process.

Why Trespass? Because for data analysis purposes I had a big spreadsheet full of year/month/day data for when FromSoft has released games. Going chronologically Trespass was the second studio album by Genesis (October 23, 1970) and their first album to have been released on the same calendar day as a FromSoftware game. Two, actually: Shadow Tower Abyss (October 23, 2003), and Tench 4: Shadow Assassins (October 23, 2008). Why would I ever even attempt to match dates like that? i) I have a habit of obsessively organizing data when I'm feeling stressed about work and such. I was listening to a livestream where the topic of FromSoftware's game catalogue was brought up, and how their early years of output were really weird. So I made a spreadsheet about it collecting release dates so that I could crunch data. ii) Oddities came up in the release date data for FromSoft games. In the early years they released an unusual number of games on the 4th of the month, considering that "4" is usually an unlucky number in Japan due to associations with death. Then they switched to favouring "24" in the late 2000's. When looking up info on Metal Wolf Chaos XD I stumbled upon some commentary about how it's a game about a reckless and destructive American President and released on the anniversary of the first atomic bomb. I had the bright idea to "follow the guiding moonlight" and check moon phase data, which yielded some interesting dates connected to eclipses and blood moons. I also reasoned that even if these were somehow all coincidences, they are still freely available for an artist to exploit for worldbuilding purposes. iii) It's like how sometimes you go to a website and it has a "this day in history" widgit - sometimes they are political events and sometimes pop culture. Album release dates are just another form of data. I was already spotting allusions to fantasy-themed music in the contents of Elden Ring itself. I guess I figured that I would first anchor a bunch of albums to the release dates of specific games and see if any noticeable trends appeared. Like, The Beatles emerged as a front-runner, and I first looked at them mostly because I heard that their producer was named George Martin and thought "wouldn't that be a neat coincidence for an artist to exploit...?". And only at the end of the writing process did I learn that George RR Martin himself wrote a 1980's thriller novel that in part reflects upon the legacy of The Beatles. iv) I was thinking of testing the theory with a band that I had zero previous attachments or pre-conceptions about. Genesis is a band that I've heard mentioned by other bands that I like, but otherwise I couldn't name a single song or album by them. And if nothing in particular came out of it, no big loss since I still needed a song for my playlist project. Why "White Mountain"? I listened to the full album on repeat for a full day in the background of my other tasks, and apparently internalized none of the lyrics. When I actually sat down and read through them I realized that the reason this song had been especially hard to recall is that it's a verse-only song that tells a story, so there was no repeating chorus to latch onto. It reminded me most of Sonata Arctica's wolf songs (Ain't Your Fairytale, The Last Amazing Grays, The Wolves Die Young, Blood, etc) except more in the genre of folk rock than melodic metal. Also keeping in mind the particular titles of the FromSoft games released on October 23 and that wolves are the "shadows" of empyreans.

#elden ring #theory synopsis

Elden Ring - What is "Grace"?

Fun thing about words describing abstract metaphysical concepts: it's a fool's errand to lock down a single meaning. Grace is not a real thing, and thus everybody is free to pick their own definition. However, some definitions gain more traction than others, because they "ring true" to more people and thus stay in the popular culture.

So I thought, why not examine a possible meaning of the "Guidance of Grace" in the context of the song "Amazing Grace", lyrics written by John Newton around 1772:

"1 Amazing grace (how sweet the sound) that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

2 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved; how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed!

3 Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come: 'tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

4 The Lord has promised good to me, his word my hope secures; he will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.

5 Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease: I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace.

6 The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine; but God, who called me here below, will be forever mine."

As a brief biography of John Newton: he was raised at sea by his father from age 11 onwards, became a slave ship captain, turned abolitionist, converted Christian and hymn writer.

Verse 1: What is a wretch in Elden Ring? A near naked person with no thoughts except beating people to death with a wooden club shaped like a fish/whale.

Does grace have a sound? Yes, you can hear it in the Round Table Hold. Is sight important in contrast to blindness? Yeah, pay attention to the field of view at every site of grace (i.e. the teleport points) to understand more about why it was placed in that specific location. Environmental storytelling is important.

Is it relevant that the lyricist was a ship captain? It would seem to be, because Marika sent Godfrey and the Tarnished out to sea. Think of Melina's appearances as a representation of Marika being bound to sites of grace. Things within line of sight of sites of grace, or enemies who generate a site of grace upon defeat are indicators of Marika's conscious Will. Everything that is not within eyesight of a site of grace (statistically, a lot more things) may be representative of unconscious desires that Marika/Radagon have forgotten or intentionally suppressed, which conflict with conscious desires until reaching the point of a mental break, and which may be more obvious from a third person perspective (the Tarnished) who is called in to navigate the whole tangle.

Verse 2: "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear" Elden Ring is very much concerned with the concept of "heart". They're jarring hearts in the Shadowlands. Marika walking through the divine gate as the "successful" shaman being representative of a change of heart. As I've seen pointed out recently, the dead wood at the centre of a tree is called the "heartwood", and the centre of the Erdtree is a hollowed out cavern.

Verse 3: Where is grace leading you, ultimately? Home under the honeyed rays of gold, Melina's home/birthplace at the foot of the Erdtree.

Verse 4: Elden Lord, I suppose?

Verse 5: Well, Morgott is the veiled Monarch...huh, okay well maybe Morgott can be thought of as the wretch in question for the purposes of the song narrator. He...does walk around wearing minimal clothing. And has attacks in common with Demi-human Swordmaster Onze - which thereby makes the connection to the club wielding demi-humans. Also known as the "Grace Given Monarch"....

Actually, makes more sense in context of Verse 4 because Morgott does not claim the title of Elden Lord for himself. I guess Godfrey is still who he considers the rightful Lord, based on their one interaction. And the Golden Phantom Godfrey.

I mean, I know that this verse is more in the context of "beyond the veil (of death)", but like, all of Elden Ring takes place in the mass grave of mythology anyways so that's kindof a given.

Verse 6: Even the final verse is unusually apropos. Godwyn as the eclipsed sun who no longer shines. Marika is "The World" who contains the Elden Ring, and she dissolves in the hands of the snow-witch themed Ranni. Elden Ring is literally a search to find a god who has called the Tarnished.

#elden ring #media analysis #watching people try to explain grace in terms of other game abstractions that they don't fully understand #no appreciation for the poetic readings of art #real shame #I'm gonna be real I was lazy and skipped verses 4 & 5 at first #and in real time it occurred to me that yeah literally Morgott only after I committed to making a commentary on all verses

Bloodborne - Astral Clock Research and Analysis

In my first post I covered the "Where", "What", and "Who" of the Astral Clock. Now I will examine "How" and "When".

What I mean by "How" is a meta question: how might the artists behind Bloodborne have developed the idea of the Astral Clock? What cultural ideas might have been drawn together that resulted in this final form? And what I mean by "When" is a game mechanic question - the Astral Clock as an expression of time of day as experienced throughout the game critical path.

#bloodborne #astral clock #media analysis #environmental storytelling #analysis of art design

Bloodborne - Astral Clock Basics

I spent a good year fascinated by the clock, did a lot of research about it, and now I have thoughts and theories to present. This first post will go over the basic "Where", "What", and "Who" aspects of the clock. A second post will discuss "How" and "When". And then additional posts revisiting "What is it" by examining each rune in closer detail with newfound context.