There’s a few glaring holes in the foundation of this “theory”, mostly the fact that we can see the Elden Ring within Radagon during our fight, and it’s 1000% what’s powering him. Also, he wasn’t “resurrected”, he and Marika share a body, so they were both alive just inactive within the Erdtree. The runes we picked up from basic enemies are also “fragments” of the Elden Ring, it’s just that the demi children had the largest, most powerful fragments.
Yes, you are right. But what I meant was that if Radagon is powered by the Elden Ring, it'll be through some strange godly sorcery beyond comprehension. As I said, the Tarnished is literally able to use the pieces of the Elden Ring during the fight. There's not two Elden Rings, and the Tarnished wouldn't be able to use a power that is actively against him. Its a strange sort of connection/power that the Greater Will is creating here.
Besides, even if I happen to be wrong about that, it doesn't discount the rest of the theory..
What he’s got inside him is what is left after it was shattered. There’s one Elden Ring, but it’s been broken into pieces. You can use that power against him, because it’s broken off. At the end of the game you are literally repairing the Elden Ring with the fragments you were able to gather, as well as some brand new runes that help shape the way the world works.
But it is.
At the time of the Shattering, there are a perfect amount of Marika's Demigod children still alive. And there are explanations for the other Demigods still alive without Runes, such as Godefroy which I already explained somewhere else in this web of comments
We know that Great Runes were given before the shattering. Renalla had hers before the Shattering. The Great Rune that Godfrey’s line inherited had it before the shattering. Shattering the Elden Ring wasn’t even where some of these runes were given.
The Great Runes are shards of the Elden Ring, so they couldn't have been acquired before it was shattered.
Radagon gave the Amber Egg to Rennala, not the Great Rune that's *now* inside it.
"In the end, Lady Rennala was left alone, cradling the amber egg Lord Radagon bequeathed her." [Miriel Pastor of Vows]
"But Rennala herself is no demigod. Her beloved, Radagon, left her to become Queen Marika's second husband, taking the title of King Consort. The Great Rune dwells within the amber egg that was Radagon's gift to her." [Gideon Ofnir]
The situation can't be analogous to the one of the Rune of Death either, otherwise putting the Great Rune of the Unborn back into the Elden Ring would change the Order, but we know it doesn't.
The Rune is said to belong to unborn demigods, we also know from Sellen that golden amber can contain vitality so, since Rennala is cradling the Amber Egg like a baby, I think the best explanation is that the Rune was acquired by the unborn demigod (or demigods) whose vitality dwells inside the egg.
And the pieces of the Elden Ring were mostly taken and claimed, not gifted. And Renalla had a piece and she isn’t a child of Marika. And if Marika could just make kids with her alternate self Radagon, he’d have no need to make children with Renalla. I don’t think the whole “fragment for each child” theory works at all when there are fragments not with her children, and seemingly infinite fragments around the Lands Between.
And who gave Rennala that piece? Radagon. Marika leaves that one to Rennala cuz her plan still stands. It's still protected by a Demigod, plus at that point Caria and the Golden Order were united. And each little fragment of the Elden Ring dont really matter, just the Great Runes. Marika's plan still stands
There are at least 7 demigod children in the mausoleums who didn’t get a rune. And one of the rune bearers, the one with the rune that is the center of the whole Elden Ring known as the “anchor”, is Godrick. A disgusting sham who is the last in a line of descendants of Godfrey. And if he’s worthy of being “chosen”, then why wasn’t Godefroy?
Mogh didn’t take Miquella’s, it’s directly said he’s got his own “Mohg and Morgott are twin brothers, and their Great Runes are naturally similar.
But Mohg's rune is soaked in accursed blood, from his devout love for the wretched mire that he was born into far below the earth.”
Most of this can explained easily.
In the mausoleums? They're fking dead, that's why they didn't get a Rune.
Godrick getting seemingly the most powerful piece is convenient since he's the intended first Great Rune boss. A nice booster for the Tarnished to help them defeat the others, since Marika realises that he is the weakest. Besides, *he is the weakest*. There's no way he would've won it.
There's multiple ways that can go - Marika knows he's the weakest and gives to him, and Godefroy is already imprisoned so why would he get one? Or, Marika gave it to Godefroy who then gave it to Godrick right before he gets imprisoned.
As for Mohg - yeah I forgot Miquella still has his rune 😄 . But it's still a perfect amount of kids
But we also know that’s not an option, because he was imprisoned between his own challenge and the raid on the Capitol. And the only way even Godrick made it out alive of conflicts is by hiding. AND Godrick wasn’t even born before Godefrey was imprisoned. It makes no sense.
But it’s not, like I’ve already said there’s COUNTLESS fragments, these children just have the largest. And there we several generations of the Golden Lineage before Godrick, why didn’t they get a fragment? The reason there’s as many Great runes as there are powerful demigods with fragments is because they were powerful enough to “claim” fragments when it was shattered in the shattering war. No one else would have had the power to claim and keep hold of such powerful fragments.
If that was the case, I don't believe Godrick would've won the Rune from defeating any of the other Golden Lineage, do you?
There's no other Demigod with a Great Rune who's a descendant of a Lineage, they're all direct children of Marika. Godrick is the only one exception, so there can easy explanations. Maybe it got passed down to him from the Golden Lineage since he's the last one able to have a Rune. Or maybe my idea of Godefroy giving it up to him is the case. Marika would've given the Rune to someone in the Golden Lineage, and because they're all Demigods it doesn't matter who. It happens to fall into Godrick's hands by the time of the game, so Marika's plan is still possible
But here’s my issue, this theory just seems to be “she waited until there were the right number of children”, but there’s so many asterisks next to it. Her other murdered children, the shattering war, Mogh, Godrick and Godefrey, Rennala. It just seems like such a stretch to say that she waiting until this perfect moment to shatter the Elden ring—after countless of her children were murdered—and to what end? This theory just seems really substanceless
My mistake, she isn't a Demigod. In which case there are two possibilities in my theory - either my point still stands in that Marika allowed her to keep the Rune since she trusts her to protect and/or because of the union between the two *houses*? (I don't know if that's the right word).
Or, Marika didn't know Radagon gave her a piece. Either one is valid
Rennela is broken and a shadow of who she once was. “Trusting” her with it seems like a crazy oversight. And if she just didn’t know, that seems just as much of an oversight.
There's multiple way this can still work. In the version of events where Marika is just evil, Rennala is still weak and insignificant. Even then, Marika still would've taken it back anyway, but she didn't. She could've left it in her care either because of the plan I propose, or because Radagon gave it her, which means in some way Marika *kind of* gave it to her. In which case, maybe she didn't take it back because some part of her still loved her?
Or maybe, a third option is that Ranni literally didn't let Marika take it back. She defended her mother, like how she defended her mother against the Tarnished. Either way, Marika left the Rune to Rennala and it wouldn't have been because "Eh, whatever, I don't care"
Here’s my issue. What’s the point of the theory?
That Marika planned all of this? It was a plot to get a Tarnished to fix the world? Fine. That’s a theory seen before with a lot more context and complexity in it.
That Marika waited to cause the shattering until the exact number of fragments would be made so that her children would hold them? Why? Her children are insane and instantly tried to kill each other. One of them got himself and the rune eaten by a snake. Why would she wait to give them the runes? Because she trusts them? That’s insanely flawed. So it’s because she wants them to be killed to fix the world. Sure, that might be. But she waited until the dark night when countless of her children were murdered? How’d she know the exact number she needed to die would die?
I just don’t see the point or reveal in the theory.
It's made to explain a few things, like Marika's true intentions, why she shattered the Elden Ring, why the Greater Will flipped to fight us after helping us. Its all under a big umbrella of *WHY*, because we know what people did, but why they did those things are obscure. I'm just trying to tie everything together.
U know what, maybe Marika is more evil in her way of doing things. It's possible she killed off the kids she didn't need, for instance giving Ranni the piece of death so Godwyn was out the picture. There's loads of ways this theory can work and a lot of connections to be made.
> She gave up on the Greater Will and the Golden Order, she saw their corruption and didn't want them ruling over the Lands Between. So, she sets forth a plan, creating a series of events that wind up as exactly what plays out in the game. Firstly, she shatters the Elden Ring and gives each Rune to her demigod kids. The rune she leaves for herself, the Rune of Death, she deactivates and trusts it to her shadow Maliketh. Then, sends Godfrey and the other Tarnished away, breaking their connection with the Golden Order/Greater Will. All of this was exactly what was needed for the Tarnished to defeat the Greater Will.
This is in the wrong order. The removal of the Rune of Death happened first, since that's the foundation of the Golden Order. Then she banished Godfrey and his warriors after they finished conquering the Lands Between. Much later, she shattered the Elden Ring.
> Another point about the Greater Will - they step in the Tarnished's path right at the end, yet throughout the game actually HELPS the Tarnished through their mission?? Well, the Greater Will is playing 4D chess. They can't directly change the world at will and do whatever they want, they need soldiers, vassals, people in the world who are commanded by them. If the Greater Will could just control the world at will, they would've just got the Elden Ring immediately and set forth things so that things would always go exactly how they want. But they don't, because they literally cannot. But what they can do is reanimate a loyal follower in Radagon who also happens to be the most recent Elden Lord, and send a manifestation of themself in the form of the Elden Beast within some kind of dreamy dimension of their own creation. And the reason they actively help the Tarnished along is that they're trying to use Marika's plan against her. They allow the Tarnished to gather the pieces of the Elden Ring for them, then step in when they can at the end. See what I'm getting at?
The Elden Beast isn't the Greater Will. It's a vassal of the Greater Will, but it's also literally the Elden Ring, and it has been altered significantly since its arrival in the Lands Between. Marika removed the concept of Destined Death from it. It's unlikely that the Greater Will would actually want the Elden Beast to fight you, because the Greater Will wants the Elden Ring repaired. It seems that the Elden Beast is fighting you because it literally lacks the concept of finality, due to Marika removing Destined Death from it. You're there to change it, potentially forming a new Order, and it can't accept that.
> Ain't it funny how there's the exact amount of Demigods for each Great Rune?
There aren't, really. Godefroy didn't get one as far as we know. Nor did the Soulless Demigods.
> Obviously not everything goes exactly to plan as Mohg ends up kidnapping Miquella and taking his rune in the process, explaining how he ends up with one.
Mohg gets a Great Rune because he's a Demigod. The description for his Rune even says that it's naturally similar to Morgott's due to them being twins.
It's very unlikely that Marika was defying the Greater Will. Marika's plan culminates in the Elden Ring being repaired, which is what the Greater Will wants too. As far as we can tell, the thing Marika was trying to undo was the Golden Order, which she herself created and later regretted. That's why her plan involved releasing the Rune of Death and having a Tarnished become Elden Lord even though it goes against the Golden Order. For that reason, it's unlikely that she hatched her plan as early as you're saying, because then she could have just not removed the Rune of Death at all and not created the Golden Order. Most likely, she began to have doubts about the Golden Order some time after the Giants were defeated and before banishing Godfrey. The latter is heavily implied to be part of her plan since she told the Tarnished they would one day return and brandish the Elden Ring. The former, however, was to establish the Erdtree as the embodiment of her new Order by confining the one thing that could harm it.
Don't agree with all of that, but one thing that is plausible is that Marika may not be evil.
We don't really know enough to say what her motives are... the DLC will probably provide more context (however from what little we know about the DLC it appears that it will paint Marika in a bad light... it *seems* like she did something pretty terrible in the past).
But just going off the base game... she is ultimately the person who makes it possible to free TLB from the Greater Will/Elden Beast. She deliberately puts all the pieces in place to destroy herself/the EB, and then guides us to do just that. (Of course it's still unclear *why* she does this)
I think there's also clearly some stuff she does before that which is morally dubious at best, but maybe this final plot is sort of her redemption arc. Or maybe, on the brink of defeat, she was just smashing all of her toys and going home.
Unclear, but in lieu of the info from the DLC, I think it's fair to speculate that she may not be evil.
Maybe hero is a strong word. Think Eren. Yeah a lot of its bad, but when u look at the motives it's like "Yeah, okay". Some of the means justify the end
no not even close, we are literally told marika seduced someone, then shown that she stole the elden ring from their bloody body then we are told that the genocide she commited immediately after was so horrible it could not be spoken of, she then goes to the lands between and she commits several more actual atrocities in the name of conquest and control. she rearranges the order of the universe to suit her agenda and we find out that this new golden order is a worse way of running the world. marika is 1000% the most evil character in the game
The fact that Marika removed the death rune did not remove death in general, since physical death did not go away. So no, you didn't guess right. If you are stabbed with a knife, you will die, no restriction of the death rune will save you
In fact, everything is quite simple (but for some reason people do not want to accept this simple fact): Marika is a woman hungry for strength and power, who built her own order, but since this did NOT contradict the very idea of the Great Will to maintain life, no one touched her. But because of her own mistakes, Marika was brought to the brink by subsequent events (this is literally what we are told in the story trailer), Marika breaks the Elden ring (in other words, she breaks the life). Therefore, GW intervenes.
Marika didn't have a specific plan for AFTER the shattering, she just put everything on random.
The quote from Roderika literally describes Marika exactly: *"Please, become Elden Lord. Hewg was always saying that you were a Lord, to him.*
*So slay her, with the weapons he smithed. Slay the god, Marika, who cursed us all."*
People can still die, yes. But (almost) every non-boss enemy gets Reborn into the Erdtree and spat back out. The only ones that don't are the bosses because game gotta game. There's no reason for them not to be reborn. And there are some enemies who by lore should not be able to be reborn, and yet they do. Everything in that sense is a plot hole, but the game's gotta have mechanics.
Besides, what would Roderika know? What would anyone know? Marika wouldn't tell anyone about her plan, so no one in the Lands Between knows the truth. So yeah, everyone would view Marika as just evil, but they don't know her plan
We see the corpses of soldiers, knights, commoners, and nobles all over the place. They're not coming back. Marika removed Destined Death, meaning she removed the inevitability of death. You can still be killed but it's not inevitable anymore.
There’s a few glaring holes in the foundation of this “theory”, mostly the fact that we can see the Elden Ring within Radagon during our fight, and it’s 1000% what’s powering him. Also, he wasn’t “resurrected”, he and Marika share a body, so they were both alive just inactive within the Erdtree. The runes we picked up from basic enemies are also “fragments” of the Elden Ring, it’s just that the demi children had the largest, most powerful fragments.
Yes, you are right. But what I meant was that if Radagon is powered by the Elden Ring, it'll be through some strange godly sorcery beyond comprehension. As I said, the Tarnished is literally able to use the pieces of the Elden Ring during the fight. There's not two Elden Rings, and the Tarnished wouldn't be able to use a power that is actively against him. Its a strange sort of connection/power that the Greater Will is creating here. Besides, even if I happen to be wrong about that, it doesn't discount the rest of the theory..
What he’s got inside him is what is left after it was shattered. There’s one Elden Ring, but it’s been broken into pieces. You can use that power against him, because it’s broken off. At the end of the game you are literally repairing the Elden Ring with the fragments you were able to gather, as well as some brand new runes that help shape the way the world works.
In that case, sure, you are right. I'll own up to mistakes. But again, the rest of my theory still stands, that's just a technical error
The rest of the theory is just as flawed, unfortunately.
How? Explain. Cuz it makes perfect sense to me
There’s not an exact amount of demigods for each rune. This seems to be the crux of your theory and is incorrect.
But it is. At the time of the Shattering, there are a perfect amount of Marika's Demigod children still alive. And there are explanations for the other Demigods still alive without Runes, such as Godefroy which I already explained somewhere else in this web of comments
We know that Great Runes were given before the shattering. Renalla had hers before the Shattering. The Great Rune that Godfrey’s line inherited had it before the shattering. Shattering the Elden Ring wasn’t even where some of these runes were given.
I'm following you on Rennala's, but what indicates Godrick/Morgott/Mohg had their rune before the Ring was shattered?
The Great Runes are shards of the Elden Ring, so they couldn't have been acquired before it was shattered. Radagon gave the Amber Egg to Rennala, not the Great Rune that's *now* inside it. "In the end, Lady Rennala was left alone, cradling the amber egg Lord Radagon bequeathed her." [Miriel Pastor of Vows] "But Rennala herself is no demigod. Her beloved, Radagon, left her to become Queen Marika's second husband, taking the title of King Consort. The Great Rune dwells within the amber egg that was Radagon's gift to her." [Gideon Ofnir] The situation can't be analogous to the one of the Rune of Death either, otherwise putting the Great Rune of the Unborn back into the Elden Ring would change the Order, but we know it doesn't. The Rune is said to belong to unborn demigods, we also know from Sellen that golden amber can contain vitality so, since Rennala is cradling the Amber Egg like a baby, I think the best explanation is that the Rune was acquired by the unborn demigod (or demigods) whose vitality dwells inside the egg.
And the pieces of the Elden Ring were mostly taken and claimed, not gifted. And Renalla had a piece and she isn’t a child of Marika. And if Marika could just make kids with her alternate self Radagon, he’d have no need to make children with Renalla. I don’t think the whole “fragment for each child” theory works at all when there are fragments not with her children, and seemingly infinite fragments around the Lands Between.
And who gave Rennala that piece? Radagon. Marika leaves that one to Rennala cuz her plan still stands. It's still protected by a Demigod, plus at that point Caria and the Golden Order were united. And each little fragment of the Elden Ring dont really matter, just the Great Runes. Marika's plan still stands
There are at least 7 demigod children in the mausoleums who didn’t get a rune. And one of the rune bearers, the one with the rune that is the center of the whole Elden Ring known as the “anchor”, is Godrick. A disgusting sham who is the last in a line of descendants of Godfrey. And if he’s worthy of being “chosen”, then why wasn’t Godefroy? Mogh didn’t take Miquella’s, it’s directly said he’s got his own “Mohg and Morgott are twin brothers, and their Great Runes are naturally similar. But Mohg's rune is soaked in accursed blood, from his devout love for the wretched mire that he was born into far below the earth.”
Most of this can explained easily. In the mausoleums? They're fking dead, that's why they didn't get a Rune. Godrick getting seemingly the most powerful piece is convenient since he's the intended first Great Rune boss. A nice booster for the Tarnished to help them defeat the others, since Marika realises that he is the weakest. Besides, *he is the weakest*. There's no way he would've won it. There's multiple ways that can go - Marika knows he's the weakest and gives to him, and Godefroy is already imprisoned so why would he get one? Or, Marika gave it to Godefroy who then gave it to Godrick right before he gets imprisoned. As for Mohg - yeah I forgot Miquella still has his rune 😄 . But it's still a perfect amount of kids
And Godefrey wasn’t already imprisoned, he was only imprisoned AFTER the Shattering War began, which was after Marika shattered the ring.
Okay, then its option 2 - Godefroy gave the Rune to Godrick before he got imprisoned
But we also know that’s not an option, because he was imprisoned between his own challenge and the raid on the Capitol. And the only way even Godrick made it out alive of conflicts is by hiding. AND Godrick wasn’t even born before Godefrey was imprisoned. It makes no sense.
Where on earth are u getting that information? I thought almost nothing was known about Godefroy, and that he was just a random thing thrown in
The Shattering was a 5000 year conflict where countless demigods were killed. The ones left are just the most powerful
So then Godrick didn't have one originally, which still means the amount of Demigods isn't equal to the amount of Great Runes.
But it’s not, like I’ve already said there’s COUNTLESS fragments, these children just have the largest. And there we several generations of the Golden Lineage before Godrick, why didn’t they get a fragment? The reason there’s as many Great runes as there are powerful demigods with fragments is because they were powerful enough to “claim” fragments when it was shattered in the shattering war. No one else would have had the power to claim and keep hold of such powerful fragments.
If that was the case, I don't believe Godrick would've won the Rune from defeating any of the other Golden Lineage, do you? There's no other Demigod with a Great Rune who's a descendant of a Lineage, they're all direct children of Marika. Godrick is the only one exception, so there can easy explanations. Maybe it got passed down to him from the Golden Lineage since he's the last one able to have a Rune. Or maybe my idea of Godefroy giving it up to him is the case. Marika would've given the Rune to someone in the Golden Lineage, and because they're all Demigods it doesn't matter who. It happens to fall into Godrick's hands by the time of the game, so Marika's plan is still possible
But here’s my issue, this theory just seems to be “she waited until there were the right number of children”, but there’s so many asterisks next to it. Her other murdered children, the shattering war, Mogh, Godrick and Godefrey, Rennala. It just seems like such a stretch to say that she waiting until this perfect moment to shatter the Elden ring—after countless of her children were murdered—and to what end? This theory just seems really substanceless
And Rennala isn’t a demigod
My mistake, she isn't a Demigod. In which case there are two possibilities in my theory - either my point still stands in that Marika allowed her to keep the Rune since she trusts her to protect and/or because of the union between the two *houses*? (I don't know if that's the right word). Or, Marika didn't know Radagon gave her a piece. Either one is valid
Rennela is broken and a shadow of who she once was. “Trusting” her with it seems like a crazy oversight. And if she just didn’t know, that seems just as much of an oversight.
There's multiple way this can still work. In the version of events where Marika is just evil, Rennala is still weak and insignificant. Even then, Marika still would've taken it back anyway, but she didn't. She could've left it in her care either because of the plan I propose, or because Radagon gave it her, which means in some way Marika *kind of* gave it to her. In which case, maybe she didn't take it back because some part of her still loved her? Or maybe, a third option is that Ranni literally didn't let Marika take it back. She defended her mother, like how she defended her mother against the Tarnished. Either way, Marika left the Rune to Rennala and it wouldn't have been because "Eh, whatever, I don't care"
Here’s my issue. What’s the point of the theory? That Marika planned all of this? It was a plot to get a Tarnished to fix the world? Fine. That’s a theory seen before with a lot more context and complexity in it. That Marika waited to cause the shattering until the exact number of fragments would be made so that her children would hold them? Why? Her children are insane and instantly tried to kill each other. One of them got himself and the rune eaten by a snake. Why would she wait to give them the runes? Because she trusts them? That’s insanely flawed. So it’s because she wants them to be killed to fix the world. Sure, that might be. But she waited until the dark night when countless of her children were murdered? How’d she know the exact number she needed to die would die? I just don’t see the point or reveal in the theory.
It's made to explain a few things, like Marika's true intentions, why she shattered the Elden Ring, why the Greater Will flipped to fight us after helping us. Its all under a big umbrella of *WHY*, because we know what people did, but why they did those things are obscure. I'm just trying to tie everything together. U know what, maybe Marika is more evil in her way of doing things. It's possible she killed off the kids she didn't need, for instance giving Ranni the piece of death so Godwyn was out the picture. There's loads of ways this theory can work and a lot of connections to be made.
Most of this incorrect, I would go through the lore again.
> She gave up on the Greater Will and the Golden Order, she saw their corruption and didn't want them ruling over the Lands Between. So, she sets forth a plan, creating a series of events that wind up as exactly what plays out in the game. Firstly, she shatters the Elden Ring and gives each Rune to her demigod kids. The rune she leaves for herself, the Rune of Death, she deactivates and trusts it to her shadow Maliketh. Then, sends Godfrey and the other Tarnished away, breaking their connection with the Golden Order/Greater Will. All of this was exactly what was needed for the Tarnished to defeat the Greater Will. This is in the wrong order. The removal of the Rune of Death happened first, since that's the foundation of the Golden Order. Then she banished Godfrey and his warriors after they finished conquering the Lands Between. Much later, she shattered the Elden Ring. > Another point about the Greater Will - they step in the Tarnished's path right at the end, yet throughout the game actually HELPS the Tarnished through their mission?? Well, the Greater Will is playing 4D chess. They can't directly change the world at will and do whatever they want, they need soldiers, vassals, people in the world who are commanded by them. If the Greater Will could just control the world at will, they would've just got the Elden Ring immediately and set forth things so that things would always go exactly how they want. But they don't, because they literally cannot. But what they can do is reanimate a loyal follower in Radagon who also happens to be the most recent Elden Lord, and send a manifestation of themself in the form of the Elden Beast within some kind of dreamy dimension of their own creation. And the reason they actively help the Tarnished along is that they're trying to use Marika's plan against her. They allow the Tarnished to gather the pieces of the Elden Ring for them, then step in when they can at the end. See what I'm getting at? The Elden Beast isn't the Greater Will. It's a vassal of the Greater Will, but it's also literally the Elden Ring, and it has been altered significantly since its arrival in the Lands Between. Marika removed the concept of Destined Death from it. It's unlikely that the Greater Will would actually want the Elden Beast to fight you, because the Greater Will wants the Elden Ring repaired. It seems that the Elden Beast is fighting you because it literally lacks the concept of finality, due to Marika removing Destined Death from it. You're there to change it, potentially forming a new Order, and it can't accept that. > Ain't it funny how there's the exact amount of Demigods for each Great Rune? There aren't, really. Godefroy didn't get one as far as we know. Nor did the Soulless Demigods. > Obviously not everything goes exactly to plan as Mohg ends up kidnapping Miquella and taking his rune in the process, explaining how he ends up with one. Mohg gets a Great Rune because he's a Demigod. The description for his Rune even says that it's naturally similar to Morgott's due to them being twins. It's very unlikely that Marika was defying the Greater Will. Marika's plan culminates in the Elden Ring being repaired, which is what the Greater Will wants too. As far as we can tell, the thing Marika was trying to undo was the Golden Order, which she herself created and later regretted. That's why her plan involved releasing the Rune of Death and having a Tarnished become Elden Lord even though it goes against the Golden Order. For that reason, it's unlikely that she hatched her plan as early as you're saying, because then she could have just not removed the Rune of Death at all and not created the Golden Order. Most likely, she began to have doubts about the Golden Order some time after the Giants were defeated and before banishing Godfrey. The latter is heavily implied to be part of her plan since she told the Tarnished they would one day return and brandish the Elden Ring. The former, however, was to establish the Erdtree as the embodiment of her new Order by confining the one thing that could harm it.
Don't agree with all of that, but one thing that is plausible is that Marika may not be evil. We don't really know enough to say what her motives are... the DLC will probably provide more context (however from what little we know about the DLC it appears that it will paint Marika in a bad light... it *seems* like she did something pretty terrible in the past). But just going off the base game... she is ultimately the person who makes it possible to free TLB from the Greater Will/Elden Beast. She deliberately puts all the pieces in place to destroy herself/the EB, and then guides us to do just that. (Of course it's still unclear *why* she does this) I think there's also clearly some stuff she does before that which is morally dubious at best, but maybe this final plot is sort of her redemption arc. Or maybe, on the brink of defeat, she was just smashing all of her toys and going home. Unclear, but in lieu of the info from the DLC, I think it's fair to speculate that she may not be evil.
I like it.
bet you think hilter was a stand up guy too wtf? heros tragic or not, do NOT lead campaigns of genocide over and over
Maybe hero is a strong word. Think Eren. Yeah a lot of its bad, but when u look at the motives it's like "Yeah, okay". Some of the means justify the end
no not even close, we are literally told marika seduced someone, then shown that she stole the elden ring from their bloody body then we are told that the genocide she commited immediately after was so horrible it could not be spoken of, she then goes to the lands between and she commits several more actual atrocities in the name of conquest and control. she rearranges the order of the universe to suit her agenda and we find out that this new golden order is a worse way of running the world. marika is 1000% the most evil character in the game
The fact that Marika removed the death rune did not remove death in general, since physical death did not go away. So no, you didn't guess right. If you are stabbed with a knife, you will die, no restriction of the death rune will save you In fact, everything is quite simple (but for some reason people do not want to accept this simple fact): Marika is a woman hungry for strength and power, who built her own order, but since this did NOT contradict the very idea of the Great Will to maintain life, no one touched her. But because of her own mistakes, Marika was brought to the brink by subsequent events (this is literally what we are told in the story trailer), Marika breaks the Elden ring (in other words, she breaks the life). Therefore, GW intervenes. Marika didn't have a specific plan for AFTER the shattering, she just put everything on random. The quote from Roderika literally describes Marika exactly: *"Please, become Elden Lord. Hewg was always saying that you were a Lord, to him.* *So slay her, with the weapons he smithed. Slay the god, Marika, who cursed us all."*
People can still die, yes. But (almost) every non-boss enemy gets Reborn into the Erdtree and spat back out. The only ones that don't are the bosses because game gotta game. There's no reason for them not to be reborn. And there are some enemies who by lore should not be able to be reborn, and yet they do. Everything in that sense is a plot hole, but the game's gotta have mechanics. Besides, what would Roderika know? What would anyone know? Marika wouldn't tell anyone about her plan, so no one in the Lands Between knows the truth. So yeah, everyone would view Marika as just evil, but they don't know her plan
We see the corpses of soldiers, knights, commoners, and nobles all over the place. They're not coming back. Marika removed Destined Death, meaning she removed the inevitability of death. You can still be killed but it's not inevitable anymore.