#lore theires

[yournextflame]

Hello,Lazuli.

Can you answer some questions?

1) Who is Melina in your opinion, because in my opinion, this is one of the most mysterious characters of Elden Ring (has the power of the Erd Tree, fights like a Black Knife, calls herself the Maiden of Fingers, has a Gloomy Eye and is probably the daughter of Marika born of immaculate conception)?

2) Name of Elden Beast in JP? And why it attacks us, if we have Runes to repair it?

3) What is Great Will in your opinion? It describes like a Cosmic God in EN, but I think that it is something more.

And what means word Elden\ Eld\ Erd?

Melina is Melina. I have read many different theories about Melina's connection to GEQ, Ranni, Marika and there is a food for thought in many of them. But the point that I dispute and don’t understand is the reason why Melina needs to be someone else for her story to work. To me, she is a character with the most straightforward development in entire game. And her development ultimately results in separation from her mother's design and reclaim of a given purpose as her own. She wants to die as her own person and expects from Tarnished to understand her last wish. In my opinion, questions "why Melina is like this?" and "what is thematical meaning of her arc?" are far more compelling than endless attemps to glue her to another characters.

エルデの獣 - Beast of Elde. In Japanese there is no deeper meaning in エルデ, it's written in katakana. In Old English "elde" means age, span of years, era, epoch. We burned the Erdtree and destroyed the vessel of Elden Ring, it's no cosher with Elden Beast. I think it's fighting in a self-defence.

I like the term invented by JP lore-blogger Souls Seed - "Will of the Universe". I have a strong disdain against the Greater Wil l= Abrahamic God reading; massive "christianization" of the lore by Western audiences annoys me to no end. When I've been thinking about the Greater Will's nature, a certain quote from The Eternal Champion series came to my mind... and turns out this saga was an actual source of inspiration for Miyazaki. The sentiment may perceive and love the universe, but the universe cannot perceive and love the sentiment. The universe sees no distinction between the multitude of creatures and elements which comprise it. All are equal. None is favoured. The universe, equipped with nothing but the materials and the power of creation, continues to create: something of this, something of that. It cannot control what it creates and it cannot, it seems, be controlled by its creations (though a few might deceive themselves otherwise). Those who curse the workings of the universe curse that which is deaf. Those who strike out at those workings fight that which is inviolate. Those who shake their fists, shake their fists at blind stars

― Michael Moorcock, The Knight of the Sword

[yournextflame]

Hi , I don't know if you answered this yet but what do you think about the theories circulating in the english lore community about Marika being behind the Night of the Black Knives? Maliketh's Remembrance and Black Knife armor are often brought as proof. I find this theory to have no basis in the lore, but it would be nice to hear your opinion.

(If red-black particle in Marika’s body is a stolen fragment of Rune of Death it means that Marika/Radagon had their hands in Night of Black Knives)

So far my main theory is that Marika was behind Night of Black Knives, but the outcome was not what she wanted. My main evidence is how おお、永遠の女王マリカよ。貴女の、醜い落とし子を抱いてcertain ghost speaks about Marika's unwanted children. 落とし子 is a prime example of usage of keywords in JP script.

落とし子 in Elden Ring describes (failed) children which were born or created from rituals or magic. I've been already touching this subject in a post about Omens. A good example of "unwanted" child is Sellen's graven-mass. She aimed for the creation of "starry" child, merged herself with Azur and Lusat (ritual), failed it and the result was a meatball (unwanted bastard child). Interesting, that Zorayas, another 落とし子 created from Rykard's experiments, complains that she was "born not from grace", which is true for the rest of known 落とし子 - Astel, Bastard of the Void, and Kindred of Rot. Maybe there is a connection or maybe there is not, even though we know about existance of the graceless royalty (Roderika), it's hard to believe that Godwyn, the most famous victim and Marika's son was graceless too.

However, before jumping on the idea that demigods, who died during NoBK were hideous abominations born from weird magic, let's consider that the core part of Night of Black Knives is a ritual.

I stole a fragment of the Rune of Death, and used it to forge the godslaying black knives through fearsome rite (Ranni)

A ritual performed on the oddly misshapen blade imbued it with the power of the stolen Rune of Death (Black Knife)

Maybe Marika for some godforsaken reason decided to kill Godwyn for good (I strongly suspect that worship of ancient dragons, a race that previously owned Elden Ring, is what costed Godwyn his life; you aren't estabilishing your little cute cult around your scalie friends, when your mom is one and only god) and collaborated with Ranni, who forged godslaying Black Knives. But Ranni hijacked her plan and broke cursemark in half, therefore Godwyn and demigods weren't killed properly and became 落とし子

However, it raises obvious question: why would Marika, a giant perfectionist, collaborate with a daughter of woman, who lost her mind after divorce, and, to no ones surprise, betrayed her?

I mean, even if we go with popular "Marika wanted to destroy Golden Order from within and help Ranni" it doesn't explain why Black Knives became enemies of Ranni's group in the main game.

Description of NoBK from official bamco site also provides some interesting info:

One grim night in the depths of winter, a flock of unknown assassins stole across the Lands Between. In a coetaneous attack, this foul covenant snuffed out the lives of many of the God-Queen’s kin throughout the empire, too numerous and too scattered for her godly protection to save.

I mean, I can theorize why Godwyn was chosen as target, but what about the rest? Or maybe there was no target at all and Black Knives attacked chaotically and Godwyn was a collateral damage?

After all, I don't deny the possibility that Ranni "did it all". I even have a crack theory that she collaborated with Radagon and maybe one day I will post it, but I need to post my general write ups about him first. Another wild idea is Ranni's alliance with the outer god of deathbirds or its followers, considering how NoBK restored lost sorcery of death. Honestly, along with Marika/Radagon's motivations it's the most lore convoluted event in entire game.