the traditionally masculine opera attire, the shield belt over the waistline, the full mask covering the face, the hairstyle choice where the bangs just moved to the other side of the face.. and in duchess' darkness form, you see their eyes are the same color as well. their face is the exact same shape but scholar is just obviously older
the question becomes, for me; does that mean that you can become a paleblood/albinauric? cuz duchess evidently bleeds red and scholar does not
“previously, we never saw any proof that Those Who Live In Death could be rational, cultured beings, so in Fia’s ending it was kind of natural to assume that everyone would just be skeleton. But Ironeye is more then just skeleton. He’s talking skeleton.” — extremely funny bit from vaatividya’s Ironeye/Raider breakdown
finished Ironeye’s Remembrance quest yesterday before proceeding to group up with some friends and try to beat enhanced Adel and I’m still not over the implications of Ironeye’s backstory and his unique ending cutscene. I don’t usually focus on the aspects of ER lore that he’s connected to because I’m much more fixated on Volcano Manor/the Carians/Mohg et al but oh my god, somebody needs to start theorycrafting about this so I don’t have to try and muddle my way through it myself.
First off, some important notes regarding Ironeye’s quest and the Journal entries.
This part is less of a theory and more how I’m interpreting what happened to set the second bit.
Ironeye’s journal entries take the form of mostly one-sided correspondence between Ironeye and a person named “Isolde.”
Isolde details to Ironeye of a new target, spoken of as “The Monster” for… whatever reason, later also said to be a traitor to Ironeye’s fellowship of assassins or whatever group he belongs to.
Isolde refers to the Monster as a “centipedal scion,” (which made me think it was centipede demon and then it ended up being the NPC Ironeye fight lmao) (4)
Ironeye refers to Isolde as his “Master” and “Guardian”
“Guardian” here being particularly interesting, as when talking about the Monster, Isolde says “it is clear now that his guardian had been slain long ago. (4)
Isolde talks conspiratorially in a bloodstained letter to Ironeye about a dream she had to “wrest the power of the Night” seemingly to avoid a “fated [being] disposed of” by the fellowship, and encouraging Ironeye to basically do whatever he wants (6)
This is the last letter from Isolde Ironeye ever receives.
Outside of the journal, Ironeye gets a “traitor’s letter”
“When the Nightlord nears, meet at the Roundtable.” The monster was aware of a looming threat, and welcomed the assassin Ironeye.
I’m speculating here, but this seems to indicate to me that this is a master/apprentice situation or at least, the fellowship divides its members into paired correspondence. The implication from Isolde being that this Traitor/Monster’s Master equivalent was slain, leading him to go rogue.
Of course, we find out in the remembrance that the traitor is a version of Ironeye from a previous night cycle. I think this means that in tracking information, Isolde finds out this assassin is rogue without his master, but doesn’t learn that the assassin is Ironeye and the dead master is her from a previous cycle (since she appears to exist “eternally” in the night, but not in the loop that the round table exists in.)
Isolde is possibly killed by the fellowship (on account of the letter being bloodstained) for having her doubts in the fellowship’s “use them and lose them” policy on its members, sparking Ironeye to go turncoat and become the next cycle’s traitor.
Furthermore, Traitor Ironeye wants to meet with our Ironeye, leading to a confrontation where Ironeye slits the traitor’s throat before he comes back to life and requests our Ironeye get something called an “Edge of Order” to properly kill him… curious.
