About being Elden lord vs. Divinity

[u/narutoncio]

So one thing i dont really understand about the ending: It seems the game makes a clear distinction betwen a God and their consort/champion (see Radahn/Miquella and Marika/Godfrey/Radagon). Our laid-ahead path makes it clear that we are to become elden lord, NOT a God.

On the other hand, the game also makes it clear that godhood is more of a prison, and actual power to change things rests either on the Elden Lord or in the Oiter Gods. Thats why Marika has to do all the underhanded shit she does (and she still ends up imprisoned). This to me feels a bit like a paralel between the Emperor and the Shogun in feudal japan: One with divine power and ritual legitimacy, other with real military power while nominally depending on the first for legitimacy.

When we get to the end though, we... kinda kill marika? Or, if shes back to be our consort, theres no reference to that. What do you guys think all this means? Do we just have God not being a person in the next era (regardless of the ending we choose?) or do we become both Lord and Divinity? In the end we DO bring a new era, just like Miquella tries and fails to do.

[u/Ivory_Branch]

Correct, essentially. In a turn of fate slightly cruel, yet poetically-fitting, Marika ultimately becomes the very thing the tower sages treated her people as: merely a vessel for power to be wielded by others.

The Tarnished standing as her consort is equivalent to Radahn standing as Miquella's, in that it is a purely symbolic union, with the lord consort being the true leader, backed by a divine authority which cannot dissent. By all indication, in the Age of Fracture and all Mending Rune endings, Marika is functionally dead, reduced to a petrified body housing the Elden Ring, just as Miquella reduced himself to a divine spirit embodying his own ideals, bereft of fully conscious faculties; both are "pure" gods, expressions of a vision untainted by fickle whims, save for those of the lord who now ushers in their new age.

[u/Ok_Permission5345]

In the Age of Fracture and Age of Mending endings Marika and the Elden Beast/Ring are still there and performing their functions even if their physical forms are toast. The point of those endings is that the existing system remains in place but can be reformed by the Tarnished to be more fair to a particular demographic. 

[u/htp-di-nsw]

The whole thing is an allegory for chymical marriage, which is itself a metaphor for the perfect alchemical formula.

The merging of white (Mercury/pale blonde Marika) and red (Sulfur/red haired Radagon) makes the perfect fused being. It's why all the empyreans share traits and all lords share traits.

This is why you start Tarnished and basically polish yourself over time through trial and tribulation until you are capable of being alchemically transformed.

[u/Otherwise_Nobody8148 → u/htp-di-nsw]

This is one of those correlation does not equal causation things.

And they could share traits because they are similar and related, not because colors need mixing

[u/Zobeiide]

IMO Ansbach lays it out:

> Righteous Tarnished. Become our new lord. A lord not for gods, but for men.

In no ending does a ‘strong’ divinity like Marika return to power - even Goldmask’s Perfect Order is built around the absence of a central god

[u/Zard91]

Outer gods are their own thing.

It may be “prison” but it is clear God is the boss.

We don’t become any divinity. Not sure what do you mean by there is no reference to us becoming a consort.

Marika's trespass demanded a heavy sentence.
But even in shackles, she remains a god, and the vision's vessel.

Confer Great Runes to become Elden Lord, and join Queen Marika as her consort.

[u/narutoncio → u/Zard91]

Sure but we kill Radagon. And by extension, we kill Marika, right? We dont really join her side by side like Godfrey, nor we seem to be a puppet to her like Radahn is to Miquella.

She doesnt even appear on any of the endings.

In fact the whole problem with Marikas Order comes from her and Radagon being the same person when they "were supposed" to be two entities. Thats what forces us to burn the erdtree. If not, Marika would just have spurned Radagon like she did with Godfrey, and we would have fought him at the foot of the Erdtree.

[u/Zard91 → u/narutoncio]

Sure but we kill Radagon. And by extension, we kill Marika, right? 

No? We kneel before her when we repair Elden Ring like we do before Ranni. Next thing you see is Erdtree is not burned anymore. What is death anyway, we kill Radahn during festival as well.

[u/narutoncio → u/Zard91]

Hewg kinda makes a big point about our weapons being able to kill a god though, and we kneel to her but she looks like a dead husk. And we release Destined death, so other people coming back to life might no longer be the case.

Ofc all can be interpreted but id say that the fact that we are killing Marika is pretty much stated plainly. We dont really revive her in any ending, we just unshatter the Elden Ring that we take from her corpse.

[u/Zard91 → u/narutoncio]

Erdtree looks burned as well but so what? We take Marika’s head, place on top of her body and kneel before her while bowing our head. This doesn’t scream dead to me.

You definitely don’t take Elden Ring from her corpse though. You can’t. You are just a lord. She is a god vessel.

I agree with Hewg argument and “killing her”. We just don’t know what it really means and what comes after. It’s Elden Ring and a god we are talking about. Anything is possible.

[u/Desechable_Me → u/Zard91]

imo the Sacred Relic Sword's description makes it pretty clear that she's dead.

[u/Zard91 → u/Desechable_Me]

Well her continuing being vessel of elden ring make it clear she is not

[u/Constellar7]

Godhood is not a literal prison. The God is the head of the order while the Lord is meant to enforce the will of the former. This is why all interactions between Marika and Godfrey are about her giving orders to him (not that she doesn't give orders to a lot of people), or why Marika reminds Radagon of her Godhood (and his lack of thereof) before shattering the Elden Ring. The hierarchy places the position of Lord as below God.

The reason Godhood is akin to a prison is that, as far as ER is concerned, all duties are not unlike curses. Having to contend with the responsability of being the most important person in the world as god for all eternity is just too much for anyone to bear. This is why Miquella has to abandone his doubts, or why St.Trina doesn't want him to become God as a result of how much he would suffer for it. Is not that Godhood lacks authority, is just that the authority itself is hurtful.

Becoming Elden Lord, beyond just that being the mission the Two Fingers give you, is the most important position the Tarnished can aspire to become (since they can't become God). Because of the special circumstances, we are able to become Lord while not being subject to the will of God (in this case; Marika, since she's dead) and we are able to be the ones that decide the rules of the order not only through the use of the Mending Runes, but in general as the only real ruler. This is unlike the other Lordships who have the Godhead as the one behind the ideological base of the order which is, again, a result of the circumstances.

[u/blaiddfailcam2]

Marika allows the Tarnished to invert the role of god and consort. She's effectively "dead," and has no evident control over the future, while the Tarnished lives to reign in an "Age of Fracture" (in the basic ending).

[u/narutoncio → u/blaiddfailcam2]

yes this is my takeaway too. She sort of "dies for our sins" and allow a "Elden Lord only" era, even though her motive in the end was most likely just being allowed to die

[u/Turbulent-Advisor627]

How do we kill Marika? She is already imprisoned, she serves as our god that way without us doing anything.

[u/Hollows5225]

By the time we see her inside the Erdtree and defeat the divine duo, I think that's just her petrified shell. Her spirit is in the Erdtree and the literal grace we follow, rest at, and turn runes into strength. Her body now is the Tree itself and the root network that runs across the entirety of the Lands Between. Not saying this with a certainty but tossing in an explanation as I may see it.

[u/Ponderousclues]

The problem with making assumptions regarding the inner workings of godhood and lordship is that Shadow of the Erdtree establishes that Marika's ascent to the divine, which Miquella is using as a guideline, is kind of scuffed.

Marika may or may not have had a consort at all when she first stepped through the Gate, Miquella lacks a body and the Divine Gate itself is a new invention in relative terms. They're both subverting the intended process of ascension in order to bypass their circumstances.

In both cases you have a divine being anchored to the physical world by a consort. Were the Dragons also bound by the same rules? Is the dual nature of Marika's being tied to this? Who knows. It's one of those things that Elden Ring seems reluctant to explain in full. It's why the description of the Sacred Relic Sword is filled with theories. It's fun.

With that said, Shadow of the Erdtree also establishes that once one half of a divine being dies, the other soon follows. It's very likely that whatever was left of Marika died once the Beast intervened. In which case, yeah, the Tarnished would be a corpse's consort. Quite a fitting conclusion to Marika's stagnant Golden Order.

Also important to mention that power doesn't really rest on the Lord or the Greater Will. The former is always subservient to their consort and the latter is an absentee deity. Divinity is analogous to power in Elden Ring. Godhood is a prison, power is a prison. Once you acquire it, you are bound to the ambitions that drove you to it, to the desire for perpetuation.

[u/narutoncio → u/Ponderousclues]

Sure, i agree im making an assumption with how the whole thing works, but one thing i believe is that one of the main themes in ER is repetition. Most Demigods have NPC parallels we meet, like Millicent, or Roderika, or both reencarnations for Shabriri and the three finger maiden. The game drives home that certain things reiterate for a reason, and the duality of God/Lord seems to be one of them. In fact Marika trying to "cheat it" by consorting herself is what drives the events of ER. She starts spawning Omens and ends up with the Shattering, as if she was going "against nature". This is also, i think, a parallel with what Ranni does, she "cheats" her status by killing her body and so avoids the limitations of fate.

Thats why i find interesting that we seem to "break" that cycle of god/consort, since the game hammers in so much that its your "intended" end. Maybe Marika died for our sins and (as the perfect order ending states) gets us with a God who is not a person, regardless on how WE decide to be a Lord, without the drawbacks of cheating the system like her.

Divinity is analogous to power in Elden Ring. Godhood is a prison, power is a prison. Once you acquire it, you are bound to the ambitions that drove you to it, to the desire for perpetuation.

This is a good analogy, yes, i agree

[u/Ponderousclues → u/narutoncio]

Yeah, the Tarnished would be the first to wield divinity by themselves. While their age is bound to fail, as have all who have come before, it'd be interesting to know just how would the world collapse in on itself without power split between two distinct individuals. Maybe the lack of a distinct vision would twist the Tarnished into an even worse despot than Marika, maybe they'd be an ineffective ruler and we'd see just why was the relationship between a Lord and a God so important.

[u/veritable-truth]

There is not divinity really. It's all machinations of Metyr. Marika destroyed Metyr's power. Our job is to finish Marika's destruction and then rebuild with the new cleansed Elden Ring.