soulsmusings
Hmph! What a waste of time...
Fun character builds, lore discussions, and scattered thoughts on FromSoftware's "Souls" series. Updates irregularly. Enjoy!
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I've been noticing a trend of cheaper, minimalist art design creeping into modern big-budget games as of late but to me nothing has ever been so egregious in this regard as when you compare the goddamn status and item bars of Demon's Souls (left) to its 2020 remake (right)
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From Sofware has this habit of coming up with ideas in a certain context, making it make sense in that context, and then liking that idea so much that they use it with the same name in other games, that don't have that context in their story.
For instance, fog walls. Mighty odd mechanic in dark souls isn't it? Just some random patches of unexplained fog, in later games they give it a different name like "nightmare wall" or "wall of golden light". But in the souls series it's just fog walls, in games where fog hold no special significance. Well, they were created in demon's souls, a game where a fog is slowly consuming the world, and it is emitted by demons. Those fog walls are places where the fog grows thicker, and because big demons release it, there is often a boss behind it.
Another smaller example is summoning in Elden Ring. Elden Ring doesn't take place in a decayed timeline with many alternate dimensions and ruined time, which used to explain how you summon ancient heroes and alternate chosen undeads in dark souls, but the game still uses "invading another world" and "phantom has returned to their world", with barely a few new words to explain it. What the hell does Host of Fingers even imply, it doesn't seem as important as Host of Embers, "host of the thing every ashen one wants".
And finally the one example I know from a different FS series. Assault armor. This isn't armor in any way, i'm pretty sure it does not block bullets, it's literally an explosion, why is it CALLED ARMOR. Well, "Assault Armor" originated in Armored Core:For Answer. There, the acs have a thing called "Primal Armor", a radioactive force field that dissolves most bullets. Assault armor is a move that empties your primal armor, releasing it as an explosion. You are ASSAULTING them with your ARMOR.
Like they are going "you know what this is, we don't need to explain it again". It's cute but it creates some very confusing situations
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I may(?) have made this post before but I'm fairly certain the masks used in Oedipus Rex (1957) are a direct inspiration for the Pinwheel masks in Dark Souls.
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this is what i mean by the runes being directly representative of some in-game imagery. isn't this shit crazy.
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More Elden Ring DLC Leaks!
New items abound, this DLC is gonna rock!
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Dark Souls item colour palettes!
Sibling J challenged me to make this, citing Dark Souls as a 'particularly uncolourful game' he's familiar with. I haven't seen enough of it to verify that claim, so if anyone here happens to be very passionate about the visual design/colour theory of Dark Souls, go after him, not me XD
Fun fact: I didn't include it because I didn't feel like it fitted with the palette, but there is in fact pink inside the Enchanted Ember flame.
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Godrick the Grafted arm count reference - addition to my big anatomy post
Arm #4 usually can only be seen from the back. There are 2 more arm-looking limbs hugging him on one side but I am not sure if those are arms or legs. They look like handless arms. Those 2 seem to be used to reinforce his left side, which makes sense because his biggest arm, and (later) dragon head will be there.
Another arm comparison post can be found here
Model extracted by davoth
Model belongs to FromSoftware
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This is my favorite human Ludwig design, bar none. You actually extrapolated from his beast design what his face would have looked like, and the result is really convincing. Well done!
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Study after Vélazquez's portrait of Pope Innocent X // Francis Bacon (1953)
La Pietà // Michelangelo (1499)
The Nightmare (detail) // Johann Heinrich Füssli (1781)
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Oh so when a Fromsoft boss moves with that signature tired, slow heaviness that denotes a once proud being decaying from within and groaning under the weight of its own hubris and a life that has lasted far too long it's epic and cinematic but when I do it it's depressing.
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Marika and Radagon as two wills
What's intriguing about Marika and Radagon's dynamic is that it's not as simple as the two of them being a single shapeshifting character, or that Radagon was created by Marika to do her bidding. Rather, they appear to be two individuals born in two separate bodies, possessing two minds and two wills, locked in a battle of ideals even after fracturing into one being.
As Goldmask's final cogitation reveals in the Mending Rune of Perfect Order, the singular god embodied by the duo is perpetually vacillatory. Even as far back as the 2019 teaser trailer, Marika and Radagon are depicted not in cooperation, but in contest. With each drop of the hammer upon the Elden Ring, the two alternate their intents—Marika attempting to destroy Order, and Radagon to repair it.
Erstwhile, Marika and Radagon lead two separate lives, even if seemingly cooperating in a clandestine plot to immortalize the Age of the Erdtree. While Marika was married to Godfrey, Radagon fulfilled his role as conqueror of the Carian lineage, binding the moon and stars to the fate of the Golden Order. Though Marika was elected an Empyrean by the Two Fingers and ascended to godhood, Radagon was no more than a human champion descended from the dwindling monks who were tasked with guarding the giants' flame.
This dynamic is shared by an unusual pair of characters: the twins known as D. Darian and Devin are referred to as twins, sensing each other's shared existence, yet the two have never met nor spoken. Like Marika and Radagon, they occupy two bodies and two minds, yet they share one soul. Naturally, they were welcomed as servants of the Golden Order and adherants to Gurranq's hunt for Those Who Live in Death, an unsurprising detail given the god of the Golden Order is, like them, a singular entity in two bodies.
Unlike D, however, Marika and Radagon were ultimately in conflict.
As one god
Though the two of them married to produce Miquella and Malenia before fracturing into one, it would seem this was not out of any desire to share their godhood, but as a sort of gamble. Gideon Ofnir implores that Marika had devised a trap for the Tarnished, locking them in an eternal conflict under the false promise of becoming Elden Lord; Roderika is convinced that Marika cursed Hewg to forge an impossible weapon to slay a god, and begs you to kill her. What neither of them have learned is that Marika is already long dead, crucified and impaled on what appears to be a shard of Destined Death, while Radagon survives, preventing the Tarnished from instilling their vision upon the Elden Ring.
Though we never interact with Marika directly, one facet of her character that crops up in several instances is her anguish following the assassination of her son, Godwyn the Golden. It is mentioned briefly in Ranni's narration in the story trailer, and again in late-game dialogue with Gideon. What's more, Marika's Soreseal, found in Elphael, illustrates Marika's fate as a gnawing curse. Where Radagon is often spoken of as an unwavering zealot, Marika's faith is fleeting, collapsing all upon the Night of the Black Knives.
Could it be that Marika truly wished for an end to Order, and that her temporary exile of the Tarnished was a gambit to undermine the Greater Will? Did Radagon use this to his advantage, trusting the task of slaying the demigods and burning the Erdtree too lofty an ambition for a lowly warrior? Was Marika's offer to fuse with Radagon a means to restrain him within the Erdtree upon her death? Did Radagon agree to this purely so that he could become a god at last and achieve total order?
All things yearn to converge
A chief characteristic of the Golden Order is the ability to adapt the contrivances in the disparate philosophies and faiths of the Lands Between. This was, after all, Radagon's purpose for marrying Rennala and mastering glintstone sorcery before joining Marika. In a sense, Marika and Radagon could be utilizing this concept of adaptation to subvert each other's will, an irony that allows the Golden Order to sustain itself through contradiction.
Even if Marika sought to shed her curse as a slave to the Greater Will, her trespass was essential in generating the conditions that would sustain the Erdtree. On the contrary, Radagon becoming a god sealed his fate, granting the Tarnished a glimmer of hope that they might fulfill the false prophecy.
In the end, the destiny of the Lands Between rests entirely upon the shoulders of the fateless Tarnished.
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The Choir and the School of Mensis really do have a sort of Enlightenment vs. Romanticism or Apollonian vs Dionysian thing going on don't they.
The Choir is exceptionally "Rational Thank You Very Much" in everything they do (in their own view, at least). Despite being ostensibly the organization in more religious garb, it really does seem to be just garb that makes them acceptable to the public at large. Their main purpose is experimentation and documentation for the Church, and really they know that Ebrietas (for instance) is not a god, just an advanced creature. Their experiments with Blue Serum and the Celestial Emissaries are also much more physical in nature- dealing with things like chemistry and biology.
On the other hand, the School of Mensis, while sounding more academic, is a much more esoteric organization. More focused on worship of the Great Ones and communing with them, as well as ritual and sacrifice. They do seem to worship the Great Ones as literal gods, and overall have a much less scientific and much more... "spiritual" approach, one could say. They are also far less concerned with physical reality, and more focused on the Dreamlands than the Choir is.
It's a rather interesting dichotomy.
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faith as a stat has always thematically been iffy in souls games, but never to the extent it is in elden ring. demon's souls and dark souls 1 are alright because there is either a singular god or a triumvirate who appear to mostly agree with each other, so while you might be a servant of the first of the dead you're ok with gwyn on some level and can use sunlight blade effectively.
dark souls 2 and 3 is where it starts getting weird with the fact that hexes and dark miracles exist. you can still handwave it since gods are not a huge presence in the world much like in demon's souls, sure they're heretical, but generally speaking heretics still believe most of the orthodoxy as well, they're just a bit spicy sometimes.
in elden ring, however, you can use things that are explicitly violently opposed to each other to great effect. recusants, bloody fingers, servants of the lord of death, miquella's followers, the golden order and the fire worshipers all oppose each other on some level, while some are more neutral. you can use fia's mist and the inseparable sword (which literally was used to kill fia) and they both scale with faith because it's faith for SOME god, regardless if they're in conflict with one another. so what? are you a creative blasphemer? an all around heretic? "oh golden order is not working today, better start worshiping the snake guy for a bit"
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Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree
DLC announcement key art
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I like how the ‘Mad taint’ of the Great runes power doesn’t just make the demigods murderous, but instead affects them by enhancing their existing qualities in excess.
Godrick’s inferiority complex is enhanced to the point of him turning to grafting for power, calling himself ‘the lord of all that is golden’ to affirm his strength to himself.
Rennala had great love for her family and children, and this is ironically turned against her as she repeatedly births and rebirths the scholars, believing the Amber egg to be her ‘beloved’.
We have to speculate a bit for Radahn, but I think it’s likely that the rune enhanced his aggression and willingness to go into battle. I believe this because I think it would likely be a contributing factor into his battle with Malenia, and his earlier battle with Leyndell (that we see in the opening cinematic with him fighting Margit).
Morgott is a deeply loving and protective individual, even when those he loves do not deserve it. So he defends Leyndell, a city full if people that would hate him if they knew he was an omen, under an order that shuns his kind. He even goes so far as to defend the weakest demigod Godrick in spite of his disgusting grafting (which I believe he does particularly out of love for his family, perhaps subconsciously).
Rykard has a multitude of different traits that could be made excessive by the Great Rune. His innate cruelty (evidenced by the inquisition he controlled even before the shattering), his anger at the Golden Order (likely him projecting his hatred of Radagon for abandoning Rennala) and his desperation to gain enough power to fight back against the Erdtree (which eventually leads to him becoming impatient enough to feed himself to the God-Devouring Serpent).
Malenia takes immense pride in her skill with a blade, as this is what allows her to stand alongside her brother as his blade. It also gives her something to focus on besides the rot, even helping stave it off through the waterfowl dance. Additionally she is absolutely devoted to her brother Miquella and will do anything for him. It is a combination of these factors that I believe led to her conflict with Radahn and her unleashing of the scarlet rot. It is also why the dreaded phrase ‘I am Malenia, Blade of Miquella’ is the sentence she chooses to fixate on to help retain her mind from the rot.
Miquella is similar to Malenia in that he is absolutely devoted to his sister and finding a cure for her rot, going so far as to try and establish a replacement erdtree and embed himself in it to overcome both his and her respective curses.
Mohg is interesting because aside from his rejection of the Golden Order we know little of his characterisation before being enthralled by Miquella’s power and becoming obsessed. Although I speculate that he, much like Morgott, is a deeply loving person who unlike his brother chose to abandon those who clearly did not love him and give himself to the Formless Mother (I don’t think it is a coincidence that his mother Marika cast him aside and he chooses to serve a different, surrogate mother).
Ranni is a slightly ironic figure in this regard as her obsession is with freeing herself and the Lands Batween from the outer gods (as well as fulfilling her fate). But this obsession leads her to ironically abandon her Great Rune, which I believe allows her to play the long game and not get caught up in the shattering like the rest of the demigods.
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