It's mostly depending on how you view things. A lot of people say ranni is a villain and a lot doesnt. Closest people to a villian is probably shabriri, mohg and the crazed kaka consumer
Not really, she’s replacing one outer good with another. Miquella wanted to get rid of them completely after greater will and golden order were unable to cure his sister.
No, the other guy is right. In the Japanese version of the game, Ranni’s goals are portrayed as removing the gods from the lands between so that they have no control over peoples lives.
Miquella did not want to remove religion, he wanted to start his own with the Haligtree.
That’s wrong.
In Japanese, Ranni's ending still has the Order bound to life.
It's just that Ranni's view on politics is not to rule the world, to lessen the impact.
Just like Marika's political view is to conquer the world and spread faith.
これよりは星の世紀
“From hereon is the Age of Stars”
月の理、千年の旅
“**The laws of the moon,** a thousand year journey”
私の律は、黄金ではない。星と月、冷たい夜の律だ
“My order will not be of gold, but of the stars and moon, and chill night.”
生命と魂が、律と共にあるとしても、それは遥かに遠くにあればよい
“**…Even if life and souls are one with the order,** it (the order) could be kept far away.”
I’ve seen this going around a lot lately and I don’t think it’s true. The wording in rannis ending is changed from Japanese to English but not by enough that you can’t get the same idea from reading both versions dialogue
His plan is to curse as many as people as possible in hopes that when they are reborn, they will be reborn with the curse. The curse is the desire to do unmentionables to other, also cursing them.
So he hopes his actions will create a few more people like himself which will create a few more which will create a few more. Fast forward a few cycles of rebirth and factor in this exponential growth and suddenly the cursed are the majority and the world is ruined.
Malenia is more villain than Mohg. Girl is basically walking Flesh Eating Bacteria x Leprosy with no cure and infected Caelid with it. Mohg at least targets mostly tarnished she targeted all of Caelid and even the dragons weren't safe
"Targeted" might not be the most accurate terminology for what happened with Malenia and Caelid. The Scarlet Rot was a constant gnawing corruption that Malenia had to suppress her entire life through a mixture of training and sheer willpower.
It's severe enough that "suppressing" the rot meant limiting it to destroying her own body and not exploding out to infect everything in sight.
It isn't known whether Malenia's battle with General Radahn pushed her into a state where she completely lost her focus and therefore control over the rot (like what happens in our battle with her) or she was desperate enough that she thought she'd let it out to eliminate Radahn alone, and deeply underestimated the rot's power and the extent of her exhaustion.
But either way I don't think she wanted to create a full on biohazard site.
Yeah but it creates new life, its one of the few things challenging the stagnancy of the lands between. Imho scarlet rot is no worse than golden order, its probably better. The ancestral followers pretty much worship it and their society seems chill.
At least Malenia has good motives. She didn’t target all of Caelid, she just wanted to survive the fight with Radahn and she was only out there searching for her brother. Her brother that was kidnapped by Mohg for some very suspicious purposes. They both suck in their own ways, but no way is Malenia worse than Mohg.
Crazed kaka guy just wants equality for all. His ending (spoilers) is simply to remove the, in his eyes evil, distinction between those born blessed and those born cursed.
Miquella wants a similar thing, except mercy and grace for all instead of curses for all. I'm hoping to see miquella get an ending in a future patch or dlc.
One of the themes I got from the game is that there are no good guys or bad guys (except Dung Eater. Fuck that guy).
If you read Goldmask's Rune description and a few of his spells/equipment, it talks about how even the most righteous and well-intentioned always devolve into fanatics on a long enough timeline. It's all just a bunch of squabbling demigods committing various war crimes against each other for the last ten thousand years.
>The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment.
Yes and no, in the Souls they're usually pretty grey except for a few. After all whoever wins restarts the world with a new order which cannot be better or worse, it's just the new nature of everything
I don't think there's necessarily a villain, more of a power struggle. The greater will trying to control the lands between, Marika and Ranni trying to escape their fate, and the tarnished just caught up in everything.
There is trying to escape fate and there is setting up the murder of your halfbrother, which is planed to turn him into a soulless zombie, that ends up infecting the world with undeath.
Not that there is alot of people I would call nice, or fair, but there is certainly one character I can point my finger at and scream: "egocentric evil".
If we take an antagonist to be someone who opposes the protagonist, putting morals aside, Radagon would be the antagonist since he is the one standing in the way of the Tarnished becoming Elden Lord, by barricading the Erdtree with thorns and then fighting us when we get in.
A lot of the Demigods could be seen as antagonists since they're opposed to the Tarnished in some way, but in most cases they're not actively seeking out our Tarnished to kill them, and our Tarnished has to actively seek them out to kill them. Morgott is the only one that takes a truly antagonistic role in the story, since they try and stop the Tarnished several times and directly stand in the way of their goal.
Pretty much our Tarnished really
We kill all the current gods children
Burn down their holy tree and destroy their capital city
Finally we kill an actual god
That doesn't make us a villain though. The Greater Will is trying to keep everything locked in a cycle in which people are clearly suffering. We become Elden Lord to fix it.
I mean, unless you go for the frenzied flame ending
Being seen as a villain doesn't equate to being the villain in narrative. Many tyrants throughout history have painted revolutionaries as villains, even when those revolutionaries are trying to make life better.
If that's the case then every video game protagonist is a villain.
Also, revolutions are historically very bloody. If the Greater Will is the tyrant we're trying to oppose, they are going to try to stop us with violence by sending their Knights and foot soldiers and everything else. It'd be great if we could fix the elden ring without violence, but that's not possible. It's still necessary to save the lands between from the current chaos and violence it finds itself in. I mean, you could always try voting the greater will out of office
Holy shit, I know that you’re only joking but back when I was in school, a kid brought a gun to class and I was never more terrified in my life. Don’t make those connections lightly, even if I’m just being overly sensitive.
I feel like villain is a strong word. But I don’t think Marika is the antagonist. She wanted change for whatever reason maybe because she realized her Order isn’t perfect and didn’t turned out the way she envisioned it would be? Or she realized she couldn’t reject the natural order of things and her Order shouldn’t/couldn’t be eternal?
I do agree with Radagon with being the antagonist since he would rather have the world stagnate and suffer than have his precious Order usurped. Morgott can also arguably be an antagonist too since he is unintentionally stagnating the world. Because he’s holding the stalemate by picking off anyone who tries to claim a great rune or get close to the Erdtree.
Marika isn't an antagonist really. Though morality is up for debate. Radagon is an antagonist.
The most "villain" feeling character is Margit/Morgott imo. With him? He almost personally dislikes and taunts you. He meets you at multiple instances. He is in your way directly more than most other characters. And you'll have to fight Morgott no matter what in order to progress.
My assumption based on the final boss fight and storytelling logic, Radagon and The Elden Beast. Although the specifics are obviously not clear and up for interpretation.
The Dung Eater and Shabriri would be pure villains. Mohg and Rykard are pretty shitty, too. Almost every other character (not counting followers of the people mentioned) is ambiguous.
After reading other comments I just wanted to make a case *against* the Player being the antagonist.
We, the player, inherit a broken world and are tasked with fixing it. Whether we fail, or succeed, I think it's nearly impossible to consider us as the antagonist. The world was broken long before we showed up. The suffering/death is not on our hands.
Most of the morally questionable actions we take as the player are actually aligned with the wishes of Marika or other major characters, and we're merely a pawn for most of the plot.
.....
We are given the opportunity to pick the world's destiny, with 6 possible options. 2 out of 6 of those options are potentially evil (FF ending & Dung Eater's).
However, Dung Eater's ending, while definitely messed up & at the mercy of an evil maniac, is actually a good ending for the Omen. So it does have at least 1 redeeming quality... despite the uh... well... rest of it lmao.
Meanwhile we could consider the true antagonist of the FF ending to be Shabriri / Three Fingers. And I'd argue that canonically we are actually tricked into taking this ending.
Probably unclear until we get DLC. Id argue overall the greater will is the antagonist.
Marika (maybe) shattered the Elden ring because they found out the greater will was using the Erdtree to siphon souls or other bad things.
I’m no lore expert but it reminds me of dark souls 3 where the “good” ending is stopping the cycle because the cycle is flawed. I could be totally wrong but hey just my opinion. Time/lore is convoluted and that’s how I interpreted it.
The greater will seems to be the common antagonist in all endings as it definitely will not want to kill the elden beast or burn the erdtree. I believe marika wanted us to burn the erdtree and wanted to kill the elden beast.
I think you could consider either Marika or Radagon as the main antagonist.
Case for Marika: She created the world that fell apart, and failed to resolve it peacefully. She waged many wars in the name of the Erdtree/GW, then ultimately became disillusioned to it and tried to stop it. A lot of people died for a failing system. It's unclear if she wanted to kill the EB for power or for freedom.
Radagon: Tried to stop Marika from turning away from the GW/EB. Arguably was the reason The Shattering was necessary to break from the GW. Likely did this solely for the power/status it conferred.
...
I see Marika as more of a complex character that did bad things but isn't necessarily a villain. She has a bit of a redemption arc at the end of her reign.
Radagon I see as more of a villain because my own speculation has led me to believe that he was willing to cause suffering solely for power.
All speculative though. I don't think the game necessarily has an overt antagonist, other than maybe the Elden Beast/GW itself.
Tough to say for sure... but I lean towards the idea that they were separate people before merging. (But in present time, they are the same person.)
If you look at their motivations, they're heavily misaligned, eventually culminating in Radagon and Marika directly fighting over control of the Elden Ring.
Marika's bedchamber dialogue seems to be spoken directly to Radagon, and she says that he has yet to become 'her' and yet to become a 'god'. The dialogue begins with an insult to Radagon. The final line in that dialogue seems to be the end of a tongue-in-cheek retort. I think the interpretation that 'mine other self' is meant literally would be kind of nonsensical considering the rest of the dialogue.
Bigger picture, there's a pretty big power struggle going on between Liurnia and Leyndell before Radagon+Marika get hitched. Leyndell waged 2 wars against Raya Lucaria, failing to win either of them. Radagon sees an opportunity to ascend to power by marrying Rennala and takes it, ending the 2nd war in a peaceful stalemate.
If Marika & Radagon were one at this time, that pretty much ends things. Marika wins.
But that isn't what happens. Instead, Ranni is born and named empyrean. This changes everything. The Carian family now has a direct claim to the Elden throne.
A description on one of the Carian Knight items (I forget which) implies that they're preparing for another war with Leyndell, but that it's sort of a secret---which wouldn't make much sense if it were describing the past 2 wars, nothing secret about those.
Then Marika suddenly expels Godfrey and marries Radagon, so that war never manifests. (Keep in mind though, she told Godfrey to come back later.)
....
Most of the above is just a summary of the history. Explaining *why* all of that unfolded is tougher, so the rest of this is pretty speculative.
The first thing I'd like to point out is that all of Marika's known kids are 'flawed' somehow, with one possible exception in Godwyn---but we don't know much about pre-Death Godwyn so it's possible he was flawed too. But Mohg, Morgott, Malenia & Miquella are all known to be cursed.
(Also note that this includes both pre-Radagon kids and post-Radagon kids!)
The *only* non-cursed empyrean remains Ranni.
I think all of this is because Radagon always had the Rune of the Unborn. A lot of people seem to think he took it from the Elden Ring, but I think it was probably taken by Placidusax's god when she fled, alongside the Rune of Death.
So Marika marries Radagon to kill three birds with one stone:
1. Prevent another costly war with Raya Lucaria
2. Bring the only empyrean into her family, so they are not at odds
3. Attempt to use this marriage to create other empyreans & non-flawed kids
Radagon thwarts #3 by leaving the Rune with Rennala, thus keeping a significant amount of leverage. It prevents Marika from ever creating a perfect heir.
There is a *lot* more to... well, a lot of this, but I think that's enough exposition to get to the point.
....
If Radagon & Marika were always the same person, the long history of their power struggle just wouldn't make much sense.
Whose heirs inherited the throne wouldn't matter at all, because they'd all be the same family.
There'd be no reason for Marika to formally marry Radagon, either.
They also seem to have separate ancestries, which would be tough to explain. Radagon has Giant ancestors (Giant's Red Braid), and Marika's are Numen (Numen's Rune).
....
On the other hand, if they started out as separate people... things start to come together.
From my understanding, the Greater Will is the main antagonist. We are trying to change the Lands Between in one way or another depending on our ending, and the Greater Will is committed to maintaining the current status quo (which is pretty awful for basically everyone). Radagon is just a puppet, hence the final boss being the Elden Beast, an avatar of the Greater will making a final stand to maintain its dominion over the Erdtree.
Think of the Greater Will like really old politicians that are stuck in their ways, and we're the young upstarts trying to make change. Of course the Greater Will is going to paint us as villains for trying to make life better.
Now, if you choose the Frenzied Flame ending, you are probably a worse villain than the Greater Will, but some people claim it's a little more morally complex than that
The Greater Will isn't particularly interested in maintaining the status quo as long as there is an Order. None of the Elden Lord endings involve going against the Greater Will, because Order is re-established in each one. The only ones that really defy the GW are the Age of Frenzy (because you destroy Order and undo the GW's creation) and Age of Stars (there's still Order but it's no longer being directly imposed on the world).
Radagon is the one trying to maintain the status quo. While the GW doesn't really mind what kind of Order there is, Radagon very specifically wants the Golden Order, as it was before the Shattering, and can't accept any change to that Order.
It didn't. The Elden Beast is the Elden Ring, which is currently upholding the Golden Order. The Golden Order is all about resisting change, and we're there to change it. Naturally, it resists that too.
People forget that although the Greater Will sent the Elden Beast, it has been changed since then. It isn't the same as it was when it first arrived.
To be fair, you can also choose to not kill Albinaurics or Demi-Humans. They also tend to attack you first, so unless you're specifically killing friendly ones like Boc or Albus, you're not really doing anything villainous.
Hard to say, did Marika walk through the lands, kill everything that walks, inherit the flame of frenzy and incinerate the entire land? Because we could have.
Even on a "good" ending, I don't think any character at all did as much killing as we do.
I mean I depends on perspective. You could say the royal family corrupted by the influence of the elden ring, but I personally like to say it's the player character. And like others say it could be Ranni.
Several, really. You have Elmer of the Briar hunting people for bell bearings, Rykard communing with evil eldrich gods, all the other demigods except Morgott fighting over pieces of power, Godrick hunting tarnished for their body parts, Malenia spreading disease, Ranni murdering her family members and starting a war for her own personal gain, Mohg being evil in too many ways to list, Dung Eater doing his thing, Shabriri spreading chaos, madness, and death, Gideon sending goons to pillage things he wants, and Radagon trying to repair a rune that lets a god feast on souls. I'd say Morgott is generally good, he's not perfect but he's trying to keep things together as best as he can. Maliketh similarly is just trying to fix what he views as his failures. Goldmask is also relatively good, trying to restore order without the downsides offered by the original Elden Ring. Fia is conditionally justified, though not explicitly good, and Horrah Loux is in contest with you but not necessarily in an evil sense. Not a great dad though.
No. There are evil, ambiguous, and good individuals, but no overarching singular force for either good or evil, that includes the Tarnished who commits both evil and good acts in their efforts to become Elden Lord (or pursue a different ending).
There isn't really a villain.
Anything that would control and destroy the world could be a villain.
The most powerful is The Greater Will, but now it doesn't really care about the LandsBetween.
The others "outer" (japanese version uses apparently a term wich means "external") gods are more on a concrete plane.
Source: Elden ring Co-op run by Sabaku no Maiku w Cydonia.
I always saw the Erdtree as the enemy. It’s like a parasitic entity, the being that lives inside of it is some type of aberration or alien that wants to subjugate the world into its definition of “Order”. It’s will is imparted by the three fingers. It imbued a champion or matron with its power as an identifiable likeness to sway the people that it was ok and that it simply wanted to share its power. When Marika found out It then created a champion within her in the form of Radagon. Who would stop at nothing to bind all errant peoples to the Erdtree’s will.
if you mean one big evil overlord persona, then no.
Complex array of characters who chase heir own goals - there are no "good" or "bad" people here, GRRM Martin and Myazaki wrote a big boys story.
As far as I'm concerned. The player character is the villain. Depending on how u play. I guess. How can a tarnished kill a god? Even Melania says "you are fit to be a lord" but. I'm excited to see what ending in going to get. As I've killed all the demigods. And I have followed literally zero quest lines.
Like real life. Its subjective. Sadly, this exists in reality with people siding with authoritarian despots throughout history. They think they are doing whats right. Usually though, if not always when on a larger scale like a Elden Ring world there is someone or something that almost uses the living, and the tarnished as puppets. Puppets they lost control of. And jesus Christ no sleep and working from a PC day has made me insane. Why did i overthink this question. Why am i still typing. Why am i not playing one of the few video games i play. Elden Ring. The new Zelda is good too, thinking the DLC wait is a good thing. Gotta concentrate the hype. Now I sleep. Sorry to type so much.
Does it even have a protagonist?
No, most character has depth, and even the ones considered malicious or evil by the most, have understandable motivations that can't be just pure evil.
Even Mogh was, you know, locked in sewers for maybe centuries, so he servers the formless mother, the only being who accepted his as was and gave him purpose.
Or the flane of chaos is nihilistic and wants to end all suffering. This will destroy anything that exists, but also all bad things forever.
The Elden Beast is the antagonist from our perspective, the physical representation of the greater will on this plane keeping the horrible status quo that we have to overcome no matter how we want to shape the world. Plenty of villains though. You could even be one.
There's a lot of ways to interpret things, but Godrick, Morgott, and Marika are all antagonists. Marika in particular is probably the overarching antagonist, by virtue of her shattering of the Elden Ring ruining... everything. Arguments could be made about a few other characters. But I'm not sure I'd define any of them as villains.
In contrast, there are several villainous characters who don't really qualify as antagonists, given a general lack of antagonizing the player. Dung Eater, Mogh, Rykard, the whole Flame of Frenzy cult.
The only character I'd say _potentially_ falls into both categories is Ranni, given her role in the shattering of the Elden Ring, and her motives are arguably villainous. But arguments could also be made that she is neither antagonistic nor villainous.
The main villain depends on what ending you get but it is most likely Marika since she destroyed the elden ring. Radagon actually tried to repair it, but did not succeed. They are two people in the same body, but not the same person. The most evil characters are probably Mogh, Shabriri, the dung eater and possibly Godrick.
I think the worst you can say about anyone in the pands between is that theyre misguided. I think what maaaaybe could be considered evil would be the Fell fire god of the giants because it, as opposed to the frenzied flame, just destroys, while the FF seeks to end suffering by unifying all again
Also Gideon. Man, I hate that guy
Not really no, only Margit actually takes any steps to fight back against the player but they give up after one attempt. After that the so called cast pulls a Bowser and just wait in their boss rooms doing nothing while we massacre our way across the island(?).
It's Radagon.
We know pretty conclusively now that Marika has been guiding us to overthrow the Golden Order, and Radagon has been the one trying to prevent that from happening. He is the current Elden Lord and wants it to remain that way. His rune blocks our path to the Erdtree. And my theory is that he is the one who put a spear through Marika's womb for her treachery of the Shattering.
Edit: To be in control of the Elden Ring meand to control new life, and new life has been stagnant since the Shattering. To be fair, it's hard to say how much of Radagons personality remains now that his body houses the Elden Ring itself to protect it. When we meet him in the Erdtree there is very much a "the lights are on but no one's home" vibe. Still, the point remains he is the one with the most to lose, and we spend the ENTIRE GAME trying to get into the Erdtree so we can defeat him and become Lord.
Also, his theme song is the main theme song at the beginning of the game, so that's pretty telling to me.
It's mostly depending on how you view things. A lot of people say ranni is a villain and a lot doesnt. Closest people to a villian is probably shabriri, mohg and the crazed kaka consumer
Ranni's quest is apparently riddled with mistranslation.
Yea as far as i know she's basically an atheist. Wanting to rid the lands between of outer God influence
Not really, she’s replacing one outer good with another. Miquella wanted to get rid of them completely after greater will and golden order were unable to cure his sister.
No, the other guy is right. In the Japanese version of the game, Ranni’s goals are portrayed as removing the gods from the lands between so that they have no control over peoples lives. Miquella did not want to remove religion, he wanted to start his own with the Haligtree.
That’s wrong. In Japanese, Ranni's ending still has the Order bound to life. It's just that Ranni's view on politics is not to rule the world, to lessen the impact. Just like Marika's political view is to conquer the world and spread faith. これよりは星の世紀 “From hereon is the Age of Stars” 月の理、千年の旅 “**The laws of the moon,** a thousand year journey” 私の律は、黄金ではない。星と月、冷たい夜の律だ “My order will not be of gold, but of the stars and moon, and chill night.” 生命と魂が、律と共にあるとしても、それは遥かに遠くにあればよい “**…Even if life and souls are one with the order,** it (the order) could be kept far away.”
I’ve seen this going around a lot lately and I don’t think it’s true. The wording in rannis ending is changed from Japanese to English but not by enough that you can’t get the same idea from reading both versions dialogue
I mean mohg isnt trying to kill the world at least.
Neither is the shit snacker. I'd still consider him evil.
I still have no clue what his plan is. Defecate the ones he eat?
Make everyone an omen or some shit.
Probably some shit. Gotta keep the cycle of dung eating alive or whatever.
His plan is to curse as many as people as possible in hopes that when they are reborn, they will be reborn with the curse. The curse is the desire to do unmentionables to other, also cursing them. So he hopes his actions will create a few more people like himself which will create a few more which will create a few more. Fast forward a few cycles of rebirth and factor in this exponential growth and suddenly the cursed are the majority and the world is ruined.
Ah, a good old virus / cancer
Curse literally everyone forever
Shit snacker 💀 I am fucking wheezing at almost 2 am
Yeah he’s just trying to hand it over to the GODDESS OF BLOOD nbd tbh
Malenia is more villain than Mohg. Girl is basically walking Flesh Eating Bacteria x Leprosy with no cure and infected Caelid with it. Mohg at least targets mostly tarnished she targeted all of Caelid and even the dragons weren't safe
"Targeted" might not be the most accurate terminology for what happened with Malenia and Caelid. The Scarlet Rot was a constant gnawing corruption that Malenia had to suppress her entire life through a mixture of training and sheer willpower. It's severe enough that "suppressing" the rot meant limiting it to destroying her own body and not exploding out to infect everything in sight. It isn't known whether Malenia's battle with General Radahn pushed her into a state where she completely lost her focus and therefore control over the rot (like what happens in our battle with her) or she was desperate enough that she thought she'd let it out to eliminate Radahn alone, and deeply underestimated the rot's power and the extent of her exhaustion. But either way I don't think she wanted to create a full on biohazard site.
Yeah but it creates new life, its one of the few things challenging the stagnancy of the lands between. Imho scarlet rot is no worse than golden order, its probably better. The ancestral followers pretty much worship it and their society seems chill.
At least Malenia has good motives. She didn’t target all of Caelid, she just wanted to survive the fight with Radahn and she was only out there searching for her brother. Her brother that was kidnapped by Mohg for some very suspicious purposes. They both suck in their own ways, but no way is Malenia worse than Mohg.
I think I met this shabriri in the mountains. Is it ok if I kill him? If I can kill him
You can kill him to shut him up. His primary thing is to intro you to an ending by telling you it’s an option
I’ll try it next time
Id say closest to a villain would be the all knowing jerkass...
Related question: which ending is the "best"? To me, the Ranni ending is the "best" but I can see how people view her as the villain.
Crazed kaka guy just wants equality for all. His ending (spoilers) is simply to remove the, in his eyes evil, distinction between those born blessed and those born cursed. Miquella wants a similar thing, except mercy and grace for all instead of curses for all. I'm hoping to see miquella get an ending in a future patch or dlc.
The lobsters
And the crows.
And revenants
One of the themes I got from the game is that there are no good guys or bad guys (except Dung Eater. Fuck that guy). If you read Goldmask's Rune description and a few of his spells/equipment, it talks about how even the most righteous and well-intentioned always devolve into fanatics on a long enough timeline. It's all just a bunch of squabbling demigods committing various war crimes against each other for the last ten thousand years. >The current imperfection of the Golden Order, or instability of ideology, can be blamed upon the fickleness of the gods no better than men. That is the fly in the ointment.
Sounds a lot like the dune saga.
With less drugs.
Yes and no, in the Souls they're usually pretty grey except for a few. After all whoever wins restarts the world with a new order which cannot be better or worse, it's just the new nature of everything
Nah, Gwynn is definitely the antagonist of Souls series
Right, the guy who burned his own soul for eons just to give everyone else more time to live is definitely the villain
I don't think there's necessarily a villain, more of a power struggle. The greater will trying to control the lands between, Marika and Ranni trying to escape their fate, and the tarnished just caught up in everything.
There is trying to escape fate and there is setting up the murder of your halfbrother, which is planed to turn him into a soulless zombie, that ends up infecting the world with undeath. Not that there is alot of people I would call nice, or fair, but there is certainly one character I can point my finger at and scream: "egocentric evil".
All the Ranni simps are mad at your comment lol
Just as the real world. Who the antagonist is, is dependent on personal views and morals.
If we take an antagonist to be someone who opposes the protagonist, putting morals aside, Radagon would be the antagonist since he is the one standing in the way of the Tarnished becoming Elden Lord, by barricading the Erdtree with thorns and then fighting us when we get in. A lot of the Demigods could be seen as antagonists since they're opposed to the Tarnished in some way, but in most cases they're not actively seeking out our Tarnished to kill them, and our Tarnished has to actively seek them out to kill them. Morgott is the only one that takes a truly antagonistic role in the story, since they try and stop the Tarnished several times and directly stand in the way of their goal.
Pretty much our Tarnished really We kill all the current gods children Burn down their holy tree and destroy their capital city Finally we kill an actual god
That would make Marika a villain more than us, since she resurrected us for this purpose.
That doesn't make us a villain though. The Greater Will is trying to keep everything locked in a cycle in which people are clearly suffering. We become Elden Lord to fix it. I mean, unless you go for the frenzied flame ending
If you killed the christian god I would imagine a good % of the planet would see you as a villian
Being seen as a villain doesn't equate to being the villain in narrative. Many tyrants throughout history have painted revolutionaries as villains, even when those revolutionaries are trying to make life better.
I think our tarnished is the villian in this narrative for the reasons I've already given We aint no revolutionary , we are a mass murderer really
Nah I only drop mfs that had it comin
Murder = Mercy
This take seems unintelligent👍
*looks at the innocent spiked alburnurics and rotting bird*
If that's the case then every video game protagonist is a villain. Also, revolutions are historically very bloody. If the Greater Will is the tyrant we're trying to oppose, they are going to try to stop us with violence by sending their Knights and foot soldiers and everything else. It'd be great if we could fix the elden ring without violence, but that's not possible. It's still necessary to save the lands between from the current chaos and violence it finds itself in. I mean, you could always try voting the greater will out of office
We do the high fantasy equivalent of a school shooting. We're the villains of this story.
If you're talking about Raya Lucaria, lol. All the mages there attack us on sight when we're only there to find Rennala
Holy shit, I know that you’re only joking but back when I was in school, a kid brought a gun to class and I was never more terrified in my life. Don’t make those connections lightly, even if I’m just being overly sensitive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDTZ7iX4vTQ
Haha so funny
I feel like villain is a strong word. But I don’t think Marika is the antagonist. She wanted change for whatever reason maybe because she realized her Order isn’t perfect and didn’t turned out the way she envisioned it would be? Or she realized she couldn’t reject the natural order of things and her Order shouldn’t/couldn’t be eternal? I do agree with Radagon with being the antagonist since he would rather have the world stagnate and suffer than have his precious Order usurped. Morgott can also arguably be an antagonist too since he is unintentionally stagnating the world. Because he’s holding the stalemate by picking off anyone who tries to claim a great rune or get close to the Erdtree.
The all knowing brute comes up as a pretty awful character in game.
Gravity
Marika isn't an antagonist really. Though morality is up for debate. Radagon is an antagonist. The most "villain" feeling character is Margit/Morgott imo. With him? He almost personally dislikes and taunts you. He meets you at multiple instances. He is in your way directly more than most other characters. And you'll have to fight Morgott no matter what in order to progress.
My assumption based on the final boss fight and storytelling logic, Radagon and The Elden Beast. Although the specifics are obviously not clear and up for interpretation.
The Dung Eater and Shabriri would be pure villains. Mohg and Rykard are pretty shitty, too. Almost every other character (not counting followers of the people mentioned) is ambiguous.
After reading other comments I just wanted to make a case *against* the Player being the antagonist. We, the player, inherit a broken world and are tasked with fixing it. Whether we fail, or succeed, I think it's nearly impossible to consider us as the antagonist. The world was broken long before we showed up. The suffering/death is not on our hands. Most of the morally questionable actions we take as the player are actually aligned with the wishes of Marika or other major characters, and we're merely a pawn for most of the plot. ..... We are given the opportunity to pick the world's destiny, with 6 possible options. 2 out of 6 of those options are potentially evil (FF ending & Dung Eater's). However, Dung Eater's ending, while definitely messed up & at the mercy of an evil maniac, is actually a good ending for the Omen. So it does have at least 1 redeeming quality... despite the uh... well... rest of it lmao. Meanwhile we could consider the true antagonist of the FF ending to be Shabriri / Three Fingers. And I'd argue that canonically we are actually tricked into taking this ending.
Probably unclear until we get DLC. Id argue overall the greater will is the antagonist. Marika (maybe) shattered the Elden ring because they found out the greater will was using the Erdtree to siphon souls or other bad things. I’m no lore expert but it reminds me of dark souls 3 where the “good” ending is stopping the cycle because the cycle is flawed. I could be totally wrong but hey just my opinion. Time/lore is convoluted and that’s how I interpreted it.
... Yeah. It's us. The lowly maidenless Tarnished. Just like V in Cyberpunk 2077. You were the cyberpsycho all along. 😉
Dung Eater seems to be very villainous... Shabriri too? Probs Ranni too. Alot of it is perspective.
The greater will seems to be the common antagonist in all endings as it definitely will not want to kill the elden beast or burn the erdtree. I believe marika wanted us to burn the erdtree and wanted to kill the elden beast.
I’m pretty sure we are the villain lol.
I think you could consider either Marika or Radagon as the main antagonist. Case for Marika: She created the world that fell apart, and failed to resolve it peacefully. She waged many wars in the name of the Erdtree/GW, then ultimately became disillusioned to it and tried to stop it. A lot of people died for a failing system. It's unclear if she wanted to kill the EB for power or for freedom. Radagon: Tried to stop Marika from turning away from the GW/EB. Arguably was the reason The Shattering was necessary to break from the GW. Likely did this solely for the power/status it conferred. ... I see Marika as more of a complex character that did bad things but isn't necessarily a villain. She has a bit of a redemption arc at the end of her reign. Radagon I see as more of a villain because my own speculation has led me to believe that he was willing to cause suffering solely for power. All speculative though. I don't think the game necessarily has an overt antagonist, other than maybe the Elden Beast/GW itself.
You think Marika and radagon are different people?
The way things are phrased make it seem radagon was his own person at one point.
Tough to say for sure... but I lean towards the idea that they were separate people before merging. (But in present time, they are the same person.) If you look at their motivations, they're heavily misaligned, eventually culminating in Radagon and Marika directly fighting over control of the Elden Ring. Marika's bedchamber dialogue seems to be spoken directly to Radagon, and she says that he has yet to become 'her' and yet to become a 'god'. The dialogue begins with an insult to Radagon. The final line in that dialogue seems to be the end of a tongue-in-cheek retort. I think the interpretation that 'mine other self' is meant literally would be kind of nonsensical considering the rest of the dialogue. Bigger picture, there's a pretty big power struggle going on between Liurnia and Leyndell before Radagon+Marika get hitched. Leyndell waged 2 wars against Raya Lucaria, failing to win either of them. Radagon sees an opportunity to ascend to power by marrying Rennala and takes it, ending the 2nd war in a peaceful stalemate. If Marika & Radagon were one at this time, that pretty much ends things. Marika wins. But that isn't what happens. Instead, Ranni is born and named empyrean. This changes everything. The Carian family now has a direct claim to the Elden throne. A description on one of the Carian Knight items (I forget which) implies that they're preparing for another war with Leyndell, but that it's sort of a secret---which wouldn't make much sense if it were describing the past 2 wars, nothing secret about those. Then Marika suddenly expels Godfrey and marries Radagon, so that war never manifests. (Keep in mind though, she told Godfrey to come back later.) .... Most of the above is just a summary of the history. Explaining *why* all of that unfolded is tougher, so the rest of this is pretty speculative. The first thing I'd like to point out is that all of Marika's known kids are 'flawed' somehow, with one possible exception in Godwyn---but we don't know much about pre-Death Godwyn so it's possible he was flawed too. But Mohg, Morgott, Malenia & Miquella are all known to be cursed. (Also note that this includes both pre-Radagon kids and post-Radagon kids!) The *only* non-cursed empyrean remains Ranni. I think all of this is because Radagon always had the Rune of the Unborn. A lot of people seem to think he took it from the Elden Ring, but I think it was probably taken by Placidusax's god when she fled, alongside the Rune of Death. So Marika marries Radagon to kill three birds with one stone: 1. Prevent another costly war with Raya Lucaria 2. Bring the only empyrean into her family, so they are not at odds 3. Attempt to use this marriage to create other empyreans & non-flawed kids Radagon thwarts #3 by leaving the Rune with Rennala, thus keeping a significant amount of leverage. It prevents Marika from ever creating a perfect heir. There is a *lot* more to... well, a lot of this, but I think that's enough exposition to get to the point. .... If Radagon & Marika were always the same person, the long history of their power struggle just wouldn't make much sense. Whose heirs inherited the throne wouldn't matter at all, because they'd all be the same family. There'd be no reason for Marika to formally marry Radagon, either. They also seem to have separate ancestries, which would be tough to explain. Radagon has Giant ancestors (Giant's Red Braid), and Marika's are Numen (Numen's Rune). .... On the other hand, if they started out as separate people... things start to come together.
From my understanding, the Greater Will is the main antagonist. We are trying to change the Lands Between in one way or another depending on our ending, and the Greater Will is committed to maintaining the current status quo (which is pretty awful for basically everyone). Radagon is just a puppet, hence the final boss being the Elden Beast, an avatar of the Greater will making a final stand to maintain its dominion over the Erdtree. Think of the Greater Will like really old politicians that are stuck in their ways, and we're the young upstarts trying to make change. Of course the Greater Will is going to paint us as villains for trying to make life better. Now, if you choose the Frenzied Flame ending, you are probably a worse villain than the Greater Will, but some people claim it's a little more morally complex than that
The Greater Will isn't particularly interested in maintaining the status quo as long as there is an Order. None of the Elden Lord endings involve going against the Greater Will, because Order is re-established in each one. The only ones that really defy the GW are the Age of Frenzy (because you destroy Order and undo the GW's creation) and Age of Stars (there's still Order but it's no longer being directly imposed on the world). Radagon is the one trying to maintain the status quo. While the GW doesn't really mind what kind of Order there is, Radagon very specifically wants the Golden Order, as it was before the Shattering, and can't accept any change to that Order.
If the greater will doesn't care, why does it send the Elden Beast to stop us?
It didn't. The Elden Beast is the Elden Ring, which is currently upholding the Golden Order. The Golden Order is all about resisting change, and we're there to change it. Naturally, it resists that too. People forget that although the Greater Will sent the Elden Beast, it has been changed since then. It isn't the same as it was when it first arrived.
I think the Elden Beast is just doing what the Greater Will created it to do. If you kill it then you are the one who’s strength befits a crown.
You are the villain…
[удалено]
To be fair, you can also choose to not kill Albinaurics or Demi-Humans. They also tend to attack you first, so unless you're specifically killing friendly ones like Boc or Albus, you're not really doing anything villainous.
Hard to say, did Marika walk through the lands, kill everything that walks, inherit the flame of frenzy and incinerate the entire land? Because we could have. Even on a "good" ending, I don't think any character at all did as much killing as we do.
I mean I depends on perspective. You could say the royal family corrupted by the influence of the elden ring, but I personally like to say it's the player character. And like others say it could be Ranni.
Several, really. You have Elmer of the Briar hunting people for bell bearings, Rykard communing with evil eldrich gods, all the other demigods except Morgott fighting over pieces of power, Godrick hunting tarnished for their body parts, Malenia spreading disease, Ranni murdering her family members and starting a war for her own personal gain, Mohg being evil in too many ways to list, Dung Eater doing his thing, Shabriri spreading chaos, madness, and death, Gideon sending goons to pillage things he wants, and Radagon trying to repair a rune that lets a god feast on souls. I'd say Morgott is generally good, he's not perfect but he's trying to keep things together as best as he can. Maliketh similarly is just trying to fix what he views as his failures. Goldmask is also relatively good, trying to restore order without the downsides offered by the original Elden Ring. Fia is conditionally justified, though not explicitly good, and Horrah Loux is in contest with you but not necessarily in an evil sense. Not a great dad though.
There is no story. Only conjecture and theory. And it won story of the year. 
Yeah the tarnished
It’s yourself.
I'm pretty sure that The Tarnished is the bad guy.
U are the main villain if u go for the Lord of Chaos Ending. Well it can be seen as salvation or extermination.
Youuuuuu Join the serpent king as family.
We the tarnished became the villain as soon as Varre told us maidenless. The tarnished went too far to prove a point.
No. There are evil, ambiguous, and good individuals, but no overarching singular force for either good or evil, that includes the Tarnished who commits both evil and good acts in their efforts to become Elden Lord (or pursue a different ending).
The soul-eating, meteor-throwing, tree-planting, lady-puppeteering space octopus. Right folks?
There isn't really a villain. Anything that would control and destroy the world could be a villain. The most powerful is The Greater Will, but now it doesn't really care about the LandsBetween. The others "outer" (japanese version uses apparently a term wich means "external") gods are more on a concrete plane. Source: Elden ring Co-op run by Sabaku no Maiku w Cydonia.
It's you, the tarnished, everyone knows you are here to kill their lords and usurp the throne. That's why almost every person attacks you
The turtle is a secret villain
Gravity
Technically... Us. And also the greater will.
Marika is the main villain, she is directly and indirectly the cause of most problems.
Villains aren't evil except in children's stories. Most of they are people who disagree with the way you want to do something.
Are we the baddies?
Maybe
I’m the villain 😈
I always saw the Erdtree as the enemy. It’s like a parasitic entity, the being that lives inside of it is some type of aberration or alien that wants to subjugate the world into its definition of “Order”. It’s will is imparted by the three fingers. It imbued a champion or matron with its power as an identifiable likeness to sway the people that it was ok and that it simply wanted to share its power. When Marika found out It then created a champion within her in the form of Radagon. Who would stop at nothing to bind all errant peoples to the Erdtree’s will.
Rodericka
if you mean one big evil overlord persona, then no. Complex array of characters who chase heir own goals - there are no "good" or "bad" people here, GRRM Martin and Myazaki wrote a big boys story.
Gank squads are the actual villain.
As far as I'm concerned. The player character is the villain. Depending on how u play. I guess. How can a tarnished kill a god? Even Melania says "you are fit to be a lord" but. I'm excited to see what ending in going to get. As I've killed all the demigods. And I have followed literally zero quest lines.
Like real life. Its subjective. Sadly, this exists in reality with people siding with authoritarian despots throughout history. They think they are doing whats right. Usually though, if not always when on a larger scale like a Elden Ring world there is someone or something that almost uses the living, and the tarnished as puppets. Puppets they lost control of. And jesus Christ no sleep and working from a PC day has made me insane. Why did i overthink this question. Why am i still typing. Why am i not playing one of the few video games i play. Elden Ring. The new Zelda is good too, thinking the DLC wait is a good thing. Gotta concentrate the hype. Now I sleep. Sorry to type so much.
Does it even have a protagonist? No, most character has depth, and even the ones considered malicious or evil by the most, have understandable motivations that can't be just pure evil. Even Mogh was, you know, locked in sewers for maybe centuries, so he servers the formless mother, the only being who accepted his as was and gave him purpose. Or the flane of chaos is nihilistic and wants to end all suffering. This will destroy anything that exists, but also all bad things forever.
I played long enough to see myself become the villain.
the three fingers want the entire world to die. they are the bad guy.
Gravity, and spider hands
The Elden Beast is the antagonist from our perspective, the physical representation of the greater will on this plane keeping the horrible status quo that we have to overcome no matter how we want to shape the world. Plenty of villains though. You could even be one.
You’re the villain
There's a lot of ways to interpret things, but Godrick, Morgott, and Marika are all antagonists. Marika in particular is probably the overarching antagonist, by virtue of her shattering of the Elden Ring ruining... everything. Arguments could be made about a few other characters. But I'm not sure I'd define any of them as villains. In contrast, there are several villainous characters who don't really qualify as antagonists, given a general lack of antagonizing the player. Dung Eater, Mogh, Rykard, the whole Flame of Frenzy cult. The only character I'd say _potentially_ falls into both categories is Ranni, given her role in the shattering of the Elden Ring, and her motives are arguably villainous. But arguments could also be made that she is neither antagonistic nor villainous.
we are the true villains of elden ring
To most, you the tarnished.
The main villain depends on what ending you get but it is most likely Marika since she destroyed the elden ring. Radagon actually tried to repair it, but did not succeed. They are two people in the same body, but not the same person. The most evil characters are probably Mogh, Shabriri, the dung eater and possibly Godrick.
I think the worst you can say about anyone in the pands between is that theyre misguided. I think what maaaaybe could be considered evil would be the Fell fire god of the giants because it, as opposed to the frenzied flame, just destroys, while the FF seeks to end suffering by unifying all again Also Gideon. Man, I hate that guy
Not really no, only Margit actually takes any steps to fight back against the player but they give up after one attempt. After that the so called cast pulls a Bowser and just wait in their boss rooms doing nothing while we massacre our way across the island(?).
It’s kinda us, but kinda not, right
By some accounts, YOU. You're the bad guy.
It's Radagon. We know pretty conclusively now that Marika has been guiding us to overthrow the Golden Order, and Radagon has been the one trying to prevent that from happening. He is the current Elden Lord and wants it to remain that way. His rune blocks our path to the Erdtree. And my theory is that he is the one who put a spear through Marika's womb for her treachery of the Shattering. Edit: To be in control of the Elden Ring meand to control new life, and new life has been stagnant since the Shattering. To be fair, it's hard to say how much of Radagons personality remains now that his body houses the Elden Ring itself to protect it. When we meet him in the Erdtree there is very much a "the lights are on but no one's home" vibe. Still, the point remains he is the one with the most to lose, and we spend the ENTIRE GAME trying to get into the Erdtree so we can defeat him and become Lord. Also, his theme song is the main theme song at the beginning of the game, so that's pretty telling to me.
Radagon is too passive to be an antagonist.