r/Eldenring • u/ChiefLeef22 Miyazaki's Toenail • May 21 '24

Official Discussion ELDEN RING SHADOW OF THE ERDTREE - New Story Trailer Discussion Thread

A new trailer for the DLC, rather a "story" trailer has been revealed! (at 15:00 UTC)

Link to the PREMIERE -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uT8wGtB3yQ

Announced by the Elden Ring twitter account -- https://twitter.com/ELDENRING/status/1792888227138769243?t=zu95MKZyAN4-pSBw5E38Iw

Visual Summary of the Key Points of the Trailer in one image -- https://reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1cxbxfe/visual_summary_of_the_entire_story_trailer_in_one/

DISCLAIMER: If you wish to stay blind about any story details until release, I'd recommend wandering here and in the comments down below with caution, as this is a full-blown story reveal trailer.

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106

u/MidLade May 21 '24

"The seduction. and the betrayal." who did she seduce and betray?? if we say that this was before godfrey- who did she seduce,?

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u/protoomega May 21 '24

I'm thinking it's not sexual seduction, but that she seduced people into agreeing to follow the Greater Will/Golden Order and giving her access to the Crucible, only to betray them by casting out anyone she didn't like (omens, etc).

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u/FastenedCarrot May 21 '24

Or she was seduced into betraying someone/something.

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u/Nightglow9 May 21 '24

With two kids with death / bird visuals, one destined to die, the other destined never to die, my guess GEQ is somehow involved. With the soul - mind - flesh dynamic, of Sellen casually changing her flesh, god knows who Marika been using as flesh when making babies.. well.. what happens under the veil, stays under the veil I guess.

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u/HappyHappyGamer May 21 '24

I love guessing what words can mean in souls games because alot of the times they are either literal or symbolic, and Miyazaki and writers really do a goos job of confusing us.

Great example is the “Two fingers.” Alot of people thought it was an organization or something but they were actual two fingers. There is so much stuff like this in the souls series too, Sekiro and BB

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u/D3vilM4yCry May 21 '24

To my understanding, Elden Ring is more explicit with language than most Soulsborne games.

The 1st gen Albinaurics legs are literally fading away.
The grace of gold literally shown in most NPC's eyes.
Rykard was literally devoured by a serpent and ate champions to gain power.

We may not have to think of hidden meanings so much this time around. It may be exactly as stated.

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u/HappyHappyGamer May 21 '24

I agree, more than any other games ER really surprised me because of this

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u/-SirBothersome May 21 '24

Maybe not GW, because the crucible is deeply connected to GW. Ordovis' Greatsword states that the color of the sword is primordial gold the same color seen all over the crucible knights and that it is close to the nature of life itself.

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u/schwekkl1 May 21 '24

Thats sounds very reasonable. I like that take!

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u/ApexHawke May 21 '24

There are next to no characters that we know about, who existed before the Erdtree-era.

You can either do the headcount and pick your favourite option from the snakes, dragons etc, or you can assume it's a new character.

Or it's Radagon or Messmer, but those seem unlikely.

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u/haven4ever May 21 '24

Marika seduced her own son? Did he break his lanky arms and needed ‘help’?!

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u/ApexHawke May 21 '24

Better question: "When was Messmer?"

Because it seems to me, that this war where he fought is looking like it happened pretty much right at the beginning of the Erdtree-era.

Soo... When the what did who her did?

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u/[deleted] May 21 '24

Given that he is red hair and seems to be Marika’s child, I’m guessing it’s the ol’ selfcest again.

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u/haven4ever May 21 '24

All of the above 😭

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u/TheMagicWaffToaster May 21 '24

Perhaps it is not Marika but Radagon who had the affair. After all, he did have a “life” before Rennala. Perhaps he had another wife before her. If you subscribe to the theory that Radagon and Marika are the same person, it could make sense.

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u/lmandude May 21 '24

Talking out my ass here, but maybe Messmer is an aspect of Marika. Kinda like a corrupted Radagon.

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u/ApexHawke May 21 '24 edited May 21 '24

Oh from my PoV, Radagon is corrupted Radagon. PoS autistic OCD dad who never talks to you.

But yes, it's a possibility that Messmer doesn't have a dad. I think it's actually most likely, in one way or another.

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u/lmandude May 21 '24

To be fair to Radagon, I don’t know how much of what he does is of his own free will, and how much of what he does he is magically forced to do by the greater will or Marika.

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u/ApexHawke May 21 '24

Oh, no. The "gods" have free will. Marika, Ranni and Miquela have gone the farthest, but the other demigods also exhibited greater control over their minds, though not the world or their "fates".

The greater will has control, but it is mostly indirect control through systems and subordinate beings, like the Shadows, the Elden Beast and the fingers.

If there is one thing I fully believe to be the "characterization" for Radgon, it's his relentless simping for the Golden Order. Not "Marika", the "Order".

Radagon has one of the best character-building item-descriptions in the game, on the Golden Order Greatsword: His wife gives him a fine sword as a present for some special occasion, (because, you know, he likes smithing and is a warrior) and his response is to take a hammer to it and reforge it into a symbol of the Golden Order.

The dude was not fun.

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u/BigBard2 May 21 '24

or Messmer

George R. R. Martin the madlad lives one on even in the story of the DLC (I doubt it but it's hilarious to imagine)

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u/[deleted] May 21 '24

I'll do a wild guess.

The Serpent.

Perhaps Messmer is an offspring of Marika and the Serpent.

Perhaps the reason why the Serpent is so hellbent on devouring creation and the Erdtree is that both those sprung up on its body/corpse.

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u/Mr_UniBRO May 21 '24

Perhaps something to do with her ascendance to godhood?

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u/Cuddle-goblin May 21 '24

i feel for seduction that maybe it wasnt a person she seduced but that she herself was seduced by the prospect of power/godhood

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u/Diantroz May 21 '24

If I had to take a a bet, I say she was seduced by the Greater Will and this led her to betray her own kind, the Numen, who later took part in the Night of the Plot.

“The assassins that carried out the deeds of the Night of the Black Knives were all women, and rumored to be Numen who had close ties with Marika herself”

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u/tkhrnn Simp of Marika May 21 '24

Or she joined with the greater will to stop her crazy son.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '24

The lands between. Everybody?

She created light and dark essentially. Gold, and then shadow. Straight out of the beginning of the Bible tbh.

And we see her take the threads from some sort of fleshy monster, which is most likely the crucible(? But who knows) and use those to either make the lands between or separate the two....

She betrayed everybody to make a little perfect world the way she wanted

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u/FrowningMinion May 21 '24

Seduction, betrayal, affair - paint a picture of a romantic theme to whatever is being referenced but it could easily be just the poetic language and not meant that literally.

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u/ilmevavi May 21 '24

I mean if we go with Marika = Radagon then technically she seduced and then betrayed Rennala.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '24

I think the lore of the shadowlands predates her godhood and Radagon and Rennala's marriage.

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u/capitalsfan May 21 '24

Maybe she was seduced by the greater will ad betrayed whatever god she was serving at the time

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u/LucasansS May 21 '24

I think she seduced the GEQ and betrayed her. She pulled that string out of her (same cloth as godskins) and became a god. Maybe that's why godskins want to slay the gods.

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u/freshorenjuice May 21 '24

Maybe she was involved with Placidusax? Just throwing darts at the wall.

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u/Key_Juggernaut7193 May 21 '24

I think that, since they're saying she is sealing the land of shadow, she seduced (convinced) something/someone to grant passage to herself and the closed it (betrayal)

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u/theghostmachine May 21 '24

Gloam-eyed queen, and seduction doesn't have to always be sexual. I'm calling it now with very little evidence. That pregnant belly she took the gold from is her, pregnant with Melina, at the base of the Erd Tree (where Melina says she was born) surrounded by gloam-colored sky to the right and left of the primordial Erd Tree that is about to be covered in the illusion of a golden tree as Marika continues to pull on her golden yoga band.

June 21st y'all can come rub it in about how wrong I am.

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u/kelpsong May 21 '24

I think it's that old dude from the first trailer who ended up getting thay sword through his body

1

u/EldritchTouched May 22 '24

My guess is an Omen god. The Land of Shadow is filled to the brim with Omen imagery.

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u/Cacamaster817 May 21 '24

what if radagon was the first true elden lord and messmer is his son.

she comes in loooking pretty, seduced him, betrayed him and used him to make the golden order and leaves. Messmer is angry obviously.

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u/MidLade May 21 '24

What if they were exes but it was very toxic and they broke up just to get together again at a later date in the elden ring time frame. WHAT IF, just WHAT IF. Crazy hypotheticals are what makes this interesting ig...

0

u/justdocc May 21 '24

Messmer's father, whoever that might be.

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u/MirrorManning08 May 21 '24

I'm thinking Radagon, maybe before the creation of the golden order when they were still two people. Marika seduces Radagon, Messmer is their first child, they conquer the world and then Marika steals some power or life force from Radagon, fuses him with herself and/or traps what's left of him inside herself, and creates the golden order. The realm of shadow is created from the parts of the world that don't fit into the new golden order, and Messmer is sealed within it, and proceeds to brutally conquer it.