If you are like me, then you grew up Roman Catholic. That meant going through the whole shebang: first confessions, altar serving, and learning the catechism. If you are also like me, then that meant that, that whole thing was boring. And so, when I was growing up in the 90s within the Church, I did what anyone else would have done: I picked up the nearest bible and read The Book of Revelation or, as it is also known, The Apocalypse of St. John.
The Apocalypse of St. John is an undeniable fever dream. Images flood past the narrator in impressionistic ways: a speared lamb upon a throne leading the heavenly host, a woman dripping with pearls and diamonds, another woman clothed in the vestment of the sun. In it, Angels deliver letters to the churches of Asia Minor, then the bastion of the Ancient Christian world, detailing their shortcomings. The Red Star Wormwood, falls from the sky and poisons the waters. The Twin Beasts arise from both the Earth and the unfathomable Abyss of the Cosmos. Plagues that create boils upon the skin and other such terrors fall upon those who yet refuse to repent. The dead rise from their graves from both crypts and the sea at the Angel’s clarion call. The Left Behind from the Rapture struggle to find a sort of grace, atonement, in the face of the horrors they are left with. The world burns and dies in a crucible of terror and pestilence before it is renewed and reborn, pure and free of the oppressive Empires that held the world in its grasp.
The Apocalypse has long since been a source of fascination and inspiration for FromSoftware. The ‘end’ and the judgment that this entails has been a cornerstone in a fair few of their past entries. Using ‘The End’ as a springboard, Dark Souls meditates on the nature of reality, of time, and the consequences of the First Sin that prevented life; with The Ringed City, playing a pivotal and bookended role with Oolacile. The player-character is guided through the Ringed City, in their descent into the Underworld, by Abbaddon themself — much like how John is guided by Angels to watch the world’s destruction and resurrection. FromSoftware’s Elden Ring, like Dark Souls, is likewise fascinated by Armageddon.
LETTERS:
Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea. (Rev 1:11)
In 96 CE, a man that we come to know as John the Elder began to write on the Island of Patmos. Evidence points to two different reasons why John the Elder was on Patmos to begin with. One reason may have been that he was a Pastor, making progress across Greece and Asia Minor spreading the gospel, and Patmos may have simply been another stop. Another possible reason given for being on the Island of Patmos is his own exile for being a Christian. To be Christian in the Roman Empire, it was almost akin to taking your life into your hands. The excesses of Nero still lingered in the collective consciousness and the First Revolt, having occurred in 66–70 CE devastated Jerusalem. Being Christian and not worshiping the proscribed Roman religions of the time, was abhorrent to the status quo and quite a few lost their lives as a result. (“Book Of Revelation | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE”)
In fact, Revelation may have been written to galvanize the Christian faiths of Ephesus and Asia Minor to withstand societal pressures despite, and because of, trauma the nascent Christian Community withstood during the era. Past Roman Emperors Nero, Vespirian, and Titus spent much of their collective reign attacking those of the faith. Ephesus, which is where people believed John the Elder is from, held a large Christian Community. Domitian, the current Emperor of the time, installed a Temple devoted to his Dynasty there. Revelation, then, was in part a call to the Christians of Ephesus to not partake in the cult, even at risk to themselves. (“Book Of Revelation | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE”)
Even at risk of their own lives. (“Book Of Revelation | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE”)
In the heavily coded and symbolic Revelation, Domitian himself is a character. He and the Roman soldiers that occupied Ephesus, were also agents of the Black Dragon, Satan. (“Book Of Revelation | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE”)
Elden Ring evokes Revelation and its time-period in a fair few ways from its architecture to its world building. Caria, one of the major Royal Houses in Elden Ring, was also a major city in the Christian world. Caria was located just south of the Lampstands named in Revelation: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. The location for Caria fits as a city in the Shadow of the Lampstands — but Caria is chosen for another reason as well: because it is the name of a butterfly. (“Book Of Revelation | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE”; “Going Deeper: Butterflies and Easter”)
Butterflies in Catholicism function as a very specific symbol of the Death and Rebirth of Christ, with the life-cycle of the butterfly mirroring that of Christ himself. What better way to hint at the influence of Revelation on Elden Ring and also to hint at one of its major themes than to choose a city in the Shadow of the End that also speaks to the cycle of death and rebirth? (“Going Deeper: Butterflies and Easter”)
BROKEN SEALS:
“It is said that when Oracle Envoys appear, playing their pipes, they do so to herald the arrival of a new god, or a new age.” (Oracle Envoy Ashes)
Earth would be ignorant of Heaven if it were not for Heaven’s messengers, The Angels. In Abrahamic Religions, they fill many roles as messengers, as mediators, as heralds of Judgment Day. For the recently dead, in Islamic cosmology, the twins Munkar and Nakir question the soul, and the answers to these questions will dictate how the soul will spend their time waiting for resurrection and Judgment (“Munkar and Nakir”) (Zarka). In the Talmud, Metatron gives form to the word of God so that human-kind can comprehend it. (Zarka)
Christian Angelology is a long and complicated cosmology. Medieval philosophers such as Dionysus and St. Thomas Aquinas attempted to find order in that which is a total mystery. Spheres of Angels were reasoned depending on closeness to the Lord and to the unknowable: Seraphim with their wings and Thrones created out of burning wheels and eyes were two of the closest to the Lord. While those furthest away comprised angels like Principalities, Archangels, and Angels — guardians all and, the most hands-on with humanity. (“Christian angelology”)
Stories of Angels have been part of Abharahamic Religions since the very beginning, and even from before that. Celestial beings we would call angels, are echoed in older cosmologies like Egyptian and Zoroastrianism.
In the Book of Revelation, Angels herald Final Judgment.
“And I saw the seven angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets.” (Rev 8:2 KJV)
Seven Angels. Seven Horns. Seven Woes are announced, one after another. With the first, fire and blood rained down upon the earth, destroying forests and flora. Another trumpet sounds and a meteor, a great mountain, falls into the sea turning the sea blood. Another trumpet foretells the arrival of the star Wormwood to poison the waters. Each of these woes are terrible in their own way and yet, there were even more.
“Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!” (Rev 8:13 KJV)
The trumpets continue to ring out across the earth and more horrors are let loose until the seventh angel sounds his horn, proclaiming the Kingdom of Heaven and the Dead to stand in Judgment.
In Elden Ring the Angels sound their trumpets heralding the beginning of the End. Envoys, a “monstrous band of musicians who employ sacred arts (Envoy Ashes)” are found sounding horns of various sizes, their only instrument. The sound of their horn reaches so far, in fact, that their horns can be heard in the Limgrave Ambient Soundtrack. Even though the Envoys aren’t seen until one reaches either Leyndell or the Haligtree late in the game — places of vital importance not just to the game, but to the protagonist you play.
The horns of the Envoys suggest to us that the Envoy aren’t human; their horns are silent in our hands. Though, it further tells us that perhaps that assumption is wrong that it’s simply not time for it to make a sound. Everything “…there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven (Ecclesiastes 3:1)”
Wrapped in cloth, the Envoy is a strange vision of an angel. It is round, much like a ball or a cloud puff and has only its two arms to hold its horn. Like many things in Elden Ring, its eyes are occluded. Bloodless, and strangely limbed, it has more in common with the stranger entities of Revelation than that of the guardian angel and cherub of modern pop art. Where its hair would be is also round and covered in cloth, with the Crown hinting at something sinister beneath its wrappings. Only Lusat’s Glintstone crown provides any clue as to what may be beneath its wrappings. And yet, at the most important places of the game — the Envoy sounds their trumpets announcing the arrival of Judgment — for the Shardbarers, for the Erdtree, for Marika and Radagon of the Golden Order — in the form of Destined Death.
Only when the final Seal of Elden Ring is broken, the burning of the Erdtree, is there “silence in heaven for the space of half an hour.” (Rev 8:1 KJV)
MARTYRS:
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. (Rev 1:18)
Woe after woe falls upon man, the Lands Between are stuck between Life and Death and are unable to move due to the Divine Stalemate between its Royal Rebis. Through it all, moves are made and while many of the peoples of the Lands Between seek Grace, Absolution, and finally Death — their prayers falling on largely deaf ears — there are those who position themselves as messiah and savior. Their individual ambitions to bring about their ‘Kingdoms of Heaven’ only serve to stymie themselves and the other hopeful Empyreans. Their dreams for a new world remain only that — a dream.
Two of these competing Christ-like figures in Elden Ring stand head and shoulders amongst the rest: Godwyn, the Martyred and Miquella, the Unalloyed. Each of these demigods stepped forward to try to bring about their new worlds and each one was destroyed in the process, becoming a hollow shell or a creature stuck in chrysalis.
Godwyn:
“Oh, Lord Godwyn… Such cruelty, such humiliation… My poor sweet Lordling, should have died a true death. As the first of the demigods to die. As a martyr to Destined Death. But why must it yet bring such disgrace? A scion of the golden bough, sentenced to live in Death. How could such a thing come to be?” (Finger Reader Crone, Deeproot Depths)
Godwyn is an interesting figure in Elden Ring. The Prince who was sacrificed in what is reminiscent of the Passion of the Christ. Sent to be a martyr to Destined Death, the first of the demigods to die, for the sins of the Lands Between. For the sins of the Golden Order. For the sins of Queen Marika herself. Godwyn was to be the lordling who “gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, (Galatians 1:4).”
And yet, this goes sideways.
Ranni, for her own ends and her own ambitions, enters the picture and steals half of the hollowbrand. She forges herself as a spiritual twin to Godwyn, while Godwyn becomes a soulless creature in a still living body. Godwyn becomes locked between the transition between life and death, unable to be one or the other because of Ranni’s actions which have also rendered her bodiless and simply a soul. Without his completed hollowbrand, according to Fia, Godwyn could not be reborn to take his position as the Lord and Messiah of those likewise trapped between living and death.
She, like Mother Mary conceives a Rune, as our Tarnished cut the Gordian Knot of Godwyn’s spiritual stalemate. In the End, the Mending Rune births a new people to the land, the Duskborn.
FIA:
“And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” (rev 17:5)
A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. (Rev 12:1–2)
Perception colors the view of Fia depending on dogma and ideology a character follows in Elden Ring. The game does not seek to give answers on whether she is one figure or another from the Book of Revelation. The Hunter of Those Who Live in Death, D., believe that she is a whore and for them, she would map easily to the Whore of Babylon. D’s triumph at killing her towards the conclusion of the quest, speaks to his ideological fanaticism and inability to see the whole picture other than one colored by the Golden Order.
Of course, Fia herself sees herself as something quite different. She is a deathbed companion, one who lay with Champions as they pass on. Fia is the Mother of a New Age, the Mother of the rebirth of Godwyn, the Lord of those who Live in Death so that he may finally complete his ascension to become the Messiah of those who are neither alive or dead. For Fia, she believes herself the ‘woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head’ (Rev 12:1).
In Revelation, the woman was to birth a savior, a Male Child, who was simultaneously stalked by the great Red Dragon who wished for nothing but to devour her child the moment of its birth. The Red Dragon, for Fia, is her own personal devil — the Hunter of those who Live in Death, D. However, it is us who snatches up the Rune keeping it away from the increasingly unstable Hunter.
Elden Ring makes no attempt to declare that Fia maps to one or the other figure of Revelation. The Tarnished will have to make that decision themselves.
MIQUELLA:
Miquella’s arc is both similar in that he is positioned as a Christ figure and the inverse to Godwyn, in that Miquella chooses it for himself. While Godwyn is asked to become a martyr, Miquella volunteers himself to enter Chrysalis. The Visionary, Miquella’s ambition is to supplant the Erdtree’s rule with his own and established Elphael in part, to brace the Haligtree until its maturity. The name, ‘Elphael’, means “God’s Work” and “A Miracle from God.” Here, and within his Haligtree, Miquella sought to establish a haven for the demi-humans, the misbegotten, the albinaurics, and others of which the Golden Order sought to dehumanize and exploit due to the caste systems that so ruled those who worked beneath the Golden Order, like Kenneth Haight.
The Haligtree, beneath Miquella’s Hand became a sort of Promised Land for those downtrodden in the Lands Between. For the Albinaurics, who have known nothing but struggle and experimentation, the hope of the Haligtree was something they were willing to die to protect. For this dream of a better life, despite being created themselves, the albinaurics suffered every indignity beneath the Golden Order.
These people, who were deemed others by the Golden Order, were apostles to Miquella and his Haligtree. With how the Golden Order treated others and treated ‘competitors’ to their order — like the Fire Giants — it is no wonder the sheer amount of security Miquella went through to hide the Haligtree’s location.
Like the symbol of the Butterfly in Catholicism, Miquella entered his other half — Trina — in Chrysalis, in the hopes of being reborn anew. Unfortunately, the ardor that Miquella inspired and manipulated in his followers would also be his undoing. His vision of the Order that Miquella wished to establish would be ripped apart; unable to fully come to fruition.
For others who coveted Miquella, his rune, and his power, the Haligtree was nothing but something that sat in the way. For these people, Miquella was no Messiah; he was simply a tool.
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits[a] of God sent out into all the earth. (Rev 5:6)
“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!” (Rev: 5:12)
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!” (Rev 5:13)
DIES IRAE
Then Longinus, a certain soldier, taking a spear, pierced his side, and presently there came forth blood and water. (Nicodemus 7:8)
“Come and See.”
By the time Elden Ring begins, the seals of the book have already been broken. The beginning of the end began so far back as it might not have been recognized as such so long ago. The first of those seals being Godfrey’s ascension, emblematic of the Lion Serosh.
“Come and See.”
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have long since been let loose upon the Lands Between. The Red Horse, symbolic of War and of the Splintering of Empire was made manifest in the Shattering. Its specter spread across the land and did not just shatter families and alliances but also the land itself. With this shattering, comes famine and justice is deferred. Hunger is shown in the gaunt and drawn figures of the aristocrats who meander, lost, through the Lands Between.
“Come and See.”
“And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:” (Rev 6:9) and what was found hidden beneath a veneer of holiness in Leyndell? The massacre and the burial of nearly an entire people. Afraid of the “maddening disease that followed them (Nomad Ashes).” Afraid of the terrible gospel and corrupted light of the Three Fingers, the Capital buried and entombed them. This terrible sin, perpetrated in part by fear, is one of the biggest revelations the Tarnished uncover in the game leading directly to one of the endings of Elden Ring.
“And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind. (Rev 6:13)” Radahn, the Starscourge and Man who fashioned himself as Gravity itself, is defeated and the stars themselves are released from his grasp. Previously, Radahn arrested the stars and prevented them from continuing along their clockwork movement in the cosmos and in so doing, prevented time and fate from finding purchase. In Elden Ring, when they are granted freedom, this triggers a meteor shower. Meteors and Burning Stars falling to the Lands Between have brought with them entities and woes: the Elden Beast, the Rot, the Blood Star, and more but this itself is also fate and destiny at work. Suddenly, much of the fate of the Lands Between fell to our feet at once, showing us, the Tarnished, the way forward to another of the Woe’s suddenly unleashed: a World Robbed of the Night-Sky and an entity from the Abyssal Void locked deep within.
“Come and See”
The Erdtree, part of Elden Ring’s seventh seal, is burned. An action that is repeatedly called, sometimes with horror, as a cardinal sin, destroying the brambles along with the holy tree itself. The seal is fully broken when Death, from his Pale Horse Malikith, is let loose upon the world. The very next thing one sees once the final seal is broken is… nothing. Nothing at all, but ash. The Envoy have all departed, no longer needing to warn the world, the knights and perfumers are nowhere to be found, and besides the odd Gargoyle and Flower, there is nothing but the silence and the drone of the ambient soundtrack.
Judgment has been rendered.
Marika has been found wanting and her punishment is the final act of her Passion. Death, in an echo of the Spear of Longinus, that pierces her side; the Tarnished, standing-in for the Roman Centurion in her Passion Play. The battle is waged and the false prophets of Godfrey and Gideon are found wanting and thrown to the fires. In the end, the New Heaven and New Earth are established by the Tarnished and the rune or Empyrean they choose to side with.
While Elden Ring takes some poetic license with the timeline of Revelation considering how circular the Book is actually written, Elden Ring maps fairly easily with the larger outline of the Book of Revelation. The grander fever dream of Armageddon and the Tarnished upon which they are the fulcrum, form a major ontological pillar upon which FromSoftware rests the game; dovetailing with other pillars such as Hermeticism, Ancient Belief systems, dualities, astrology, and astronomy.
Come and See.
Bibliography and Further Reading:
Catechism of the Catholic Church III. Merit, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P70.HTM. Accessed 6 April 2022.
Aldington, Richard. “Book of Revelation.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation. Accessed 6 April 2022.
“Book Of Revelation | Apocalypse! FRONTLINE.” PBS, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/apocalypse/revelation/white.html. Accessed 6 April 2022.
“Catechism of the Catholic Church II Grace.” Libreria Editrice Vaticana, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P6Z.HTM. Accessed 6 April 2022.
“Christian angelology.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_angelology. Accessed 22 April 2022.
Elden Ring. Playstation5 version, FromSoftware, 2022.
“Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Apocalypse. Accessed 24 April 2022.
“Going Deeper: Butterflies and Easter.” Diocese of Lansing, https://www.dioceseoflansing.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/Going%20Deeper%20The%20Butterfly.pdf. Accessed 23 April 2022.
“Grace Definition & Meaning.” Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grace. Accessed 6 April 2022.
“Grace in Christianity.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_in_Christianity. Accessed 6 April 2022.
“Munkar and Nakir.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munkar_and_Nakir. Accessed 22 April 2022.
Patmos, John of. “Revelation 1 KJV — The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Bible Gateway, Harper Collins Christian Publishing, https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+1&version=KJV. Accessed 6 April 2022.
“Rebis.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebis. Accessed 6 April 2022.
“Seven hills of Rome.” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_hills_of_Rome. Accessed 6 April 2022.
“Wormwood (Bible).” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormwood_(Bible). Accessed 22 April 2022.
Zarka, Emily. “Why Aren’t Angels Scary Anymore? | Fate & Fabled.” YouTube, PBS, 5 April 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJvCEivOPt8. Accessed 11 April 2022.
Special Thanks:
AssaulterBob (Editor)
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