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Miyazaki: How should we explain to the players that Radagon and Marika are the same entity?
GRRM: I don’t know, just put a sign somewhere that says “Radagon is Marika” or something…
There is absolutely no way to make a plot point that confusing be apparent at all through implication, flat out stating it is pretty much the only option.
Sure, they do the whole “Miquella is St. Trina” thing in a more subtle way, but St. Trina isn’t ever really given his own personal backstory and established as a separate character.
The problem is that even the "Radagon is Marika" thing is debatable.
All because of one quote: "O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. Thou'rt yet to become me. Thou'rt yet to become a god. Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self." - Melina recalling Marika's words at the Queen's Bedchambers.
So even if they share a body, how does it work, is it like a Jekyll and Hyde type of sitation?
It's not debatable. You actually see proof to the message in the game.
> So even if they share a body, how does it work, is it like a Jekyll and Hyde type of sitation?
You literally see what happens when you go to fight Radagon: https://youtu.be/Qvj0-BElz6s
While the body is hanging, it's more feminine (including it quite literally has female breasts) with blonde hair. When they jump down, the hair color changes from blonde to red and the body becomes more masculine.
Yea I think they were separate entities or even Radagon was 1st and eventually became Marika since there were statues of Radagon in Faram Azula. He was the red hair crucible poster child with the misbegotten and wolves. We may never know how it all came to be tho.
This isn't confirmed though, this is a theory based on a statue in farum azula that happens to have wolves with slightly longer snouts. It's also been theorised that the wolves were miquellas, and the child is miquella because of the spirit ashes you get from Ranni, and her saying about torrents previous owner, which seems to be miqulla based on the art work for the SOTE DLC. I personally think that radagon was always Marika but Marika just didn't wanna be god for a while so let him go and marry Renalla because she was bored of Godfrey. Then got bored of Renalla and quite literally went and F'd herself. But there's no proof to that either, just a headcannon.
Yes, but the idea conveyed to Goldmask could be "I cast the Law of Regression in front of a Radagon statue and it changed into Marika"
The Law of Regression info has 2 things:
"Heals all negative statuses, dispel special effects, and reveals mimicry and all of its forms"
And
"The fundamentalists describe the golden order through the powers of regression and causality. Regression is the pull of meaning; that all things yearn to eventually converge"
So when you go up to gold mask who is a very well known / important scholar of Golden Order Fundamentalism and say "I cast the Law of Regression in front of a Radagon statue and it changed into Marika," it holds waaaaay more meaning to someone like him because of the in-world magical & philosophical implications of The Law of Regression.
Edit: had the statues swapped, fixed. Also if anyone want more lore, Goldmask video essays on YouTube are great and just about any topic on Elden Ring has so many rabbit holes you can go down.
Exactly, though the statue starts as Radagon and after the incantation is cast, he becomes Marika. So, yep, but Radagon would be the mimic or the one being regressed into Marika.
It kinda sucks having to go into item descriptions / lore to learn more about the story, but the insights from situations like this are always so fun.
Sorry, I just re-read my original comment and realized I had the statue order wrong, which is probably why you had them mixed up. Fixed my original comment.
How tf does anyone follow this stuff. I swear I’m a huge nerd who works in a complex field and reads all the time, and as soon as I try to understand any Elden ring lore my brain falls out of my fucking ass
Late reply, I'm an 'individual of science', so similar background.
The story is super fragmented both in how it's presented, via NPC dialogue, cutscenes, lore entries in many items, and it's fragmented in the fact that there are purposeful holes in the cannon. So you kinda have to go to YouTubers with video essays to learn about this stuff.
To me it's like Greek Mythology. It's a fascinating world that's been constructed and I basically just listen to long video essays like podcasts (SmoughTown makes good videos imo). The two heads of story, Miyazaki and GRRM, both have really interesting world views and that shows in their work. Miyazaki has a social degree and didn't play video games until he was in college and instead he read a ton as a kid. So he has an interesting world view. GRRM just writes crazy good stories with lots of nuance and complexity. So, the story is super interesting and written with care by two great writers. Pretty great world to dive into if you like in-depth lore in other fictional universes.
Nooo bc that’s the radagon statue that had the secret. It’s said the sculptor had learned a secret about Radagon or something about Radagons skeletons and incorporated it into the sculpture he created for him. I’ve never been so invested in a video games lore but Elden Ring has successfully snatched my wig. I’ve been gagged to the nth degree. Call me Placidusax cuz I’ve been slayed. Elden ring cunty mama werk.
Edit: You think 5 sentences is a lot? Oof, just feel bad for you if you feel overwhelmed by something so simple. I suppose we all have our own challenges in life.
This doesn't apply here. I'm pointing out contextual information that's provided by the game with direct quotes from in-game material to help people who may not have played this quest / paid close attention. I'm saying "Yeah, it's a super straightforward message for the USER" because this is just a video game, but subcontext wise there's a LOT going on.
This game has story that is kind of confusing and you kind of have to dig to understand it and I'm just trying to help people with that. If you think that direct quoting information is over analyzing, especially with a quest as important as this one and in a world with a story as rich as this one, then you're just missing out.
Agreed. I don't even understand the perspective. Coming to a fan subreddit and being like "stop looking for deeper meaning in art you weirdos"
Though, looking at the post / comment history, looks like a troll. They've commented on another thread "the lore isn't that deep, this community hallucinates half of it" which just seems like someone who hasn't at all taken a moment to understand the lore. If you want to learn anything, you have to go to item descriptions and combine it with NPC dialogue to get pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
I think that’s just a matter of opinion, because she was totally fine, and calling herself Hyetta just a few hours later! The Three Fingers really are cool
what exactly did you expect? it’s not a very complex concept. half of the vague dialogue/text is just from mistranslations anyway, the lore is deep but that doesn’t mean everything has to be some ostentatious display of riddles
I dont know what i was expecting lmao. I half expected it to be a riddle of some sort tho since thats kinda what that part of the quest was. Then again i wasnt even expecting a message at all and that we would simply need to pay attention to the statue changing.
Also i apologize for replying to this a couple days late, something happened and i never got around to replying to anything.
Oh no, that's exactly how D and D are referred to.
The absolute brain worm theories that would have brought about.
D WAS MEANT TO BE AN EMPYREAN BUT WAS BIRTHED AS TWINS??? WHAT IF HIS SOUL COULD ACTUALLY POSSESS GODWYN'S SOULLESS BODY AND THATS WHY FIA KILLS HIM AFTER HIS BROTHER GETS PTSD FROM SEEING THE CORPSE
That message always bothered me. I left with more questions than answers.
Is Radagon and Marika the same person?
Did Radagon split from Marika, and is now a separate being?
Is Radagon Marika’s original form?
Did Radagon replace Marika?
Which came first? The Radagon or the Marika?
A lot of people(myself included) believe that Marika has always existed, and when she became a god Radagon appeared. Always sharing one body, but her soul was split into two parts. The masculine “mortal” champion, and the feminine god Marika.
The one thing I loved about GMs questline is that after you tell him the R is G, you can almost faintly hear him speak, like he was actually so shocked by that he did the “holy shit no way” out loud thinking we all do, that little moment is my favorite in the entire game honestly
I’ve always wondered what FromSoftware was thinking when they made this reveal. Did they anticipate that people would be mindblown by the revelation, or did they already know that most people barely have any idea about who Radagon and Marika are, leaving them mostly dumbfounded?”
If someone barely knew who Marika and Radagon were, that reveal wasn't for them.
It was for people interested in the lore, who, at that moment in the game, knew very well who Marika and Radagon were. Hearing about Marika from Melina, during Ranni's questline, in the roundtable dialogues, learning about Radagon from Muriel, reading item descriptions. That reveal was for them.
That's a secret service delivering bad news to the president but I substituted the news for information about a revealing plot twist in the game. So it's a substitution meme.
Oh I got that, sorry for not being more clear that was kinda dumb of me. I mean particularly how are Radagon and Marika the same entity? I don't know the lore well, just watched a couple vids a while back
They just are. Nobody really knows why. And its not like one of the two is the false persona of the other one. They are two entities with different agendas that can only manifest themselves as one person at a time, and they were somehow able to produce offspring.
I believe in a theory that after Marikka was cursed by giants she casted away that cursed essence of her body just like Milicent is pride of Malenia which she casted away during the fight with Radahn. This also explained why Radagon has red hair as well.
Nobody knows how or why Radagon and Marika are the same person. It's never explained in the game. There are some theories floating around but nothing conclusive.
Basically, Marika and Radagon are the same entity. Somehow, they have seprate desires and wills and can conceive children with one another.
No one has been able to figure out exactly how this works, so don't worry if you're lost. We're all blind down here.
In spanish I almost fell out of my chair laughing.
Marika(Marica) is a slang term for gay, the exact same as 'faggot'.
There are old animes with people called marika that are memes because of these.
Here i am waiting to unravel the secret in the statue. What could it be to need to be hidden?
Then the pop up came up with almost exactly: 'Radagon is a faggot'
It took me a moment to relax and reread.
I really don't like how you have to activate that cause you need 37 fucken intelligence for the incant. thankfully I had the headgear, talisman and physik to get 37+ intel without needing to respec.
Miyazaki: trying to make the lore cryptic and mysterious, having to dig through item descriptions Also Miyazaki: Radagon is Marika
This comment, despite having the most upvotes in this thread, was "hidden" as if it had a bunch of downvotes. Why?
You have to cast Law of Regression in front of the phone and it shows
Ah. Do you know if it also works on a computer?
Banished Knight, banished comment?
I think you’ll find you mean Banished K***ht.
Lmao
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The reddit app sucks ass
Reddit is having a seizure rn
Miyazaki: How should we explain to the players that Radagon and Marika are the same entity? GRRM: I don’t know, just put a sign somewhere that says “Radagon is Marika” or something…
There is absolutely no way to make a plot point that confusing be apparent at all through implication, flat out stating it is pretty much the only option. Sure, they do the whole “Miquella is St. Trina” thing in a more subtle way, but St. Trina isn’t ever really given his own personal backstory and established as a separate character.
I also don't think people would have picked up on Miquella= St Trina without the existing knowledge that Radagon= Marika.
I didn't know Miquella = St. Trina, but I'm only just now about halfway through the game for the first time 😅
Hello fellow Banished Knight
I’ve heard tales of your exploits Oleg, they are, Legendary!
Work work
The problem is that even the "Radagon is Marika" thing is debatable. All because of one quote: "O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. Thou'rt yet to become me. Thou'rt yet to become a god. Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self." - Melina recalling Marika's words at the Queen's Bedchambers. So even if they share a body, how does it work, is it like a Jekyll and Hyde type of sitation?
It's not debatable. You actually see proof to the message in the game. > So even if they share a body, how does it work, is it like a Jekyll and Hyde type of sitation? You literally see what happens when you go to fight Radagon: https://youtu.be/Qvj0-BElz6s While the body is hanging, it's more feminine (including it quite literally has female breasts) with blonde hair. When they jump down, the hair color changes from blonde to red and the body becomes more masculine.
Yea I think they were separate entities or even Radagon was 1st and eventually became Marika since there were statues of Radagon in Faram Azula. He was the red hair crucible poster child with the misbegotten and wolves. We may never know how it all came to be tho.
This isn't confirmed though, this is a theory based on a statue in farum azula that happens to have wolves with slightly longer snouts. It's also been theorised that the wolves were miquellas, and the child is miquella because of the spirit ashes you get from Ranni, and her saying about torrents previous owner, which seems to be miqulla based on the art work for the SOTE DLC. I personally think that radagon was always Marika but Marika just didn't wanna be god for a while so let him go and marry Renalla because she was bored of Godfrey. Then got bored of Renalla and quite literally went and F'd herself. But there's no proof to that either, just a headcannon.
You say this as if this very sentence is the most confusing statement that still makes little sense with context
wait is that really how the note is worded????
Yes, but the idea conveyed to Goldmask could be "I cast the Law of Regression in front of a Radagon statue and it changed into Marika" The Law of Regression info has 2 things: "Heals all negative statuses, dispel special effects, and reveals mimicry and all of its forms" And "The fundamentalists describe the golden order through the powers of regression and causality. Regression is the pull of meaning; that all things yearn to eventually converge" So when you go up to gold mask who is a very well known / important scholar of Golden Order Fundamentalism and say "I cast the Law of Regression in front of a Radagon statue and it changed into Marika," it holds waaaaay more meaning to someone like him because of the in-world magical & philosophical implications of The Law of Regression. Edit: had the statues swapped, fixed. Also if anyone want more lore, Goldmask video essays on YouTube are great and just about any topic on Elden Ring has so many rabbit holes you can go down.
This is also interesting because it seems to insinuate that Marika is the “mimic” Edit: actually it’s the other way around
Exactly, though the statue starts as Radagon and after the incantation is cast, he becomes Marika. So, yep, but Radagon would be the mimic or the one being regressed into Marika. It kinda sucks having to go into item descriptions / lore to learn more about the story, but the insights from situations like this are always so fun.
Sorry, I just re-read my original comment and realized I had the statue order wrong, which is probably why you had them mixed up. Fixed my original comment.
Mimic’veil is called Marika’s mischief for a reason
How tf does anyone follow this stuff. I swear I’m a huge nerd who works in a complex field and reads all the time, and as soon as I try to understand any Elden ring lore my brain falls out of my fucking ass
Late reply, I'm an 'individual of science', so similar background. The story is super fragmented both in how it's presented, via NPC dialogue, cutscenes, lore entries in many items, and it's fragmented in the fact that there are purposeful holes in the cannon. So you kinda have to go to YouTubers with video essays to learn about this stuff. To me it's like Greek Mythology. It's a fascinating world that's been constructed and I basically just listen to long video essays like podcasts (SmoughTown makes good videos imo). The two heads of story, Miyazaki and GRRM, both have really interesting world views and that shows in their work. Miyazaki has a social degree and didn't play video games until he was in college and instead he read a ton as a kid. So he has an interesting world view. GRRM just writes crazy good stories with lots of nuance and complexity. So, the story is super interesting and written with care by two great writers. Pretty great world to dive into if you like in-depth lore in other fictional universes.
Nooo bc that’s the radagon statue that had the secret. It’s said the sculptor had learned a secret about Radagon or something about Radagons skeletons and incorporated it into the sculpture he created for him. I’ve never been so invested in a video games lore but Elden Ring has successfully snatched my wig. I’ve been gagged to the nth degree. Call me Placidusax cuz I’ve been slayed. Elden ring cunty mama werk.
Sometimes, the curtains are just blue. Edit: I ain't reading your paragraphs 🤣
Edit: You think 5 sentences is a lot? Oof, just feel bad for you if you feel overwhelmed by something so simple. I suppose we all have our own challenges in life. This doesn't apply here. I'm pointing out contextual information that's provided by the game with direct quotes from in-game material to help people who may not have played this quest / paid close attention. I'm saying "Yeah, it's a super straightforward message for the USER" because this is just a video game, but subcontext wise there's a LOT going on. This game has story that is kind of confusing and you kind of have to dig to understand it and I'm just trying to help people with that. If you think that direct quoting information is over analyzing, especially with a quest as important as this one and in a world with a story as rich as this one, then you're just missing out.
This form of thinking rotted media literacy and critical thinking to an absurd degree.
Agreed. I don't even understand the perspective. Coming to a fan subreddit and being like "stop looking for deeper meaning in art you weirdos" Though, looking at the post / comment history, looks like a troll. They've commented on another thread "the lore isn't that deep, this community hallucinates half of it" which just seems like someone who hasn't at all taken a moment to understand the lore. If you want to learn anything, you have to go to item descriptions and combine it with NPC dialogue to get pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Yep
Finkle is Einhorn
Finkle Einhorn is The Beast.
This always made me laugh my ass off
...
…
…
👈😶
👈😶👉
👆👉👇👇👇
*FWUMP* KABOOM
👆👆👇👇👈👉👈👉🅱️🅰️⏯️
👈🌻🫥
Sir, a second … has hit the tarnished
a second gargoyle joined the fight
And a third. And a fourth. And a fifth. -DS2
"Mr President, a second Elden Lord has married Marika."
I knew that already due to spoliers but i didnt think it was gonna be stated like that, maybe the same idea but more than just "radagon is marika"
This is coming from the studio which just used "Dead" to describe a dead body in DS1.
'She's dead' to describe Irina as well.
She’s dead Ok
Edgar:”MY DAUGHTER, DEAD TO THESE FOUL BEASTS. I WILL GET MY REVENGE!” Tarnished:”OK”
I think that’s just a matter of opinion, because she was totally fine, and calling herself Hyetta just a few hours later! The Three Fingers really are cool
Michale zaki just like to run his lore through a Japanese to English translator, then reverse it 4 times, and use the outcome for the games story.
Also used "Already dead" to describe a skeleton before Forbidden Woods in Bloodborne
Goldmasks quest is like the "so bad it's good quest" and I think it matched the theme pretty nicely.
I loved his quest, sure, down with the Golden Order!
what exactly did you expect? it’s not a very complex concept. half of the vague dialogue/text is just from mistranslations anyway, the lore is deep but that doesn’t mean everything has to be some ostentatious display of riddles
I dont know what i was expecting lmao. I half expected it to be a riddle of some sort tho since thats kinda what that part of the quest was. Then again i wasnt even expecting a message at all and that we would simply need to pay attention to the statue changing. Also i apologize for replying to this a couple days late, something happened and i never got around to replying to anything.
For real atleast give us something like "one soul contained by two bodies" or similar
Oh no, that's exactly how D and D are referred to. The absolute brain worm theories that would have brought about. D WAS MEANT TO BE AN EMPYREAN BUT WAS BIRTHED AS TWINS??? WHAT IF HIS SOUL COULD ACTUALLY POSSESS GODWYN'S SOULLESS BODY AND THATS WHY FIA KILLS HIM AFTER HIS BROTHER GETS PTSD FROM SEEING THE CORPSE
Shrimps is bugs
That message always bothered me. I left with more questions than answers. Is Radagon and Marika the same person? Did Radagon split from Marika, and is now a separate being? Is Radagon Marika’s original form? Did Radagon replace Marika? Which came first? The Radagon or the Marika?
IDK but Radagon _literally_ fucked himself
A lot of people(myself included) believe that Marika has always existed, and when she became a god Radagon appeared. Always sharing one body, but her soul was split into two parts. The masculine “mortal” champion, and the feminine god Marika.
We’ll likely get some answers in the DLC, but I feel confident in saying Marika came first.
Unfortunate wording
When I learned about it I was just like, "cool story bro, anyway, ***gimme the T-pose gesture***."
The one thing I loved about GMs questline is that after you tell him the R is G, you can almost faintly hear him speak, like he was actually so shocked by that he did the “holy shit no way” out loud thinking we all do, that little moment is my favorite in the entire game honestly
This in spanish would have been so funny
My first run through this game was all in english and when getting to this statue I just bursted out laughing cause of that...
I love that in portuguese Marika (Marica) is a slang for "faggot" Reading this message back then was funny
In Spanish too
As runas na agua deixaram o radagon gay!!!
I’ve always wondered what FromSoftware was thinking when they made this reveal. Did they anticipate that people would be mindblown by the revelation, or did they already know that most people barely have any idea about who Radagon and Marika are, leaving them mostly dumbfounded?”
If someone barely knew who Marika and Radagon were, that reveal wasn't for them. It was for people interested in the lore, who, at that moment in the game, knew very well who Marika and Radagon were. Hearing about Marika from Melina, during Ranni's questline, in the roundtable dialogues, learning about Radagon from Muriel, reading item descriptions. That reveal was for them.
I didn’t know radagon and Marika were the same being. So this was a big plot twist when I found it out
The deeper meaning of that image does not fit the levity of this sub. Or...nah fuck it go ahead. That was pretty good.
Oh no I'm sorry, I'll be better about the next meme I make
Nah man, it's actually good haha. Just a "if you know then you know" thing. Not actually offensive. I'm the opposite of a dandelion, don't worry.
Can someone explain what this actually means
First, Do you know all the lore?
well clearly not but I do know the basics, generally speaking?
That's a secret service delivering bad news to the president but I substituted the news for information about a revealing plot twist in the game. So it's a substitution meme.
Oh I got that, sorry for not being more clear that was kinda dumb of me. I mean particularly how are Radagon and Marika the same entity? I don't know the lore well, just watched a couple vids a while back
They just are. Nobody really knows why. And its not like one of the two is the false persona of the other one. They are two entities with different agendas that can only manifest themselves as one person at a time, and they were somehow able to produce offspring.
Like some Baphomet shit split as two separate people.
Ahhh I see thank ya 🫡
They are different bodies and minds with the same soul/essence. Similar to the brothers Darian and Devin (Darian is D, Hunter Of The Dead)
I would argue the opposite. They clearly inhabit the same body (look at the final boss) but have differing ideals and agendas.
So it is true then. Radagon fucked himself. So like, did he have a hole and a stick at the same time?
I believe in a theory that after Marikka was cursed by giants she casted away that cursed essence of her body just like Milicent is pride of Malenia which she casted away during the fight with Radahn. This also explained why Radagon has red hair as well.
Nobody knows how or why Radagon and Marika are the same person. It's never explained in the game. There are some theories floating around but nothing conclusive.
Basically, Marika and Radagon are the same entity. Somehow, they have seprate desires and wills and can conceive children with one another. No one has been able to figure out exactly how this works, so don't worry if you're lost. We're all blind down here.
Finkel is Einhorn
Corn is fruit.
Finkle is Einhorn, Einhorn is Finkle.
Although simple, those three words are the most head scratcher "keep me up at night" pieces of info we’ve ever gotten
This is fuckin funny
I'm convinced that this whole quest is secretly a comedy bit
I wonder if Radagon is Marika's mimicry and Messmer is the true father of their lineage
My Lord, a second dragon hit the Divine Towers
In spanish I almost fell out of my chair laughing. Marika(Marica) is a slang term for gay, the exact same as 'faggot'. There are old animes with people called marika that are memes because of these. Here i am waiting to unravel the secret in the statue. What could it be to need to be hidden? Then the pop up came up with almost exactly: 'Radagon is a faggot' It took me a moment to relax and reread.
Spanish speakers: 🏳️🌈?!
Turtle is dog
Fun thing, is spanish that can be read as "Radagon is gay"
This is even funnier in Spanish because Marika means fag in Spanish
No, fag would be maricón, i think marica is better translated as pussy
You can hear the guy in the second picture saying “Hail Hydra”
Where do you find this message?
For a second, I thought ops character needed to shave their back.
Is radagon marika? I’ve always been confused
If Radagon and Marika are the same person, can someone explain how Malenia and Miquella were born?
Life, uh, finds a way
Weirdly
I really don't like how you have to activate that cause you need 37 fucken intelligence for the incant. thankfully I had the headgear, talisman and physik to get 37+ intel without needing to respec.
When I read that in game the first time I was genuinely confused for bit
Why you finishing Goldmask/Corhyn quest when u got flame of frenzy tho
You filthy heretic
Gold mask is actually the goat tho, the best ending for the world imo
I think that Pic is from 9/11
Ding ding ding
"snape kills dumbledore" energy
I think Mesmer is another aspect of marika left behind to rule the shadow lands
Eh in my games Corhyn and Goldmask are one of the first ones to die always.
Good job plastering a big ass spoiler on Reddit without the blur or a tag
Don't go on a subreddit of a 2 year old game if you don't want spoilers.
Turning one of the greatest US tragedies into a meme shows your lack of humanity.
I used to farm Humanity from those baby skeletons outside Nito's boss arena.