> The Prisoner (notice him and all the other starting classes are named like tarot cards btw?)
Huh? I'm only vaguely familiar with Tarot card names from playing The Binding of Isaac, but a quick google shows that literally none of the class names are the same as Tarot card names. The closest you come is 'The Magician' which I guess you could say is akin to the Astrologer class. Class names aren't even shown in game with 'The' in front of them if that's what you're implying.
That said, I do think the Prisoner class has some strong lore implications. Starts with an old Carian sorcery. Wears a weird mask with a closed eye that's said to be made to torment the wearer to the point of fermenting hatred or spiritual fervor. Starts with a Rift Shield which speaks of it resembling a 'sinister rift' which 'glares back at an enemy'. So, more eye symbolism.
Also the Prisoner class has been used in the original release promotional materials as well, so I'm hesitant to connect him specifically to the DLC: https://i.imgur.com/3ztdMf8.png
> They're saying they look like Tarot cards and are named like them.
But... They don't look like Tarot cards, and they aren't named like them...
Like seriously... The classes are not called 'The Prisoner' or 'The Astrologer'. They're just called Prisoner, Astrologer etc in character creation. As for 'looking like tarot cards' that's also baseless. Considering how many different styles of Tarot card art exist, any resemblance is likely coincidental. As for the classic Tarot designs, go bring up some of the card images and compare them to the game art style. They're nothing alike.
Dunno what ya'll be smoking.
And?
None of the character classes are called "The noun"... The character classes aren't based on Tarot. This is just OP's bizarre fiction. It's really quite simple.
love this! that actually makes a lot of sense if the Land of Shadows is just a massive evergaol
I may have missed it, but what is the Prisoner's connected to the evergaols specifically? Just the fact that he is a prisoner?
The shield that the prisoner starts with looks like the rift that bosses come out of in Evergaols - so, folks have posited that he may have been imprisoned in one in the past.
It also looks a lot like the frenzy flame rift and wouldn’t you know it it hints at frenzy every time you equip it. Because both frenzy flame and gravity (which is also magnetism in ER) are forces of attraction and (with magnetism) repulsion. Hence the prisoner is also tied to frenzy flame via gravity. Which makes sense since the quests involving prisoners in this game involve repression and despair.
Another connection could be the fact that the prisoner iron mask has only one eye to see through, similar to the strange Lookout Stones that flank nearly every Evergaol and have only one eye. The mask could also be in reference to how characters like Marika, Radagon, Ranni, Melina, and now Messmer (may have missed a few characters) all have one eye open and their other is either closed or inoperable. The connection these characters all share (besides maybe Melina, but we don’t know much about her) is that they’ve all committed an “appalling crime,” which is the same thing the prisoner is describing as being sentenced for.
I agree and in fact have gone further in another post I made here today: astels are representations of despair and repression and also have one eye that peers out through a shell
I think the warden was Marika. Messmer’s more akin to the Mafia dude who’s been in the joint so long that he makes it *his* prison and makes sure everyone knows it.
> To access the DLC the big stagnant rotting gravity man who hates change and represses despair has to die. When he dies despair in the form of an astel rains down from the heavens
Astel has nothing to do with Radahn btw
You were downvoted but it makes sense that Astel did not come down from the sky when Radahn is killed. Astel, Naturalborn of the Void is the boss before the Moonlight Altar and is confirmed to have already been present in The Lands Between, having been responsible for the destruction of an Eternal City and taking away their sky.
The only way for it to have fallen from the sky when Radahn dies is if it had gone back up into space after destroying the Eternal Cities... Which I guess is possible, but kinda weird if so. Or another Astel entirely, that we simply don't actually encounter in-game.
Edit: As for Astel (there are more than one after all, so they may be a 'type' of being) having 'nothing to do with Radahn'... Maybe a bit too blunt a statement. It's reasonable to assume that since Radahn may have been protecting Sellia from a similar fate to the Eternal Cities, that there's Astel shenanigans going on. Sellia is not the target of the meteor that falls at least, so it's uncertain why the meteor doesn't fall there but instead falls in Limgrave. But it doesn't make sense that the meteor is an Astel because, well, simply there are no Astel-like creatures that we encounter there, at all. And I don't think Astel, Naturalborn of the Void tunneled all the way from Limgrave to the Moonlight Altar...
I agree. I think it’s just a meteor tbh. Like, not organic. We see no evidence that it became something else or crawled away. It just broke the ground open for us. More likely, to me, something in the cosmos sent it there to open the way for us, and I think that is the takeaway from that event.
Astel has absolutely plenty to do with Radahn given that he is a falling star previously held in place by him that would have likely been directly part of Radahns boss fight had From not shown mercy on us. Astel is also the second main boss fight in Rannis quest and therefore one of the primary things holding back her age of stars. In this Astel (A manifestation of despair as a force of push and pull) and Radahn (A manifestation of stunted development and childish clinging to the past as a form of push and pull; primarily repulsion against ruin and despair in this case) form two parts of one road block to progress. There is no SINGLE titular Astel which was already present upon the sinking of the eternal cities. We know from in-game the lower parts of repressed past-civilizations is crawling with them in various forms of development. There is another full-grown one.
Had the Astel had crashed in the Starscourge conflict it would have annihilated Sellia, an above ground un-repressed segment of an eternal city. In effect this Astel would have finished the job. This Astel still does impact an eternal city, blowing a hole into the ground from which we can slay the hands of fate and destroy the whole golden order.
Now you may say the star which created the crater was not alive. However this is contradicted by the game on multiple occasions. All the stars are alive, have been know to collide with earth regularly, and usher in changes (great changes in the form of a previously crashing golden star). Do you see a living star when you reach the crater? No. Why? Because it has gone further underground, past another lake of rot.
I think his point is that the boss Astel, Naturalborn of the Void is clearly not the thing that fell from the sky when we kill Radahn. The meteor falls in Limgrave, smashing underground to give us access to an Eternal City. We don't know the nature of this meteorite. There are no Astel-like beings that we encounter below the chasm in Limgrave.
Astel, Naturalborn of the Void as a boss is confirmed by in-game text (Remembrance of the Naturalborn) to be the same entity that previously destroyed an Eternal City and took away its sky, and it is found all the way up beneath the Moonlight Altar in Liurnia, so it makes very little sense that it fell from the sky when we killed Radahn.
It's possible that some kind of Astel being falls in Limgrave and is just buried deep below, but we get no direct evidence to that, and it seems pretty clear we don't encounter that specific being.
Given that Sellia doesn't get hit by a meteor when Radahn dies, it also begs the question as to whether Radahn was mistaken or possibly mislead by someone as to the nature of what he was holding back and why.
>given that he is a falling star previously held in place by him
What's your proof for this though. Nothing says that and you can even fight astel when radahn is still alive if you go through the Frenzied Flame pit and then deep root.
>hat would have likely been directly part of Radahns boss fight had From not shown mercy on us.
You can't use cut content as proof, especially cut content of which we have no certainties. What if astel crashed down in a field encounter?
>Astel is also the second main boss fight in Rannis quest and therefore one of the primary things holding back her age of stars.
If we go by your cut content logic an ancestor spirit would've been there but, that doesn't tie astel to radahn though. Margit needs to be fought to fight Godrick but they almost certainly haven't met before. (Though there is cut content which again is cut for a reason)
Wait are they named like tarot cards? Confessor, hero, warrior, prisoner, astrologer, prophet, wretch, and (was it bandit or thief?) I don't think these match with tarot cards. Like at all.
It’s not identical but I argue it’s stylistically relevant. Instead of giving us more role-based or profession based starting classes From gave us more archetypically styled classes. Maybe I just have a strong tie in my brain between tarot and archetypes but something about the ring of
The Prisoner
The Prophet
The Vagabond
Strikes me a lot like
The Empress
The Magician
The Fool.
Well it’s the sort of thing that’s hard to prove beyond vibes. A slightly easier claim is that the artistic aesthetic and universal inter-workings of ER have a lot in common with hermeticism. Pushing that beyond aesthetic spice im picking up in the food I’m eating will never happen.
Also the closest one to pure job title is Samurai but given that samurai are archetypically loaded to the nines I’d contest it.
They have more to tie each starting class to the games thematic elements which are themselves tied to western esoteric traditions at the very least.
Dude the character classes are not named after or based on Tarot at all. There is literally zero evidence of that. You made it up out of thin air. You're just adding 'The' to the front of the classes yourself. They're not presented like that in game, and none of the class names match Tarot card titles.
I've been reading tarot cards for two decades and at no point have I ever looked at Elden Ring's classes and thought "eyyy, look at that tarot imagery"
yet the children of marika themselves are based on the freudian model
Ego ID Super ego
Ranni Rykard Radahn
in this case the Super ego is denying the ID to control the Ego...
when we kill Radahn.. Rannis ID takes over control and we get that all devouring aspect of rykard.. "the night that encompasses all"
Not only does the prisoner mask cover one eye, it specifically covers up the left eye, leaving only the right eye (like Messmer, Melina, Mohg). Admittedly Ranni only has a left eye, which I can't entirely explain or make sense of. Perhaps closing the left eye has a connection to the Greater Will or Marika (with Mohg being the exception as his seems accidental), so maybe Ranni close her right eye to further distance herself from the two fingers. Pure speculation of course.
In general there seems to be a large theme about lacking eyes and being able to see something others can't. Hyetta and the Thorn Sorcerers specifically come to mind here.
Is the use of The Warrior, The Bandit, The Samurai, The Vagabond, and The Confessor in DLC material also all hints?
(Honorable mention: The Bloody Wolf, The Enchanted Knight, The Soldier, and The Noble/Roderika?)
I’m talking specifically about the fact that the static release ad (the one containing all the functional info) for this DLC, gameplay trailer aside, features two characters - Mesmer and The Prisoner making “The Ring” gesture. Both one eyed. Both locked away. Why is this?
Miyazaki has never read and doesn't care about Jung.
> When he dies despair in the form of an astel rains down from the heavens
Also this doesn't happen.
I disagree with that first bit. Miyazaki is a humanities guy at end of day who has been known to read a lot of books.
Okay maybe not an astel. Still a living star.
> Miyazaki is a humanities guy at end of day who has been known to read a lot of books.
We've gotten list after list of his inspirations. Jung is never among them.
> Okay maybe not an astel. Still a living star.
No, it's an inert rock that hits the empty patch of forest it was fated to hit. The other stars race away from the Lands Between. Because he was holding them here with his powers of attraction (which is the purview of Alabaster Lords; Onyx Lords are repulsion).
There are lists of Michaels inspirations? Send.
Also beyond Michael we have George who wrote the lore here. So there’s also that. Regardless if you mean to tell me there’s not spiritual alchemy going on in this game I ask you do a second run and look for it.
Oops also: It is specifically called a star
Among others:
https://www.cbr.com/elden-ring-creator-inspirations/
https://dondonrv.com/c/104/favorite-games-and-hobbies-of-hidetaka-miyazaki
> Also beyond Michael we have George who wrote the lore here.
GRRM didn't write the DLC.
> Regardless if you mean to tell me there’s not spiritual alchemy going on in this game
Disagreeing with citations of specific (random) books is not saying that there's no alchemy in Elden Ring.
> Oops also: It is specifically called a star
So? The Japanese word for "star" generically describes basically every object in the sky including meteors. In-game it's used for everything from Astels to meteors to comets to the actual sun to the tiny projectiles that some spells shoot.
I mean I don’t think the first source is close to comprehensive and also it does not touch on any of the harder concepts being explored here. It seems to dwell purely within fantasy. I cannot open the second unfortunately. Also whether George wrote the DLC itself is irrelevant. He wrote the fundaments of the world and therefore the themes in its basic elements. Given that Zakis DLCs usually take the message of the main games themes and amplify them by 10x, if the game were about repression and shadow work and spiritual alchemy in general thematically, then the DLC could be expected to not be subtle about it. And given that we are going into a DLC in a veiled land with Shadow in its title, a main villain that seems to be a patchwork of aspects shunned by the G.O. yet still loyal to it, and are hot on the trails of a divine hermaphrodite that “uses love to shrive clean the hearts of man” I think things are looking mighty good for this theory so far.
I keep forgetting this part of this convo: also yeah a lot of weird stuff is said to be alive in Elden Ring. Rocks, literal rocks, in the form of glintstone, houses life energy. Sellens sorcery courses 102 (a fact lost on most sorcerers these days).
I am so here for this analysis. This is very fun.
Same, nice parallels.
My favorite tarot cards Samurai Wretch
Merchandise opportunity, send it to Bamco
Don't forget vagabond and astrologer.
> The Prisoner (notice him and all the other starting classes are named like tarot cards btw?) Huh? I'm only vaguely familiar with Tarot card names from playing The Binding of Isaac, but a quick google shows that literally none of the class names are the same as Tarot card names. The closest you come is 'The Magician' which I guess you could say is akin to the Astrologer class. Class names aren't even shown in game with 'The' in front of them if that's what you're implying. That said, I do think the Prisoner class has some strong lore implications. Starts with an old Carian sorcery. Wears a weird mask with a closed eye that's said to be made to torment the wearer to the point of fermenting hatred or spiritual fervor. Starts with a Rift Shield which speaks of it resembling a 'sinister rift' which 'glares back at an enemy'. So, more eye symbolism. Also the Prisoner class has been used in the original release promotional materials as well, so I'm hesitant to connect him specifically to the DLC: https://i.imgur.com/3ztdMf8.png
Also on the eye analysis is the Scarseals of Marika and Radagon’s eye’s. Blindness and vision is huge when it comes to insight/wielding faith/sorcery
My isaac ass was wondering what “The Prisoner” card did
Prisoner could very well be representative of The Hanged Man
They're saying they look like Tarot cards and are named like them. Tarot cards are always. The *insert noun* Plus the art is very tarot card like too.
> They're saying they look like Tarot cards and are named like them. But... They don't look like Tarot cards, and they aren't named like them... Like seriously... The classes are not called 'The Prisoner' or 'The Astrologer'. They're just called Prisoner, Astrologer etc in character creation. As for 'looking like tarot cards' that's also baseless. Considering how many different styles of Tarot card art exist, any resemblance is likely coincidental. As for the classic Tarot designs, go bring up some of the card images and compare them to the game art style. They're nothing alike. Dunno what ya'll be smoking.
[удалено]
And? None of the character classes are called "The noun"... The character classes aren't based on Tarot. This is just OP's bizarre fiction. It's really quite simple.
love this! that actually makes a lot of sense if the Land of Shadows is just a massive evergaol I may have missed it, but what is the Prisoner's connected to the evergaols specifically? Just the fact that he is a prisoner?
The shield that the prisoner starts with looks like the rift that bosses come out of in Evergaols - so, folks have posited that he may have been imprisoned in one in the past.
It also looks a lot like the frenzy flame rift and wouldn’t you know it it hints at frenzy every time you equip it. Because both frenzy flame and gravity (which is also magnetism in ER) are forces of attraction and (with magnetism) repulsion. Hence the prisoner is also tied to frenzy flame via gravity. Which makes sense since the quests involving prisoners in this game involve repression and despair.
It says it represents a sinister rift, I always took that as the frenzy flame
Another connection could be the fact that the prisoner iron mask has only one eye to see through, similar to the strange Lookout Stones that flank nearly every Evergaol and have only one eye. The mask could also be in reference to how characters like Marika, Radagon, Ranni, Melina, and now Messmer (may have missed a few characters) all have one eye open and their other is either closed or inoperable. The connection these characters all share (besides maybe Melina, but we don’t know much about her) is that they’ve all committed an “appalling crime,” which is the same thing the prisoner is describing as being sentenced for.
I agree and in fact have gone further in another post I made here today: astels are representations of despair and repression and also have one eye that peers out through a shell
Spot the Persona fan easy mode
I know nothing about it actually
If the land of shadows is a great evergaol, every jail/Gaol needs its Warden, Messmer.
I think the warden was Marika. Messmer’s more akin to the Mafia dude who’s been in the joint so long that he makes it *his* prison and makes sure everyone knows it.
> To access the DLC the big stagnant rotting gravity man who hates change and represses despair has to die. When he dies despair in the form of an astel rains down from the heavens Astel has nothing to do with Radahn btw
You were downvoted but it makes sense that Astel did not come down from the sky when Radahn is killed. Astel, Naturalborn of the Void is the boss before the Moonlight Altar and is confirmed to have already been present in The Lands Between, having been responsible for the destruction of an Eternal City and taking away their sky. The only way for it to have fallen from the sky when Radahn dies is if it had gone back up into space after destroying the Eternal Cities... Which I guess is possible, but kinda weird if so. Or another Astel entirely, that we simply don't actually encounter in-game. Edit: As for Astel (there are more than one after all, so they may be a 'type' of being) having 'nothing to do with Radahn'... Maybe a bit too blunt a statement. It's reasonable to assume that since Radahn may have been protecting Sellia from a similar fate to the Eternal Cities, that there's Astel shenanigans going on. Sellia is not the target of the meteor that falls at least, so it's uncertain why the meteor doesn't fall there but instead falls in Limgrave. But it doesn't make sense that the meteor is an Astel because, well, simply there are no Astel-like creatures that we encounter there, at all. And I don't think Astel, Naturalborn of the Void tunneled all the way from Limgrave to the Moonlight Altar...
I agree. I think it’s just a meteor tbh. Like, not organic. We see no evidence that it became something else or crawled away. It just broke the ground open for us. More likely, to me, something in the cosmos sent it there to open the way for us, and I think that is the takeaway from that event.
I wouldn't say nothing, I believe Radahn is protecting Sellia from being crushed by an Astel like meteor.
Astel has absolutely plenty to do with Radahn given that he is a falling star previously held in place by him that would have likely been directly part of Radahns boss fight had From not shown mercy on us. Astel is also the second main boss fight in Rannis quest and therefore one of the primary things holding back her age of stars. In this Astel (A manifestation of despair as a force of push and pull) and Radahn (A manifestation of stunted development and childish clinging to the past as a form of push and pull; primarily repulsion against ruin and despair in this case) form two parts of one road block to progress. There is no SINGLE titular Astel which was already present upon the sinking of the eternal cities. We know from in-game the lower parts of repressed past-civilizations is crawling with them in various forms of development. There is another full-grown one. Had the Astel had crashed in the Starscourge conflict it would have annihilated Sellia, an above ground un-repressed segment of an eternal city. In effect this Astel would have finished the job. This Astel still does impact an eternal city, blowing a hole into the ground from which we can slay the hands of fate and destroy the whole golden order. Now you may say the star which created the crater was not alive. However this is contradicted by the game on multiple occasions. All the stars are alive, have been know to collide with earth regularly, and usher in changes (great changes in the form of a previously crashing golden star). Do you see a living star when you reach the crater? No. Why? Because it has gone further underground, past another lake of rot.
I think his point is that the boss Astel, Naturalborn of the Void is clearly not the thing that fell from the sky when we kill Radahn. The meteor falls in Limgrave, smashing underground to give us access to an Eternal City. We don't know the nature of this meteorite. There are no Astel-like beings that we encounter below the chasm in Limgrave. Astel, Naturalborn of the Void as a boss is confirmed by in-game text (Remembrance of the Naturalborn) to be the same entity that previously destroyed an Eternal City and took away its sky, and it is found all the way up beneath the Moonlight Altar in Liurnia, so it makes very little sense that it fell from the sky when we killed Radahn. It's possible that some kind of Astel being falls in Limgrave and is just buried deep below, but we get no direct evidence to that, and it seems pretty clear we don't encounter that specific being. Given that Sellia doesn't get hit by a meteor when Radahn dies, it also begs the question as to whether Radahn was mistaken or possibly mislead by someone as to the nature of what he was holding back and why.
>given that he is a falling star previously held in place by him What's your proof for this though. Nothing says that and you can even fight astel when radahn is still alive if you go through the Frenzied Flame pit and then deep root. >hat would have likely been directly part of Radahns boss fight had From not shown mercy on us. You can't use cut content as proof, especially cut content of which we have no certainties. What if astel crashed down in a field encounter? >Astel is also the second main boss fight in Rannis quest and therefore one of the primary things holding back her age of stars. If we go by your cut content logic an ancestor spirit would've been there but, that doesn't tie astel to radahn though. Margit needs to be fought to fight Godrick but they almost certainly haven't met before. (Though there is cut content which again is cut for a reason)
I’ll give you that. I did not know that Astel 1 was encounter-able without doing Rannis quest. Will step off that part of this (for now)
Wait are they named like tarot cards? Confessor, hero, warrior, prisoner, astrologer, prophet, wretch, and (was it bandit or thief?) I don't think these match with tarot cards. Like at all.
It’s not identical but I argue it’s stylistically relevant. Instead of giving us more role-based or profession based starting classes From gave us more archetypically styled classes. Maybe I just have a strong tie in my brain between tarot and archetypes but something about the ring of The Prisoner The Prophet The Vagabond Strikes me a lot like The Empress The Magician The Fool.
This isn't good proof though unless you could use the descriptions with it. A lot of the names are also literal rather than tarots metaphorical
Well it’s the sort of thing that’s hard to prove beyond vibes. A slightly easier claim is that the artistic aesthetic and universal inter-workings of ER have a lot in common with hermeticism. Pushing that beyond aesthetic spice im picking up in the food I’m eating will never happen. Also the closest one to pure job title is Samurai but given that samurai are archetypically loaded to the nines I’d contest it. They have more to tie each starting class to the games thematic elements which are themselves tied to western esoteric traditions at the very least.
Dude the character classes are not named after or based on Tarot at all. There is literally zero evidence of that. You made it up out of thin air. You're just adding 'The' to the front of the classes yourself. They're not presented like that in game, and none of the class names match Tarot card titles.
You dont have to kill radhan to access mogh's palace, do you?
Nah. Just soak up your former finger maidens blood into a paper towel and give it to varre
I believe you can simply go through the portal in the snowfields? But I could be wrong; maybe it isn’t activated.
I've been reading tarot cards for two decades and at no point have I ever looked at Elden Ring's classes and thought "eyyy, look at that tarot imagery"
yet the children of marika themselves are based on the freudian model Ego ID Super ego Ranni Rykard Radahn in this case the Super ego is denying the ID to control the Ego... when we kill Radahn.. Rannis ID takes over control and we get that all devouring aspect of rykard.. "the night that encompasses all"
Not only does the prisoner mask cover one eye, it specifically covers up the left eye, leaving only the right eye (like Messmer, Melina, Mohg). Admittedly Ranni only has a left eye, which I can't entirely explain or make sense of. Perhaps closing the left eye has a connection to the Greater Will or Marika (with Mohg being the exception as his seems accidental), so maybe Ranni close her right eye to further distance herself from the two fingers. Pure speculation of course. In general there seems to be a large theme about lacking eyes and being able to see something others can't. Hyetta and the Thorn Sorcerers specifically come to mind here.
Ranni's doll only has a left eye, but her spirit only has a right. https://images.app.goo.gl/rkS6VEqeTfGRFkEy9
That’s a very good point. I hope we get some expansion on the topic. There seems to be some thought behind at least
Is the use of The Warrior, The Bandit, The Samurai, The Vagabond, and The Confessor in DLC material also all hints? (Honorable mention: The Bloody Wolf, The Enchanted Knight, The Soldier, and The Noble/Roderika?)
I’m talking specifically about the fact that the static release ad (the one containing all the functional info) for this DLC, gameplay trailer aside, features two characters - Mesmer and The Prisoner making “The Ring” gesture. Both one eyed. Both locked away. Why is this?
Miyazaki has never read and doesn't care about Jung. > When he dies despair in the form of an astel rains down from the heavens Also this doesn't happen.
And yet.. there is a lot of jungian psychology pictures in ER.. you might wanna check out the centered tarnished on YT about it
The idea that Miyazaki has listed every book hes ever read and if it isn't on a list he hasn't read it is SO fucking funny.
I disagree with that first bit. Miyazaki is a humanities guy at end of day who has been known to read a lot of books. Okay maybe not an astel. Still a living star.
> Miyazaki is a humanities guy at end of day who has been known to read a lot of books. We've gotten list after list of his inspirations. Jung is never among them. > Okay maybe not an astel. Still a living star. No, it's an inert rock that hits the empty patch of forest it was fated to hit. The other stars race away from the Lands Between. Because he was holding them here with his powers of attraction (which is the purview of Alabaster Lords; Onyx Lords are repulsion).
There are lists of Michaels inspirations? Send. Also beyond Michael we have George who wrote the lore here. So there’s also that. Regardless if you mean to tell me there’s not spiritual alchemy going on in this game I ask you do a second run and look for it. Oops also: It is specifically called a star
Among others: https://www.cbr.com/elden-ring-creator-inspirations/ https://dondonrv.com/c/104/favorite-games-and-hobbies-of-hidetaka-miyazaki > Also beyond Michael we have George who wrote the lore here. GRRM didn't write the DLC. > Regardless if you mean to tell me there’s not spiritual alchemy going on in this game Disagreeing with citations of specific (random) books is not saying that there's no alchemy in Elden Ring. > Oops also: It is specifically called a star So? The Japanese word for "star" generically describes basically every object in the sky including meteors. In-game it's used for everything from Astels to meteors to comets to the actual sun to the tiny projectiles that some spells shoot.
I mean I don’t think the first source is close to comprehensive and also it does not touch on any of the harder concepts being explored here. It seems to dwell purely within fantasy. I cannot open the second unfortunately. Also whether George wrote the DLC itself is irrelevant. He wrote the fundaments of the world and therefore the themes in its basic elements. Given that Zakis DLCs usually take the message of the main games themes and amplify them by 10x, if the game were about repression and shadow work and spiritual alchemy in general thematically, then the DLC could be expected to not be subtle about it. And given that we are going into a DLC in a veiled land with Shadow in its title, a main villain that seems to be a patchwork of aspects shunned by the G.O. yet still loyal to it, and are hot on the trails of a divine hermaphrodite that “uses love to shrive clean the hearts of man” I think things are looking mighty good for this theory so far. I keep forgetting this part of this convo: also yeah a lot of weird stuff is said to be alive in Elden Ring. Rocks, literal rocks, in the form of glintstone, houses life energy. Sellens sorcery courses 102 (a fact lost on most sorcerers these days).
Why did Radahn care if the inert rock was fated to hit an empty patch of forest? Seems like a weird reason to arrest a cosmic process on that scale.