Polarity
“That life is not a conflict, between opposites, but of polarity…that life and death, black and white, good and evil, being and non- being come from the same center that they imply each other that you wouldn’t know the one without the other. — Alan Watts, The Nature of Consciousness
Push and pull. Rising and falling. Order and disorder. Progression and regression. Dualities are everywhere we look. On the surface, each of these forces may seem at odds with one another; always at war. But what if I proposed that these seemingly opposing, warring forces, are actually twins? What if I said that even if they weren’t of an accord, they are, at least, complimentary? Most people know of the Yin and Yang Philosophy, a concept that, “describes how obviously opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent …, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another (“Yin and Yang”).”
Elden Ring is a game full of twins and dualities.
Specifically of twinned, interconnected, and interrelated forces and how their wants and needs have tied themselves up into a single Gordian knot. The Lands Between’s own name makes this standstill obvious. The land itself is neither living or dead. The land itself is neither one thing or another. It is caught in the middle. It is, at the very most flatteringly, perfectly balanced. But that balance comes at a singular cost. Nothing is born and nothing dies. Even fate is held in stasis. It is only when a third figure is introduced, the Tarnished, that this stalemate is broken, wielding their sword like Alexander the Great did when he cut down the Gordian Knot.
ABOVE AND BELOW GROUND
The Lands Between, the physical lands our Tarnished walk, are a pair of distinct characters that morph and change as we undertake our adventure. This particular pair of twins work in tandem as backdrops to the drama of Elden Ring but make no mistake, they are also enacting slow-motion violence upon one another seen only in the aftermath left: the collapse of the Academy Town, the sheer rock faces, and the collapsed ruins of the Uhl. The Overworld, which comprises most of our game world overseen directly by the Erdtree in all its near omnipresence, sits in near direct opposition to the Underworld below. A world full of necropoli and acropoli, vast churning lakes of rot, and a world held together by the roots of the Erdtree itself.
The Overworld is a world of Erdtree Sovereignty and Supremacy. It is the world where the Erdtree’s golden glowing presence is almost omniscient and omnipresent. Everywhere a leaf falls, is a place where the Erdtree, and the Golden Order it embodies, claims dominion. It is the world where the Golden Order is clung to like a life raft by the last remaining aristocrats and failing nobility. The Land Above is one where the Erdtree’s guidance pretends to be at its most absolute as the Golden Order’s faith and various factions operate without much in the way of obstacles. The Land Above is where the effects of the Shattering and the Splintering of that Order are felt most keenly.
The Underworld is very different. Erdtree Sovereignty is not just questioned, it is actively rebelled against. The Lake of Rot itself, located exactly beneath the Lakes of Liurnia and the Academy that is its crown jewel, is quickly realized to be the source of where and why the Academy Town is slowly sinking into the mire and muck. The world is, effectively, eating itself from inside out. The Underworld fosters the Eternal Cities of Nokron, Nokstella, and the Nameless City. In those cities, schemes were hatched to create their own Elden Lord as well as plots to murder the Two Fingers; Avatars of Erdtree sovereignty. The Underworld is where ancient belief systems are still flourishing as much as they are able; with the followers of the Ancient Spirits still offering prayers and supplications to spirits that are simply tired.
The Underground gives succor to the rebels of Those Who Live in Death with its Prince claiming a throne amongst the roots of the Erdtree. These rebels refuse the call of ‘death’ and refuse being given an Erdtree burial and be subsumed in its version of divinity. This simple refusal to be devoured by the Erdtree is a massive rebellion in Golden Order Dogma who’s very existence taints the truth of the Golden Order according to Fundamentalists (D, Hunter of the Dead).
Finally, we have the secret rebellion against the Erdtree in the form of the Mohgwyn Dynasty. High upon the mountaintops in a palace acropolis that tries to hold as much of an omnipresence looming over everything in the Underworld. The Dynasty had long since failed before the Tarnished reached the Temple on the Mount. Delusion is a terrible thing and Mohg would not be dissuaded from his ambitions.
Ripping Miquella from his throne in the Haligtree is the most overt violence the Underworld enacts upon the Overworld. As the ultimate agent of the Underworld, Mohg in the most unequivocal terms declares war upon the Overworld. However, in the end the violence between the Over and Underworld is something that in essence results in a stalemate. Much like the recently revealed Black Hole at the center of the Milky Way — the world of the Lands Between both sinks and expands at the same time and thus is still.
No winner will be declared.
REGRESSION AND PROGRESSION
To regress, is to return: Return to a less developed state; return to who one used to be; return to the moments before a change. In statistical analysis, regression is the mean of two variables; the fulcrum that dictates trends. In Elden Ring, shades of regression are in places you might not realize both above and below ground. Ancestor Followers, stomping and singing their prayers and praise, follow the Ancestor Spirit and eschew civilization but, because of the progression or causality of the Golden Order and the Erdtree, the Ancestor Spirit they follow is not allowed to fully die and create new life.
“A spirit of the horned folk who eschew letters and metalworking (Ancestor Follower Spirit Ashes).”
“ Ancestral spirits exist as a phenomenon beyond the purview of the Erdtree. Life sprouts from death, as it does from birth. Such is the way of the living. (Remembrance of the Regal Ancestor Spirit).”
The Celebrants of Dominula are another example of this regression. The Celebrants there dance and sing in a mockery of a Spring Celebration that is perhaps older than the Erdtree and the Golden Order. It is reminiscent of the Midsommers and the May Days that in reality are similarly ancient and primal. But in this world, in the Lands Between, where death has been locked away and life continues and continues and continues, the cycle of life has been arrested. The Celebrants of the Windmill Village have regressed into older beliefs and in so doing have danced themselves into a frenzy. They have become maenads possessed and lost in their primeval rites, having skinned each other and their maidens, rendering their blood poison.
Finally, we have the Giants and the Beasts. Most of the Giant civilization has been murdered in wars of conquest with Marika at the head of her golden host. But, one remains cursed to tend to its precious flame forever; imprisoned by its duty. The Giants’ worshiped their own forge, rather than the Crucible, and were punished both for their heresy and their refusal to progress.
While the Ancestral Worshippers staved off the progression of the Golden Order, like the Giants, but unlike the Giants largely slipped underground, the Beasts did not and were rewarded only with nostalgia. Their culture’s wildness and freedom is gone and will never return: “Having gained intelligence, the beasts must have felt how their wildness slipped away as civilization took hold (Bestial Vitality).” Unlike the Giants who refused to progress, the Beasts did, and they lost a part of themselves.
Progression, or rather, Ascension in the Hermetic context, means to come to ecstatic realization about the state of yourself, your mind, and the cosmos. To break free of the prison of the body and to realize that your spirit, soul, or mind holds power. “Self was consequently to be identified with the mind beholding the vision, rather than with the body that was oblivious to it.” (Merkur) We’ll explore Hermeticism and its influence over Elden Ring more in another essay(Video) but in the long and short of it, “Hermetic ethics celebrated the divine within the world” (Merkur). But this isn’t the only progression that occurs.
The Golden Order progresses itself, splintering into different factions such as the Fundamentalists or the Knights of the Dragon Cult. The Brilliant Goldmask implicitly understands that the Golden Order has lost something in that progression and comes so close to understanding it but prescribes the wrong cure: the removal of free will.
Unfettered progression, without death, is just another word for cancer. It keeps the mind locked to the body and unable to ascend to reach divinity with the cosmic mind. The removal of death by Marika, whether intentional or not, ultimately caused a deadlock between causality — or progression — and regression and people were unable to do either with death’s absence. Without ascension to the cosmos and to find the self all the ‘dead’ could do is feed themselves to the Erdtree to continually feed it as a poor replacement for the Cosmos itself. If the Erdtree, like the Shadow Tower from Shadow Tower: Abyss, wasn’t intended to be a parasite, by the end both trees surely were.
Regression and Progression — or as the Game calls it Causality — are at odds throughout the entirety of Elden Ring, from within and without.
LIVING IN DEATH vs DEATH IN ORDER
A proper death means returning to the Erdtree. Have patience. Until the time comes…and the roots call to you. — Ghost Preceding the Deathtouched Catacomb (u/Lord_of_Londor)
Looking away from the major conflicts playing out between the Royal Rebis and the Cosmic Stalemates between demigods, there are other stalemates playing out at the edges of the periphery. The dogmata of the Golden Order Fundamentalists has spiraled. Without the head of the order to guide and lead, those who ascribe to its tenets have been left to fend for themselves. As a result, there are those who have clung even more fiercely and violently to its teachings and in so doing have become even more inflexible with little regard or need for nuance.
As the Two Fingers via Enia explain, “life lies in ruin. Fallen to pieces.” Further, the Two Fingers points to the corruption of the Order as the result. What, though, is corruption when those who live within its bounds are scraping along in the proverbial Cave, only looking at flickering shadows on the wall? All they can do, without death to give them rest, is to dance and skin themselves in the shadows of the Windmills — or to take up arms against a scape-goat.
And that is exactly what the Golden Order Fundamentalists deign to do, to lash out and to scape-goat the one people who have stood in refusal.
‘Death’ such as it is in the Lands Between, is less a happening and more a calling. Without natural death, the body ages and decays and the bones dance in a horrible version of the totentanz. The consciousness still remains. Death, as it is understood, is to give yourself to the Erdtree. Memories hewn themselves to the rings of the Erdtree, after all, and rings are how one finds the age of a tree. Countless lives and countless ages are written into the bark of the Erdtree. It isn’t true death. The call of ‘death’ felt is simply the call of the Erdtree when it wishes to devour and subsume the souls of those who sit at it’s feet. Those Who Live In Death may understand this parasitic nature implicitly and thus refuse its call. To the Golden Order, however, this is Death that matters and is proscribed. This is Death promised to Champions — to become one with the Erdtree and to feed it the blood of heroes.
Those Who Live In Death would rather live in their decaying bodies and try to find another way than to annihilate themselves for the sake of the Erdtree. However, as Tibia’s Summons provides, “the dead have been left to wander; what they need is leadership (Tibia’s Summons).” Like the Golden Order Fundamentalists, Those Who Live In Death are similarly left adrift.
Godwyn the Golden, the Prince of Death was — as spoken about in Come and See — sacrificed. In Queen Marika’s words, “Make of thyselves that which ye desire. Be it a Lord. Be it a God. But should ye fail to become aught at all, ye will be forsaken. Amounting only to sacrifices…” (Melina) and so, Godwyn was sacrificed to become something when in life, he wasted his ample opportunity. But, can a simple Body, growing like a weed or like cancer in the form of a Ningyou really lead? Fia believes that she has found the way, by birthing Godwyn again and becoming mother to his Second Life so that he may claim his title as Lord of Death.
In the end, Fia does birth a new form of Godwyn; birthing the completed rune that was denied him during the night of the Plot. Was this the Second life that she hoped for? Life as an Ontological Construct? It is your Tarnished that brings the rune to the end of the finish line. As it turns out, Fia was ready to war with the Roundtable Hold, as shown in Fia’s Mist and her message to the Roundtable at her departure: “What right does anyone have to object? Our Lord will rise. The Lord of the many, and the meek.” Leaving the body of the broken Darian, of the Golden Order Fundamentalists, as proof of her seriousness that the meek shall inherit the Earth.
But, Fia’s victory was not to last. There is no way out of her stalemate with the Golden Order Fundamentalists and it is Darian’s twin brother, Devin, himself locked into spiritual conjunction with his Brother, who both murders Fia and then himself.
Neither faction finds a final victory they can claim.
Hunter and Beholder
“… In the agonized womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then should they be dissociated?” — Rober Louis Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Jekyll and Hyde are the most famous illustration of a person who is, in effect, two separate people holding the same soul. One, the mild mannered doctor who is kind and just. The other, a horrible creature who would think nothing of killing those who stand in his way. The story is an extreme example of body horror that contrasts the duality of man. The horror of being unable to stop oneself as your basest instincts take over. Even in extreme campy versions of this story like James Wan’s Malignant, follows the base horror of being trapped within yourself as your basest, primal urges take full control.
In Elden Ring, we have D — the Hunter and Beholder of Death. Their shared armor tells us about them, “The two known as D are inseparable twins. They are of two bodies and two minds, but one single soul. Not once do they stand together; not one word do they speak to one another (Twinned Armor).” Their spiritual conjunction is depicted in their armor and is incomplete and mal-formed. The twins of Gold and Silver forever frozen in a state of emergence. But because of this spiritual conjunction, they were well-aware of the thoughts and actions of their other half.
Despite their monstrous spiritual countenance, they were accepted into the Golden Order after being rendered deraciné everywhere else. This earned the Golden Order the loyalty of the Gold and Silver Twins and it is this loyalty that inspired fanaticism.
Darian, the Hunter of Death, is the more active of the two. In his travels with Rogier he comes across the half wheel wound of the centipede, learning about Death and Those who Live in Death. His discoveries separate Rogier from him, who wishes to learn more where Darian has learned enough to wish for their end. Instead, he gets too close to the truth and the Mother of Those Who Live in Death, Fia, plunges a dagger into Darian’s chest.
Without quite knowing, perhaps, that lurking within is another set of eyes belonging to the Beholder of Death, Devin. He has seen everything, experienced everything that Darian has experienced, lived vicariously through Darian just as Darian may have lived through Devin’s adventures. They are two fingers on a single hand.
When the Tarnished comes across the Beholder of Death, Devin, he is suffering from the destruction of his psychic link with his Brother. And the return of his Armor gives the Beholder of Death the strength for revenge once he recovers. Devin’s recovery sets in motion his fateful encounter with Fia and their mutual destruction.
In a way, the Gold and Silver twins are a microcosm with what happens with Miquella and Malenia. Two twins devoted to one another and their causes but unable and unwilling to learn from one another and their mistakes. Content to rest upon their laurels and their similarities instead.
The Visionary and The Blade
“…eggs that will never hatch… Prized as a symbol of the most sublime slumber. (Slumbering Egg).”
Darian and Devin are only one of a number of biological twins that Elden Ring focuses on. Miquella and Malenia, the twin butterflies and prodigies, are another set of twins upon which much of Elden Ring’s story rests upon. Like Darian and Devin, Miquella and Malenia compliment each other well and are perfectly symmetrical but like the Hunter and Beholder, they fall into similar traps. However, as Empyerian, Miquella and Malenia’s missteps and miscalculations hold disastrous consequences for the Lands Between rather than just for two warring fringe factions.
Malenia is the Blade, a grown woman, who yet suffers from the Outer Gods and their meddling via the Scarlet Rot. Malenia walks the knife’s edge protecting her brother when and especially when Miquella is cursed with eternal childhood. A natural leader, her charisma has inspired the Cleanrot knights who, in the case of Finlay, are so loyal, they carry the comatose body of Malenia back from Caelid to the Haligtree. Despite her legendary status at the present time of the game, her charisma still inspires loyalty. The Pest Priests and the children that Malenia births within the Aeonia swamp still believe they follow her and live in her glory as Empyrean and Goddess.
Miquella, however, is the genius visionary where his sister was the prodigy with a blade; in an inversion of the Jungian Animae, which, we will see later, Marika and Radagon fit into so neatly. Miquella supported his sister as she began to literally fall apart, creating the prosthesis she wears that allows her to move about with the fluidity of a dancer. Miquella’s genius and his ability to bewitch those who saw him, made him in Malenia’s words, the most fearsome of Demigods. But beyond his cerebral powers, Miquella’s own leadership inspired a chance for a better life for the downtrodden of the Golden Order.
Disillusioned with the caste systems and the broken and systemic oppression of the Erdtree, Miquella sought a new way. It is a way that would elude him — as because he fits with his Sister so perfectly, there was no growth for either of them and other temptations and other ambitions ended their respective journeys.
In his journey to find the answer to Scarlet Rot, Miquella devoured knowledge and created new conjunctions — some of which he gifted to Radagon. But, none of these factions had an answer for the Scarlet Rot that plagued his Sister. Miquella was, however, able to understand the secret of Marika and Radagon and, as suggested in my Chat and initially put forward by Hunter, split himself into his own Royal Rebis of Miquella and St. Trina. Indeed, it is this single-minded passion that kept Miquella pushing and finally renouncing the Erdtree in favor of his Haligtree and to ultimately use his other half, Trina, as a vessel for Miquella’s own rebirth.
Miquella would, to this writing, never find the Answer he sought or keep the promise he made to his sister. His final gambit of rebirth or reincarnation would never reach maturity. Malenia would finally meet defeat and the Flower would finally devour her.
AWAKE AND DREAMS
“The sweet oblivion of sleep can become quite the habit (St. Trina’s Arrows).”
FromSoftware is no stranger to passing through the thin skein between the Waking and Dreaming worlds. Bloodborne (2015) is entirely based upon the shifting of our realities between dreams and the waking world and the blurring of the two. Echo Night 2: 眠りの支配者 or The Lord of Nightmares, likewise dealt with sleeping in a cocoon to dream and to find rebirth. Kuon made this sort of rejuvenative sleep as part and parcel of the Kuon Ritual. Elden Ring hints at this shift in perceptions by its introduction of the Sleep Status Effects into Modern FromSoftware canon.
Miquella seems to exemplify the duality of Sleep and Wakefulness. St. Trina, Miquella’s shadow and vessel for himself, is the Goddess of Sleep. But, it isn’t just simple ‘sleep.’ Soporific is a word that means an agent or a drug that induces sleep such as a sedative. In this, it is less a restful sleep and more like the sleep of those undergoing anesthesia.
Reality, Miquella’s auspice, is cold and harsh, much like the reality of Miquella’s curse of eternal youth. The limitations of his physical ability would have chaffed. The realities of the shattering, of the horrors faced by the Albinaurics, of the stresses of the demigods warring against themselves, of course the call of sleep would be tempting.
For Miquella who sought to use his Shadow Vessel as a way to rebirth himself, he placed himself asleep within the womb of St. Trina. But, that oblivion would keep him trapped and entranced. Even while Mohg would abort him from the cadaver of St. Trina. In part, Miquella fell for his own power and the sweet temptation of remaining in a prison of his own creation. Miquella’s intentions were good — to be transformed and to be reincarnated. But sleep, as Elden Ring is habit-forming and it is no doubt that Miquella’s good intentions was his unfortunate undoing.
Gravity
“I thank you for your tutelage, for now I can challenge the stars. (Collapsing Stars)”
Gravity both pulls towards and repels. It is both its allied and its antagonistic force. Without gravity, stars couldn’t form and couldn’t hold the planets as a crown around them. Einstein describes gravity in his famous Theory of Relativity, as a part and parcel of spacetime. This is a key theory correlating how black holes are formed and how they work. Now, while all the nitty gritty of all of this is more suited to a different video on the differences between astrology and astronomy, it is important to keep in mind.
Radahn, son of Renalla, sought to become gravity in Elden Ring and to embody both sides of gravitational force.
Gravitational sorceries are not native to the Lands Between. Sidereal motions were always of a particular fascination with astrologers and sorcerers, and Meteorites were a particular point of study for the Olivinus Conspectus. However, this knowledge originates with the Onyx and Alabaster Lords as evidenced by the text of the Alabaster Lord’s Sword, “who were said to have risen to life when a meteor struck long ago (Alabaster Lord’s Sword).”
It was the Alabaster Lords who young Radahn sought to teach him their knowledge of gravity. Partially, Radahn sought this knowledge for his small horse, however he had ulterior motives as well. His knowledge starts with Gravity Well and Rock Sling, but when Radahn learned of Collapsing Stars, the young General believed he could complete the mission he had the whole time: challenge the stars.
The Stars in Elden Ring are cradles of Fate. In the symmetry of both the mystical and scientific, the clockwork motion of the stars is very similar to how astrology works. Stars move across the sky and as they do they dictate the inner workings and weavings of fate. Through this motion, uncontrolled by the Gods and Demigods of the Lands Between, and truly those Gods and Demigods were at the mercy of the uncaring march of the constellations, life blossomed.
Radahn put a stop to this by arresting the movement of the stars via his mastery of its most basic of forces: gravity. He would become Fate’s master and become its God and thus untether himself from its whims. However, Radahn’s ultimate aims would be stymied both by something he did not account for and, because the ambitions of others would come into direct conflict with his own.
What Radahn didn’t account for, is that Gravity is both its antagonist and allied force. To be both is to be as arrested as the stars he conquered. To be both the push and pull of gravity, rather than the master of the Tide the Moon, for instance, means that he deadlocked in stasis. When one attempts to do all things and to be the arbiter of the ways in which gravity rules the planets and cosmos, the ultimate outcome is to be able to do nothing.
The shattering brought with it, Malenia, the Flower of Rot and Blade of Miquella. Evenly and perfectly matched, her mobility and dexterity would move in perfect symmetry to Radahn’s sheer brute strength and stoutness. They would grind themselves to a deadlock and neither one of them would win. This tie would destroy them both, as Radahn became infected by the Scarlet Rot in the fight and Malenia would fall unconscious — needing to be carried home by the Cleanrot Knight Finlay.
Radahn would become rabid from his infection. With the Rot destroying his spirit far before it would destroy his body.
It is doubtful that Radahn would remember why he sought to become gravity at all.
The Sun and Moon
“People who’ve played certain past titles of ours know that we’ve got a particular fondness for the moon here at FromSoftware! Rest assured that it also plays a major role in the world and story of Elden Ring, — Miyazaki Hidetaka” (Famitsu editorial department, Dengeki Games editorial department; p. 18)
The Sun and Moon have long been antagonistic towards one another. Not just in Elden Ring, but in most of the FromSoftware oeuvre. One mantra I’ve been known to say is that ‘The Sun is Not Your Friend.’ In Echo Night, the sun is the emblem of the mysterious Man — the true owner of the red stone — who plays with humanity’s penchant for self-destruction wrapped in free will. In King’s Field, it is associated with Guyra, the Black Dragon of the Forest and eternal enemy of Seath, White Dragon of Darkness and the Moon. In Dark Souls, it is the auspices of Gwyn and the Royal Lineage, who have caused the great collapse due to their attempt at artificially extending their rule.
Elden Ring centers the fulcrum of its shattering and the collapse of the Golden Order and its family upon FromSoftware’s complicated relationship between the Sun and the Moon.
Radagon once cleansed himself with celestial dew, repented his territorial aggressions, and swore his love to Rennala. The Order of the Erdtree and the fate of the moon were conjoined, and all the wounds of war forgiven. — Miriel, Pastor of Vows
Rennala, Queen of the Full Moon and Matriarch of House Caria and Governor of the Academy, was once an astrologer who saw fate in its cradle and read its movements. Lore surrounding her suggests that she was a Queen in all senses of the word: imperious, strong, and with the vision to bring the House and those allied with and sworn to the House’s service forward. In fact, she was at the head of her host when the Houses of Liurnia went to war.
On the other side is Radagon, Champion of the Golden Order. He belonged to the House of the Erdtree which glows like the Sun. Radagon was the right hand of Queen Marika, the Eternal and in that position he acted on her warmongering. Aside from the great secret that he went to great lengths to hide, he was the man placed at the front of the Host when, in his era of attempted conquest, attacked the Houses of Liurnia. Indeed, Castle Sol, named for the Sun and held by a cadet branch of the House stands invictus over the Night because of its northern location, and they honored the wedding with gifts to mark the occasion.
You wish to know more of Lord Radagon? Lord Radagon was a great champion, possessed of flowing red locks. He came to these lands at the head of a great golden host, when he met Lady Rennala in battle. He soon repented his territorial aggressions though, and became husband to the Carian Queen. — Miriel, Pastor of Vows
The war between the Sun and the Moon in FromSoftware’s catalog was doomed to continue. Marika’s ambition to conquer in the name of the Golden Order, seemed to only respect the knife’s edge. But Elden Ring attempts a third way which is reminiscent of King’s Field Additional’s finale. In Elden Ring, Radagon and Rennala meet at the end of the Second Liurnia War, and instead of raising their arms in violence and murder, instead opt for a diplomatic end. Love blossomed between the Houses of the Tree and Sun and the House of the Moon and led to marriage and Radagon’s disavowal of his past acts of territorial aggression in the waters of the Stars.
However, the secret that Radagon desperately kept — that he is the literal other half of Marika — could not be hidden for long. And, in time, with Godfrey losing the guidance of grace and thus the Mandate of Heaven to rule, Radagon had to return to the capital under the lie that he was becoming the second Husband of Marika. When, in truth, he returned to allow Marika to rule more actively again.
But this severed the vow and detente between the Sun and Moon, resulting in their own personal shattering, after attempting to side-step what would have been a terrible stalemate. Rennala was given the amber egg to cradle the life of the stars and with her heart broken, Rennala waned. Her only obsession was nursing the amber egg, allowing her to dabble in reincarnation. She lost the respect of the Academy — who locked her up in the Grand Library and sent the Cuckoo Knights to lay siege to the Seat of House Caria.
In Elden Ring the attempt by those of The Sun and those of The Moon to lay aside old animosities couldn’t escape the chekhov’s gun of Radagon’s true purpose and identity as one half of the Royal Rebis. Radagon denied a piece of himself and when that piece of himself came calling, it destroyed that which he built. A life on a foundation of sand. And when the truth willed out, resulted in tragedy for the Houses of the Sun and the Moon and neither house was able to break free of the severing of this vow.
Bonds are fragile things, wont to break under strain. And once they’re broken, everything is lost, with naught to gain. — Miriel, Pastor of Vows.
And thus, did Ranni seek revenge as she is auspected with the other face of the moon, the New Moon, in all of its darkness and mystery. The New Moon is, like the Roman God Janus, another face of the same god. Much like Marika and Radagon are. While the Full Moon chose Rennala, the New Moon chose Ranni.
This is important, because in superstition — the Full Moon in particular and the Moon itself is said to be tied to fertility. The New Moon, meanwhile, is associated with figures such as Lilith, Kali, and Hecate. It is, traditionally, a time of fear and isolation — a lack of light makes shadows quite a bit deeper without the silver of the light (George). However, what else is interesting about the New Moon that Ranni claims as her own, is that in astronomy the New Moon is when the Sun and Moon are conjoined. (“Dark moon”)
Heresy is not native to the world; it is but a contrivance. All things can be conjoined. Miriel, Pastor of Vows.
Briefly, conjunction in astronomy is when two heavenly bodies are at the same ‘right ascension (“Conjunction (astronomy)”)’ or the “angular distance of a point measured eastward along the celestial equator from the sun at the March equinox (“Right ascension”).” That sounds a bit like gibberish, but trust me, we’ll get into that later. In short, Ranni is set up as the singular perfect synthesis between Radagon and Rennala.
One of Ranni’s ambitions is to remove the influence of both the Full Moon and the Sun, via the destruction of the two-fingers, the two celestial figures who have — in some ways — let her down. One of her ambitions is to ascend the primacy of her moon, the Dark Moon.
Animus and Anima
Radagon and Marika are the central mystery and royal conspiracy to Elden Ring. One that confounds and renders the brilliant Goldmask speechless. The answer the Tarnished gives to Gold Mask causes Goldmask’s final decisions about how the Golden Order should proceed, though the implications of that are neither here nor there. Secrets, however, have a habit of slipping through the cracks, even despite the Carian sorcerers donning the Masks of Confidence — depicting the face of a Preceptor with their mouths shut in gold thread.
A sculptor from the Capital glimpsed this truth and, as art is wont to do, captured the Soul of Radagon as well as his truth. Even a glimpse of Radagon’s manifestation rather than him being born, cannot be unlearned. Once it is known, it cannot be forgotten.
The Theosophical Society of America tells us that, “the soul, or self, has no Gender (Mayer).” Drawing on Jung’s teachings, it is simply the earthly bodies that are wrapped in gender roles. Radagon is initially set up to be the warmonger and the Champion: the Sword by which Marika renders her ambition. Marika is the vessel, the mother of children and the Queen of the Golden Order and the Avatar of the Great Will. Mayer contends that genetic memory pushes humanity to seek oneness and Union through both Horizontal, or earthly, and Vertical, or spiritual, means.
For Jung, everyone harbored the Anima — or the feminine within the male — or the Animus — the male within the female. Jung argues that much of what we look for in a partner — though he writes from a cis-heteronormative mindset — is the completion through finding people who complete them when in reality we are searching for our inner feminine or masculine. One may see a very Jungian take of the Anima and Animus in the Soreseals and Scarseals in Elden Ring. Radagon’s, like Jung’s contention of the province of the Animus, is martial in nature. Increasing melee focused stats. Marika’s, on the other hand, raises cerebral stats.
In Elden Ring one could surmise that this is what Radagon was searching for all along and what led him to Rennala.
While at the same time, Radagon was trying to deny that part of himself that is Marika. Radagon can be read as order, stability, and family and the hope therein; while Marika can be seen as both chaos and nihilism. Radagon despised this piece of himself. That piece of himself would not be denied, and Marika would reemerge. True completion, Radagon’s ambition, would not be found outside of oneself and not within Rennala. Likewise, Marika would seek to deny that part of herself and their stalemate, with Marika shattering the Elden Ring and Radagon attempting to repair it, keeping them deadlocked and unable to do either. They kept themselves in a sort of purgatory and were unable to go on. (Marika’s Hammer).
Their mutual self-denial and, perhaps, self-loathing kept them from what Jung calls ‘androgyny;’ a state where they will harmoniously integrate together. Instead of coming to terms with themselves, they struggled against each other, attempting to step around what was required of them to get to attain the completion they both wanted.
Being two halves of the same whole, Marika and Radagon’s self denial kept them from self-actualizing and from that Cosmic world from which Mayer argues is where we wish to return to.
MIRRORS AND MIMICS
What does the Tarnished see when they hold up the mirror? What is the reflection that looks back on us? Mirrors show a version of ourselves that looks like us, breathes like us, and mimics every movement we make while our vision swims with that reflection. But, what if what we see in the mirror doesn’t quite match up with the truth? What if the breathing of the Tarnished in the mirror doesn’t quite match up with your own? In American Folklore, there is the ritual of Bloody Mary — where young people try to summon the ghost of Bloody Mary, either the Queen that shares the sobriquet or a woman named Mary Wolf.
What if the Mirror wasn’t just a simple slab of polished metal beneath glass? What if it was a window to another world? The 2008 film Mirrors takes this to a frightening extreme, depicting a world of doppelgangers waiting to murder their real world counterparts.
In Elden Ring we are subject to reflections and in reflections we can both change how we see ourselves and our reflection made manifest by liquid mercury, reflects our very being. Both the Host’s Trick Mirror and Furled Finger’s Trick Mirror, allow hosts or cooperators to take on the visage of the other in the attempt to fool and trick would-be assassins.
Iji’s Mirror Helm reflects the people looking up at him in a myriad of constellations. Loretta’s own shield is also a mirror reflecting both herself and her enemies. And finally, the Mirror in Roundtable Hold allows the Tarnished to change how they view themselves by changing our vision of who we are.
But the pinnacle of this flat mimicry is the mimicry of Nokron and Nokstella, in the Ashes of the Mimic Tear. Too many religions to count speak of humans and life being created out of clay. Khnum and Isis, for instance in Egyptian thought, formed humans from clay and offered them life. The Mimic Tear in Elden Ring was the Eternal City’s attempt at doing this very thing. Except they used mercury as their medium of choice to reflect that which it is imitating. What is created is imperfect: the will of that which is reflected is not mimic’d. The Tarnished hold no fate, no role to be per-ordained to, and thus the Tarnished’s reflection is likewise, nearly a blank slate. However, everything that is physical is reflected as well.
In game, this can lead to a great deal of strategies involving switching equipment after its summoning. But in essence, The reflection is made near perfect and can be your complete opposite in how one fights by being far more aggressive than the player-controlled Tarnished. However, again, the Mimic Tear is nothing but a vessel that masquerades as our Tarnished. Despite the Eternal City’s attempt at creating their own lord — one cannot recreate a being without a fate like our Tarnished is. Without a fate our own twin is nothing but what we see in the mirror.
LIFE and DEATH
“What’s the basis of all drama, the basisi of all stories, of all plots, of all happenings? It’s the game of hide and seek.”— Alan Watts, The Nature of Consciousness
Dark Souls was a game about the deadlock between the Ages of Light and the Age of Dark. Most, if not all of the philosophies, ambitions, and motivations were the result of propping up one over the other and the consequences of their choice.
Elden Ring evolves this narrative device. It is replete with more twinned forces than we had time to talk about here. The prize for the players, the empyreans, and the gods is to shape the world, its entire gestalt from the ontological structure down to its nature. It sees you and your chosen Empyrean go to war with beliefs that oppose your own.
Without the Tarnished, however, every belief and every force met its perfect opposition, entering into stalemates across the realm. Totality was elusive as most sought conflict and struggle with its opposition rather than seeking completeness. The only thing that was their reward was tying the world and its ontological foundations in knots rather than learn the lessons that Life and Death understood; one couldn’t be had without the other.
Destruction that is brought on by the endings themselves and what they mean could be its own video-essay. The Mending Rune endings in particular use your Tarnished as the sword to cut through these knots, the result of Strength enforcing a single vision of Order, rather than any sort of unification of the whole and destroying what doesn’t fit. How would these stories of stalemates be different if they accepted the necessity of their other half and worked together?
A lack of acceptance and inclusion of each other’s beliefs and aims is one of the major tragedies of the people of the Lands Between. Instead of working together to find a way forward, the peoples of the Lands Between moved away — opposing each other in a stalemate of their own polarity.
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Special Thanks:
* AssaulterBob, the once and forever editor
* MaeglinAmandil, sensitivity reader; editor
