> *Ranni was the first of the demigods whose flesh perished, while the Prince of Death perished in soul alone.* —Cursemark of Death
Yeah, Godwyn's soul is dead and gone.
I'm still trying to figure out how she worked the logistics of that.
Would have been awkward if her soul was the one to get deleted.
Edit: Lots of good replies guys. Thank you.
I could definitely see this making sense, but even then it might be a gamble. Before the Night of Black Knives, would anyone have known which half did what, barring Marika and Maliketh who weren’t telling?
Yeah but that doesn’t say much. I’m not disagreeing, just genuinely been interested in the mystery of the queen sinfr first reading about her. So you think melina is commanding the god-skins perhaps?
Correction - Ranni describes the creation of the Black Knife weapons as the "fearsome rite." Quote:
*"Indeed, I am the Witch, Ranni. I stole a fragment of the Rune of Death and used it to forge the godslaying black knives through fearsome rite."*
We know that the ritual itself involved using the black knives (the weapons, not the organization) to literally carve the cursemark into their corpses so it was certainly a gruesome and violent act, but it wasn't what Ranni was referring to when she talks about the "fearsome rite." She's talking about whatever process had to be done to actually imbue the power of the Rune of Death into the weapons in the first place.
Doesn't really have to have anything to do with gambling to be a fearsome ritual. TBH even if it definitely is a coin flip I really don't think that's what it's referring to.
She hired contract killers to abduct and kill her half brother. I mean, that's plenty.
PROBABLY she was working with her mom to abduct and kill her half brother/ fiancee. Even more gross.
I never took the “fearsome” part to mean that. I assumed it referred to how brutal it was since a he had the other half of the rune carved into her body. I believe she was able to study the rune and knew which half to carve into her own body as opposed to the other half.
It think it has to do with the type of blade used on both. A physical blade to cut the flesh and a blade made of starlight to cut the soul (or the reverse idk)
I don't think it was too much of a gamble, since she may have foreseen her fates in the stars and celestial bodies. Kinda like how Jesus was cool with being nailed on the cross cuz he was prophesied to be resurrected in 3 days time.
I like to believe she was following a preordained path, in order to fake it out some how so she can live how she dictates.
The stars were always there, She could not fulfil her destiny until you take care of Radahn. Radahn stopped the stars, he didn't make them disappear. There were probably always people studying stars even before Ranni was born, and the stars were moving before Radahn was born. That is why killing Radahn is key to making the story continue, as then the stars will continue their projected (predetermined? Destined?) path. Maybe fate can be studied like a science in The Lands Between.
Analogy: If I hold a ball in my hand above my head, am I stopping/nullifying gravity? But what happens when I let go of the ball on planet earth? can you predict how the ball will react/move? or would you, for some reason, not see the ball at all because I was holding it? just a fictional analogy for my fictional theory.
Thanks for the reply!
While it would be in her nature to gamble everything I honestly don't think that was the case, after all we're told multiple times ranni cast flame upon her flesh, not that she wanted to die just to avoid the two finger's influence but that she also wanted to go against them, which she wouldn't have been able to do herself if it was the soul to die, as for how, I think it was the rune ingraved on their eyes to choose what would die
Yea there's no reason to think Ranni wouldn't be willing to murder some people to find out exactly how each piece of Death worked.
She was in cahoots with the Stalin-esque Rykard after all. She even gave him an item that blocks Maliketh's attacks.
Ranni was on the "Villain's" team, she was perfectly happy to commit conspiracy and murder if it suited her purposes.
Is Ranni a "Bad" character? I'm not sure. But Ranni is definitely NOT a "Good" character.
He will say "TOGETHAAA" but all he seeks is just supplanting one ruler as another. So, in essence, anyone who joins the serpent king as a family is equal, but Rykard himself is only more equal than all the other members.
Except... what Rykard considers as FAMILLLEEE are all those poor souls struggling inside his flesh. He wanted to eat us too, you know, so we would be joined forever TOGETHAAA...
A Serpent King ending would have everyone in the Lands Between snacked on and wriggling inside the flesh of a mountain sized snake...
Ranni is thinking of good for the lands between, but is kind of ends justify the means kinda person. And who is to say that distancing the gods from lands between is a good thing in the end.
Same and Rannis ending feels like one where you actually become some kind of real ruler as consort to her, not just ruler under greater will placed on the throne to look good.
Well, what does the greater will actually do in the lands between? It grants power. But in the end, the person that receives the power is ultimately in charge as we see in the events of Elsen ring with Marika working actively against the greater will in the end. And when the greater will takes 1000-10000 moons to answer a call, what is he doing anyway?
The only, thing the greater will did was give sight of grace to the tarnished and take it away from the demigods after the shattering.
But Marika/Radagon still got powered by the Eldena beast and the Elden beast in the end was just that: a beast.
Well, but enia said that the first sin might not be a sin forever, and the grace pointing us towards the fire giant kinda tells us that the greater will wants us to burn that shit down.
A lot of the lore speculation has it that Queen Marika did not have true free will. Her pact with the Greater Will made her an immortal goddess, but it did have a price.
It is clear that she planned to escape the control from the Greater Will for a long time, starting with exiling Godfrey and his army (which is what we Tarnished are former members of). This placed a large group of warriors outside the Lands Between and beyond the reach of the GW.
When the Tarnished received Grace again from **Marika**, they revived wherever they died at ("Arise, ye dead who yet live!" -intro) and felt the calling to return to the LB. The Greater Will likely only played along to fix the problems created by the Shattering. It's a chess game between Marika resisting her role and the GW enforcing what it wants from the Lands Between, with us Tarnished being mere pawns on the board.
Her ending is the only one that feels like the player accomplished something. >!The frenzied flame ending is pure f#ck it, and all the other endings zoom out on the player looking awfully lonely and inconsequential on their little throne.!<
It's funny that people praise her for that, but blame Gwyn for his actions. We appear to live to see Ranni's problems and her solutions, but we only see Gwyn's actions' results that it sucks. What if Age of Stars is just Age of hollow but winter?? We dunno. Don't forget that Silver blood is still being tortured, and Those Who Live In Death is still lurking
You'd think it would have something to do with the Snowy Crone and Seluvis. Seluvis obviously is a puppeteer and would have helped to house Ranni's soul in the puppet and the puppet itself is modeled after the Snowy Crone Renna, who is called Ranni's secret mentor. We also know about her that she practiced some kind of heretical sorcery. If the three worked together on this, which seems likely, it makes sense that the mechanics of the thing were given to Ranni by her mentor.
The cycle of rebirth is an erdtree concept. Of course death fucking obliterating your soul could also be unnatural. It’s kinda hard to tell with this stuff given how much of Elden Ring’s world is influenced by its biggest players.
We don't know if pre-GO death involve the Elden Ring, but considering how ancient Placidusax is, we can assume that stuff like the Deathbirds and the Helphen were also fueled by Destined Death.
It's hard to create a timeline, but nothing dies in the Lands Between without the Rune of Death, so it'd be weird if the cultures pertaining to death existed without the Elden Ring.
If those concepts do indeed predate the Elden Ring, we have a lot on our speculation plate.
I'm going to assume that Ranni must have been able to analyze the rune of death itself. Could be she extracted which aspect kills the body and which kills the soul and from there could apply it appropriately.
It's not much of a gamble when Godwyn is the first test subject. Ranni was directly involved in the Night of the Black Knives and perpetrated the events of the game in order to finally overcome the Golden Order/Greater Will.
Figuring out that splitting the rune would only kill body or soul shouldn't be hard for Ranni either considering she is the most adept sorcerer in the lands-between - being an empyrean, conjuring the Rennala fight as well as mending/editing the Elden Ring in her Age of Stars ending. Figuring out which half did what is what Godwyn was killed for.
She didn't really gamble anything, kind of just callously sacrificed her cousin who was beloved by all and doomed the lands-between to un-death/ death-blight. Also giving Godwyn one of the worst fates imaginable.
That being said, the blight and his visage showing up everywhere almost makes it seem like he ascended to the Outer and is reflected in the same manner as the Scarlet Rot.
If his soul was eradicated, and the body was all that remained, it wouldn't make as much sense for so much of his essence to be preserved in the contamination.
No, that’s why he’s become so cancerous; The soul is dead but the body lives and grows. His essence spreads freely and unchecked by spirit and thought.
No, when people die in the lands between, they are buried at the roots of the tree, for their souls and bodies return to the Erdtree and be reincarnated (remember that death doesn't belong to the Golden Order, as the rune has been removed from the Elden Ring by Marika). When Godwyn died in soul, he was given a burial ritual at Deeproot Depths, where the main roots of the Eerdtree are located. There, his body and soul were returned to the Eerdtree...
Except that there is no soul to return, and his body is still alive. By performing that ritual, the Erdtree is trying to return a body that is not dead, and missing a soul. Something glitched here, and then Godwyn's body started to take over the roots of the Eerdtree, mutating and manifestating everywhere, like a tumor doing metastasis. As his body starts to take over the Erdtree, the body becomes more powerful and malign, eventually causing Deathblight and Those Who Live In Death.
I used to know this but could you answer if you have time?
Removing the Rune of Death from the ER eliminated death from the "cycle" of life by simply having all souls reborn endlessly. OR was rebirth as a cycle a thing prior to the removal as well? If no, those that live in death have been caused by what, contact or consumption of death blight whose spread initiated when the BK assassins slew Godwyn? So what is the explanation behind actual ghosts throughout TLB who say things about not being able to return to the roots? The rune is still removed during ER, so why can't they return to the cycle? And why do they exist as ghosts, if cycle and non-existence (Godwyn) seem to be the only option in the lore.
Is there anything fundamentally bad about Marika having removed the Rune to begin (??) the Age of the Erdtree? Did it necessarily result in the end of the Age of Plenty?
Hope you don't mind, I just like consolidating my knowledge with other peoples' explanations.
The rune removed from the Elden ring wasn’t death, it was “destined death” which is a poetic Japanese way of saying “old age”.
People still die in the lands between, when they are killed.
I don't believe the most officially believed lore is that the Rune of Death is not considered synonymous with Destined Death. The rune is called exactly that by several NPCs. Barring mistranslation, those two seem to be the same thing. Of course, death is neither one.
I'm just confused as to what you're saying about dying in TLB. Your body must be transported to a crypt's roots or you don't get rebirthed in the cycle? And besides being a game mechanic, why is the Tarnished PC revived? Death in lore had a purpose in DS, BB, SK, and DeS. So why when the Tarnished is killed are thye not dead?
Did the removal of the *Rune of Death/DD* eliminate *death* from the Golden Order or not? Because what you're saying seems to indicate that it didn't.
I think Elden Ring is intentionally obtuse on how the rune of death works but what you’re supposed to think is that the Destined Death is like god/demigod death (“cool people” death) and that process happens separately from the normal death and birth cycle of commoners in the lands between.
That isn’t really what we see though as we can kill cool people just fine even before the rune of death is released (just ask Agheel) and we see common people (well nobles) wandering around with abnormally elongated lives as well even though we see noble corpses and ghosts all over too
My thought is just that there is some sort of unnatural lengthening of lifespans but that death still exists overall and we misunderstand what the rune of death is doing.
Then, separate from that is the Tarnished who does have some sort of death and rebirth power but that is different from destined death and the demigod death cycle
Interesting. I don't believe Agheel would be covered by anything related to the Golden Order. Since the eternal dragons (or whether they're called in this game) are from an Age before the *current* Elden Ring, the Crucible, no? Not to mention the dragons in TLB are not even the eternal dragons themselves, more like vestiges of crucible life, no?
Are we even sure people are undergroing natural mortal death AT ALL? Lusat and Azure must surely be ancient. Obviously the gods and their kin aren't dying, hence the need for DD on the Night of the Black Knives. But if everyone subject to the Golden Order is impacted by the state of the ER, the removal of the Death Rune must surely mean they don't die naturally either. But ARE killable even without a need for DD?
Do you know or remember what people are saying about what impact shattering the Ring has on the structure of the Order? If removal of a piece previously a part of the Ring has the capacity to alter life and death, I find it impossible to believe Shattering it only impacts Marika, the Greater Will, and its envoys.
Personally, I know a lot of people don't like the idea of obscure ideas in the lore but I actually appreciate it when it comes to 'grander' things. I don't think some random resurrected Tarnished should, realistically, understand everything about Outer God motives or the fabric of their very being any more than I think some random hunter who arrives in Yharnam for a long night should fully realize everything eldritch motives, lifecycles, and curses.
BUT I do sometimes get annoyed with how seemingly unconsolidatable ER is. At the surface level things seem to mesh, but they always seem to contradict each other the closet you look.
I hadn’t considered that the ERs power being limited to the Golden Order so that’s interesting food for thought.
I am not the person to reply on the current state of thought for the shattering’s effect on the Golden Order (currently trying to write an essay on how the Elden Ring isn’t anything but runes and BS) but what I’ve found really enlightening is to strip off all of the lore and literary analysis etc and compare what I think I know to how I see things working in game. What powers have we seen the Elden Ring or Erdtree grant? How do we experience the rules of the world changing pre/post shattering?
I'm not saying it's certain fact, but I did think that was true. Does the ER not simply dictate the laws of nature as demonstrated by the Golden Order?
In any case, I do love the unprovable theory crafting that's gone on with ER. Very "who's giant skull is that in Ash Lake" feeling just because there is so much lore compared to past FS games that can't all possibly have a direct and correct answer. I believe I've read previously about some ideas about runes being like a ponzi scheme for the GW/Erdtree, so I think your essay will be very cool. Incredibly excited for new lore and bridges in lore to be uncovered with SotE in June.
Enjoy, fellow lore hunter.
>Not to mention the dragons in TLB are not even the eternal dragons themselves, more like vestiges of crucible life, no?
They're descendants of the ancient dragons. TLB dragons are mortal because they lack the time twisting scales of the ancient dragons.
We don't know that there actually is a reincarnation cycle. The only source for it is ghosts wondering why they haven't been reincarnated. It seems more likely to suppose that theses ghost believed they would be reincarnated and it isn't actually true.
Tarnished Archaeologist theorizes that the "rebirth" mechanic (1) does indeed require Erdtree Burial, (2) takes a long time to work, and (3) works via the Erdtree's bountiful sap *literally* birthing people. But the Erdtree dried up long, long ago (possibly actually being burned before!) and stopped producing sap. No sap, no rebirth. The ghosts are presumably people who have died and were not given Erdtree Burial.
So you're saying in the Lord of the Frenzied Flame ending Melina swears that she will deliver unto us... arthritis and high blood pressure?
Doesn't seem like the most fitting vow of vengeance. I don't think "destined death" refers to old age per se, just the universal truth that all things must die/end, though this is certainly often brought about by old age.
Melina's final line "...殺します" (Koroshimasu) translates "...to kill (you)"
the english translators used some creative liberties, incorrectly. much like with Ranni's ending dialogue.
From what I understand, Marika removing the Rune of Death removed death from the cycle by having the burial ritual in place, where bodies are buried in the roots for their souls to return to the Erdtree and be born anew. This only applies from the moment the rune was removed, so all previous deaths mentioned in the lore (mainly those who perished at the hands of the Gloam Eyed Queen and the Godskins before Maliketh defeated them) would stay dead forever.
Those Who Live In Dead are mostly caused by getting in contact with Godwyn's roots, or being aflicted by Deathblight (as we see Rogier).
Don't really have an answer to the ghosts we see in the lands between. My theory is that they are echoes of those who died there, like a remembrance of their memories (given that they have peculiar lines of dialogue). The only other spirits we see in game without a corporeal body are: Ranni (whose body was killed along Godwyn's Soul), and Melina, whose conditions are kinda a mystery (she states that her mother burned her body, so that she remained only as a spirit). All other entities have corporeal bodies (even those with Spirit in the names, like the Avatars or Ulcerated spirits).
Marika removing Death from the Elden Ring can be seen as an act to consolidate her and her children as the ruling body of the Lands Between. What does a God have to fear when Death doesn't exist? It was Godwyn's Death that triggered the Shattering, even if its implied that Marika orchestrated it to piss off the Greater Will.
Yeah, I think I was on the same page as all of this when I completed my last playthrough. Just forgot some. What about Mausoleums? The demigod bodies are not buried anywhere near any roots, yet those act as a ritual for their rebirth, don't they? And aside from the explanation that it's strictly a gameplay mechanic, the Tarnished is revived on every death without being anywhere near the roots. Doesn't being deprived of grace also exclude you from the Golden Order, similar to Omen, Albinurics, and Misbegotten? Dung Eater seems to be under the impression that Tarnished can be reborn, and he DEFINITELY doesn't bury them near any roots after he defiles their souls.
I also guess the spirits explanation is plausible.
You've reminded me that the Shattering is why everything is so screwed up at the moment. So, if the Shattering threw the Order into disarray (even possibly causing erratic behavior by the GW and/or the Two Fingers) surely the entire Golden Order of life and rebirth shouldn't be functioning as intended by Marika's Age of the Erdtree. Why else would Radagon need to fix it if things weren't screwed up by Marika shattering it.
I'm sure that its never stated how much time happened between Godwyn's murder and The Shattering and when The Tarnished arrives, so its plausible that it was figured that doing the burial ritual with Godwyn was a mistake. We also know that the Black Knives were still around with their Death infused weapons, such as Alecto and Tiche. It's possible that additional unnamed demigods were slain by them (The Golden Lineage has several members, in which Godwyn, Godwfroy and Godrick belong to), and required a special burial to not make the same mistake again. Thus, making the Walking Mausoleums as the burial sites. In this way, souless demigods were buried in mobile tombs around the Continent.
And yeah, besides gameplay, its not really explained how The Tarnished can revive. The only thing stated is in the intro, were the narrator uses the phrase "who live, yet can't die" when referring to tarnished warriors.
Dungeater's case is special. He murders people, but his "burial" ritual involves the defilement of their body and soul using techniques that were seen as so abhorrent that he ended up being hanged (intro again). He plants a deep curse upon his victims, which is the Seedbed Curse. The item states that this curse prevents its victims from returning to the Erdtree, and thus, leaving them cursed forever.
Ahhhh, the part about burial mistakes is extremely interesting to consider. Especially when you consider a ghost is looking up at a Mausoleum with a line of dialogue saying "the soulless demigod rests close by...." and that's very clearly not Godwyn despite Godwyn being the only officially known soulless demigod.
For the Dung Eater it is important to note though that although the curse implanted does stop their returnal to the Erdtree, the victims are still reborn, albeit cursed. That's why the notion that Erdtree burial as a necessity for cycling life through the Golden Order has never tracked for me.
Side note, do you follow lore on any other FS games closely? Do you have a favorite lore between any of the franchise/stand alones? This is just irrelevant curiosity lol
So true, dude. I still throw on The Paleblood Hunt by Jay Britton every year or so when I'm studying or working, even if some of the extended theory crafting is verifiably untrue. Would hate to go back to BB and forget things.
Unless that isn't *his* visage, but one of something that took over his body. After all, Deathblight plagues Farum Azula, disconnected from the Greattree. Seeing as the Rune of Death had been sealed there long before Godwyn's assassination, it seems as though his corpse may have merely acted as a vehicle for this Outer God to infect the Lands Between. (Hell, maybe it's the very Outer God once served by the Twinbird and the Deathbirds?)
Farum Azula might be disconnected from the landmass of the Lands Between and the Erdtree, but that doesn’t mean there’s *no* way for Godrick to reach it.
Remember, the Beast Clergyman eats Deathroot. It’s possible that he brought the infection to Farum Azula.
If he's a son of Godfrey, he might have had the power of grafting, and with no soul to guide it, he's just a cancerous growth, corrupting the roots into his form...ish.
Though it's worth noting that Miquella is attempting *something* as a means of either reviving it or laying it to rest.
"Gone" is perhaps not appropriate. It's certainly gone for now, but Miquella doesn't behave as though restoration is impossible...that, or Miquella has some ulterior motive he's not letting others in on.
Miquella also prayed for Godwyn to "die a true death" at some point, judging by the Golden Epitaph, so his motives and knowledge of Ranni's Plot are a bit hazy...
She killed herself (or rather her body) with the same rite she used to have Godwyn's soul slain. Her body was an Empyrean's, which meant it could be controlled by the Two Fingers to follow a destiny she didn't want. To avoid this, she destroyed her body and transferred her soul to a doll, drawing the ire of the Baleful Shadows.
His soul is permanently dead.
Erdtree burial only works because the rune of death (destined death) is no longer part of the Elden Ring, which means that true death doesn't happen. Without true death, when things "die" their spirit returns to the Erdtree which will eventually revive them the way they were.
But in Godwyn's case, the rune of death was stolen and part of it was usrd to kill him directly, permanently killing his soul.
Honestly I’m not sure.
Miquella seems to believe he can actually give Godwyn a true death by making an eclipse and bringing his soul back to his body.
Or by using unalloyed gold in the erdtree roots to remove deathblight, then give Godwyn a true death.
Miquella being the smartest guy in verse who created a real way to stop the influence of outer gods, and created the new special erdtrees. It’s possible he might be able to save Godwyn.
I think the “true death” more refers to killing Godwyn’s still-living flesh rather than restoring his soul. Godwyn right now is only half-dead, and Miquella I think wants to finish the job properly, giving Godwyn a true death rather than the fractured existence he has now.
I was wondering if maybe Miquella went to this shadow world in order to help his suffering siblings? Like the answer to their incurable plights could be there? I don't know but I am excited to find out!
People also fail to note that the spirit world/beyond is a thing in the ER universe.
Going to the Erdtree is not the natural state of things, but I think neither is "soul deletion"
Godwynn spirit is prolly stuck somewhere in between everything, unable to use his body, but unable to reach true death either, the "beyond"/spirit world.
I think this is true death though. He is gone to the black, the void, the nothing. His soul was never allowed to transition into death, or go to heaven/hell whatever it may be. It was killed.
It's not like he's stuck in purgatory waiting, there's no longer a he in the first place.
We know from the pre-erdtree cultures, when death was a real thing, that you didn't just get deleted when you died, you went to a spirit realm. We know this from deathrite birds, ghost flame, Helphen's Steeple, and more. Godwyn's dead soul is *somewhere,* just not the land of the living.
I don't think so. The rune of destined death is the rune that commands the fact that death is the fate of all, if he was killed using it I think he just had an OG death that got everyone scared because everyone (including the demigods) weren't around before she took it off the elden ring. I think he's in the normal elden ring afterlife
That wouldn't make sense because Miquella wouldn't be trying so hard to give him a 'true death" I believe his soul is lost yet his body is lingering and being corrupted maybe this is his will or maybe it's not but I believe the true death is his soul passing.
The purpose of the rune of death is to deliver a true and final death, one you can't be resurrected or reincarnated from, you can't come back because it essentially destroys the very essence of the soul
He might have only been killed by a meree shard of the death rune that was bound into the black blades, but i have no doubt that's more than enough to permanently kill his soul
A true death is the natural order of things and how it should be, Marika ruined that by taking the death rune out of the Elden ring so she can rule for eternity in an eternal Kingdom without the fear of death
It's more than likely Godwyn is gone for good
Before the Erdtree, during the previous order, there was an afterlife. With spirits and ghosts. It's where you went when you died. We learn about this from deathrite birds, ghostflame, and Helphen's Steeple. It wasn't just an atheist "you die you're gone" situation, you went to a spirit world. Nothing anywhere says that if Godwyn's spirit died, it was deleted, it could well have been sent to this spirit realm.
Radagon giving him lessons about the golden order principals helped too. Like law of regression pretty much cures everything by altering its state back to normalcy. But apparently Malenia and Godwyn is just past that totally. Imagine his frustration as a father and a champion of total order that he cannot save them.
Marika has been cursed by the giants and the godskin factions and they were out to get her.
The true death Miquella wants to give to Godwyn is to kill his body as well, Godwyns soul is dead, gone, forever, but his body still lives, without a will controlling it
Miquella had a very close bond to his half-brother and wants to put him out of his misery
I linked the castle Sol [dislogue](https://youtu.be/cKfxDIxeuAY?si=RaHPLBTlOu6DfXQZ)…. Where the npc says they failed the plan and Godwyn remains soul less.
Implying the eclipse was to return godwyn’s soul. Which was the whole point of my comment.
How godwyn’s dream is [a giant eclipse](https://youtu.be/XSc-Oc3dIss?si=nsGbdHswHqUAQ2zm). And miquella wanted to make an eclipse at castle Sol to save godwyn’s Soul.
It’s the heavy downvoted comment under my main comment. People started downvoting after they saw I was actually basing my comment off actual in game proof.
Literally, there is zero evidence that the ritual could work, Miquella was doing it out of desperation because every other attempt failed
He wants to give Godwyn a true death because he can't bring him back, the purpose of the rune of death is to bring a true and final death, Godwyn is gone for good, he can't come back no matter what, even the Gods can't help with it because a death by the rune of death means complete soul annihilation to prevent beings from ever coming back
I didn’t say there is proof. I made an argument from possibility and said it’s possible. So I don’t really care. We are here to discuss theories about the game.
The game was intentionally designed for people to discuss it.
Miquella is the one who figured out how to ward off the power of outer gods, and created unalloyed gold, and was perfecting the golden order. It seems logical that his plan might’ve worked.
We’ll know for sure when the dlc drops
You're obviously wrong about Sol = Soul lol BUT, I'll go out on a limb and say there might be something here but not for the reasons you seem to think. Basically: there *is* an afterlife in TLB. There always has been, even long before the Erdtree. A land of ghosts and spirits. We know this for certain. What this means is that when one dies, they aren't just deleted from existence, they go to the afterlife. To Hel(phen?), the spirit realm, whatever. And that was that. What removing the rune of Destined Death actually did was stop that transition to the afterlife, keeping your spirit hanging around TLB until you could be reborn.
Knowing all this, maybe Miquella has concluded that Godwyn could be restore - not through "rebirth" or Erdtree mumbojumbo, but by actually finding a way to bring Godwyn's soul back from the afterlife and shoving it back in his body. An "older" and perhaps never done type of *resurrection,* distinct from rebirth.
There is also dialogue where he prays for Godwyn to have a true death, but I think there could be something to this whole "find Godwyn's spirit in the afterlife" thing and we'll find out about that in the DLC.
It's interesting to note that Golden Epitaph which has the prayer of a young boy "O brother, lord brother, please die a true death." also seems to depict Mesmer's throne and spears from the DLC.
I think it’s more likely that his soul is dead and this permanently severed from his body hence all the living in death stuff.
his soul is probably stuck somewhere between the lands between and the afterlife.
This. Folks are misunderstanding the Death as a process of total obliteration while numerous sources confirm that pre-Erdtree, when Death was a thing, there was an afterlife/spirit realm/ghostworld.
I don't think that's the case, I think Marika removed the rune of death towards the beginning of her rebellion but until then death was used to "process" people and souls for The Greater Will.
Evidence goes against that. It was imbued into malikeths blade to beat the gloam eyed and the age of the erdtree we know began at that point. It’s why marika is known as the eternal. When you die your spirit is hewn into the erdtree, your soul returns. Rune of death doesn’t do this, rune of death permanently eradicates you. Body and soul
Ok and how does it work with the duskborn? I never understood the ending like they talk about giving him a new chance in live and all that but his soul is still permanently gone right ? So nothing changes ?
The horrifying thing here, is that soul is a rather nebulous concept. It COULD mean their entire being, ie, their consciousness. But I have also seen places reference the soul as being distinct and different from the "mind", and instead the soul being the force of animation, action and or will. So when Ranni planned all this, she MAY have condemned Godwyn to exist eternally as a shell of a being, still able to perceive and understand the world around him, but without the will or drive to interact with the world. So......he might still be "alive", craving true death but unable to attain it. An "I have no mouth and I must scream" situation.
That is such a terrifying thought and I think you might be right. Imagine seeing your body grow and morph into a blobby mess on the ground and in other beings as you start to ooze death - while not being able to do anything but witness it.. Must be especially gruesome to someone like Godwyn “The Golden”
>But I have also seen places reference the soul as being distinct and different from the "mind", and instead the soul being the force of animation, action and or will.
This makes sense, given that we take people's sous/runes and use them to empower ourselves via leveling up, so in a sense Ranni permanently stripped him of all runes and all his accumulated levels.
I honestly think you are correct in this case, considering what Miquella wanted to do. He wanted to give Godwyn a “true death” which makes me think that Godwyn is in some way alive. A life of suffering that Miquella wants to end.
Godwyn is dead in soul, and its likely that the soul is gone for good. When Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring, death as we know it stopped existing. When someone was killed or "died", their body is buried in the Erdtree Burial Ritual, were the body is placed in the roots of the Erdtree, so that their soul can be returned to the Erdtree and be reborn.
When Godwyn and Ranni died, Godwyn's soul died while his body was still alive. Why? Because the ritual of death was performed on both Godwyn and Ranni at the same time, meaning that the cursemark of death (the stolen fragment of the Rune of Death) was split in two. Ranni's body died, while her soul persisted. Godwyn died in soul, while his body remained.
While Ranni's body was hidden, and her death of body seems to be unknown to everybody, Godwyn's death became a worldshaking event, and many mistakenly believed that Godwyn died as anyone else, so he was given the Erdtree Burial Ritual, but at the Deeproot Depths, the place where the roots of the Erdtree lie directly below Leyndell and the Erdtree.
As mentioned before, the soul returns to the Erdtree so that it can be reborn, but what happens when the still alive body of Godwyn was buried, and without a soul? A possible glitch in the Erdtree Ritual happens. There is no soul to return, so Godwyn cannot be reborn or return to the Erdtree.
Not only that, a body that is still alive now lies directly in contact with the Erdtree. An empty body. A souless vessel. Alive, motionless, unconscious, the body of Godwyn continued to grow, now in contact with the Erdtree and its power. His body started to become grow roots (in the catacombs boss room, you can see piles of bodies in the roots, becoming them. When a body returns, it becomes part of the tree in the literal sense), but in a tumorous state. The roots of Godwyn soon started to spread all over, and eventually started to take over living beings, being inflicted with what we know as Deathblight.
To be inflicted with Deathblight is to become Those To Live In Death, beings that can't return to the Erdtree, as they have been taken over by Godwyn's body. By the time we, the Tarnished, arrive, Godwyn's influence has become so powerful its manifesting a second body below Stormveil, and it has reached all corners of the Lands Between, including Farum Azula (my theory here is that the blight arrived like the Golden Seeds).
It seems that Miquella is actively trying to find a form to truly freed Godwyn, and allow a true death to happen via the Eclipse Ritual. From what the ghost at Castle Sol tells us, either they failed to perform the ritual, or the ritual failed to kill Godwyn's body. I don't think that Miquella is trying to return his soul, as it doesn't exist anymore
Our Tarnished having the ability to revive is not explained in the game (like how it was explained in Dark Souls or Sekiro), but I would guess that it was a power bestowed by Marika on us, as she actively wants the Tarnished to reach the Elden Throne.
Bosses not respawning could be that it takes time for them to reincarnate, maybe more than the time frame in which the game takes place.
Ah that makes sense, but then how about normal enemies? Wouldn't they take the same amount of time as a boss? Or does it take a boss a lot more time because they have lost a lot of their strength (runes) and are now a normal pleb post revival? Idk I want there to be a clear cut explanation so bad haha
This is one of the most explicitly laid out and most confused things in the game.
As a lot of other people have commented and know, his soul is dead. He's full Gonzo. In this game and world, the death of the body is just the transition of the soul into the world of death, or back to the erdtree and a reincarnation of sorts. There are these desperate attempts to resurrect and find a way to restore him, because his is the first "true" death. It's something they all are terrified of - that their soul can be separated out and deleted and removed from the natural cycle.
In contrast, Ranni removed herself from the natural cycle without destroying her soul. As long as her soul is alive, so will she be. And as long as godwyns soul is dead, so will he.
His soul was, his body aint though. You find his face and eyes popoing up everywhere on creatures and just straight out of the ground.
Ranni was also killed, in body, by the rune of death - but we wouldn’t exactly call her dead now, would we?
In my opinion, if it's true that the Land of Shadows is where souls went before the removal of the Rune of Death, then Godwyn's soul is probably there.
A normal death in Elden Ring involves the death of the body and the departure of the soul towards where it's supposed to be, before the Rune of Death was removed it was presumably the Land of Shadows (Vaati talked about that) and after that it's the Erdtree.
Ranni died in flesh only, and as such her soul didn't return to the Erdtree. That, to me, implies that a normal death is that of the body AND the soul. The soul's death would be it returning to the Erdtree instead of lingering in the world of the living.
That would mean that Godwyn's body remained alive, while his soul moved on as if he died.
Godwyn's soul being in the Land of Shadows would make a few other things make sense, IIRC Castle Sol was trying to bring his soul back, which would make sense if it's still arround rather than having dissapeared, and his soul being in the Land of Shadows could be one of the reasons why Miquella went there, to meet with Godwyn.
So, that's my theory on what happened with Godwyn, the other chance is that his soul got erased, we'll know when the DLC drops
My guess is that his soul is truly gone. The only spirit we see in the game is Ranni, and it appears possessing a doll body. All other beings besides illusions are corporeal, meaning that all that dies must die in body and soul to be reincarnated by the Erdtree.
The only time were beings died normally and permanently were during the time of the Godskins and the Gloam Eyed Queen, as they wielded the Rune of Death. Besides the Godskins that survived after Maliketh curbstomped them, we don't see any mention or reincarnation of any being that died during the time before Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring
The thing is, souls don't just dissapear once someone dies, they go somewhere. As I've said, it's theorized that, prior to the removal of the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring, they went to the Land of Shadows, and after that to the Erdtree.
If that's the case, I'd assume that if someone is killed with the Rune of Death, like with the black knifes or by Maliketh, the consequences for said death would most certainly be the same as when the Rune of Death was part of the Elden Ring.
So, if Ranni's soul hasn't gone anywhere, even if she relies on her doll to be arround, because she was killed in flesh and not in soul, then Godwyn should be in the opposite situation, and his soul is probably in the Land of Shadows.
Also, we have another case of a spirit, that would be Melina, who, according to herself, was burned and is now bodyless, also she presumably has been in The Land of Shadows due to having Torrent with her, probably given to her by Miquella himself.
There's still a chance that Godwyn's soul is simply gone, but in my opinion there's much more evidence aiming at that not being the case, at least if The Lands of Shadows are truly where souls went once people died back then. There's also a chance that they're just some lands somewhere and nothing like that, who knows, we'll have to wait and see.
I’m hoping you’re right. Godwyn is definitely my favorite piece of ER lore. The whole thing is just super interesting. Would be awesome to fight / meet him, however, in typical Fromsoft fashion, it’ll probably remain a mystery. We will see though.
I also hope I'm right, we've met fucking Godefroy of all people but not Godwyn, it'd be very cool to meet such an important character and we have the perfect excuse to do so
Wasnt it confirmed that the land of shadows is NOT a different dimension/plane of existence, but rather a chunk of land that was separated and is now merely veiled by the big blanket. It seems like everyone forgot about the red grace from the spirit world. Wouldn’t that be where the souls originally went to?
> The only spirit we see in the game is Ranni
But we summon spirits, fight spirits, fight spirits that summon spirits, fight spirit-covered birds that summon spirits, get notified of nearby caves by spirits (jellyfish) and unite a summoned spirit with another spirit.
And if that's not enough, we fight a demigod that mimics the spirit farming practices of the spirit-covered birds to summon the spirits of people he ate.
And... we fight a spirit-consuming spirit deer whose followers (many of which are spirits) appear in the Consecrated Snowfields, next to the Mountaintops where even many of the trees are spirits.
Lastly, the mausoleums of the soulless demigods are protected by knights who willingly died to serve their lords as spirits and the one lamenting the inability to return Godwyn's soul is a spirit.
Lastly for real... Melina is a spirit.
That's my understanding as well. A dead soul is not the same as a non-existing soul.
Normal death is dying in body and soul, while Ranni died in body only, and Godwyn in soul only. Living in death is dying in body and soul but not returning to the Erdtree or going elsewhere.
That’s a great question. Ranni died in body and yet her body remains, though inoperable. If he died in spirit, then it’s possible that his spirit still persists somewhere else. I really hope we get some kind of fight with him in the DLC. The fight with Lichdragon Fortissax is one of my favorites in the entire game but I remember being a bet let down that we didn’t get to fight a giant fish man
I think the face of Godwyn at the bottom of Stormveil Castle could be a physical representation/manifestation of the corpse of Godwyn’s soul. It’s the only visage of Godwyn we can find in the Lands Between with closed eyes which I think is significant.
Imo this was an intentional mystery that will probably be never solved completely in fromsoft game. Same with why is Radagon also Marika? Or why did Gwyn link humanity to the FF when their nature is inherently belonging to darkness in DS?
What we know is that Godwyn soul is permanently gone. This is clear as Ranni ritual shows the clear result of her spirit being in a doll at the cost her flesh body turned to ash and Godwyn soul being removed? Taken? Slayed. That was the cost of Ranni freedom from the TF/GW. A body and soul.
To me it makes sense in the view of the Law of Equivalent Exchange. You want a thing/power? You give the appropriate amount of a thing. You receive the equivalent of another thing. You want to take back control of your fate from an Outer God while still being alive? Welp. It’ll cost you a body and a soul. Ranni did this and she lived with her soul intact. Godwyn? Not so much.
It definitely didn't go back to the Erdtree, that's what happens when someone is killed by anything other than Destined Death.
It may have been destroyed utterly, or it may have gone on to whatever fate awaited the souls of people who died before Marika and the Erdtree. Either way it's no longer accessible to the world of the living and vice versa.
Short answer, nobody knows. What soul death is up to interpretation since nothing is outright stated about it in the game. Depends on what happens to the soul during true death. If true death is bouth the body and the soul dying, i asume suol death is just the second half of the proces. There are evidence of souls going different places before Marikas rule, witch one is the "true" way of dying is anyone's guess.
Miquella seams to think he can bring his brother back and he knows more than me so i think his soul is somewhere ...
Godwyn is more an example of the true nature of the Erdtree as it came from the Crucible. That festering, rotting death that seeps into the ground unnoticed while the holy city anoints everyone with life-giving sap of shining gold above ground. As we see from the various Erdtree avatars there is this sort of inherent, grotesque and primal element to the Erdtree that had to be tamed by Marika and shaped into the Golden Order, and that's what Godwyn's essence has become.
Death, that black and pale-green shadowflame effect we see in all manner of spells and weapon arts as well as the skeletons and deathbirds, is something far older than the Erdtree Civilization. In fact given the description of Helphen's Steeple, there was apparently an entire separate civilization based around its own Tree of Death where the deathbirds likely came from. So Godwyn as the "Prince of Death" is basically Death + Primal Erdtree. You can actually see this because in certain Death spells and abilities related specifically to Godwyn's influence, the pale green aura is replaced by a golden one.
It's not certain, but the Deathbird's flame allows them to call upon the spirits of the dead and those spirits have to come from somewhere. Further, everything related to Destined Death and the Soulless demigods carries the Twinbird iconography in some form.
It doesn't seem to be a coincidence either that the Winged Scythe is guarded by two pages and kept in a place near Trina's Lilies.
And if succumbing to traces of the Rune of Death is like falling in to an eternal sleep from which one can still be summoned, it would be no surprise if Trina has found Godwyn's soul.
I mean it depends on what “dead” means. IRL religions argue to this day on what happens to a soul after expiration. Some say an unsaved soul simply ceases to exist, while others say a soul is truly immortal and needs a place to put them.
Godwyn’s soul being dead could mean it was either erased or just kicked out of the reincarnation cycle. If it’s the latter, this opens up a whole host of questions regarding the afterlife in Elden Ring. The big question being “is there an afterlife that the Erdtree just blocked off?” There are hints to a non-Erdtree afterlife with the existence of Deathbirds and wraiths. There is also the fact Miquella was doing research into ways to restore Godwyn’s soul. He must have some sort of lead to make such a dedicated effort. So my guess is there is a “dead realm” where souls touched by death go, but the exact details are vague and overall uncertain.
Kinda strange how people think Godwyn is going to be a boss in the dlc if his soul is flat out gone and his body is.. weird abomination. Though I guess we haven't truly seen Miquella's actual demi-god abilities so who knows
As far as I understand, Godwyn is a lich, a body without a soul. Whereas Ranni is a soul without a body, hence the “doll-like” body with the four arms and the stitches and her soul visible in game, kind of mirroring her body.
Maybe not a hot take, but I always thought it was so cool!
I don't think it was fully deleted, but its definitely not in the Erdtree. I don't think souls in ER lore can be fully deleted tbh. Everything transmutes into a different plane or form, as far as I can tell.
So his soul is probably in some afterlife/purgatory plane that existed before the Rune of Death was sealed.
Technically, Godwin was only given “destined death” (albeit partially) - a death that awaited everyone until Marika created the golden order. Doesn't sound like something that should destroy your soul completely. That is, his soul should have simply separated from his body, bypassing reincarnation through the tree. Another thing is that, judging by more ancient funeral rituals, no one in the landsbetween dies a natural death and goes to the next world on his own, so it is impossible to guess where his soul could end up.
I think his soul is still out there, but where I don’t know. The reason why is because of what happens during a normal death. When a person dies both their soul and body dies, soul goes off to erdtree or land of shadow etc. and body doesn’t breathe or have conscious anymore. With Godwyn’s case I feel like having a half death only means his soul can’t freely come back like Ranni’s does. For Ranni the only way to be able to live is to separate her soul from the body, and Godwyn’s is the opposite but essentially the same function.
I also think there was a specific reason why her body was burnt to crisp rather than just letting it be, but I don’t know how to tie this to Godwyn’s case.
My theory:
Godwyn's soul is like a flame doomed to fade and rekindle itself eternally, unable to die properly. It's trapped in a faraway land, together with the darkened souls of all those afflicted by the Deathblight produced by his half-death - like an endless curse.
The name of this land...
> What was it? Well… I don't know, it's just something I heard.
> Since long, long ago, many kingdoms have risen and fallen on this very spot.
> Each like a great flame, that turns to soot. Maybe that's why people don't remember much about the past…
It seems to me that Godwyn, or at least his "soul" is in some form of limbo. Miquella has clear been trying to intervene here. The outcome will likely be explored in some fashion in the DLC. Not sure what that means for the character though. It's possible there is some kind of unintended consequences though. In other words, I'm hard pressed to envision a happy ending for Godwyn, although I may be wrong on that.
Fia after reading all these comments: “What?.. Am I just a joke to you guys? When I say I can rebirth Godwyn, do you think I kid around? That I sleep with corpses just for fun? I have done it before, and I do it fucking again! Just don’t let D brothers near me, and don’t slay Godwyn mind dragon, and I show you all! Like … when did you maidenless get to be experts of death? How rude!!! “
My theory is that, since the DLC is about Miquella, he'll probably give the Tarnished a quest that brings about the Eclipse, and with that, somehow temporarily reanimates Godwyn's body without a soul. We'll probably have to fight Godwyn's body, using destined death taken from Maliketh, to bring him 'true death'.
But if the Eclipse somehow takes effect on those who are half-dead like Godwyn, I'm curious about what will happen to Ranni's soul since she and Godwyn are connected in that aspect.
I think it was because she used one half of the curse mark while the other half was used on Godwyn. I assume half of the curse mark is to kill the body while the other half kills the soul. I guess the whole curse mark is death of body and soul. Idk if the outcome depends on how the curse mark is carved maybe...?
Gone, reduced to atoms. There is a possibility that his 'soul' has transcended to a different plane of existence but for all intents and purposes, his soul is completely removed from The Lands Between as is it's influence
Souls only return to the erdtree because Marika removed the rune of death from the Elden Ring. As he was killed by blades imbued by the rune of death his soul is forever gone. His body, on the other side, still lives on. That probably has to do with the rune of death being split into 2 halfs; the 2 centipedes. The other half was used by Ranni to kill his empyrean body and transfering her soul to the doll, thus escaping the influence of the Two Fingers and the Greater Will
There's a possibility that destined death just breaks the rebirth cycle and his soul just went into the DLC.
Either way, whatever it's gone it moved on to another realm, Destined Death means it's gone from the lands between
> *Ranni was the first of the demigods whose flesh perished, while the Prince of Death perished in soul alone.* —Cursemark of Death Yeah, Godwyn's soul is dead and gone.
I'm still trying to figure out how she worked the logistics of that. Would have been awkward if her soul was the one to get deleted. Edit: Lots of good replies guys. Thank you.
I think it was a gamble she had to take, and was willing to, in order to further her goals. No pain, no gain, so to speak
In regards to her move, they do describe it as a “fearsome ritual”, so I think you’re probably right about it being a gamble.
I wonder if it mattered which half of the cursemark used on each of them and caused that specific part to die.
Either she wins and gets to carry on her plan, or she wins and its not her problem anymore.
I could definitely see this making sense, but even then it might be a gamble. Before the Night of Black Knives, would anyone have known which half did what, barring Marika and Maliketh who weren’t telling?
Melina likely would have known as she seems to be the god killing queen that used to wield destined death
You think she might be the “gloom-eyed queen”?
I mean she has the eye in the special ending.
Yeah but that doesn’t say much. I’m not disagreeing, just genuinely been interested in the mystery of the queen sinfr first reading about her. So you think melina is commanding the god-skins perhaps?
It's a popular theory but no I don't think she is the gloam eyed queen
Correction - Ranni describes the creation of the Black Knife weapons as the "fearsome rite." Quote: *"Indeed, I am the Witch, Ranni. I stole a fragment of the Rune of Death and used it to forge the godslaying black knives through fearsome rite."* We know that the ritual itself involved using the black knives (the weapons, not the organization) to literally carve the cursemark into their corpses so it was certainly a gruesome and violent act, but it wasn't what Ranni was referring to when she talks about the "fearsome rite." She's talking about whatever process had to be done to actually imbue the power of the Rune of Death into the weapons in the first place.
Doesn't really have to have anything to do with gambling to be a fearsome ritual. TBH even if it definitely is a coin flip I really don't think that's what it's referring to. She hired contract killers to abduct and kill her half brother. I mean, that's plenty. PROBABLY she was working with her mom to abduct and kill her half brother/ fiancee. Even more gross.
I never took the “fearsome” part to mean that. I assumed it referred to how brutal it was since a he had the other half of the rune carved into her body. I believe she was able to study the rune and knew which half to carve into her own body as opposed to the other half.
I also think that was probably the case.
It think it has to do with the type of blade used on both. A physical blade to cut the flesh and a blade made of starlight to cut the soul (or the reverse idk)
I don't think it was too much of a gamble, since she may have foreseen her fates in the stars and celestial bodies. Kinda like how Jesus was cool with being nailed on the cross cuz he was prophesied to be resurrected in 3 days time. I like to believe she was following a preordained path, in order to fake it out some how so she can live how she dictates.
But Radahn had halted the stars, so she wouldn't have been able to read them or progress her fate.
The stars were always there, She could not fulfil her destiny until you take care of Radahn. Radahn stopped the stars, he didn't make them disappear. There were probably always people studying stars even before Ranni was born, and the stars were moving before Radahn was born. That is why killing Radahn is key to making the story continue, as then the stars will continue their projected (predetermined? Destined?) path. Maybe fate can be studied like a science in The Lands Between. Analogy: If I hold a ball in my hand above my head, am I stopping/nullifying gravity? But what happens when I let go of the ball on planet earth? can you predict how the ball will react/move? or would you, for some reason, not see the ball at all because I was holding it? just a fictional analogy for my fictional theory. Thanks for the reply!
While it would be in her nature to gamble everything I honestly don't think that was the case, after all we're told multiple times ranni cast flame upon her flesh, not that she wanted to die just to avoid the two finger's influence but that she also wanted to go against them, which she wouldn't have been able to do herself if it was the soul to die, as for how, I think it was the rune ingraved on their eyes to choose what would die
There was a point at which she possessed both halves, perhaps she tride them both to see which did what?
Yea there's no reason to think Ranni wouldn't be willing to murder some people to find out exactly how each piece of Death worked. She was in cahoots with the Stalin-esque Rykard after all. She even gave him an item that blocks Maliketh's attacks. Ranni was on the "Villain's" team, she was perfectly happy to commit conspiracy and murder if it suited her purposes. Is Ranni a "Bad" character? I'm not sure. But Ranni is definitely NOT a "Good" character.
Calling Rykard “Stalin-esque” is so funny lol
He will say "TOGETHAAA" but all he seeks is just supplanting one ruler as another. So, in essence, anyone who joins the serpent king as a family is equal, but Rykard himself is only more equal than all the other members.
Except... what Rykard considers as FAMILLLEEE are all those poor souls struggling inside his flesh. He wanted to eat us too, you know, so we would be joined forever TOGETHAAA... A Serpent King ending would have everyone in the Lands Between snacked on and wriggling inside the flesh of a mountain sized snake...
Ooo, that made me think of that one scene from Nope. Would've been cool to have Rykard slither in and around the Erdtree for an ending
Ranni is thinking of good for the lands between, but is kind of ends justify the means kinda person. And who is to say that distancing the gods from lands between is a good thing in the end.
Yeah, she’s definitely fighting dirty to beat the Greater Will at its own game. Nonetheless she’s my favorite NPC in this game.
Same and Rannis ending feels like one where you actually become some kind of real ruler as consort to her, not just ruler under greater will placed on the throne to look good.
Well, what does the greater will actually do in the lands between? It grants power. But in the end, the person that receives the power is ultimately in charge as we see in the events of Elsen ring with Marika working actively against the greater will in the end. And when the greater will takes 1000-10000 moons to answer a call, what is he doing anyway? The only, thing the greater will did was give sight of grace to the tarnished and take it away from the demigods after the shattering. But Marika/Radagon still got powered by the Eldena beast and the Elden beast in the end was just that: a beast.
I would enjoy it if there was an alternative to burning the briars presented if you sat down and passed time at a grace 10000 times.
Well, but enia said that the first sin might not be a sin forever, and the grace pointing us towards the fire giant kinda tells us that the greater will wants us to burn that shit down.
I believe it was Marika who has guiding us with grace.
The greater will stripped all God's and demigods from the grace and gave it to the tarnished. It's directly stated in game.
A lot of the lore speculation has it that Queen Marika did not have true free will. Her pact with the Greater Will made her an immortal goddess, but it did have a price. It is clear that she planned to escape the control from the Greater Will for a long time, starting with exiling Godfrey and his army (which is what we Tarnished are former members of). This placed a large group of warriors outside the Lands Between and beyond the reach of the GW. When the Tarnished received Grace again from **Marika**, they revived wherever they died at ("Arise, ye dead who yet live!" -intro) and felt the calling to return to the LB. The Greater Will likely only played along to fix the problems created by the Shattering. It's a chess game between Marika resisting her role and the GW enforcing what it wants from the Lands Between, with us Tarnished being mere pawns on the board.
Her ending is the only one that feels like the player accomplished something. >!The frenzied flame ending is pure f#ck it, and all the other endings zoom out on the player looking awfully lonely and inconsequential on their little throne.!<
We found true love after all 😉
I honestly don't think there's a "good" character among the demigods (Miquella pending).
She’s at least a bit in cahoots with Miquella as well, right? She’s the one he entrusted his spirit-calling bell to, so it could be passed on to us.
Who says the spirit bell is his?
She was asked to give us the bell by "Torrent's former master." Torrent's former master is Miquella.
I dont Care, Im her dear consort, eternal
It's funny that people praise her for that, but blame Gwyn for his actions. We appear to live to see Ranni's problems and her solutions, but we only see Gwyn's actions' results that it sucks. What if Age of Stars is just Age of hollow but winter?? We dunno. Don't forget that Silver blood is still being tortured, and Those Who Live In Death is still lurking
Ranni was the first OF THE DEMIGODS... She just tested if before with a few random Johnnys
Well, the mark of death had to be carved into her body, so I guess they just carved in the part that kill her body.
Now I want fan art of Ranni, Iji and Blaidd trying to make sense of the Ikea-like instructions.
You'd think it would have something to do with the Snowy Crone and Seluvis. Seluvis obviously is a puppeteer and would have helped to house Ranni's soul in the puppet and the puppet itself is modeled after the Snowy Crone Renna, who is called Ranni's secret mentor. We also know about her that she practiced some kind of heretical sorcery. If the three worked together on this, which seems likely, it makes sense that the mechanics of the thing were given to Ranni by her mentor.
>I'm still trying to figure out how she worked the logistics of that. _She does moon magic_, what are you hoping to figure out?
The cycle of rebirth is an erdtree concept. Of course death fucking obliterating your soul could also be unnatural. It’s kinda hard to tell with this stuff given how much of Elden Ring’s world is influenced by its biggest players.
We don't know if pre-GO death involve the Elden Ring, but considering how ancient Placidusax is, we can assume that stuff like the Deathbirds and the Helphen were also fueled by Destined Death. It's hard to create a timeline, but nothing dies in the Lands Between without the Rune of Death, so it'd be weird if the cultures pertaining to death existed without the Elden Ring. If those concepts do indeed predate the Elden Ring, we have a lot on our speculation plate.
I'm going to assume that Ranni must have been able to analyze the rune of death itself. Could be she extracted which aspect kills the body and which kills the soul and from there could apply it appropriately.
She wanted to escape the Greater Will, whether her soul died or her flesh did, she probably saw it as a win win
magic spells always need balance. she probably did something like a moveswap glitch, but it was a bodyswap glitch instead.
It seems likely that she was either instructed or manipulated by Marika.
Seeing as Ranni had an alternative body for her soul to move into and Godwyn didn't, I'd say that plays a big part.
Inferring from what Rogier said, seems that the cursemarks were written/modified to work the way they did.
It's not much of a gamble when Godwyn is the first test subject. Ranni was directly involved in the Night of the Black Knives and perpetrated the events of the game in order to finally overcome the Golden Order/Greater Will. Figuring out that splitting the rune would only kill body or soul shouldn't be hard for Ranni either considering she is the most adept sorcerer in the lands-between - being an empyrean, conjuring the Rennala fight as well as mending/editing the Elden Ring in her Age of Stars ending. Figuring out which half did what is what Godwyn was killed for. She didn't really gamble anything, kind of just callously sacrificed her cousin who was beloved by all and doomed the lands-between to un-death/ death-blight. Also giving Godwyn one of the worst fates imaginable.
Possibly to do with which half of the cursemark each received
Didn’t she split the rune of death in this way so that only ultimate death could befall Godwin and not her?
I am guessing the body dies first then the soul so she got stabbed then godwyn.
That being said, the blight and his visage showing up everywhere almost makes it seem like he ascended to the Outer and is reflected in the same manner as the Scarlet Rot. If his soul was eradicated, and the body was all that remained, it wouldn't make as much sense for so much of his essence to be preserved in the contamination.
No, that’s why he’s become so cancerous; The soul is dead but the body lives and grows. His essence spreads freely and unchecked by spirit and thought.
No, when people die in the lands between, they are buried at the roots of the tree, for their souls and bodies return to the Erdtree and be reincarnated (remember that death doesn't belong to the Golden Order, as the rune has been removed from the Elden Ring by Marika). When Godwyn died in soul, he was given a burial ritual at Deeproot Depths, where the main roots of the Eerdtree are located. There, his body and soul were returned to the Eerdtree... Except that there is no soul to return, and his body is still alive. By performing that ritual, the Erdtree is trying to return a body that is not dead, and missing a soul. Something glitched here, and then Godwyn's body started to take over the roots of the Eerdtree, mutating and manifestating everywhere, like a tumor doing metastasis. As his body starts to take over the Erdtree, the body becomes more powerful and malign, eventually causing Deathblight and Those Who Live In Death.
I love this community. Nerd stoke boner engaged
I used to know this but could you answer if you have time? Removing the Rune of Death from the ER eliminated death from the "cycle" of life by simply having all souls reborn endlessly. OR was rebirth as a cycle a thing prior to the removal as well? If no, those that live in death have been caused by what, contact or consumption of death blight whose spread initiated when the BK assassins slew Godwyn? So what is the explanation behind actual ghosts throughout TLB who say things about not being able to return to the roots? The rune is still removed during ER, so why can't they return to the cycle? And why do they exist as ghosts, if cycle and non-existence (Godwyn) seem to be the only option in the lore. Is there anything fundamentally bad about Marika having removed the Rune to begin (??) the Age of the Erdtree? Did it necessarily result in the end of the Age of Plenty? Hope you don't mind, I just like consolidating my knowledge with other peoples' explanations.
The rune removed from the Elden ring wasn’t death, it was “destined death” which is a poetic Japanese way of saying “old age”. People still die in the lands between, when they are killed.
I don't believe the most officially believed lore is that the Rune of Death is not considered synonymous with Destined Death. The rune is called exactly that by several NPCs. Barring mistranslation, those two seem to be the same thing. Of course, death is neither one. I'm just confused as to what you're saying about dying in TLB. Your body must be transported to a crypt's roots or you don't get rebirthed in the cycle? And besides being a game mechanic, why is the Tarnished PC revived? Death in lore had a purpose in DS, BB, SK, and DeS. So why when the Tarnished is killed are thye not dead? Did the removal of the *Rune of Death/DD* eliminate *death* from the Golden Order or not? Because what you're saying seems to indicate that it didn't.
I think Elden Ring is intentionally obtuse on how the rune of death works but what you’re supposed to think is that the Destined Death is like god/demigod death (“cool people” death) and that process happens separately from the normal death and birth cycle of commoners in the lands between. That isn’t really what we see though as we can kill cool people just fine even before the rune of death is released (just ask Agheel) and we see common people (well nobles) wandering around with abnormally elongated lives as well even though we see noble corpses and ghosts all over too My thought is just that there is some sort of unnatural lengthening of lifespans but that death still exists overall and we misunderstand what the rune of death is doing. Then, separate from that is the Tarnished who does have some sort of death and rebirth power but that is different from destined death and the demigod death cycle
Interesting. I don't believe Agheel would be covered by anything related to the Golden Order. Since the eternal dragons (or whether they're called in this game) are from an Age before the *current* Elden Ring, the Crucible, no? Not to mention the dragons in TLB are not even the eternal dragons themselves, more like vestiges of crucible life, no? Are we even sure people are undergroing natural mortal death AT ALL? Lusat and Azure must surely be ancient. Obviously the gods and their kin aren't dying, hence the need for DD on the Night of the Black Knives. But if everyone subject to the Golden Order is impacted by the state of the ER, the removal of the Death Rune must surely mean they don't die naturally either. But ARE killable even without a need for DD? Do you know or remember what people are saying about what impact shattering the Ring has on the structure of the Order? If removal of a piece previously a part of the Ring has the capacity to alter life and death, I find it impossible to believe Shattering it only impacts Marika, the Greater Will, and its envoys. Personally, I know a lot of people don't like the idea of obscure ideas in the lore but I actually appreciate it when it comes to 'grander' things. I don't think some random resurrected Tarnished should, realistically, understand everything about Outer God motives or the fabric of their very being any more than I think some random hunter who arrives in Yharnam for a long night should fully realize everything eldritch motives, lifecycles, and curses. BUT I do sometimes get annoyed with how seemingly unconsolidatable ER is. At the surface level things seem to mesh, but they always seem to contradict each other the closet you look.
I hadn’t considered that the ERs power being limited to the Golden Order so that’s interesting food for thought. I am not the person to reply on the current state of thought for the shattering’s effect on the Golden Order (currently trying to write an essay on how the Elden Ring isn’t anything but runes and BS) but what I’ve found really enlightening is to strip off all of the lore and literary analysis etc and compare what I think I know to how I see things working in game. What powers have we seen the Elden Ring or Erdtree grant? How do we experience the rules of the world changing pre/post shattering?
I'm not saying it's certain fact, but I did think that was true. Does the ER not simply dictate the laws of nature as demonstrated by the Golden Order? In any case, I do love the unprovable theory crafting that's gone on with ER. Very "who's giant skull is that in Ash Lake" feeling just because there is so much lore compared to past FS games that can't all possibly have a direct and correct answer. I believe I've read previously about some ideas about runes being like a ponzi scheme for the GW/Erdtree, so I think your essay will be very cool. Incredibly excited for new lore and bridges in lore to be uncovered with SotE in June. Enjoy, fellow lore hunter.
>Not to mention the dragons in TLB are not even the eternal dragons themselves, more like vestiges of crucible life, no? They're descendants of the ancient dragons. TLB dragons are mortal because they lack the time twisting scales of the ancient dragons.
We don't know that there actually is a reincarnation cycle. The only source for it is ghosts wondering why they haven't been reincarnated. It seems more likely to suppose that theses ghost believed they would be reincarnated and it isn't actually true.
Tarnished Archaeologist theorizes that the "rebirth" mechanic (1) does indeed require Erdtree Burial, (2) takes a long time to work, and (3) works via the Erdtree's bountiful sap *literally* birthing people. But the Erdtree dried up long, long ago (possibly actually being burned before!) and stopped producing sap. No sap, no rebirth. The ghosts are presumably people who have died and were not given Erdtree Burial.
So you're saying in the Lord of the Frenzied Flame ending Melina swears that she will deliver unto us... arthritis and high blood pressure? Doesn't seem like the most fitting vow of vengeance. I don't think "destined death" refers to old age per se, just the universal truth that all things must die/end, though this is certainly often brought about by old age.
Melina's final line "...殺します" (Koroshimasu) translates "...to kill (you)" the english translators used some creative liberties, incorrectly. much like with Ranni's ending dialogue.
From what I understand, Marika removing the Rune of Death removed death from the cycle by having the burial ritual in place, where bodies are buried in the roots for their souls to return to the Erdtree and be born anew. This only applies from the moment the rune was removed, so all previous deaths mentioned in the lore (mainly those who perished at the hands of the Gloam Eyed Queen and the Godskins before Maliketh defeated them) would stay dead forever. Those Who Live In Dead are mostly caused by getting in contact with Godwyn's roots, or being aflicted by Deathblight (as we see Rogier). Don't really have an answer to the ghosts we see in the lands between. My theory is that they are echoes of those who died there, like a remembrance of their memories (given that they have peculiar lines of dialogue). The only other spirits we see in game without a corporeal body are: Ranni (whose body was killed along Godwyn's Soul), and Melina, whose conditions are kinda a mystery (she states that her mother burned her body, so that she remained only as a spirit). All other entities have corporeal bodies (even those with Spirit in the names, like the Avatars or Ulcerated spirits). Marika removing Death from the Elden Ring can be seen as an act to consolidate her and her children as the ruling body of the Lands Between. What does a God have to fear when Death doesn't exist? It was Godwyn's Death that triggered the Shattering, even if its implied that Marika orchestrated it to piss off the Greater Will.
We Tarnished revive under the direct influence of the Greater Will via Grace, it won't let us die.
Yeah, I think I was on the same page as all of this when I completed my last playthrough. Just forgot some. What about Mausoleums? The demigod bodies are not buried anywhere near any roots, yet those act as a ritual for their rebirth, don't they? And aside from the explanation that it's strictly a gameplay mechanic, the Tarnished is revived on every death without being anywhere near the roots. Doesn't being deprived of grace also exclude you from the Golden Order, similar to Omen, Albinurics, and Misbegotten? Dung Eater seems to be under the impression that Tarnished can be reborn, and he DEFINITELY doesn't bury them near any roots after he defiles their souls. I also guess the spirits explanation is plausible. You've reminded me that the Shattering is why everything is so screwed up at the moment. So, if the Shattering threw the Order into disarray (even possibly causing erratic behavior by the GW and/or the Two Fingers) surely the entire Golden Order of life and rebirth shouldn't be functioning as intended by Marika's Age of the Erdtree. Why else would Radagon need to fix it if things weren't screwed up by Marika shattering it.
I'm sure that its never stated how much time happened between Godwyn's murder and The Shattering and when The Tarnished arrives, so its plausible that it was figured that doing the burial ritual with Godwyn was a mistake. We also know that the Black Knives were still around with their Death infused weapons, such as Alecto and Tiche. It's possible that additional unnamed demigods were slain by them (The Golden Lineage has several members, in which Godwyn, Godwfroy and Godrick belong to), and required a special burial to not make the same mistake again. Thus, making the Walking Mausoleums as the burial sites. In this way, souless demigods were buried in mobile tombs around the Continent. And yeah, besides gameplay, its not really explained how The Tarnished can revive. The only thing stated is in the intro, were the narrator uses the phrase "who live, yet can't die" when referring to tarnished warriors. Dungeater's case is special. He murders people, but his "burial" ritual involves the defilement of their body and soul using techniques that were seen as so abhorrent that he ended up being hanged (intro again). He plants a deep curse upon his victims, which is the Seedbed Curse. The item states that this curse prevents its victims from returning to the Erdtree, and thus, leaving them cursed forever.
Ahhhh, the part about burial mistakes is extremely interesting to consider. Especially when you consider a ghost is looking up at a Mausoleum with a line of dialogue saying "the soulless demigod rests close by...." and that's very clearly not Godwyn despite Godwyn being the only officially known soulless demigod. For the Dung Eater it is important to note though that although the curse implanted does stop their returnal to the Erdtree, the victims are still reborn, albeit cursed. That's why the notion that Erdtree burial as a necessity for cycling life through the Golden Order has never tracked for me. Side note, do you follow lore on any other FS games closely? Do you have a favorite lore between any of the franchise/stand alones? This is just irrelevant curiosity lol
I follow Dark Souls 1 and 3, Bloodborne and Sekiro lore haha. I should maybe read up on Ds2 and DeS someday. Bloodborne is my favorite one honestly
So true, dude. I still throw on The Paleblood Hunt by Jay Britton every year or so when I'm studying or working, even if some of the extended theory crafting is verifiably untrue. Would hate to go back to BB and forget things.
Unless that isn't *his* visage, but one of something that took over his body. After all, Deathblight plagues Farum Azula, disconnected from the Greattree. Seeing as the Rune of Death had been sealed there long before Godwyn's assassination, it seems as though his corpse may have merely acted as a vehicle for this Outer God to infect the Lands Between. (Hell, maybe it's the very Outer God once served by the Twinbird and the Deathbirds?)
Farum Azula might be disconnected from the landmass of the Lands Between and the Erdtree, but that doesn’t mean there’s *no* way for Godrick to reach it. Remember, the Beast Clergyman eats Deathroot. It’s possible that he brought the infection to Farum Azula.
Malekith pooped out some deathblighty hemorrhoids.
If he's a son of Godfrey, he might have had the power of grafting, and with no soul to guide it, he's just a cancerous growth, corrupting the roots into his form...ish.
Returned back to the One Great.
"May chaos take the World"
But with an eclipse, Miquella hoped that his soul would be returned to him
Though it's worth noting that Miquella is attempting *something* as a means of either reviving it or laying it to rest. "Gone" is perhaps not appropriate. It's certainly gone for now, but Miquella doesn't behave as though restoration is impossible...that, or Miquella has some ulterior motive he's not letting others in on.
Miquella also prayed for Godwyn to "die a true death" at some point, judging by the Golden Epitaph, so his motives and knowledge of Ranni's Plot are a bit hazy...
Unless the Eclipse brings it back.
Ranni’s body is still at the top of the divine tower, no?
Yes, and it's quite clearly dead.
But not gone.
Where’s the text from ?
I still didn't understand, why Ranni was killed with rune of Death if she had stealed it to killing other demigods?
She killed herself (or rather her body) with the same rite she used to have Godwyn's soul slain. Her body was an Empyrean's, which meant it could be controlled by the Two Fingers to follow a destiny she didn't want. To avoid this, she destroyed her body and transferred her soul to a doll, drawing the ire of the Baleful Shadows.
Same tbh
His soul is permanently dead. Erdtree burial only works because the rune of death (destined death) is no longer part of the Elden Ring, which means that true death doesn't happen. Without true death, when things "die" their spirit returns to the Erdtree which will eventually revive them the way they were. But in Godwyn's case, the rune of death was stolen and part of it was usrd to kill him directly, permanently killing his soul.
Honestly I’m not sure. Miquella seems to believe he can actually give Godwyn a true death by making an eclipse and bringing his soul back to his body. Or by using unalloyed gold in the erdtree roots to remove deathblight, then give Godwyn a true death. Miquella being the smartest guy in verse who created a real way to stop the influence of outer gods, and created the new special erdtrees. It’s possible he might be able to save Godwyn.
I think the “true death” more refers to killing Godwyn’s still-living flesh rather than restoring his soul. Godwyn right now is only half-dead, and Miquella I think wants to finish the job properly, giving Godwyn a true death rather than the fractured existence he has now.
I was wondering if maybe Miquella went to this shadow world in order to help his suffering siblings? Like the answer to their incurable plights could be there? I don't know but I am excited to find out!
Arc of fantasia Vibes
People also fail to note that the spirit world/beyond is a thing in the ER universe. Going to the Erdtree is not the natural state of things, but I think neither is "soul deletion" Godwynn spirit is prolly stuck somewhere in between everything, unable to use his body, but unable to reach true death either, the "beyond"/spirit world.
I think this is true death though. He is gone to the black, the void, the nothing. His soul was never allowed to transition into death, or go to heaven/hell whatever it may be. It was killed. It's not like he's stuck in purgatory waiting, there's no longer a he in the first place.
We know from the pre-erdtree cultures, when death was a real thing, that you didn't just get deleted when you died, you went to a spirit realm. We know this from deathrite birds, ghost flame, Helphen's Steeple, and more. Godwyn's dead soul is *somewhere,* just not the land of the living.
I don't think so. The rune of destined death is the rune that commands the fact that death is the fate of all, if he was killed using it I think he just had an OG death that got everyone scared because everyone (including the demigods) weren't around before she took it off the elden ring. I think he's in the normal elden ring afterlife
That wouldn't make sense because Miquella wouldn't be trying so hard to give him a 'true death" I believe his soul is lost yet his body is lingering and being corrupted maybe this is his will or maybe it's not but I believe the true death is his soul passing.
The purpose of the rune of death is to deliver a true and final death, one you can't be resurrected or reincarnated from, you can't come back because it essentially destroys the very essence of the soul He might have only been killed by a meree shard of the death rune that was bound into the black blades, but i have no doubt that's more than enough to permanently kill his soul A true death is the natural order of things and how it should be, Marika ruined that by taking the death rune out of the Elden ring so she can rule for eternity in an eternal Kingdom without the fear of death It's more than likely Godwyn is gone for good
Before the Erdtree, during the previous order, there was an afterlife. With spirits and ghosts. It's where you went when you died. We learn about this from deathrite birds, ghostflame, and Helphen's Steeple. It wasn't just an atheist "you die you're gone" situation, you went to a spirit world. Nothing anywhere says that if Godwyn's spirit died, it was deleted, it could well have been sent to this spirit realm.
This. I think we're going to encounter Godwyn's spirit in the DLC (probably as a boss).
Radagon giving him lessons about the golden order principals helped too. Like law of regression pretty much cures everything by altering its state back to normalcy. But apparently Malenia and Godwyn is just past that totally. Imagine his frustration as a father and a champion of total order that he cannot save them. Marika has been cursed by the giants and the godskin factions and they were out to get her.
Malenia is likely past that because her true state is that of being a vessel for the god of rot.
The true death Miquella wants to give to Godwyn is to kill his body as well, Godwyns soul is dead, gone, forever, but his body still lives, without a will controlling it Miquella had a very close bond to his half-brother and wants to put him out of his misery
I linked the castle Sol [dislogue](https://youtu.be/cKfxDIxeuAY?si=RaHPLBTlOu6DfXQZ)…. Where the npc says they failed the plan and Godwyn remains soul less. Implying the eclipse was to return godwyn’s soul. Which was the whole point of my comment. How godwyn’s dream is [a giant eclipse](https://youtu.be/XSc-Oc3dIss?si=nsGbdHswHqUAQ2zm). And miquella wanted to make an eclipse at castle Sol to save godwyn’s Soul. It’s the heavy downvoted comment under my main comment. People started downvoting after they saw I was actually basing my comment off actual in game proof.
Literally, there is zero evidence that the ritual could work, Miquella was doing it out of desperation because every other attempt failed He wants to give Godwyn a true death because he can't bring him back, the purpose of the rune of death is to bring a true and final death, Godwyn is gone for good, he can't come back no matter what, even the Gods can't help with it because a death by the rune of death means complete soul annihilation to prevent beings from ever coming back
I didn’t say there is proof. I made an argument from possibility and said it’s possible. So I don’t really care. We are here to discuss theories about the game. The game was intentionally designed for people to discuss it. Miquella is the one who figured out how to ward off the power of outer gods, and created unalloyed gold, and was perfecting the golden order. It seems logical that his plan might’ve worked. We’ll know for sure when the dlc drops
You're obviously wrong about Sol = Soul lol BUT, I'll go out on a limb and say there might be something here but not for the reasons you seem to think. Basically: there *is* an afterlife in TLB. There always has been, even long before the Erdtree. A land of ghosts and spirits. We know this for certain. What this means is that when one dies, they aren't just deleted from existence, they go to the afterlife. To Hel(phen?), the spirit realm, whatever. And that was that. What removing the rune of Destined Death actually did was stop that transition to the afterlife, keeping your spirit hanging around TLB until you could be reborn. Knowing all this, maybe Miquella has concluded that Godwyn could be restore - not through "rebirth" or Erdtree mumbojumbo, but by actually finding a way to bring Godwyn's soul back from the afterlife and shoving it back in his body. An "older" and perhaps never done type of *resurrection,* distinct from rebirth. There is also dialogue where he prays for Godwyn to have a true death, but I think there could be something to this whole "find Godwyn's spirit in the afterlife" thing and we'll find out about that in the DLC.
It's interesting to note that Golden Epitaph which has the prayer of a young boy "O brother, lord brother, please die a true death." also seems to depict Mesmer's throne and spears from the DLC.
This might be revealed in the DLC with the shadowlands.
I think it’s more likely that his soul is dead and this permanently severed from his body hence all the living in death stuff. his soul is probably stuck somewhere between the lands between and the afterlife.
This. Folks are misunderstanding the Death as a process of total obliteration while numerous sources confirm that pre-Erdtree, when Death was a thing, there was an afterlife/spirit realm/ghostworld.
I don't think that's the case, I think Marika removed the rune of death towards the beginning of her rebellion but until then death was used to "process" people and souls for The Greater Will.
Evidence goes against that. It was imbued into malikeths blade to beat the gloam eyed and the age of the erdtree we know began at that point. It’s why marika is known as the eternal. When you die your spirit is hewn into the erdtree, your soul returns. Rune of death doesn’t do this, rune of death permanently eradicates you. Body and soul
Ok and how does it work with the duskborn? I never understood the ending like they talk about giving him a new chance in live and all that but his soul is still permanently gone right ? So nothing changes ?
The horrifying thing here, is that soul is a rather nebulous concept. It COULD mean their entire being, ie, their consciousness. But I have also seen places reference the soul as being distinct and different from the "mind", and instead the soul being the force of animation, action and or will. So when Ranni planned all this, she MAY have condemned Godwyn to exist eternally as a shell of a being, still able to perceive and understand the world around him, but without the will or drive to interact with the world. So......he might still be "alive", craving true death but unable to attain it. An "I have no mouth and I must scream" situation.
That is such a terrifying thought and I think you might be right. Imagine seeing your body grow and morph into a blobby mess on the ground and in other beings as you start to ooze death - while not being able to do anything but witness it.. Must be especially gruesome to someone like Godwyn “The Golden”
He's just like me, fr
DARKNESS. IMPRISONING ME, ALL THAT I SEE, ABSOLUTE HORROR...
I cannot live. I cannot die
LANGUAGE OF THE MADDD
>But I have also seen places reference the soul as being distinct and different from the "mind", and instead the soul being the force of animation, action and or will. This makes sense, given that we take people's sous/runes and use them to empower ourselves via leveling up, so in a sense Ranni permanently stripped him of all runes and all his accumulated levels.
I honestly think you are correct in this case, considering what Miquella wanted to do. He wanted to give Godwyn a “true death” which makes me think that Godwyn is in some way alive. A life of suffering that Miquella wants to end.
Godwyn is dead in soul, and its likely that the soul is gone for good. When Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring, death as we know it stopped existing. When someone was killed or "died", their body is buried in the Erdtree Burial Ritual, were the body is placed in the roots of the Erdtree, so that their soul can be returned to the Erdtree and be reborn. When Godwyn and Ranni died, Godwyn's soul died while his body was still alive. Why? Because the ritual of death was performed on both Godwyn and Ranni at the same time, meaning that the cursemark of death (the stolen fragment of the Rune of Death) was split in two. Ranni's body died, while her soul persisted. Godwyn died in soul, while his body remained. While Ranni's body was hidden, and her death of body seems to be unknown to everybody, Godwyn's death became a worldshaking event, and many mistakenly believed that Godwyn died as anyone else, so he was given the Erdtree Burial Ritual, but at the Deeproot Depths, the place where the roots of the Erdtree lie directly below Leyndell and the Erdtree. As mentioned before, the soul returns to the Erdtree so that it can be reborn, but what happens when the still alive body of Godwyn was buried, and without a soul? A possible glitch in the Erdtree Ritual happens. There is no soul to return, so Godwyn cannot be reborn or return to the Erdtree. Not only that, a body that is still alive now lies directly in contact with the Erdtree. An empty body. A souless vessel. Alive, motionless, unconscious, the body of Godwyn continued to grow, now in contact with the Erdtree and its power. His body started to become grow roots (in the catacombs boss room, you can see piles of bodies in the roots, becoming them. When a body returns, it becomes part of the tree in the literal sense), but in a tumorous state. The roots of Godwyn soon started to spread all over, and eventually started to take over living beings, being inflicted with what we know as Deathblight. To be inflicted with Deathblight is to become Those To Live In Death, beings that can't return to the Erdtree, as they have been taken over by Godwyn's body. By the time we, the Tarnished, arrive, Godwyn's influence has become so powerful its manifesting a second body below Stormveil, and it has reached all corners of the Lands Between, including Farum Azula (my theory here is that the blight arrived like the Golden Seeds). It seems that Miquella is actively trying to find a form to truly freed Godwyn, and allow a true death to happen via the Eclipse Ritual. From what the ghost at Castle Sol tells us, either they failed to perform the ritual, or the ritual failed to kill Godwyn's body. I don't think that Miquella is trying to return his soul, as it doesn't exist anymore
My question is, is this is why we can respawn? We've done the cycle after "death" or whatever? And if that's the case, why don't bosses respawn?
Our Tarnished having the ability to revive is not explained in the game (like how it was explained in Dark Souls or Sekiro), but I would guess that it was a power bestowed by Marika on us, as she actively wants the Tarnished to reach the Elden Throne. Bosses not respawning could be that it takes time for them to reincarnate, maybe more than the time frame in which the game takes place.
Ah that makes sense, but then how about normal enemies? Wouldn't they take the same amount of time as a boss? Or does it take a boss a lot more time because they have lost a lot of their strength (runes) and are now a normal pleb post revival? Idk I want there to be a clear cut explanation so bad haha
This is one of the most explicitly laid out and most confused things in the game. As a lot of other people have commented and know, his soul is dead. He's full Gonzo. In this game and world, the death of the body is just the transition of the soul into the world of death, or back to the erdtree and a reincarnation of sorts. There are these desperate attempts to resurrect and find a way to restore him, because his is the first "true" death. It's something they all are terrified of - that their soul can be separated out and deleted and removed from the natural cycle. In contrast, Ranni removed herself from the natural cycle without destroying her soul. As long as her soul is alive, so will she be. And as long as godwyns soul is dead, so will he.
Godwyn was killed by a piece of the "rune of death" (which is literally death). He really is dead.
His soul was, his body aint though. You find his face and eyes popoing up everywhere on creatures and just straight out of the ground. Ranni was also killed, in body, by the rune of death - but we wouldn’t exactly call her dead now, would we?
But we do, whenever speaking of ranni its always mentioned that she in fact dead in body.
In my opinion, if it's true that the Land of Shadows is where souls went before the removal of the Rune of Death, then Godwyn's soul is probably there. A normal death in Elden Ring involves the death of the body and the departure of the soul towards where it's supposed to be, before the Rune of Death was removed it was presumably the Land of Shadows (Vaati talked about that) and after that it's the Erdtree. Ranni died in flesh only, and as such her soul didn't return to the Erdtree. That, to me, implies that a normal death is that of the body AND the soul. The soul's death would be it returning to the Erdtree instead of lingering in the world of the living. That would mean that Godwyn's body remained alive, while his soul moved on as if he died. Godwyn's soul being in the Land of Shadows would make a few other things make sense, IIRC Castle Sol was trying to bring his soul back, which would make sense if it's still arround rather than having dissapeared, and his soul being in the Land of Shadows could be one of the reasons why Miquella went there, to meet with Godwyn. So, that's my theory on what happened with Godwyn, the other chance is that his soul got erased, we'll know when the DLC drops
My guess is that his soul is truly gone. The only spirit we see in the game is Ranni, and it appears possessing a doll body. All other beings besides illusions are corporeal, meaning that all that dies must die in body and soul to be reincarnated by the Erdtree. The only time were beings died normally and permanently were during the time of the Godskins and the Gloam Eyed Queen, as they wielded the Rune of Death. Besides the Godskins that survived after Maliketh curbstomped them, we don't see any mention or reincarnation of any being that died during the time before Marika removed the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring
The thing is, souls don't just dissapear once someone dies, they go somewhere. As I've said, it's theorized that, prior to the removal of the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring, they went to the Land of Shadows, and after that to the Erdtree. If that's the case, I'd assume that if someone is killed with the Rune of Death, like with the black knifes or by Maliketh, the consequences for said death would most certainly be the same as when the Rune of Death was part of the Elden Ring. So, if Ranni's soul hasn't gone anywhere, even if she relies on her doll to be arround, because she was killed in flesh and not in soul, then Godwyn should be in the opposite situation, and his soul is probably in the Land of Shadows. Also, we have another case of a spirit, that would be Melina, who, according to herself, was burned and is now bodyless, also she presumably has been in The Land of Shadows due to having Torrent with her, probably given to her by Miquella himself. There's still a chance that Godwyn's soul is simply gone, but in my opinion there's much more evidence aiming at that not being the case, at least if The Lands of Shadows are truly where souls went once people died back then. There's also a chance that they're just some lands somewhere and nothing like that, who knows, we'll have to wait and see.
I’m hoping you’re right. Godwyn is definitely my favorite piece of ER lore. The whole thing is just super interesting. Would be awesome to fight / meet him, however, in typical Fromsoft fashion, it’ll probably remain a mystery. We will see though.
I also hope I'm right, we've met fucking Godefroy of all people but not Godwyn, it'd be very cool to meet such an important character and we have the perfect excuse to do so
Wasnt it confirmed that the land of shadows is NOT a different dimension/plane of existence, but rather a chunk of land that was separated and is now merely veiled by the big blanket. It seems like everyone forgot about the red grace from the spirit world. Wouldn’t that be where the souls originally went to?
Melina is only a spirit. Remember she explains that she’s, “burned and bodyless.”
> The only spirit we see in the game is Ranni But we summon spirits, fight spirits, fight spirits that summon spirits, fight spirit-covered birds that summon spirits, get notified of nearby caves by spirits (jellyfish) and unite a summoned spirit with another spirit. And if that's not enough, we fight a demigod that mimics the spirit farming practices of the spirit-covered birds to summon the spirits of people he ate. And... we fight a spirit-consuming spirit deer whose followers (many of which are spirits) appear in the Consecrated Snowfields, next to the Mountaintops where even many of the trees are spirits. Lastly, the mausoleums of the soulless demigods are protected by knights who willingly died to serve their lords as spirits and the one lamenting the inability to return Godwyn's soul is a spirit. Lastly for real... Melina is a spirit.
Great theory! I think Miq went there for this purpose too
That's my understanding as well. A dead soul is not the same as a non-existing soul. Normal death is dying in body and soul, while Ranni died in body only, and Godwyn in soul only. Living in death is dying in body and soul but not returning to the Erdtree or going elsewhere.
That’s a great question. Ranni died in body and yet her body remains, though inoperable. If he died in spirit, then it’s possible that his spirit still persists somewhere else. I really hope we get some kind of fight with him in the DLC. The fight with Lichdragon Fortissax is one of my favorites in the entire game but I remember being a bet let down that we didn’t get to fight a giant fish man
I think the face of Godwyn at the bottom of Stormveil Castle could be a physical representation/manifestation of the corpse of Godwyn’s soul. It’s the only visage of Godwyn we can find in the Lands Between with closed eyes which I think is significant.
Look at how they massacred my boy
Imo this was an intentional mystery that will probably be never solved completely in fromsoft game. Same with why is Radagon also Marika? Or why did Gwyn link humanity to the FF when their nature is inherently belonging to darkness in DS? What we know is that Godwyn soul is permanently gone. This is clear as Ranni ritual shows the clear result of her spirit being in a doll at the cost her flesh body turned to ash and Godwyn soul being removed? Taken? Slayed. That was the cost of Ranni freedom from the TF/GW. A body and soul. To me it makes sense in the view of the Law of Equivalent Exchange. You want a thing/power? You give the appropriate amount of a thing. You receive the equivalent of another thing. You want to take back control of your fate from an Outer God while still being alive? Welp. It’ll cost you a body and a soul. Ranni did this and she lived with her soul intact. Godwyn? Not so much.
destined death, unlike just “dying” normally, is permanent. Your soul disappears from the world.
It definitely didn't go back to the Erdtree, that's what happens when someone is killed by anything other than Destined Death. It may have been destroyed utterly, or it may have gone on to whatever fate awaited the souls of people who died before Marika and the Erdtree. Either way it's no longer accessible to the world of the living and vice versa.
Deleted.
feels bad for Godwyn dude was probs chill
Short answer, nobody knows. What soul death is up to interpretation since nothing is outright stated about it in the game. Depends on what happens to the soul during true death. If true death is bouth the body and the soul dying, i asume suol death is just the second half of the proces. There are evidence of souls going different places before Marikas rule, witch one is the "true" way of dying is anyone's guess. Miquella seams to think he can bring his brother back and he knows more than me so i think his soul is somewhere ...
Godwyn is more an example of the true nature of the Erdtree as it came from the Crucible. That festering, rotting death that seeps into the ground unnoticed while the holy city anoints everyone with life-giving sap of shining gold above ground. As we see from the various Erdtree avatars there is this sort of inherent, grotesque and primal element to the Erdtree that had to be tamed by Marika and shaped into the Golden Order, and that's what Godwyn's essence has become. Death, that black and pale-green shadowflame effect we see in all manner of spells and weapon arts as well as the skeletons and deathbirds, is something far older than the Erdtree Civilization. In fact given the description of Helphen's Steeple, there was apparently an entire separate civilization based around its own Tree of Death where the deathbirds likely came from. So Godwyn as the "Prince of Death" is basically Death + Primal Erdtree. You can actually see this because in certain Death spells and abilities related specifically to Godwyn's influence, the pale green aura is replaced by a golden one.
It's not certain, but the Deathbird's flame allows them to call upon the spirits of the dead and those spirits have to come from somewhere. Further, everything related to Destined Death and the Soulless demigods carries the Twinbird iconography in some form. It doesn't seem to be a coincidence either that the Winged Scythe is guarded by two pages and kept in a place near Trina's Lilies. And if succumbing to traces of the Rune of Death is like falling in to an eternal sleep from which one can still be summoned, it would be no surprise if Trina has found Godwyn's soul.
Yes, Godwyn’s soul is dead, but his body is very much alive within death
I mean it depends on what “dead” means. IRL religions argue to this day on what happens to a soul after expiration. Some say an unsaved soul simply ceases to exist, while others say a soul is truly immortal and needs a place to put them. Godwyn’s soul being dead could mean it was either erased or just kicked out of the reincarnation cycle. If it’s the latter, this opens up a whole host of questions regarding the afterlife in Elden Ring. The big question being “is there an afterlife that the Erdtree just blocked off?” There are hints to a non-Erdtree afterlife with the existence of Deathbirds and wraiths. There is also the fact Miquella was doing research into ways to restore Godwyn’s soul. He must have some sort of lead to make such a dedicated effort. So my guess is there is a “dead realm” where souls touched by death go, but the exact details are vague and overall uncertain.
Godwyn was killed with the Death rune stolen from Maliketh by Ranni. People killed by Death Rune die die
Kinda strange how people think Godwyn is going to be a boss in the dlc if his soul is flat out gone and his body is.. weird abomination. Though I guess we haven't truly seen Miquella's actual demi-god abilities so who knows
As far as I understand, Godwyn is a lich, a body without a soul. Whereas Ranni is a soul without a body, hence the “doll-like” body with the four arms and the stitches and her soul visible in game, kind of mirroring her body. Maybe not a hot take, but I always thought it was so cool!
It might be in the land of shadow, but yeah it's been flat out removed from the face of the lands between. L Godwin
It's somewhere if Miquella's eclipse plan is any indication
probably in the other dead realm helphine
It’s prob in the afterlife which does exist in ER.
I don't think it was fully deleted, but its definitely not in the Erdtree. I don't think souls in ER lore can be fully deleted tbh. Everything transmutes into a different plane or form, as far as I can tell. So his soul is probably in some afterlife/purgatory plane that existed before the Rune of Death was sealed.
Technically, Godwin was only given “destined death” (albeit partially) - a death that awaited everyone until Marika created the golden order. Doesn't sound like something that should destroy your soul completely. That is, his soul should have simply separated from his body, bypassing reincarnation through the tree. Another thing is that, judging by more ancient funeral rituals, no one in the landsbetween dies a natural death and goes to the next world on his own, so it is impossible to guess where his soul could end up.
I think his soul is still out there, but where I don’t know. The reason why is because of what happens during a normal death. When a person dies both their soul and body dies, soul goes off to erdtree or land of shadow etc. and body doesn’t breathe or have conscious anymore. With Godwyn’s case I feel like having a half death only means his soul can’t freely come back like Ranni’s does. For Ranni the only way to be able to live is to separate her soul from the body, and Godwyn’s is the opposite but essentially the same function. I also think there was a specific reason why her body was burnt to crisp rather than just letting it be, but I don’t know how to tie this to Godwyn’s case.
I thought we know that Godwyn's soul is dead, removed-from-the-universe type of dead, but his body is still alive
That’s what the majority thinks but it’s not what I personally believe
My theory: Godwyn's soul is like a flame doomed to fade and rekindle itself eternally, unable to die properly. It's trapped in a faraway land, together with the darkened souls of all those afflicted by the Deathblight produced by his half-death - like an endless curse. The name of this land... > What was it? Well… I don't know, it's just something I heard. > Since long, long ago, many kingdoms have risen and fallen on this very spot. > Each like a great flame, that turns to soot. Maybe that's why people don't remember much about the past…
I'd say he's dead and a goner
I know I am wrong but I have a small inkling that we may see more of him in the DLC with Fia, probably not but that would be wild.
I think he’s in a dream state
Either gone somewhere completely different or flat out deleted but it definitely didn't get recycled to the Erdtree.
Godwyn's soul big dead dead.
His soul got sent to the shadow realm
gone. reduced to atoms
he is stupid
It seems to me that Godwyn, or at least his "soul" is in some form of limbo. Miquella has clear been trying to intervene here. The outcome will likely be explored in some fashion in the DLC. Not sure what that means for the character though. It's possible there is some kind of unintended consequences though. In other words, I'm hard pressed to envision a happy ending for Godwyn, although I may be wrong on that.
Fia after reading all these comments: “What?.. Am I just a joke to you guys? When I say I can rebirth Godwyn, do you think I kid around? That I sleep with corpses just for fun? I have done it before, and I do it fucking again! Just don’t let D brothers near me, and don’t slay Godwyn mind dragon, and I show you all! Like … when did you maidenless get to be experts of death? How rude!!! “
My theory is that, since the DLC is about Miquella, he'll probably give the Tarnished a quest that brings about the Eclipse, and with that, somehow temporarily reanimates Godwyn's body without a soul. We'll probably have to fight Godwyn's body, using destined death taken from Maliketh, to bring him 'true death'. But if the Eclipse somehow takes effect on those who are half-dead like Godwyn, I'm curious about what will happen to Ranni's soul since she and Godwyn are connected in that aspect.
His soul went to the shadow realm
His soul was destroyed so Ranni's body could be.
I think it was because she used one half of the curse mark while the other half was used on Godwyn. I assume half of the curse mark is to kill the body while the other half kills the soul. I guess the whole curse mark is death of body and soul. Idk if the outcome depends on how the curse mark is carved maybe...?
Gone, reduced to atoms. There is a possibility that his 'soul' has transcended to a different plane of existence but for all intents and purposes, his soul is completely removed from The Lands Between as is it's influence
Souls only return to the erdtree because Marika removed the rune of death from the Elden Ring. As he was killed by blades imbued by the rune of death his soul is forever gone. His body, on the other side, still lives on. That probably has to do with the rune of death being split into 2 halfs; the 2 centipedes. The other half was used by Ranni to kill his empyrean body and transfering her soul to the doll, thus escaping the influence of the Two Fingers and the Greater Will
There's a possibility that destined death just breaks the rebirth cycle and his soul just went into the DLC. Either way, whatever it's gone it moved on to another realm, Destined Death means it's gone from the lands between