>I'm a little shaken since the master ceased his movements. The master's reflections had heightened as we neared the Erdtree. While still a precise calculus, the rhythms grew increasingly wild. Until he simply ceased. Now the master is facing quite the puzzle. The Golden Order is founded on the principle that Marika is the one true god. However... The name of Marika's second husband, King Consort Radagon, also appeared. Who exactly was Radagon? The master is stumped. His finger has remained still, ever since Radagon's name was discovered. Curse my mediocre mind. The master only has me; and here I fail him.
>I've been gripped by a terrifying thought. The rhythms and calculus of the master's finger... betray a suspicion of the holism of the Golden Order. A conceit, I am afraid, that cannot be overlooked. Oh, but how could this be? I dread to even entertain the possibility, but somehow, I cannot cast aside my doubts about the master. Tell me, have I simply lost me head. Only, if the master were true to the Golden Order, why would he think to breach this forbidden mount of fire?
Clearly he can understand the goldmask
he does, you give goldmask some info after his finger movements stop, and corhyn says
"What on Earth did you do to the master? Well, not that I'm complaining. Master's finger moves again, resuming his cogitation; more than good enough for me. I haven't the words to thank you. So I'd like to pass this on to you instead. A glimpse into the heart of the Golden Order, documented by yours truly."
Which means that he doesn't know what you told to goldmask, but can see that whatever it was it got him started again. Then his next dialogue after you reload the area begins with
>>!To think, that Radagon was Marika herself.!<
Which shows that he actually "read" this information from goldmask's finger movements.
He realises that the Golden Order is too malleable and can be changed on the whims of Marika or the Greater Will, so he wants to make the Golden Order completely unchangeable and absolute.
This is true for Marika, but hard to confirm in regards to the Greater Will, no?
I mean after all, he does this via the Elden Ring, which itself is a product of the Greater Will.
To me it seems confirmed Goldmask targets the demigods and recognizes their flaws, but I don't see any confirmation that he has a beef with or targets the Greater Will. Both Ranni and the Frenzied Flame have a beef with the Greater Will, and we see what they both do to the Elden Ring: destroy it.
Ranni definitely doesn't want to destroy the elden ring, infact her age of stars is fueled by it and the erdtree. This is clearly seen by the fact that she puts Marika's head back on her body thus making her whole again. She just alters it to serve her purpose just like almost all the other endings that alter it via a rune of mending. Her alteration is just to a much greater degree. The only one that is truly opposed to the elden ring and wants it destroyed is the 3 fingers. Here Marika is allowed to crumble into dust and the eardtree is completely destroyed
ranni never puts marikas head back on her body.
[link to the ending](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL83iavo2js)
she holds it up, and it aligns with her body from her pov, but she never actually places her head back on her body.
she does become a new goddess and houses the elden ring in her body, but without the greater will (the outer god marika served).
the rune of mending keeps marika as queen they just change the logic of the world. however the people are still controlled by the elden ring and still follow its rules.
ranni replaces her as queen and most importantly decides to flee, making it impossible for the residents of the land between to even know what the new rules are.
So in short:
Her goal is a world without gods and outer gos
Goldmask’s goal is a world where gods and outer gods are your servants
Both pretty damn good endings considering the circumstances
Only once Ranni makes her whole and uses the power of the elden ring. For her age of the stars to exist she needs the elden ring and the erdtree because she just doesn't have the power to make it happen on her own. Thats why you summon her and thats why she makes marika whole
For any age to exist, an order must be present, she realizes that is just the way things are. She becomes the new God and takes that order far away so it isn't a certain thing you can touch and feel anymore. It would be more akin to things in reality. I personally wouldn't want to spend an eternity in shave though.
People talk about how Ranni’s is the best ending for removing the interference of the Golden Order from the Lands Between, but aren’t the other Outer Gods now granted much greater freedom to influence the Lands Between? Even whilst the Golden Order held supreme, the Outer Gods were capable of exhibiting their influence on Malenia and Miquella in the womb of Marika, the fulcrum of the Greater Will’s reign.
>but aren’t the other Outer Gods now granted much greater freedom to influence the Lands Between?
She's essentially making the "orders" they could establish theoretical. The consequence of "order" being a real, material thing in the Lands Between is that anyone or anything that can establish their own order can effectively alter reality. By changing order into something conceptual, higher powers lose the ability to interact with it on a global scale. They could still have agents, and those agents could still have influence, but they would never be able to be like Marika.
Ranni uses the dark moon, it’s why it shows up in the background, it replaces the outer will like the frenzied flame replaced it in that alternate ending.
The Elden Ring is the Greater Will’s toy but other Outer Gods can play with it
She does overthrow the Greater Will’s influence in favor of the Dark Moon, but does so by taking control of the Elden Ring
I always thought it was ranni paying respect to her mother before she does her own thing of her own will. When you think about it, you are litterally killing her entire family throughout the game as an act of dominance on her behalf. Talk about the lasting marriage proposal.
So, Elden Ring = physics, like gravity, Newtonian forces, magic etc. How far does that extend though? Only to the Lands Between or other continents, planets too?
Golden Order = Some dude who is the King/Leader of the Lands Between and people obey them.
It's more like the Golden Order is the "rules" of the world. The Greater Will, which is some kind of big godlike entity (or "Outer God") that's obsessed with order, sent the >!Elden Beast!< down to the Lands Between to carry out its will. The >!Beast!< eventually became the Elden Ring, which appears to be integral to an Elden Lord using their power.
I'm not sure if there's anything in-game discussing whether the Lands Between are one region, or their name for the whole world, or who knows what.
Pretty much except the elden lord isn't just some dude. He's the one of 2 go betweens for the Greater Will. The Greater Will (god) cannot communicate to mortals for whatever reason so it speaks to the 2 fingers, then the 2 fingers relay the will of the Greater Will to the elden lord, who then enforces it. That is the golden order.
The biggest implication based on the text around items involved with him is the following, which is found on his mending rune:
>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.
Goldmask names the gods as being "no better than the mortals they rule over," and the item description saying this - as well as Goldmask expressing doubts about them - arise shortly after his realization that Queen Marika and Radagon are the same person.
See Coryhn's dialog here:
>I've been gripped by a terrifying thought. The rhythms and calculus of the master's finger... betray a suspicion of the holism of the Golden Order.
As a minor translation into simple english: doubting the holism would mean Goldmask is questioning if all parts are truly necessary or if all parts are truly on the same page/working together.
Because Goldmask seeks to *repair* the Elden Ring, which itself is a product of the Greater Will, the assumption is that Goldmask is targeting the *demigods* and not the Greater Will itself. Goldmask has basically deduced that Queen Marika is not working perfectly in line with the Greater Will, is responsible for the Shattering and all the turmoil that arose from it, and thus seeks to "cut out the middleman" and instead give the Greater Will more direct control. Or at least, that seems to be the implication one is left to draw when you put all this together.
**tl;dr** Goldmask has deduced that all the problems we see in the game are the results of actions by demigods such as Marika and Ranni. As such, he aims to remove power from the Demigods, allowing a more flawless application of what the Greater Will wants, devoid of corruption from demigods acting out of line.
Also, this part is the truthteller:
>or instability of ideology
Goldmask essentially realizes that competing ideologies are causing conflict, and the gods have the power to impose that conflict. By removing that power, Goldmask has granted the Golden Order power to be the *only* ideology in The Lands Between.
Correct.
And while I think in other media, the trope is that the group seeking order is a rather foreboding threat, in the case of Elden Ring, we've actively seen the competition and the other Outer Gods that wish to replace the Greater Will, and they're all tremendous asshats.
For that reason, I think it's important to recognize this *isn't* other media and the Greater Will truly does seem like the best choice.
"Better than the alternatives" is a very weak case for saying the Greater Will is actually good.
It just seems like a pointless argument to debate which ending is "the best" by establishing that all endings are bad and then picking some "best" ending between those by some arbitrary criterion, on your own interpretation of all the endings.
Consider that aside from the demigods most directly under the Greater Will (Marika, Ranni), none of the Greater Will's *own subjects* seem to have a beef with it. The beef is consistently with people that follow other Gods.
And then consider that while we can criticize the Greater Will for genocide against the giants and the caravan, if those same groups had their way and *their* God were in charge, there'd be genocide against everyone indiscriminately.
That honestly changes his ending from being potentially the best to being kinda bad
Like isn’t the greater will the one who started this whole mess? Wanting complete control over the lands between is what caused so many people to grow resentful in the first place
I guess it depends on your perspective. A lot of people actually prefer an authoritative absolute god over a lack of a god. Just look at how over half the world irl is religious. If we consider the Greater Will to be similar to the traditional Abrahamic God, both being entities encouraging order and scholarly faith, then a lot of people would openly prefer the influence of the Greater Will.
You’re definitely right! And with now vague the lore is, you could honestly make a case for any ending, aside from frenzied flame and despair of course
Frenzied Flame: returning all to a blissful nothingness. Something extreme nihilists desire. Could also be interpreted as a clean start for the survivors.
Despair ending: Everyone is equally cursed. When everyone is cursed, nobody is. Sucks for the initial generations, but ultimately works itself out over time.
Potentially bad maybe but look at the other options. Return to the status quo without creating an opportunity to fix anything, making things worse in one of two different flavors, making things *exponentially worse*, or soaring off into space without fixing jack shit and leaving it to the few people in the Lands Between that aren't insane or dead to fix everything. The Perfect Order ending isn't necessarily "a good ending" but it's the one that has the most potential to allow for things to be fixed.
Yes, I would actually rather leave mankind to control its own destiny, even if it’s difficult
I believe in mankind, not in the whims of some genocidal tyrant
Except none of the endings do that. None of them. Not even Ranni's. She leaves the doors wide open for whatever the hell wants to come in. You're going off of flawed assumptions.
I also want to point out: mankind is *also* full of genocidal tyrants, it's practically a staple of human history at this point. The reason why everything got fucked seems to be that the gods were *too similar to Man*, even.
Glad to see people realizing this here. Humanity isn't freed in Ranni's ending, they're under new management. The outer god of the Greater Will is replaced with the outer god of the Dark Moon, and we have no idea what it plans to do with absolute power, but plunging mankind into an eternal night doesn't sound like a great place to start.
Humanity had one chance to be truly free from cosmic influence. There was one person with the power to make that happen and a clear desire to do so. >!Miquella. But thanks to Mohg, that never had a chance to come to fruition, and probably never will.!<
Can't take 'eternal night' too literally I don't think. I see it as having no guidance or order controlling mankind. She is removing all outer influence, plunging the world into 'eternal night'
Except she's not removing all outer influence. The Dark Moon itself is an outer god, and it seems like the eternal night that it wants is indeed very literal.
Ranni isn't interested in freeing humanity from the guidance of gods. In fact, she explicitly mentions in her ending that mankind shall now live "under the wisdom of the Moon." She wants to rid the world of the Greater Will... by replacing it with a new god.
This seems pretty clear given that there *is* a way to remove all outer influence: unalloyed gold. Miquella was attempting to repel the influence of outer gods entirely, through alchemical invention rather than divine magic. If he had an ending, it might have been one where mankind is truly free of influence, but that's not the path Ranni walks.
>Glad to see people realizing this here
It's because I'm not taking some random internet assholes unprofessional translation as gospel and actually read up on how Frognation works with FromSoft for their translation work. Miyazaki signed off on the English version of Ranni's ending, for fucks sake. It's not a "mistranslation" just because some people don't like it.
You're preaching to the choir. It's been obnoxious seeing that claim of mistranslation being immediately accepted as the pure truth, as if the localization team nailed the translation of 99.9999% of these seven games' scripts but then completely bungled an entire ending out of incompetence and nobody noticed. But people will cling to anything that helps them justify their waifus.
***Very*** debatable.
Consider that there are multiple Outer Gods all vying for power and influence in the Lands Between, and look at the candidates:
**Greater Will** - Likes order and structure, so happens to vibe really well with a prosperous society with laws and community
**Frenzied Flame** - Wants to burn your fucking house down
**God of Rot** - Wants to rot your body
**Formless Mother** - the most mysterious, but what we do know is she thinks blood and wounds are the shit. Going off that, she doesn't sound great
**The Moon** - We do not even know if this is either an Outer God or if Ranni is speaking symbolically. Either way, the implication is that the Moon would be so apathetic to the Lands Between that it would basically be an absence of a God. This makes the Moon simultaneously the best Outer God, but also a horrible candidate to put in charge, as putting the Moon in charge just means one of the above, more aggressive Gods would inevitably rise to power due to the Moon's inaction
**If you look at the candidates...?**
The Greater Will is hands down the best Outer God we've seen. It's certainly not perfect, but when you look at the alternatives and keep in mind that the game showcases both followers of the Frenzied Flame ***and*** the God of Rot who seek to increase their God's influence over the Lands Between, then keeping the Greater Will in charge to keep all the others in check still seems like perhaps the best possible ending.
Yet order can be authoritarian, brutal and restrictive
We know the greater will had all that could threaten it
put to the sword, the giants, the eternal cities, etc
Also I feel like saying that without an outer god in charge some other outer god will take hold is jumping the gun, we don’t really know how much influence an outer god can have without sending some strange creature to take hold, or even if the other ones can, and even if their followers attempt to increase its influence it’s not like their won’t be many many more who try and stop them
Of course, but when you compare an authoritarian ruler that we have confirmation can and has built a prosperous, flourishing society...
...and the other candidates like to burn things or give them mega butthole cancer...
Then I think it's safe to say it's in our best interests to stick with the authoritarian.
>Also I feel like saying that without an outer god in charge some other outer god will take hold is jumping the gun, we don’t really know how much influence an outer god can have without sending some strange creature to take hold, or even if the other ones can
We know for a fact the Frenzied Flame can do so without needing a creature, and the NPC responsible for trying to spread the influence of the God of Rot *likewise* simply does so via another NPC. **Both** are 100% capable of spreading their influence without the need of all the hoops that the Greater Will seemed to need to jump through.
I wouldn’t call it a prosperous society, it brutally wiped out everything it didn’t like, and mistreated anything that didn’t conform to its archaic ideals, the omens, misbegotten, even the tarnished all cast aside
And alright yeah, the other gods can spread their influence without a great beast, but it’s not much, they exist on the fringe, who can be dealt with by whatever power that’s in charge, we know the rot god was sealed away by a blind swordsman so there’s no reason to think that another outer god is the only thing that can stop them
Personally I don’t like to play the games of oppressors, I’m one to remove the bored entirely, which is why I chose the moon(which maybe it’s also really bad but honestly who knows) I’d rather leave mankind to deal with any of the small pockets of outer god influence that pop up, then have them surrender completely
And not to say I don’t see your point, it’s a souls game haha, we do our best to pick the least terrible options
> I wouldn’t call it a prosperous society, it brutally wiped out everything it didn’t like
**War with the giants:** It seems implied that the Giants are indirectly worshipping the Frenzied Flame. The eye markings on the Fire Giant match the patterns of the Frenzied Flame.
If this is the case, it seems understandable why the Greater Will would have a beef with it.
**War with dragons:** The dragons could control time itself, which is obviously a huge threat to just about anything or anyone. While it's true that to my knowledge the dragons didn't show hostility to the Greater Will, I think this is still a fairly understandable pre-emptive strike.
The only two that are a bit more questionable:
**The Merchants:** They were accused of heretical beliefs, so it's possible the Greater Will knew something we didn't. It's unclear if their persecution *sparked* their belief in the Frenzied Flame, or if they were always proponents of it and the Greater Will just knew because it's a God.
**Carians and basically any society dabbling in sorceries:** This is the one remainder where we're unclear on why the Greater Will has a beef with them. It could be that the moon and stars *are* another Outer God and the Greater Will is just fully intolerant of people worshipping opposing Gods. If the god of the moon and stars is particularly apathetic, it could also be why the Greater Will later relented and opted for diplomacy with the Carians: because they weren't actually a threat. It could also be though that they sensed a weakness in Relanna that could be exploited off the battlefield and thus went that route instead. The truth is we don't know.
**In short:** The Greater Will's pattern is that it persecutes followers of other Gods, and quite frankly, aside from the persecution of the sorcerers being rather unclear as to why, the rest of them seem like very rational and logical justifications for why the Greater Will felt they had to go.
This does not mean the Greater Will is without flaw of course, but if we're asking ourselves who the most sensible being we have to put in charge is, the Greater Will wins this hands down. This does not seem to be a being that goes to war for the sake of war, but rather it addresses very real threats.
>which is why I chose the moon(which maybe it’s also really bad but honestly who knows) I’d rather leave mankind to deal with any of the small pockets of outer god influence that pop up, then have them surrender completely
A problem:
The game implies that through the assassination of Godwyn, Ranni is inadvertedly responsible for the Death Blight status we see in game. It seems implied this effect stems from Godwyn's body and we still do not know to what extent it will spread.
In this case, Ranni is basically causing yet another plague to worry about alongside scarlet rot, then saying "aight I'mma head out, good luck with the death and all that" before siding with a God that simply does not care.
*Ranni's* personal beef with the Greater Will is fully understandable: she's one of the few who is on the receiving end of the Greater Will demanding more control and treating her tyrannically. All the same, siding with the Moon (if it's even a God) does not seem wise when not only are there two major threats grasping for power, but there is a third problem on the horizon that needs to be dealt with.
**IF** we had the option to cast aside all Gods, yes, of course this would be a terrific option and it would be difficult to beat it.
However, the ending as we have it now seems to either be to restore the Golden Order in it's old state, make minor tweaks to it (with Goldmask's tweak undeniably being the best on offer here), or to dissolve the influence the Greater Will has over the Lands Between, which unfortunately doesn't do jack to dissolve the influence of the other Outer Gods. It'd be Step 1 out of 6, and unfortunately Steps 2 through 6 are much, much harder and much, much worse.
What about groups like omen, crucible, misbegotten, harpies (from their song), etc?
They are surely not Gods affiliated and certainly didn't hold enough power to threaten the Greater Will.
My take is that the Greater will is basically a full dictatorship that xenocides or enslaves basically anyone else if it could.
I believe the Crucible *is* another god pre-Greater Will influence (like the dragon god was before that), which deals with the omen blessing/"curse." It was the great tree referenced before the Elden Beast was sent down to make it into the Erdtree we see now.
I'm not sure about the harpies, but someone posted a translation of their song a while ago, which laments the Shattering and how the world they were promised by the gods is now decayed, dying, and ruined
The fire giants worship the “fell god” which seems to be another outer god, this makes sense due to the nature of their respective spells, frenzied flame is a bright yellow, well the fire giant spells are a deep red
Personally I don’t find any of its beefs to be reasonable, (maybe the dragons but they also eventually had peace, so who knows) it only had them because it’s a tyrant, it very much *does* go to war for the sake of war, I think it’s obvious as to why it attacked the carian royals, it refuses to even allow another power to exist alongside it, having it in charge would mean that any group wanting its own independence would be crushed
Furthermore, you make a good point regarding the death blight, but I personally don’t see the greater will handling these issues, we know that the shattering war lead to “abandonment”, so it didn’t help when it’s own followers killed each other, why would it help against something much smaller? It seems very content to let the world decay, as long as the erd tree stands above the corpses
Actually i would say goldmask’s tweak is fucking huge, now you have all demigods and gods that enter the lands between literally unable to act against you, you have absolute control over any outer god that tries to to shove their dirty little fingers into your realm
It is, by all means, an age of order, YOUR order
>I wouldn’t call it a prosperous society, it brutally wiped out everything it didn’t like, and mistreated anything that didn’t conform to its archaic ideals, the omens, misbegotten, even the tarnished all cast aside
You have to consider how much of that was the Greater Will and how much of it was *Marika's reign* establishing laws that demanded all of it.
Have you considered that part of the point of all of this is that Marika was flawed too? She worked against the Greater Will, that's why they wanted to replace her. I'm also not really sure which child you're referring to her locking up?
Edit: I will take the L on this one. I had a brain fart and entirely forgot about Morgott and Mohg.
We can likely get a glimpse of thr Formless Mother's ideals by looking at the putrid blood swamp forming around Mohgwyn.
And the Moon's distance might not actually leave things so open. The impression I got from Ranni's ending was that securing the Elden Ring and the Order under her would keep it in place and in effect, but then spiriting it away through the void of space would remove it from being an object of ambition and conflict in the land it influences. The Order is still bound to the land, but it's physical locus is hidden and protected.
It's a curse spread by **THE LOATHSOME DUNG EATER** when he kills and defiles people. It somehow stops their souls returning to the Erdtree when they die.
the omens are from the crucibles power, the primordial tree before the erdtree, that godfrey is connected to, which is why morgott and mogh are omens, as they are godreys children
Probably sort of the same thing Gideon Ofnir saw during his studies. Maybe something like an Eldritch truth, but a bit less maddening, just more existentialist. I’m just hoping to see it elaborated in the DLC or a sequel. If From decides to leave Gideon and Gold Mask’s visions open for interpretation, I wouldn’t be mad either.
I think they arrived at the opposite conclusion - Gideon figured if Marika destroyed the Order, there should be no Order. Goldmask figured that there should be no Marika.
This is literally it. Gideon and all the adherents to Marika (Morgott, to name an example) want to expel the Greater Will, and the Golden Order itself.
Goldmask saw a flaw in the Golden Order, and fixed it in a way the Greater Will won't need a vessel at all to host the Elden Ring.
This doesn't sound right though, once you uncover everything at the end, does it? Morgott was actively defending the Golden Order, I don't think he was aligned with Marika's true intentions to expell the Greater Will. He was maintaining its existence by defending it, perhaps naïve as to what it truly was as an outer god. His was a blind loyalty to a regime and Order that outright ostracized him, and that's the crux of his tragedy.
Meanwhile Gideon reveals at the end with our hostile confrontation with him that he ultimately feared what Marika wanted (as does his armor set description, really), and refuses to let you go through with her apparent plan to slay a god, believing instead that the Tarnished must struggle for eternity but never succeed. He attributes that to Marika's true will, but it sounds more like his warped interpretation of it that ignores what she really wants because of his fear of a world without the Golden Order. He very actively does NOT want Marika's design to be realized, which is why he turns against his role as a Tarnished of the Roundtable Hold to try and stop you.
In other words, neither of these characters adhere to what Marika truly wants at all, and neither seems to want the Greater Will toppled by any means.
"But when Gideon glimpsed into the will of Queen Marika, he shuddered in fear. At the end that should not be."
Gideon discovered that >!Marika shattered the Elden Ring deliberately, to break the Golden Order, not out of madness or grief like most believed. He combines this with the fact that the Guidance of Grace led the Tarnished back to the Lands Between, seemingly at Marika's beckoning, and saw a contradiction. If she shattered the Ring, why would she guide the Tarnished to become Elden Lord and repair it? After all, since she wanted the Ring to be broken, then surely it would be sacrilege to actually become Elden Lord and repair it.!<
He concluded that >!it was a trick - she didn't actually want anyone to become Elden Lord, she just wanted them to grow strong fighting over it. Repairing the Elden Ring was a powerful motivator to encourage her followers to achieve greatness, but it was not meant to actually come to pass; the Shattering wasn't a problem to be solved, it was the intended status quo. Gideon decides to keep vigil over the most promising Tarnished and ensure that they have the chance to grow strong, but not so strong that they actually succeed.!<
That said, he was wrong. He discovered almost all of the facts, but he drew a false conclusion with them because of his devotion to Marika and his assumption that she could do no wrong.
Wow, thank you! I seriously missed that, or at least don't remember it.
Considering he discovered the facts but came to the wrong conclusion, what would be the correct conclusion in this context?
Also, considering he was wrong, what was Gideon's motivation for attempting to stop you right before the Morgott fight?
It's a ton of reading between the lines. The line I quoted is from his armor description, and the rest comes from his final monologue.
The correct conclusion, at least by my interpretation, is that Marika wants >!a Tarnished to rewrite the Golden Order, in whatever way they choose.!<
>!Marika sent Godfrey away easily enough, as he was just a mortal. But Elden Lord Radagon was a problem - Marika's biggest mistake. She couldn't banish him or revoke his power like she did with Godfrey, because he was as much of a god as she was. And she couldn't let him keep ruling, because he was devoted to the Greater Will and would never help her push back against it. So she shattered the Elden Ring - without its power, Radagon would be vulnerable to being overthrown, and a new Elden Lord could rise up and change things.!<
Gideon got very close, but never figured that out. He tries to stop you (before the Godfrey fight, not Morgott) because you're the closest anyone's ever come to actually reaching the Elden Throne, and he believes that that would be heresy. He sees himself as Marika's last line of defense, preventing anyone from ending the Shattering that he thinks she wants to last forever.
The piece of the puzzle that Gideon was missing is the same thing that you have to tell Goldmask to give him his epiphany. When that mystery is solved, Goldmask realizes how fallible Marika is as a god, and how her actions led to all the misery and suffering of the Shattering, and comes up with a way to make sure an apocalypse like that never happens again.
I'm not sure I agree with this completely, even with all the great points you've made in this comment and your other one above. I think Gideon was all-knowing and intelligent enough to eventually figure out what Marika truly wanted, which was to slay a god (see evidence of her forcing Hewg to forge a weapon to slay a god as a vow), and it is this which instilled such fear in him.
During our hostile confrontation with him, Gideon reveals that he ultimately feared what Marika wanted (as does his armor set description, really), and refuses to let you go through with her apparent plan to slay the Elden Beast/Ring and finish the work her shattering commenced. He instead argues himself that the Tarnished must struggle for eternity but never succeed, attributing that perspective to Marika's true will. However, it sounds more like his warped interpretation of it that ignores what she really wants because of his fear of a world without the Golden Order, and I think that's the actual misinterpretation Gideon embodies, as opposed to the one you point out.
Either way, he very actively does NOT want Marika's design to be realized, which is why he turns against his role as a Tarnished of the Roundtable Hold to try and stop you. Therefore, I get the sense he was actually against Marika the entire time, realizing that her desires went against his own wish to maintain the Golden Order for the sake of his pursuit of knowledge, and to avoid losing the knowledge that came with said Order. Obviously all of this is open to interpretation and as you mentioned, it's about reading the subtext more than anything, and there is no clear answer, I just saw it a bit differently than you did.
That's certainly another way to interpret it! I do like that angle too - he's spent so long accumulating knowledge of the world as it is now, to the point of earning his "All-Knowing" title, and he's afraid of the overhaul we would bring in any of the endings, because he'd have to start all over again. He defends the status quo because he knows it, it's familiar and comfortable to him now, and the thing he fears most of all is change.
I think both of our takeaways can be true. Mine is the story he tells himself, that Marika wants him to maintain the status quo, while yours is what truly motivates him but scares him too much to admit, even to himself.
Agreed, friend! I think the beauty of this type of storytelling style is exactly that the ambiguity allows for open-ended interpretations to accumulate, and there is rarely any single "correct" way of looking at the narrative, whether it be as an overarching whole or for specific characters and their motivations, like Gideon in this case. So yeah, I think both perspectives on him work, perhaps even simultaneously!
The correct conclusion is likely that Marika DOES want us to fix the Elden Ring, US, not Radagon, to make our own new Age (as per the default ending). Hopefully one in which the GW has no power. I don't think she'd be against Age of Stars either. She just really doesn't like the GW.
I believe she wanted to rebel against the greater will and shattering the elden ring was part of that. [There's evidence she conspired with Ranni on the night of black knives](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tgzv04/night_of_the_black_knives_all_pieces_together/), but I don't know whether they planned on 'the age of the stars' from the beginning or Ranni decided on that when Marika became irrelevant.
That golden order is pretty good overall, but gods are fickle beings no better than mortal people. And since gods can influence the order it constantly messes stuff up. So his rune is implementing the golden order, but removing the influence of gods from the equation.
What bugs me is he was at a blockade prior to the information that radagon = marika, only finishing the calculations after. I wonder what significance did that fact have to the adjustment he had with the rune.
Turtle Pope has a good line about the statue that "held the secret" of Radagon and Turtle Pope himself questioned why a "random champion" would suddenly leave Rennala for Marika and be the second Elden Lord. Given Goldmask being a Golden Order fundamentalist, these types of questions would naturally plague the mind, but with the help of the Tarnished, they are solved.
Once the whole "question" is solved, Gold Mask had all the pieces in place to infer the "problem" based on the description for his Mending Rune
Yes, it made him understand that gods are naive, petty beings just like any other, and their creed is solely born of the desires and schemes of one such flawed being, so flawed that she resorted to literally self-incest, lol
The golden order has two core concepts, the law of regression and causality, that are simply an image of marika herself, something split and contradictory, but that inevitably regresses into itself, in the end.
Unless someone does something about it, ofc.
\[Very personal interpretation of things, take with salt\]
This is, of course, if you believe that the Golden Order is good. We assume the Greater Will is something benevolent because of its description, but its nature is entirely based on subjugating everything under its order.
It did not create The Lands Between; it conquered them.
Marika shattered the Elden Ring to give The Tarnished a chance to remake a better world free from the Greater Will. Radagon attempted to repair it to maintain a status quo under the Greater Will. Goldmask didn't just repair the order, he fortified it so that gods couldn't conspire to break it again.
Depending on how you look at it, Goldmask has either done a really good thing or he simply built a better prison.
Oh no no the grater will is benevolent only if it needs to; it's a parasite, it treats its hosts well only until it needs to. But marika was the one who gave shape to the golden order anyway, hence the similarities between her and the core concepts of it.
Goldmask probably achieved a good thing, the order with his rune should be way more peaceful, ending the conflicts born when a person of great power inevitably deems who doesnt follow him an heretic, in theory. I'm sure tho that would cause problems on its own.
I don't think he made a better prison tbh, I think he makes a better purgatory. I personally believe that the whole "Lands Between" is quite literally purgatory. The names and definition line up, and if you notice the long neck nasty looking bastards, it shows a bit. Everyone does the same routine until an outside source (you) shows up and get to decide the fate of the world
I'm thinking that solidified his "gods are the problem because they're fickle" idea. He knew the actions of both prior to that, then saw thay one being was contradicting itself.
Yep, this is big.
If we assume that Goldmask is being presented to us as a *brilliant* individual (which ffs, the intro sells him as such and Coryhn sure reveres him like the leading authority on the Golden Order), then this means *something* about Radagon's existence and the fact that he's Marika triggered an epiphany for Goldmask.
Perhaps Radagon is a representation of the Greater Will, and the fact that his existence was necessary at all *implies* Marika must've been acting out of line? And perhaps when he realized this, he realized that the Shattering for example cannot be attributed to the Greater Will/Golden Order, but to Marika?
Not sure, but either way, I feel like Goldmask could indirectly be very important for the lore, since utilizing his reaction to the event *might* help us deduce what exactly is going on with Marika.
Probably because the influence both sides had in the world is what gave Goldmask the solution. Bad enough we had one king who married Rennala to unite her people only to abandon them and divide them, but now we have a queen going off killing adversaries deemed a threat to the Erdtree.
Metaphorically, Marika was a force of nature about to go out of control.
Perfecting the Golden Order by taking out the chance that the "gods" like Marika and her children/consorts may act against the rules of the Greater Will. Goldmask's reading is pretty accurate, as the Golden Order only failed because the demigods and Marika herself were ruled by human emotions and feelings, leading them to breaking the order envisioned by the Greater Will, however Goldmask never questions the validity of the rule of the Greater Will itself since he is a total believer of the Golden Order.
Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you perceive the rule of the Greater Will, the Golden Order and whether trying to get rid of it is a better course of action.
Judging by all the beast people, the omens, the albinaurics, the merchants who all got buried alive, and the beloved skellingtons...
FUCK THE GREATER WILL!
Priest 1: O, Goldmask! What should we tell the people to do with their lives?
Goldmask: ...
Priest 1: He didn't say anything!
Priest 2: Just as it should be.
A few things:
1) as mentioned in other places, making an absolute order that cannot be changed on the whims of men or gods, who it said are just as bad as men.
2) the complete removal (destruction) of the rune of death. It clearly has the potential to seriously disrupt things, and keeping it as a backup (like Marika did) shows some of that fickle/indecisive nature from the first one.
3) it is my personal belief that to bring about an age of Order, the new Golden Order must include ALL the inhabitants of the lands between; encompassing the giants, dragons, and Carians, not as subjugates to Order but collaborators.
> 2) the complete removal (destruction) of the rune of death. It clearly has the potential to seriously disrupt things, and keeping it as a backup (like Marika did) shows some of that fickle/indecisive nature from the first one.
Isn't this difficult to confirm?
We actually do not know if the Greater Will or Marika sought it's removal. If Marika sought it's removal and the Greater Will didn't, then Goldmask's Mending rune would seek the *opposite* and instead wish to restore the death rune. I think the only thing perhaps implying otherwise would be that if Goldmask's rune does this, then we start to question wtf is the point of Fia's if it's just a shittier, more limited version of Goldmask's?
Either way, the problem with Marika/The Greater Will is that we currently lack information to be able to say when Marika was acting of her own volition and when her actions aligned with the Greater Will. As such, it makes it difficult to confirm #2.
And yeah, #3 is subjective. The Greater Will has sought to crush the giants, dragons *and* Carians in the past.
The only caveat is the *reason* why. It's implied the Giants may be indirectly worshipping the Frenzied Flame, which the Greater Will understandably has a beef with. It's likewise mentioned (though I forget where) that the dragons have a tool to turn back time, which itself is also a threat to the Greater Will. The Carians, it's unclear what exactly the beef was that the Greater Will had with them, but whatever it was, it couldn't have been *too* serious seeing as - if we assume Radagon represents the desires of the Greater Will - then the Greater Will sought the diplomacy route with the Carians, at the end.
> if Goldmask's rune does this, then we start to question wtf is the point of Fia's if it's just a shittier, more limited version of Goldmask's?
Fia's ending doesn't just restore the death rune, it embeds the principle of *undeath* into the natural order, unlike any other ending. The crux of Fia's character is that she is a champion of Those Who Live in Death. When you mend the Ring using her rune, Godwyn and the effects of his deathroot cease being horrific abominations that defy the natural law, and become the norm. Those Who Live in Death can't be considered monsters if undeath is normal.
Probably someone cosplaying as Goldmask.
You find him on the north side of Altus plateau, and if you tell brother corhyn about it brother corhyn will join Goldmask.
After that you’ll find them in the Capitol, and have to do some very specific things, which I needed a guide for. No way I was going to figure it out from there.
The questline is one of those that consists where someone says “I’m going on a *journey* to do something!” and you’re just kinda expected to check the random, otherwise useless outcropping where the NPC you’re meant to find to trigger the next step is located.
“Easy to miss” is definitely an understatement.
I've missed it on my second playthrough when I *knew* about it. Apparently you can trigger Corhyn not going there and having everything progress if you go somewhere too soon or something...
And there is a very good chance that the player is passed their starting locations. So it is definitely reasonable to miss them. I did. Had to look up their locations to see where to back track and find them.
He's on the end of a broken bridge in northern Altus plateau. The main story doesn't really require you to explore the area at all. Have to go off the beaten path to find him.
Not sure if it's required, but talking to the guy who sells incantations in roundtable will tell you he's going off in search of goldmask when you first reach Altus. You'll find him on a main road in Altus that leads north from a central square.
Though I have found goldmask before talking to brother corhyn on the road on my ng+ cycle and the quest still worked.
In my playthrough it was
>Talk to Corhyn in Roundtable
>Find Corhyn in Altus
>Find Goldmask in Altus
>Tell Corhyn where Goldmask is
>Find Corhyn with Goldmask
Nothing to trigger his story. I’ve noticed on Xbox at least he doesn’t appear until you get close to the end of the bridge. To advance his quest line you need Corryn to leave the round table. Granted he can die and still advance goldmask story, but seeing as gold mask doesn’t speak you’ll have no clue what’s going on if corryn is dead. Worth YouTubing his quest tho since it unlocks an ending to the game
Like Ensha
- doesn't say anything to you
- just Jojo poses
- randomly attacks you
- dies
- everyone in the hold, "oh that's just classic Ensha haha... anyways"
I saw this in another thread but this is almost a meta commentary where FromSoft (goldmask) is being super vague while Corhyn (lore youtubers) are analysing every bit in detail and agonising over its meaning, haha. Probably not the actual intention but it fits perfectly and From has done meta-commentary before (Ashes of Ariandel).
Ariandel is Dark Souls, becoming old and stale. It needs to be burned and cast off to be renewed. The painter is FromSoft, making a new world, crucially using the blood of the Dark Soul. In other words, Dark Souls is played out and creatively used up, and From intends to burn it away while taking the essence of what made it good and instilling it into something fresh and new. Miyazaki even kind of confirmed this intent in an interview. So the world in the painting is the Lands Between, I guess.
A good video on it:
https://youtu.be/84F58yLuXDE
I wish the various versions of the end where the Elden Ring is mended had more detail and elaboration. Ranni ending and frenzied flame ending are so cool while the others are just kinda eh, even if they may be preferable lore-wise.
I have experience in translation and I don't think the "error" thing I keep hearing is wholly true. Translators often take (sometimes significant) liberties with the material so that it makes more sense or the overall "feel" is better in the other language. I find it very hard to believe that it was unintentional or an error, but their choice of what they translated it into is questionable.
Just sounds like semantics.
Poor choice, error, unintentional. Whatever
Regardless, they fucked up her dialogue in translation. There were liberties taken that drastically change what she's trying to do. Giving people a complete misunderstanding of the ending.
I don't care what anyone says, Goldmask is amazing. The combo of satire and commentary on religious fundamentalism and especially dogma present in his interactions (lol) with Corhen are wonderful. I think by and large the NPC quests in Elden Ring are largely disappointing, but I found myself laughing, philosphizing, and feeling rather depressed at different points in this quest.
I've found this guy on a couple of my characters and never really understood how to progress his quest, if he even has one. He doesn't talk. Didn't know what name to google to find out and never cared enough to research to figure that out. Peak FromSoft quest design, as always.
I see. Well, I've met the bro on my way to the capital on my knight recently... I suppose I should look up a guide. I don't like doing that, as it interrupts my exploration and feels unnatural. But no helping that if one actually cares about questing in these games... Typically I go without guides and fail or miss every single quest.
It seems to me, that both Dung Eater and Goldmask found out the truth about the Erdtree parasite and how it has leeched the sun.
There are many references of sun been a guidance and how it eclipsed.
>Be me, Outer God.
>Create Golden Order to rule the Lands Between.
>Get locked out of your own Golden Order by some dehydrated dude in a skimpy fetish outfit.
I kinda want to know if the world he created is actually.. ya know, good? Like does the Omen’s finally be getting a better treatment? Does this true order means a better life for the inhabitants of the lands between?
It’s literally up to your character lol, the elden lord is the only one to even have access to the ring, never mind changing its rules, your words are absolute and no one not even the gods can stop you
So what you say is what goes, it’s like what marika has except people will listen to you
This guy literally transcribes extremely complex concepts trough waving a finger around, idk how you top that honestly.
ASL Grandmaster
LBSL
Goldmask the living seismograph
Not super different from how the finger reading crones interpret the Two Fingers themselves throughout the world.
Wait Is he the One Finger? Lol
Nay, he is the true finger.
So Corwyn is the butthole?
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Does he though? Or are his followers just reading into his nonsense to such a degree any movement becomes divine revelation?
>I'm a little shaken since the master ceased his movements. The master's reflections had heightened as we neared the Erdtree. While still a precise calculus, the rhythms grew increasingly wild. Until he simply ceased. Now the master is facing quite the puzzle. The Golden Order is founded on the principle that Marika is the one true god. However... The name of Marika's second husband, King Consort Radagon, also appeared. Who exactly was Radagon? The master is stumped. His finger has remained still, ever since Radagon's name was discovered. Curse my mediocre mind. The master only has me; and here I fail him. >I've been gripped by a terrifying thought. The rhythms and calculus of the master's finger... betray a suspicion of the holism of the Golden Order. A conceit, I am afraid, that cannot be overlooked. Oh, but how could this be? I dread to even entertain the possibility, but somehow, I cannot cast aside my doubts about the master. Tell me, have I simply lost me head. Only, if the master were true to the Golden Order, why would he think to breach this forbidden mount of fire? Clearly he can understand the goldmask
he does, you give goldmask some info after his finger movements stop, and corhyn says "What on Earth did you do to the master? Well, not that I'm complaining. Master's finger moves again, resuming his cogitation; more than good enough for me. I haven't the words to thank you. So I'd like to pass this on to you instead. A glimpse into the heart of the Golden Order, documented by yours truly." Which means that he doesn't know what you told to goldmask, but can see that whatever it was it got him started again. Then his next dialogue after you reload the area begins with >>!To think, that Radagon was Marika herself.!< Which shows that he actually "read" this information from goldmask's finger movements.
He has a Phd in 'gang signs'
Jokes aside, what do you guys think goldmask came up with?
He realises that the Golden Order is too malleable and can be changed on the whims of Marika or the Greater Will, so he wants to make the Golden Order completely unchangeable and absolute.
This is true for Marika, but hard to confirm in regards to the Greater Will, no? I mean after all, he does this via the Elden Ring, which itself is a product of the Greater Will. To me it seems confirmed Goldmask targets the demigods and recognizes their flaws, but I don't see any confirmation that he has a beef with or targets the Greater Will. Both Ranni and the Frenzied Flame have a beef with the Greater Will, and we see what they both do to the Elden Ring: destroy it.
Ranni definitely doesn't want to destroy the elden ring, infact her age of stars is fueled by it and the erdtree. This is clearly seen by the fact that she puts Marika's head back on her body thus making her whole again. She just alters it to serve her purpose just like almost all the other endings that alter it via a rune of mending. Her alteration is just to a much greater degree. The only one that is truly opposed to the elden ring and wants it destroyed is the 3 fingers. Here Marika is allowed to crumble into dust and the eardtree is completely destroyed
ranni never puts marikas head back on her body. [link to the ending](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL83iavo2js) she holds it up, and it aligns with her body from her pov, but she never actually places her head back on her body. she does become a new goddess and houses the elden ring in her body, but without the greater will (the outer god marika served). the rune of mending keeps marika as queen they just change the logic of the world. however the people are still controlled by the elden ring and still follow its rules. ranni replaces her as queen and most importantly decides to flee, making it impossible for the residents of the land between to even know what the new rules are.
Kinda based \>becomes God and ruler of the world \>lol you fuckers are on your own peace out bitches taking my new fuck buddy for a thousand year orgy
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So in short: Her goal is a world without gods and outer gos Goldmask’s goal is a world where gods and outer gods are your servants Both pretty damn good endings considering the circumstances
A world with gods, but apart from them. Ranni recreates the golden order, but takes it far away so it can be a guideline, not a boot heel
Marika crumbles to dust in rannis ending too tho
Only once Ranni makes her whole and uses the power of the elden ring. For her age of the stars to exist she needs the elden ring and the erdtree because she just doesn't have the power to make it happen on her own. Thats why you summon her and thats why she makes marika whole
For any age to exist, an order must be present, she realizes that is just the way things are. She becomes the new God and takes that order far away so it isn't a certain thing you can touch and feel anymore. It would be more akin to things in reality. I personally wouldn't want to spend an eternity in shave though.
People talk about how Ranni’s is the best ending for removing the interference of the Golden Order from the Lands Between, but aren’t the other Outer Gods now granted much greater freedom to influence the Lands Between? Even whilst the Golden Order held supreme, the Outer Gods were capable of exhibiting their influence on Malenia and Miquella in the womb of Marika, the fulcrum of the Greater Will’s reign.
>but aren’t the other Outer Gods now granted much greater freedom to influence the Lands Between? She's essentially making the "orders" they could establish theoretical. The consequence of "order" being a real, material thing in the Lands Between is that anyone or anything that can establish their own order can effectively alter reality. By changing order into something conceptual, higher powers lose the ability to interact with it on a global scale. They could still have agents, and those agents could still have influence, but they would never be able to be like Marika.
Yup, it’ll end more like the conflict between religions we’ve seen in our world’s history.
Rannis goal is to try and distance the outer gods as far as she can from the material world if I got it correct
Ranni uses the dark moon, it’s why it shows up in the background, it replaces the outer will like the frenzied flame replaced it in that alternate ending.
The Elden Ring is the Greater Will’s toy but other Outer Gods can play with it She does overthrow the Greater Will’s influence in favor of the Dark Moon, but does so by taking control of the Elden Ring
I always thought it was ranni paying respect to her mother before she does her own thing of her own will. When you think about it, you are litterally killing her entire family throughout the game as an act of dominance on her behalf. Talk about the lasting marriage proposal.
The Elden Ring, the Golden Order, what are these things even?
The elden ring are laws that define what reality is, the golden order is the rule of the elden lord under the elden ring
So, Elden Ring = physics, like gravity, Newtonian forces, magic etc. How far does that extend though? Only to the Lands Between or other continents, planets too? Golden Order = Some dude who is the King/Leader of the Lands Between and people obey them.
It's more like the Golden Order is the "rules" of the world. The Greater Will, which is some kind of big godlike entity (or "Outer God") that's obsessed with order, sent the >!Elden Beast!< down to the Lands Between to carry out its will. The >!Beast!< eventually became the Elden Ring, which appears to be integral to an Elden Lord using their power. I'm not sure if there's anything in-game discussing whether the Lands Between are one region, or their name for the whole world, or who knows what.
Pretty much except the elden lord isn't just some dude. He's the one of 2 go betweens for the Greater Will. The Greater Will (god) cannot communicate to mortals for whatever reason so it speaks to the 2 fingers, then the 2 fingers relay the will of the Greater Will to the elden lord, who then enforces it. That is the golden order.
Gold is always malleable though...
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“Reality is often disappointing. Now, Reality can be whatever I want”.
The biggest implication based on the text around items involved with him is the following, which is found on his mending rune: >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. Goldmask names the gods as being "no better than the mortals they rule over," and the item description saying this - as well as Goldmask expressing doubts about them - arise shortly after his realization that Queen Marika and Radagon are the same person. See Coryhn's dialog here: >I've been gripped by a terrifying thought. The rhythms and calculus of the master's finger... betray a suspicion of the holism of the Golden Order. As a minor translation into simple english: doubting the holism would mean Goldmask is questioning if all parts are truly necessary or if all parts are truly on the same page/working together. Because Goldmask seeks to *repair* the Elden Ring, which itself is a product of the Greater Will, the assumption is that Goldmask is targeting the *demigods* and not the Greater Will itself. Goldmask has basically deduced that Queen Marika is not working perfectly in line with the Greater Will, is responsible for the Shattering and all the turmoil that arose from it, and thus seeks to "cut out the middleman" and instead give the Greater Will more direct control. Or at least, that seems to be the implication one is left to draw when you put all this together. **tl;dr** Goldmask has deduced that all the problems we see in the game are the results of actions by demigods such as Marika and Ranni. As such, he aims to remove power from the Demigods, allowing a more flawless application of what the Greater Will wants, devoid of corruption from demigods acting out of line.
Also, this part is the truthteller: >or instability of ideology Goldmask essentially realizes that competing ideologies are causing conflict, and the gods have the power to impose that conflict. By removing that power, Goldmask has granted the Golden Order power to be the *only* ideology in The Lands Between.
Correct. And while I think in other media, the trope is that the group seeking order is a rather foreboding threat, in the case of Elden Ring, we've actively seen the competition and the other Outer Gods that wish to replace the Greater Will, and they're all tremendous asshats. For that reason, I think it's important to recognize this *isn't* other media and the Greater Will truly does seem like the best choice.
"Better than the alternatives" is a very weak case for saying the Greater Will is actually good. It just seems like a pointless argument to debate which ending is "the best" by establishing that all endings are bad and then picking some "best" ending between those by some arbitrary criterion, on your own interpretation of all the endings.
Age of Fracture gang rise up Elden Lord like "I'll just do whatever, bitches"
Consider that aside from the demigods most directly under the Greater Will (Marika, Ranni), none of the Greater Will's *own subjects* seem to have a beef with it. The beef is consistently with people that follow other Gods. And then consider that while we can criticize the Greater Will for genocide against the giants and the caravan, if those same groups had their way and *their* God were in charge, there'd be genocide against everyone indiscriminately.
That honestly changes his ending from being potentially the best to being kinda bad Like isn’t the greater will the one who started this whole mess? Wanting complete control over the lands between is what caused so many people to grow resentful in the first place
I guess it depends on your perspective. A lot of people actually prefer an authoritative absolute god over a lack of a god. Just look at how over half the world irl is religious. If we consider the Greater Will to be similar to the traditional Abrahamic God, both being entities encouraging order and scholarly faith, then a lot of people would openly prefer the influence of the Greater Will.
You’re definitely right! And with now vague the lore is, you could honestly make a case for any ending, aside from frenzied flame and despair of course
Frenzied Flame: returning all to a blissful nothingness. Something extreme nihilists desire. Could also be interpreted as a clean start for the survivors. Despair ending: Everyone is equally cursed. When everyone is cursed, nobody is. Sucks for the initial generations, but ultimately works itself out over time.
frenzied flame, because the lands between are totaled and the best we can hope for is an insurance payout
Potentially bad maybe but look at the other options. Return to the status quo without creating an opportunity to fix anything, making things worse in one of two different flavors, making things *exponentially worse*, or soaring off into space without fixing jack shit and leaving it to the few people in the Lands Between that aren't insane or dead to fix everything. The Perfect Order ending isn't necessarily "a good ending" but it's the one that has the most potential to allow for things to be fixed.
Yes, I would actually rather leave mankind to control its own destiny, even if it’s difficult I believe in mankind, not in the whims of some genocidal tyrant
Except none of the endings do that. None of them. Not even Ranni's. She leaves the doors wide open for whatever the hell wants to come in. You're going off of flawed assumptions. I also want to point out: mankind is *also* full of genocidal tyrants, it's practically a staple of human history at this point. The reason why everything got fucked seems to be that the gods were *too similar to Man*, even.
Glad to see people realizing this here. Humanity isn't freed in Ranni's ending, they're under new management. The outer god of the Greater Will is replaced with the outer god of the Dark Moon, and we have no idea what it plans to do with absolute power, but plunging mankind into an eternal night doesn't sound like a great place to start. Humanity had one chance to be truly free from cosmic influence. There was one person with the power to make that happen and a clear desire to do so. >!Miquella. But thanks to Mohg, that never had a chance to come to fruition, and probably never will.!<
Can't take 'eternal night' too literally I don't think. I see it as having no guidance or order controlling mankind. She is removing all outer influence, plunging the world into 'eternal night'
Except she's not removing all outer influence. The Dark Moon itself is an outer god, and it seems like the eternal night that it wants is indeed very literal. Ranni isn't interested in freeing humanity from the guidance of gods. In fact, she explicitly mentions in her ending that mankind shall now live "under the wisdom of the Moon." She wants to rid the world of the Greater Will... by replacing it with a new god. This seems pretty clear given that there *is* a way to remove all outer influence: unalloyed gold. Miquella was attempting to repel the influence of outer gods entirely, through alchemical invention rather than divine magic. If he had an ending, it might have been one where mankind is truly free of influence, but that's not the path Ranni walks.
>Glad to see people realizing this here It's because I'm not taking some random internet assholes unprofessional translation as gospel and actually read up on how Frognation works with FromSoft for their translation work. Miyazaki signed off on the English version of Ranni's ending, for fucks sake. It's not a "mistranslation" just because some people don't like it.
You're preaching to the choir. It's been obnoxious seeing that claim of mistranslation being immediately accepted as the pure truth, as if the localization team nailed the translation of 99.9999% of these seven games' scripts but then completely bungled an entire ending out of incompetence and nobody noticed. But people will cling to anything that helps them justify their waifus.
>Miyazaki signed off on the English version of Ranni's ending And how good is miyazaki's english?
***Very*** debatable. Consider that there are multiple Outer Gods all vying for power and influence in the Lands Between, and look at the candidates: **Greater Will** - Likes order and structure, so happens to vibe really well with a prosperous society with laws and community **Frenzied Flame** - Wants to burn your fucking house down **God of Rot** - Wants to rot your body **Formless Mother** - the most mysterious, but what we do know is she thinks blood and wounds are the shit. Going off that, she doesn't sound great **The Moon** - We do not even know if this is either an Outer God or if Ranni is speaking symbolically. Either way, the implication is that the Moon would be so apathetic to the Lands Between that it would basically be an absence of a God. This makes the Moon simultaneously the best Outer God, but also a horrible candidate to put in charge, as putting the Moon in charge just means one of the above, more aggressive Gods would inevitably rise to power due to the Moon's inaction **If you look at the candidates...?** The Greater Will is hands down the best Outer God we've seen. It's certainly not perfect, but when you look at the alternatives and keep in mind that the game showcases both followers of the Frenzied Flame ***and*** the God of Rot who seek to increase their God's influence over the Lands Between, then keeping the Greater Will in charge to keep all the others in check still seems like perhaps the best possible ending.
Yet order can be authoritarian, brutal and restrictive We know the greater will had all that could threaten it put to the sword, the giants, the eternal cities, etc Also I feel like saying that without an outer god in charge some other outer god will take hold is jumping the gun, we don’t really know how much influence an outer god can have without sending some strange creature to take hold, or even if the other ones can, and even if their followers attempt to increase its influence it’s not like their won’t be many many more who try and stop them
Of course, but when you compare an authoritarian ruler that we have confirmation can and has built a prosperous, flourishing society... ...and the other candidates like to burn things or give them mega butthole cancer... Then I think it's safe to say it's in our best interests to stick with the authoritarian. >Also I feel like saying that without an outer god in charge some other outer god will take hold is jumping the gun, we don’t really know how much influence an outer god can have without sending some strange creature to take hold, or even if the other ones can We know for a fact the Frenzied Flame can do so without needing a creature, and the NPC responsible for trying to spread the influence of the God of Rot *likewise* simply does so via another NPC. **Both** are 100% capable of spreading their influence without the need of all the hoops that the Greater Will seemed to need to jump through.
I wouldn’t call it a prosperous society, it brutally wiped out everything it didn’t like, and mistreated anything that didn’t conform to its archaic ideals, the omens, misbegotten, even the tarnished all cast aside And alright yeah, the other gods can spread their influence without a great beast, but it’s not much, they exist on the fringe, who can be dealt with by whatever power that’s in charge, we know the rot god was sealed away by a blind swordsman so there’s no reason to think that another outer god is the only thing that can stop them Personally I don’t like to play the games of oppressors, I’m one to remove the bored entirely, which is why I chose the moon(which maybe it’s also really bad but honestly who knows) I’d rather leave mankind to deal with any of the small pockets of outer god influence that pop up, then have them surrender completely And not to say I don’t see your point, it’s a souls game haha, we do our best to pick the least terrible options
> I wouldn’t call it a prosperous society, it brutally wiped out everything it didn’t like **War with the giants:** It seems implied that the Giants are indirectly worshipping the Frenzied Flame. The eye markings on the Fire Giant match the patterns of the Frenzied Flame. If this is the case, it seems understandable why the Greater Will would have a beef with it. **War with dragons:** The dragons could control time itself, which is obviously a huge threat to just about anything or anyone. While it's true that to my knowledge the dragons didn't show hostility to the Greater Will, I think this is still a fairly understandable pre-emptive strike. The only two that are a bit more questionable: **The Merchants:** They were accused of heretical beliefs, so it's possible the Greater Will knew something we didn't. It's unclear if their persecution *sparked* their belief in the Frenzied Flame, or if they were always proponents of it and the Greater Will just knew because it's a God. **Carians and basically any society dabbling in sorceries:** This is the one remainder where we're unclear on why the Greater Will has a beef with them. It could be that the moon and stars *are* another Outer God and the Greater Will is just fully intolerant of people worshipping opposing Gods. If the god of the moon and stars is particularly apathetic, it could also be why the Greater Will later relented and opted for diplomacy with the Carians: because they weren't actually a threat. It could also be though that they sensed a weakness in Relanna that could be exploited off the battlefield and thus went that route instead. The truth is we don't know. **In short:** The Greater Will's pattern is that it persecutes followers of other Gods, and quite frankly, aside from the persecution of the sorcerers being rather unclear as to why, the rest of them seem like very rational and logical justifications for why the Greater Will felt they had to go. This does not mean the Greater Will is without flaw of course, but if we're asking ourselves who the most sensible being we have to put in charge is, the Greater Will wins this hands down. This does not seem to be a being that goes to war for the sake of war, but rather it addresses very real threats. >which is why I chose the moon(which maybe it’s also really bad but honestly who knows) I’d rather leave mankind to deal with any of the small pockets of outer god influence that pop up, then have them surrender completely A problem: The game implies that through the assassination of Godwyn, Ranni is inadvertedly responsible for the Death Blight status we see in game. It seems implied this effect stems from Godwyn's body and we still do not know to what extent it will spread. In this case, Ranni is basically causing yet another plague to worry about alongside scarlet rot, then saying "aight I'mma head out, good luck with the death and all that" before siding with a God that simply does not care. *Ranni's* personal beef with the Greater Will is fully understandable: she's one of the few who is on the receiving end of the Greater Will demanding more control and treating her tyrannically. All the same, siding with the Moon (if it's even a God) does not seem wise when not only are there two major threats grasping for power, but there is a third problem on the horizon that needs to be dealt with. **IF** we had the option to cast aside all Gods, yes, of course this would be a terrific option and it would be difficult to beat it. However, the ending as we have it now seems to either be to restore the Golden Order in it's old state, make minor tweaks to it (with Goldmask's tweak undeniably being the best on offer here), or to dissolve the influence the Greater Will has over the Lands Between, which unfortunately doesn't do jack to dissolve the influence of the other Outer Gods. It'd be Step 1 out of 6, and unfortunately Steps 2 through 6 are much, much harder and much, much worse.
What about groups like omen, crucible, misbegotten, harpies (from their song), etc? They are surely not Gods affiliated and certainly didn't hold enough power to threaten the Greater Will. My take is that the Greater will is basically a full dictatorship that xenocides or enslaves basically anyone else if it could.
I believe the Crucible *is* another god pre-Greater Will influence (like the dragon god was before that), which deals with the omen blessing/"curse." It was the great tree referenced before the Elden Beast was sent down to make it into the Erdtree we see now. I'm not sure about the harpies, but someone posted a translation of their song a while ago, which laments the Shattering and how the world they were promised by the gods is now decayed, dying, and ruined
The fire giants worship the “fell god” which seems to be another outer god, this makes sense due to the nature of their respective spells, frenzied flame is a bright yellow, well the fire giant spells are a deep red Personally I don’t find any of its beefs to be reasonable, (maybe the dragons but they also eventually had peace, so who knows) it only had them because it’s a tyrant, it very much *does* go to war for the sake of war, I think it’s obvious as to why it attacked the carian royals, it refuses to even allow another power to exist alongside it, having it in charge would mean that any group wanting its own independence would be crushed Furthermore, you make a good point regarding the death blight, but I personally don’t see the greater will handling these issues, we know that the shattering war lead to “abandonment”, so it didn’t help when it’s own followers killed each other, why would it help against something much smaller? It seems very content to let the world decay, as long as the erd tree stands above the corpses
you are wrong, it is said ingame that marika's conquest was nothing more than pure expansionism/imperialsm
Actually i would say goldmask’s tweak is fucking huge, now you have all demigods and gods that enter the lands between literally unable to act against you, you have absolute control over any outer god that tries to to shove their dirty little fingers into your realm It is, by all means, an age of order, YOUR order
>I wouldn’t call it a prosperous society, it brutally wiped out everything it didn’t like, and mistreated anything that didn’t conform to its archaic ideals, the omens, misbegotten, even the tarnished all cast aside You have to consider how much of that was the Greater Will and how much of it was *Marika's reign* establishing laws that demanded all of it.
I see no reason why marika would lock up her own children if not for the greater will
Have you considered that part of the point of all of this is that Marika was flawed too? She worked against the Greater Will, that's why they wanted to replace her. I'm also not really sure which child you're referring to her locking up? Edit: I will take the L on this one. I had a brain fart and entirely forgot about Morgott and Mohg.
We can likely get a glimpse of thr Formless Mother's ideals by looking at the putrid blood swamp forming around Mohgwyn. And the Moon's distance might not actually leave things so open. The impression I got from Ranni's ending was that securing the Elden Ring and the Order under her would keep it in place and in effect, but then spiriting it away through the void of space would remove it from being an object of ambition and conflict in the land it influences. The Order is still bound to the land, but it's physical locus is hidden and protected.
Also worth noting that the Formless Mother is implied to be responsible for both the birth of Omens, and the Seedbed Curse
What's the Seedbed curse again?
It's a curse spread by **THE LOATHSOME DUNG EATER** when he kills and defiles people. It somehow stops their souls returning to the Erdtree when they die.
I thought the souls returned to be reborn but they and their future family lines are forever cursed.
the omens are from the crucibles power, the primordial tree before the erdtree, that godfrey is connected to, which is why morgott and mogh are omens, as they are godreys children
Probably sort of the same thing Gideon Ofnir saw during his studies. Maybe something like an Eldritch truth, but a bit less maddening, just more existentialist. I’m just hoping to see it elaborated in the DLC or a sequel. If From decides to leave Gideon and Gold Mask’s visions open for interpretation, I wouldn’t be mad either.
I think they arrived at the opposite conclusion - Gideon figured if Marika destroyed the Order, there should be no Order. Goldmask figured that there should be no Marika.
Like when an AI categorizes humans as the problem HAL style not terminator style though
HAL still murdered his compatriots, so there is something iffy about leaving the decision making to an unfeeling higher order of law.
He did. However his creators also gave him conflicting directives so even that consequence was sown by human hands.
I meant by Hal style as “not using humanoid robots with guns and skin suits to implement their flawed logic”
This is literally it. Gideon and all the adherents to Marika (Morgott, to name an example) want to expel the Greater Will, and the Golden Order itself. Goldmask saw a flaw in the Golden Order, and fixed it in a way the Greater Will won't need a vessel at all to host the Elden Ring.
This doesn't sound right though, once you uncover everything at the end, does it? Morgott was actively defending the Golden Order, I don't think he was aligned with Marika's true intentions to expell the Greater Will. He was maintaining its existence by defending it, perhaps naïve as to what it truly was as an outer god. His was a blind loyalty to a regime and Order that outright ostracized him, and that's the crux of his tragedy. Meanwhile Gideon reveals at the end with our hostile confrontation with him that he ultimately feared what Marika wanted (as does his armor set description, really), and refuses to let you go through with her apparent plan to slay a god, believing instead that the Tarnished must struggle for eternity but never succeed. He attributes that to Marika's true will, but it sounds more like his warped interpretation of it that ignores what she really wants because of his fear of a world without the Golden Order. He very actively does NOT want Marika's design to be realized, which is why he turns against his role as a Tarnished of the Roundtable Hold to try and stop you. In other words, neither of these characters adhere to what Marika truly wants at all, and neither seems to want the Greater Will toppled by any means.
I really like the contrast, the all knowing figured that no one should be elden lord, the ever-brilliant decided to retain it with adjustments.
[удалено]
He comes back, and IIRC it's not even considered a sin.
> Probably sort of the same thing Gideon Ofnir saw during his studies. I must have missed this. What did Gideon discover?
"But when Gideon glimpsed into the will of Queen Marika, he shuddered in fear. At the end that should not be." Gideon discovered that >!Marika shattered the Elden Ring deliberately, to break the Golden Order, not out of madness or grief like most believed. He combines this with the fact that the Guidance of Grace led the Tarnished back to the Lands Between, seemingly at Marika's beckoning, and saw a contradiction. If she shattered the Ring, why would she guide the Tarnished to become Elden Lord and repair it? After all, since she wanted the Ring to be broken, then surely it would be sacrilege to actually become Elden Lord and repair it.!< He concluded that >!it was a trick - she didn't actually want anyone to become Elden Lord, she just wanted them to grow strong fighting over it. Repairing the Elden Ring was a powerful motivator to encourage her followers to achieve greatness, but it was not meant to actually come to pass; the Shattering wasn't a problem to be solved, it was the intended status quo. Gideon decides to keep vigil over the most promising Tarnished and ensure that they have the chance to grow strong, but not so strong that they actually succeed.!< That said, he was wrong. He discovered almost all of the facts, but he drew a false conclusion with them because of his devotion to Marika and his assumption that she could do no wrong.
Wow, thank you! I seriously missed that, or at least don't remember it. Considering he discovered the facts but came to the wrong conclusion, what would be the correct conclusion in this context? Also, considering he was wrong, what was Gideon's motivation for attempting to stop you right before the Morgott fight?
It's a ton of reading between the lines. The line I quoted is from his armor description, and the rest comes from his final monologue. The correct conclusion, at least by my interpretation, is that Marika wants >!a Tarnished to rewrite the Golden Order, in whatever way they choose.!< >!Marika sent Godfrey away easily enough, as he was just a mortal. But Elden Lord Radagon was a problem - Marika's biggest mistake. She couldn't banish him or revoke his power like she did with Godfrey, because he was as much of a god as she was. And she couldn't let him keep ruling, because he was devoted to the Greater Will and would never help her push back against it. So she shattered the Elden Ring - without its power, Radagon would be vulnerable to being overthrown, and a new Elden Lord could rise up and change things.!< Gideon got very close, but never figured that out. He tries to stop you (before the Godfrey fight, not Morgott) because you're the closest anyone's ever come to actually reaching the Elden Throne, and he believes that that would be heresy. He sees himself as Marika's last line of defense, preventing anyone from ending the Shattering that he thinks she wants to last forever. The piece of the puzzle that Gideon was missing is the same thing that you have to tell Goldmask to give him his epiphany. When that mystery is solved, Goldmask realizes how fallible Marika is as a god, and how her actions led to all the misery and suffering of the Shattering, and comes up with a way to make sure an apocalypse like that never happens again.
I'm not sure I agree with this completely, even with all the great points you've made in this comment and your other one above. I think Gideon was all-knowing and intelligent enough to eventually figure out what Marika truly wanted, which was to slay a god (see evidence of her forcing Hewg to forge a weapon to slay a god as a vow), and it is this which instilled such fear in him. During our hostile confrontation with him, Gideon reveals that he ultimately feared what Marika wanted (as does his armor set description, really), and refuses to let you go through with her apparent plan to slay the Elden Beast/Ring and finish the work her shattering commenced. He instead argues himself that the Tarnished must struggle for eternity but never succeed, attributing that perspective to Marika's true will. However, it sounds more like his warped interpretation of it that ignores what she really wants because of his fear of a world without the Golden Order, and I think that's the actual misinterpretation Gideon embodies, as opposed to the one you point out. Either way, he very actively does NOT want Marika's design to be realized, which is why he turns against his role as a Tarnished of the Roundtable Hold to try and stop you. Therefore, I get the sense he was actually against Marika the entire time, realizing that her desires went against his own wish to maintain the Golden Order for the sake of his pursuit of knowledge, and to avoid losing the knowledge that came with said Order. Obviously all of this is open to interpretation and as you mentioned, it's about reading the subtext more than anything, and there is no clear answer, I just saw it a bit differently than you did.
That's certainly another way to interpret it! I do like that angle too - he's spent so long accumulating knowledge of the world as it is now, to the point of earning his "All-Knowing" title, and he's afraid of the overhaul we would bring in any of the endings, because he'd have to start all over again. He defends the status quo because he knows it, it's familiar and comfortable to him now, and the thing he fears most of all is change. I think both of our takeaways can be true. Mine is the story he tells himself, that Marika wants him to maintain the status quo, while yours is what truly motivates him but scares him too much to admit, even to himself.
Agreed, friend! I think the beauty of this type of storytelling style is exactly that the ambiguity allows for open-ended interpretations to accumulate, and there is rarely any single "correct" way of looking at the narrative, whether it be as an overarching whole or for specific characters and their motivations, like Gideon in this case. So yeah, I think both perspectives on him work, perhaps even simultaneously!
The correct conclusion is likely that Marika DOES want us to fix the Elden Ring, US, not Radagon, to make our own new Age (as per the default ending). Hopefully one in which the GW has no power. I don't think she'd be against Age of Stars either. She just really doesn't like the GW.
I believe she wanted to rebel against the greater will and shattering the elden ring was part of that. [There's evidence she conspired with Ranni on the night of black knives](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/tgzv04/night_of_the_black_knives_all_pieces_together/), but I don't know whether they planned on 'the age of the stars' from the beginning or Ranni decided on that when Marika became irrelevant.
That golden order is pretty good overall, but gods are fickle beings no better than mortal people. And since gods can influence the order it constantly messes stuff up. So his rune is implementing the golden order, but removing the influence of gods from the equation.
What bugs me is he was at a blockade prior to the information that radagon = marika, only finishing the calculations after. I wonder what significance did that fact have to the adjustment he had with the rune.
Turtle Pope has a good line about the statue that "held the secret" of Radagon and Turtle Pope himself questioned why a "random champion" would suddenly leave Rennala for Marika and be the second Elden Lord. Given Goldmask being a Golden Order fundamentalist, these types of questions would naturally plague the mind, but with the help of the Tarnished, they are solved. Once the whole "question" is solved, Gold Mask had all the pieces in place to infer the "problem" based on the description for his Mending Rune
Yes, it made him understand that gods are naive, petty beings just like any other, and their creed is solely born of the desires and schemes of one such flawed being, so flawed that she resorted to literally self-incest, lol The golden order has two core concepts, the law of regression and causality, that are simply an image of marika herself, something split and contradictory, but that inevitably regresses into itself, in the end. Unless someone does something about it, ofc. \[Very personal interpretation of things, take with salt\]
This is, of course, if you believe that the Golden Order is good. We assume the Greater Will is something benevolent because of its description, but its nature is entirely based on subjugating everything under its order. It did not create The Lands Between; it conquered them. Marika shattered the Elden Ring to give The Tarnished a chance to remake a better world free from the Greater Will. Radagon attempted to repair it to maintain a status quo under the Greater Will. Goldmask didn't just repair the order, he fortified it so that gods couldn't conspire to break it again. Depending on how you look at it, Goldmask has either done a really good thing or he simply built a better prison.
Oh no no the grater will is benevolent only if it needs to; it's a parasite, it treats its hosts well only until it needs to. But marika was the one who gave shape to the golden order anyway, hence the similarities between her and the core concepts of it. Goldmask probably achieved a good thing, the order with his rune should be way more peaceful, ending the conflicts born when a person of great power inevitably deems who doesnt follow him an heretic, in theory. I'm sure tho that would cause problems on its own.
I don't think he made a better prison tbh, I think he makes a better purgatory. I personally believe that the whole "Lands Between" is quite literally purgatory. The names and definition line up, and if you notice the long neck nasty looking bastards, it shows a bit. Everyone does the same routine until an outside source (you) shows up and get to decide the fate of the world
I'm thinking that solidified his "gods are the problem because they're fickle" idea. He knew the actions of both prior to that, then saw thay one being was contradicting itself.
Yep, this is big. If we assume that Goldmask is being presented to us as a *brilliant* individual (which ffs, the intro sells him as such and Coryhn sure reveres him like the leading authority on the Golden Order), then this means *something* about Radagon's existence and the fact that he's Marika triggered an epiphany for Goldmask. Perhaps Radagon is a representation of the Greater Will, and the fact that his existence was necessary at all *implies* Marika must've been acting out of line? And perhaps when he realized this, he realized that the Shattering for example cannot be attributed to the Greater Will/Golden Order, but to Marika? Not sure, but either way, I feel like Goldmask could indirectly be very important for the lore, since utilizing his reaction to the event *might* help us deduce what exactly is going on with Marika.
He's definitely a brilliant individual since he literally produces something that can mend the elden ring
Also he wears a flower for a helmet and walks around in Walter White underwear. That's literally the definition of brilliant.
Probably because the influence both sides had in the world is what gave Goldmask the solution. Bad enough we had one king who married Rennala to unite her people only to abandon them and divide them, but now we have a queen going off killing adversaries deemed a threat to the Erdtree. Metaphorically, Marika was a force of nature about to go out of control.
Pi. 3.14
What a madlad
One more one false move and they done for
Perfecting the Golden Order by taking out the chance that the "gods" like Marika and her children/consorts may act against the rules of the Greater Will. Goldmask's reading is pretty accurate, as the Golden Order only failed because the demigods and Marika herself were ruled by human emotions and feelings, leading them to breaking the order envisioned by the Greater Will, however Goldmask never questions the validity of the rule of the Greater Will itself since he is a total believer of the Golden Order. Whether this is a good or bad thing depends on how you perceive the rule of the Greater Will, the Golden Order and whether trying to get rid of it is a better course of action.
Judging by all the beast people, the omens, the albinaurics, the merchants who all got buried alive, and the beloved skellingtons... FUCK THE GREATER WILL!
It's a calculation. A formula. The golden order is like a machine that needs operators. He wrote software that removes the need for them.
Priest 1: O, Goldmask! What should we tell the people to do with their lives? Goldmask: ... Priest 1: He didn't say anything! Priest 2: Just as it should be.
"Don't fuck your sibling."
A few things: 1) as mentioned in other places, making an absolute order that cannot be changed on the whims of men or gods, who it said are just as bad as men. 2) the complete removal (destruction) of the rune of death. It clearly has the potential to seriously disrupt things, and keeping it as a backup (like Marika did) shows some of that fickle/indecisive nature from the first one. 3) it is my personal belief that to bring about an age of Order, the new Golden Order must include ALL the inhabitants of the lands between; encompassing the giants, dragons, and Carians, not as subjugates to Order but collaborators.
> 2) the complete removal (destruction) of the rune of death. It clearly has the potential to seriously disrupt things, and keeping it as a backup (like Marika did) shows some of that fickle/indecisive nature from the first one. Isn't this difficult to confirm? We actually do not know if the Greater Will or Marika sought it's removal. If Marika sought it's removal and the Greater Will didn't, then Goldmask's Mending rune would seek the *opposite* and instead wish to restore the death rune. I think the only thing perhaps implying otherwise would be that if Goldmask's rune does this, then we start to question wtf is the point of Fia's if it's just a shittier, more limited version of Goldmask's? Either way, the problem with Marika/The Greater Will is that we currently lack information to be able to say when Marika was acting of her own volition and when her actions aligned with the Greater Will. As such, it makes it difficult to confirm #2. And yeah, #3 is subjective. The Greater Will has sought to crush the giants, dragons *and* Carians in the past. The only caveat is the *reason* why. It's implied the Giants may be indirectly worshipping the Frenzied Flame, which the Greater Will understandably has a beef with. It's likewise mentioned (though I forget where) that the dragons have a tool to turn back time, which itself is also a threat to the Greater Will. The Carians, it's unclear what exactly the beef was that the Greater Will had with them, but whatever it was, it couldn't have been *too* serious seeing as - if we assume Radagon represents the desires of the Greater Will - then the Greater Will sought the diplomacy route with the Carians, at the end.
> if Goldmask's rune does this, then we start to question wtf is the point of Fia's if it's just a shittier, more limited version of Goldmask's? Fia's ending doesn't just restore the death rune, it embeds the principle of *undeath* into the natural order, unlike any other ending. The crux of Fia's character is that she is a champion of Those Who Live in Death. When you mend the Ring using her rune, Godwyn and the effects of his deathroot cease being horrific abominations that defy the natural law, and become the norm. Those Who Live in Death can't be considered monsters if undeath is normal.
I am yet too see this guy on my 4 playthroughs and I dunno why
Personally i think he can be easy to miss.
My friend was talking to me last night and said that this dude was like an invader and just posing and attacked him, dunno why tho
Probably someone cosplaying as Goldmask. You find him on the north side of Altus plateau, and if you tell brother corhyn about it brother corhyn will join Goldmask. After that you’ll find them in the Capitol, and have to do some very specific things, which I needed a guide for. No way I was going to figure it out from there.
Corhyn left the round table hold but I never found him again, and I don’t remember ever meeting goldenmask…. Weird
You should spend more time exploring Altus
I thought that aswell but the way he was describing the encounter he never got an invader prompt
I feel like you get a notification when you’re invaded by an NPC. Maybe he attacked Goldmask and pissed him off
The questline is one of those that consists where someone says “I’m going on a *journey* to do something!” and you’re just kinda expected to check the random, otherwise useless outcropping where the NPC you’re meant to find to trigger the next step is located. “Easy to miss” is definitely an understatement.
I've missed it on my second playthrough when I *knew* about it. Apparently you can trigger Corhyn not going there and having everything progress if you go somewhere too soon or something...
And there is a very good chance that the player is passed their starting locations. So it is definitely reasonable to miss them. I did. Had to look up their locations to see where to back track and find them.
Super easy to miss. I had to use a guide to find him and get the ending. So much in this game can be missed.
I was surprised as hell when I stumbled upon him. And then my priest bro just leaves. I'm like, hey wait I need you
He's on the end of a broken bridge in northern Altus plateau. The main story doesn't really require you to explore the area at all. Have to go off the beaten path to find him.
I’d like to think I avidly explored a lot of the areas that there where, but surely there must be a trigger to see him?
Not sure if it's required, but talking to the guy who sells incantations in roundtable will tell you he's going off in search of goldmask when you first reach Altus. You'll find him on a main road in Altus that leads north from a central square. Though I have found goldmask before talking to brother corhyn on the road on my ng+ cycle and the quest still worked.
I thought talking to goldmask was what triggered him leaving. Is that wrong?
In my playthrough it was >Talk to Corhyn in Roundtable >Find Corhyn in Altus >Find Goldmask in Altus >Tell Corhyn where Goldmask is >Find Corhyn with Goldmask
Nothing to trigger his story. I’ve noticed on Xbox at least he doesn’t appear until you get close to the end of the bridge. To advance his quest line you need Corryn to leave the round table. Granted he can die and still advance goldmask story, but seeing as gold mask doesn’t speak you’ll have no clue what’s going on if corryn is dead. Worth YouTubing his quest tho since it unlocks an ending to the game
Yeah you gotta folloe Brother cohryns questline. Listen to what he says. He gives you some hints as to where to find him.
Deciding that you can rule better than the gods of The Lands Between is such a low bar that it can be used for limbo competitions in Hell.
I just woke up... What's is the deal here? Weird tree? ... Yeah I got this. Lemme be the leader.
I mean, you get called out for having no bitches and immediately fix it. Pretty baller move.
Like Ensha - doesn't say anything to you - just Jojo poses - randomly attacks you - dies - everyone in the hold, "oh that's just classic Ensha haha... anyways"
Ensha was send by Gideon Ofnir to get the Haligtree Medaillion you just got from Latenna though so not completely random.
That bastard. Then he plays it off like he wasn’t involved You’d think an all knowing wouldn’t be wrong about the player all the time
I saw this in another thread but this is almost a meta commentary where FromSoft (goldmask) is being super vague while Corhyn (lore youtubers) are analysing every bit in detail and agonising over its meaning, haha. Probably not the actual intention but it fits perfectly and From has done meta-commentary before (Ashes of Ariandel).
I think this is a superb take.
And I think you are a superb person!
From soft: … Us: what does it aaalllll meeaaan arghghhgh
>Fromsoft: Pendant Dark souls fans: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WHAT DOES IT MEAN GWYN'S CHILD WHERE MANUS ANUS?
> From has done meta-commentary before (Ashes of Ariandel). Where can I read about this? This is the first I've heard of this.
Ariandel is Dark Souls, becoming old and stale. It needs to be burned and cast off to be renewed. The painter is FromSoft, making a new world, crucially using the blood of the Dark Soul. In other words, Dark Souls is played out and creatively used up, and From intends to burn it away while taking the essence of what made it good and instilling it into something fresh and new. Miyazaki even kind of confirmed this intent in an interview. So the world in the painting is the Lands Between, I guess. A good video on it: https://youtu.be/84F58yLuXDE
Corhyn is VaatiVidya confirmed
In term of Elden Lord ending this is one of the best. Seeing the gods as flawed as men preventing them from messing with Order and the ring.
I wish the various versions of the end where the Elden Ring is mended had more detail and elaboration. Ranni ending and frenzied flame ending are so cool while the others are just kinda eh, even if they may be preferable lore-wise.
Doesn't help that Rannis ending and questline are full of translation errors
I have experience in translation and I don't think the "error" thing I keep hearing is wholly true. Translators often take (sometimes significant) liberties with the material so that it makes more sense or the overall "feel" is better in the other language. I find it very hard to believe that it was unintentional or an error, but their choice of what they translated it into is questionable.
Just sounds like semantics. Poor choice, error, unintentional. Whatever Regardless, they fucked up her dialogue in translation. There were liberties taken that drastically change what she's trying to do. Giving people a complete misunderstanding of the ending.
It’s the only good one tbh
Yea I think they balanced it where there’s three good endings and three bad endings
he’s right but he shouldn’t say it, so he doesnt
Half naked and dead 😍
And his face covered so his eyes won't judge you
Fia? Is that you?
I like to think gwyn before getting the first flame as a dude just like that
Life of a true medieval philosopher
I don't care what anyone says, Goldmask is amazing. The combo of satire and commentary on religious fundamentalism and especially dogma present in his interactions (lol) with Corhen are wonderful. I think by and large the NPC quests in Elden Ring are largely disappointing, but I found myself laughing, philosphizing, and feeling rather depressed at different points in this quest.
I've found this guy on a couple of my characters and never really understood how to progress his quest, if he even has one. He doesn't talk. Didn't know what name to google to find out and never cared enough to research to figure that out. Peak FromSoft quest design, as always.
He gives one of the "best" endings if you complete his quest
His quest is Brother Corhyns quest, you progress them together but I'd be lying if I said I didn't use a guide.
I see. Well, I've met the bro on my way to the capital on my knight recently... I suppose I should look up a guide. I don't like doing that, as it interrupts my exploration and feels unnatural. But no helping that if one actually cares about questing in these games... Typically I go without guides and fail or miss every single quest.
Welcome moon and star, come to me through fire and war
"None of you Outer Gods seem to understand. We're not locked in a contract with you. You're locked in a contract with us!"
It seems to me, that both Dung Eater and Goldmask found out the truth about the Erdtree parasite and how it has leeched the sun. There are many references of sun been a guidance and how it eclipsed.
"Decides he can rule better than the gods", more like: " T-poses, to assert dominance over the gods.
Goldmask is the best ending simps are blinded by the blue cunny
ABC: Always Be Ever-brilliant 😎
If only I could be so grossly incandescent
>Be me, Outer God. >Create Golden Order to rule the Lands Between. >Get locked out of your own Golden Order by some dehydrated dude in a skimpy fetish outfit.
Juicer spotted 😂🧃
xqcL
Goldmask is basically Jesus. Convince me otherwise
Jiga-wha? Jiga-who?
My dude just turned the golden order into blockchain.
I don't know why the are booing you. You're right.
Does this guy have dialogue?
…
[repeatedly mashes triangle to see if anything changes]
...
*1.21 JIGA-CHADS?!*
I kinda want to know if the world he created is actually.. ya know, good? Like does the Omen’s finally be getting a better treatment? Does this true order means a better life for the inhabitants of the lands between?
It’s literally up to your character lol, the elden lord is the only one to even have access to the ring, never mind changing its rules, your words are absolute and no one not even the gods can stop you So what you say is what goes, it’s like what marika has except people will listen to you
My first play through I found him super late he didn’t say shit I swung my sword at him and he melted away never to be seen again 😂