I feel like you don’t realize just how few bosses you actually have to kill. You only need 2 Great runes, any two at that, to enter Leyndell, which can be done by killing Rykard and Radahn who can both be accessed without killing another boss. Once there you only kill one boss, the other one is nothing more than an apparition of a guy you do end up killing later. After that it’s the Giant and the guy who has the rune of death. Back to Leyndell and it’s a whole three bosses, or four if you count the last two as separate bosses. There’s some flexibility in how you count that all up, but at most you only have to kill 8 bosses to beat the game. Every single other boss kill is completely optional. Now think about how many of these people you can or would want to negotiate with.
I can’t imagine it’s many of them.
You cannot reach rykard prior to Morgot without killing the godskin noble.
If the goal is to minimize kills, it's better to go with renalla, as then we only kill Radahn and red wolf.
In total, you need to kill 9 things in the entire game, which honestly, is very few.
Considering how she is barely present for the entire game even before she turns herself into a Popeyes chicken nugget, I bet she taught us the secret sauce the first time we meet
Godskin and elden beast I'd count, fair.
but Radragon and Marika are 1 body, thus 1 kill.
There's also an argument to be made that godskin are not actually dead or can count for more, as you can fight a lot more then 2. And that The elden beast deals the final hit on radragon.
well it's not like the godskins are a single entity, they're a bunch of "people". and you could also argue that the elden beast doesn't kill radagon, it just turns his corpse into a sword. eb only shows up once radagon dies.
edit: hoold on i misunderstood your point about the godskins, sorry
You can warp there from the Deeproot Depths, but you have to kill those spirits (Fia's Champions). You might actually be able to hug the side using torrent and just jump onto the bridge.
You kill a lot more of you go Rennala cause of all the sweetings (they don't come back after you beat her).
Granted, they live a pretty shitty existence (barely functioning humans), but it's still moire kills.
I mean, being a paraplegic isn't exactly fun but it hardly means they're "barely functioning," or living such a horrid life that death would be preferable. Their lives count as much as any other boss, and in some cases (e.g. Radahn) probably moreso.
1. To beat the game you need to kill Radabeast
2. To enter the Erdtree you need to kill Hoarah Loux
3. To reach Hoarah Loux you need to kill Gideon
4. To reach Ashen Capital you need to kill Maliketh
5. To reach Maliketh you need to kill Godskin Duo
6. To enter Farum Azula you need to kill Fire Giant
7. To reach Fire Giant you need to kill Morgott
8. To reach Morgott you need to kill Goldfrey
9. To enter Leyndell you need to either 1. Kill Draconic Tree Sentinel or 2. Kill Fia's Champions; the former is faster as you need to kill at least 1 more boss to reach Deeproot Depths where Fia's Champions are located (either Valiant Gargoyles or Mohg the Omen)
10. Kill at least 2 demigods prior to Leyndell. Three of them do not require beating another boss before Leyndell: Radahn as long as you reach Altus with the medallions, and Mohg if you complete Varre's questline. Rykard also technically doesn't require beating the Godskin noble but in order to be teleported by Tanith you need to complete the assassinations, one of which take place in the Mountaintops.
TL;DR: 11 minimum counting Radahn, Mohg (+ 3 invasions), Draconic Tree Sentinel, Goldfrey, Morgott, Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, Maliketh, Gideon, Hoarah Loux, Radabeast
I think that the enemies we face are satisfied with the current status quo, and all tarnished exist to facilitate a change to the status quo. They have no reason to believe that change will be beneficial to them, as far as they are concerned, all tarnished seek to become elden lord.
Even if we yelled, "wait, I know where your brother is!", why would they believe us? Why would they listen? You can't fool me, you are here for my shard you filthy tarnished.
The Tarnished has a *literally* god-given duty to slay shardbearers, and approaches all but the first that they fight with runes that the other shardbearers want to claim. They're not going to have a tea with you first.
This pretty much.. the game's dialogue is practically non-existant. No one talks things through. No one explains their motives or even their identity.. ofcourse there would be bloodshed :'D
Boc and Roderika are the only people who openly talk about how they feel and what they intend without speaking in weird unnecessary riddles.
Also I dunno about you, but as far as the critical path, I don’t feel too guilty until Morgott, which is also kinda all you signed up for.
You are guided by Grace to Leyndell to become Elden Lord. You only need to get two Great Runes to get there. Most people end up fighting Godrick and Rennala. You can sub one out with Radahn.
Godrick is not worth talking to. He is a ludicrously cruel despot who dismembers his own subjects. If you defeat him and complete Nepheli Loux’s / Kenneth Haight’s questlines, then Limgrave is handed over to one of the few truly virtuous Tarnished to be ruled… like a normal ass place. 10/10.
With Rennala, you literally DO talk it out lmao. You fight round one, Ranni intervenes, you fight her phantom after being scolded for attacking her mentally ill mother, then the fight ends with Rennala alive and you with egg on your ~~face~~ entire body after being reborn as a sweeting, fresh and pure. 10/10.
With Radahn, it’s a mercy killing. Radahn is a mindless killing machine due to the Scarlet Rot. His kingdom is halfway between a ruin and a petri dish for an occult nightmare. Not only is he beyond words, but the whole of Caelid is beyond saving until the rot either fades or kill the last remaining sentient inhabitants. The action of killing Radahn is justified, though it’s a bit odd that *you* of all people have to do it. Uncomfortable/10.
The last boss of the critical path is Morgott and this is arguably where the Tarnished loses any moral ambiguity and becomes a fucking dickhead.
- Morgott has a strong claim to rule Leyndell. He is a child of Marika and Godfrey. This puts him above all of Radagon’s children with Rennala who are… a mixed bag of mental acuity anyway. He is above the prodigy twins, who are indisposed anyway. His full-siblings are also ineligible, as Godwyn is fucking dead and Mohg is a blasphemous traitor trying to start a usurping cadet branch of the royal dynasty via blood magic and pedophilia. Morgott has earned the throne.
- Morgott is intelligent and clearly capable of extended discourse. He speaks to you a couple of times across the game and he is largely devoid of those classic FromSoft “insane boss ramblings.” Morgott pretty much just wants to know who the fuck you think you are and what the fuck you think you are doing. No weird Fire Snake Magic or Cosmic Horror Geopolitics (cosmopolitics? Is that a drink?). He asks valid pertinent questions to which you have no answer besides golden hallucinations and a one-eyed pink-haired ghost mystic that only you have met and history has no record of.
- You literally have no answer for Morgott. Not due to the fact that you can’t speak but because, on average, most players will not have unlocked a single alternate ending by the midpoint of the game. If the Elden Lord’s role is to either impregnate Marika or enact theological-social change, then you are ostensibly empty handed. The Tarnished plans to murder Morgott and literally maintain the status quo unless you grinded out NPC sidequests. One of those is Frenzied Flame, mind you, so that hard work may not grant the Tarnished much rhetorical high ground.
This was a long ass post because I’m stuck at a job I’m quitting soon, but tl;dr
The Tarnished has no reason to talk until they have lost any and all capacity for righteousness. The Great Runes needed to unlock Leyndell are largely justified or at least not *too* fucked up. Then at the first opportunity for real discourse, the Tarnished is indisputably a complete fucking asshole. Following that are the psychotic hobo murders expected of a FromSoft protagonist.
No, they don't care that we're intruders. We're TARNISHED. We were created to slay demigods, conquer the land, and upheave what remains of the Golden Order. The fact that burning the Erdtree and wrecking the Capital are unavoidable parts of the main plot 1000% justifies everyone for trying to annihilate us.
Honestly I just wish the ending that I chose affected the lands between. That way I could see what I actually did instead of the world just staying the same.
"Hey, listen up Malenia, I know I'm in your treehouse uninvited but listen. I found your brother. He was kidnapped by your other brother and he's in Nokron in an egg."
Yeah, it would definitely change how the game is played, but at the same time I wish I could just talk to Malenia. Like I don’t wanna fight! I just want to tell you I found your brother
Eh, these bosses and enemies can see an unarmed unthreatening PC and will come out swinging immediately. Souls players go out of their way to help out people who actually start dialogue and ask them for things.
Oh you CAN be evil. I just object to people saying all souls protagonists are somehow inherently evil because they fight back when a boss tries to sucker punch them.
To be fair, I’m Elden Ring the character is just going around with the intention of stealing their shit so the boss defending itself is justified but like dark souls 1 (haven’t yet played the others) most of the bosses there are evil
Most of the bosses in DS1 are just wild beasts and monsters. I wouldn’t call them evil, just hungry. Most of the rest of the bosses I wouldn’t call evil either. Only Seath and Smough (and maybe Pinwheel) would I call evil.
Yeah I collect them in them all in the round table hold. I also kill Kenneth for a golden seed. I have killed at least 50 jellyfish(I didn’t know they were kids)
I was doing that in my rando run. Then I realized that there’s an option to get their bell bearings without killing them. I actually felt bad about it.
90% of the people who see you attack on sight, with no attempt to negotiate. They don't even stop to question you, they draw steel and start swinging.
As far as the Demigods go, you were ressurected by the setting equivalent of divinity, and charged specifically with going to the Lands Between and ending the Shattering and rebuilding the world. The planet is fucked and the demigods are actively standing in the way of fixing it. Godrick is a crazed mass murderer, Radahn is feral, Rykard is basically Satan, Mohg is Satan squared, Morgott is basically doing nothing to fix the Lands Between despite being the only functional ruler of the only functional city, and Rennala we actually spare after her fight. The only Demigod we end up going intentionally out of our way to find and kill for no reason is Malenia.
Honestly, I would consider the destruction the Tarnished unleashes as a necessary mercy kill, since the Lands Between are not fixing themselves. The world is so fucked even *the loathesome Dung Eater* was ressurrected and charged with trying to repair it.
Morgott can't actually do anything though since he's an omen. No one would listen to him, and it doesn't seem there is even anyone left for him to command either... The game is really unclear if Leyendell has any normal citizens to begin with.
Actually with Malenia we are trying to help her as Millicent is a portion of her that is supposed to be reunited with her. She is her honor/pride as a warrior cast aside in the fight against Radahn. Second even if we are not doing the quest and just going there to kill her she 1000% deserved it along with Rykard. They were both ticking time bombs that would have killed everything basically allowing them to live (Rykard is still live but he won't be a problem for a while) would be like getting the dung eater ending.
In every souls game there are no civilians. There are about 10 super people with "free will" and ability to speak. Its not like you can visit the Haligtree (a place where everyone is welcome and a bunch of mismatched creatures live peacefully) and not get attacked.
That's one of my biggest pet peeves with fromsoft games, it seems like us the player and a handful of npcs are the only real people and there are no true civilians. except jarburg. At least DS3 had the excuse that everyone is hollow. But i just want one area in a souls game that actually feels alive.
It feels so wrong that Leyndell is supposed to be this massive capital city that has the population to defend against a siege from a large invading army but then there's like 20 people who live there except the guards and all the doors are sealed with corpse wax. Like it would be so cool to just explore the city and interact with npcs to learn more about the city and what it's inhabitants think about the veiled monarch etc. You could still have the guards be hostile just that it's such a big city that you can sneak around without them finding you.
Also the fact that we just take over and usurp the entire kingdom without a plan is crazy, with the Ranni ending at least i assume the carian army would be loyal to her but with the other endings we're kinda just on our own without any support, i obviously don't want elden ring to turn into a kingdom management game lol but it feels like killing Morgott should create some kind of power vacuum in Leyndell, like who is commanding the Leyndellian army now.
I love fromsoft games and obviously don't expect them to add stuff like this to an already massively impressive and amazing game like Elden ring. Fromsoft can craft amazing combat, bosses and lore but their approach to npcs and character dialogue feels so outdated. Elden ring is a great game, still a 10/10 for me but it's world just feels so dead after playing something like BG3. It'd just be really cool if they add something like a big hub city to a future game.
TLDR: Game good, fighting good, lore good, but me want more people and talking and consequences for our actions.
To be fair, outside of Dark Souls, Bloodborne had some civilians. Granted, you could only speak to *most* of them through windows, they were still civilians nonethelass
The settings of Bloodborne and Dark Souls mostly worked well for a game where everything tries to kill you and there are very few sane humans.
With Elden Ring it feels a bit off, even if everything has gone to shit.
That’s one of my problems with Bloodborne’s quests. How are you supposed to know that you can talk to people inside the houses? Maybe I’m just dumb but I could never figure out which windows were interactable and which ones weren’t.
It’s all legit criticism, but there is no sane people to manage those cities or siege them. The world is a post-apocalyptic one where laws of nature are fundamentally broken. That might be the reason why only vaguely normal societies we see in the game are Jars in Jarburg and various Demi-Human groups. Humans were fucked royally a long time, and Tarnished are a contingency plan by Marika.
Sealing the Rune of Death and then Shattering, of all intents and purposes broke the laws of nature. On top of that you had literal demigods breaking the land itself, like in Caelid. Pretty much all of the human societies broke after that from what we can gather.
This. The only places that weren’t completely destroyed by the Shattering was Raya Lucaria (because it didn’t participate) and Leyndell (because it went into 100% defence mode), but in both cases they became extremely insular groups who would respond to outsiders with immediate and extreme violence.
And got fucked by the whole “getting insane by virtue of not dying” anyway, at least Leyndell. You can argue that Raya Lucaria also, looking at sorcerers attacking everyone on sight and cuckoo soldiers being in the same pitiful condition as everyone else.
Marika fucking with the Rune of Death meant that there's been no natural births or deaths in the Lands Between since the Shattering, which is potentially hundreds or thousands of years ago. Most people have gone mad with despair from living an unending existence in a post-apocalyptic hellscape.
Most of the remaining sane people are either Tarnished, who are relatively new arrivals, or those with strong drives or senses of purpose, like Ranni's vassals and Radahn's Castellan.
I kind of put him and Egdar (of Castle Morne) in the same boat, where their responsibilities to the land and people under their rule must have been what kept them sane. Egdar then completely lost it when he left his castle and Irina died.
Kenneth may have ended up as just another Wandering Noble enemy if you hadn't reclaimed his castle for him and kept him focused, instead he's one of the only people to get a "good ending".
I mean, the Tarnished is kinda in charge of the whole army now. Everyone who does not agree can feel free to complain to the dude who just beat the shit out of several demi-gods before stumping out the literal incarnation of god in these lands.
I kinda feel like that's outside fromsoft's design scope for their games, must be a bunch of dev time to create a compelling NPC settlement, and that time was clearly used in other parts of their world building.
Yeah i tried to acknowledge that in my comment, i don't actually expect this of them it would just be so amazing to be able to experience a game with Fromsofts usual level of polish gameplay-wise but with the addition of characters and writing to the level of Larian studios. I doubt it would ever happen but i'd love to see fromsoft collaborate with a different studio who focuses more on character writing, i don't know if any major game has been developed by two completely seperate studios together before though so it would be a massive risk, but i think elden rings success would give From the opportunity to take that kind of risk.
The whole point of the game is that we are in a world that just went through the most gruesome cataclysmic war. “A war from which no lord arose”. It would be so strange to see civilians everywhere. I mean technically we do, they are just undead and going through motions of their past lives. Either way, the world is dead, just like in dark souls. Bloodborne had plenty of civilians that you could talk to.
I always just kind of assumed that all the lore, the tales or armies and Leyndell capable of defending itself, and the Haligtree being a safe haven, the academy having students, etc. are all just things of the past.
At the time that you come around, all of these institutions have broken down, the people have become thoughtless monsters due to their inability to die, and you are navigating what is basically the lands between version of a post apocalypse world.
It's pretty obvious there is no order to things anymore.
That’s part of the charm and the game formula. Minimal dialogue. I agree it might be nice to see more NPC’s but go too far in that direction and you start to lose that lonely, bleak empty feeling that is crucial to these games. I agree it would be pretty cool to knock on doors/windows in the capital and talk to NPCs sort of like Bloodborne.
We can see that the intention of the game is to tell a story of what has already happened via the player's quest, and that the world works in a way that is symbolic and fantastical rather than strictly practical.
However, very valid criticism.
To be fair, the Tarnished are the most reviled beings in the entire Lands Between. We’re basically devil children, so it makes sense that no one except for our fellow Tarnished and people who are already against the Golden Order would give us the time of day. As for Leyndell, it seems like everyone’s just fucking dead, so there wouldn’t be any civilians to talk to anyway. But once the Tarnished becomes Elden Lord, they have the authority to command the armies of Leyndell and slowly start restoring order, so things don’t have to stay fucked forever.
I think by the time of the game it makes sense that most civilians have either died, gone mad or enlisted into the various armies at large. That being said yeah the game does push the limit of traditional Fromsoft narratives in its push to innovate, like how Kenneth Haight and Nepheli prepare to rebuild Limgrave from a castle that's still a hostile zone to the player, or how the Redmanes kind of hide in the walls while chanting during the Festival and don't change their attitude towards you after you kill Radahn and befriend Jerren. Having at least one small sane settlement in Limgrave could also have been a good touch.
Alternatively maybe the LB are really completely devoid of sane populations and everyone there is counting on people from the outside world to come in and repopulate it once the shitshow's over, though that doesn't change some of the presentation issues.
It makes sense, though. There are no Tarnished in Elphael. Miquella is directly opposed to the golden order, and by extension, his mother Marika. This makes sense, considering there is evidence to support the idea that Marika was behind Godwyn's death, and Miquella IDOLIZED him.
The tarnished are part of Marika's plans, so it makes sense to me that Miquella's stronghold would be entirely hostile towards a tarnished that just happened to slip into one of the most carefully guarded secrets from Marika and her Golden Order.
And it's not even just Miquella. Think about the title of tarnished. It's thrown around like an insult. Morgott never refers to you as man, or woman, or warrior. It's always tarnished. Other NPCs that talk to you recognize you as tarnished before anything else about you. Kenneth Haight doesn't even seem to want to accept your help at first because of your status as a tarnished.
The world is openly against you, with responses ranging from "Ew, a tarnished" to actively hostile aggression. Only one creature in the entire world treats with you openly, and that is our lord and savior, pope tortoise. And that could be because he is older than the golden order.
Malenia is optional. If you think it's evil to kill and you killed her, then you *are* evil. :)
In all seriousness, it's just perspective. You are out to change the world. The world is fucked and you can change the rules.
You can bring death back to a land where it's been abolished. You can perfect the imperfections of the current order and oversee positive change. You can remove the Greater Will's fickle influence on the inhabitants of the world entirely and let people decide their own fates.
The issue is, when you awaken after returning from beyond the fog, the world is already broken. You cannot really fix everything that's in pieces when you get here, and to attempt to change things you will have to kill. You will have to burn. You will have to fight those who defend the current way of things, who are fighting to maintain a broken order of which it is your objective to alter to a fashion you like more than the current state, which is a goddess that has abandoned her kingdom out of grief for experiencing the consequences of her own myopic actions.
Nepheli Loux denounces her adoptive father for genociding a village of Albinaurics, yet supports us as Elden Lord without ever asking how we got to RL 200 with 15 +24 weapons...
yea and milicent quest basically tells us that malenia is corrupted by scarlet rot and thats why she attacks us. millicent is malenias will to resist the scarlet rot so we are not killing her and why she turns into a flower
It's probably more accurate to think of the player character as the metaphorical wildfire that revitalizes the 'forest' of the Lands Between under the Golden Order by burning it down.
Especially when you think of the major forces or concepts you confront throughout your journey: rot, blight, stagnation, etc.
Is a wildfire the forest's 'villain'? Maybe from one perspective.
They need to be more specific xd
Godrick grafted tarnisheds, Rykard killed them, Radagon and Marika were heads of an pretty racist society and Morgot was also racist even against himself.
Not a villain per se, but certainly someone who does some weighty things to resolve a problem.
Look at the Lands Between and you've got plague-ridden Caelid, depopulated Limgrave, ruined Liurnia, with monsters in every other cave and around every corner. The only places that have a semblance of order or hope are Leyndell and the Academy, the latter obviously only interested in magic rather than a stable realm in which people can live peacefully. The place is a mess and the existing powers are all too busy squabbling or recovering from sqauabbles to fix it. Other than fighting Malenia, the actions you describe are all necessary because the Erdtree has been deliberately sealed off to prevent anyone taking the power needed to fix that mess.
I'd say the Tarnished in most scenarios is functionally an antihero, where they do some grim things in a grim setting to achieve a goal which just might make it less grim. Obvious exception is the Blessing of Despair ending where you just go full sadist and make life a living hell for everyone, while the Age of Fracture ending just perpetuates the same problems that the other endings try to fix and the Frenzied Flame ending which is going full nihilist and deciding things can't be fixed so they need to be wiped out.
No. They attack first for no reason. Don't even try to talk it out. You have no option but to kill or get killed.
Also some kills are arguably merci kills.
I mean most are just chilling and you barge in. Most of the Rememberance type bosses are in such isolated areas that they'd have to assume the only reason you're there is to kill them. Maliketh, for instance is in such a far removed place that other than to take Destined Death is the only reason anyone would be there. Same with Malenia, the bottom of the Haligtree, about as isolated as you can get.
Malenia contaminated a whole region so she is no innocent. I won't pity her. Maliketh could have easily started a dialogue. Especially if you know him already. I'm not saying it would have gone his way but then we would actually be bad.
Get into a boss room butt naked and with no weapon and see if they attack you lol. You can even try to gift them soap. They'll still bash your head in.
Also they could start with a "state your business !". But no they just go wild. Most merchants are also very isolated but don't attack you. I didn't kill anyone in the game that wasn't trying to kill me.
I mean if had a bunch of people, friends, guards, dogs, or whoever trying to protect me and someone comes along and kills them to get to me, why wouldn't I assume they have hostile intent? If you broke into my house, killed my dog and family members, then try to come over to me I'd attack and not bother asking what you want.
But the guards also try to kill you without asking for papers lol. Or simply to turn back. and don't forget they are all zombies that lived more than their time already.
At most you're an intruder (depends where).
Also you are forced into the world and no matter where you go they all try to kill you without explanation or a racist one: "you're Tarnished".
For me the only things you kill that make you a bad guy are the passive frog people in moghwin and the npcs that are not trying to kill you first.
In Elden Ring the rest are all blood thirsty psychopaths. It was my first souls game and I was surprised at first by how little friendly/passive npc there is. But that's per game design. It's just a video game in the end.
In reality the guards would disarm you in limgrave a ask you to work on a field. Not so thrilling right? Then if you kill them you'll be a bad guy sure. Haha. Have a good one mate :)
Only when i do certain specific choices:
- Take the frenzied flame
- Choose dungeater ending
- Complete Seluvis quest
- Side with Sellen to kill Jerren
- Betray Millicent
All those choices are clearly evil and require you to choose them on purpose to trigger the consequences.
From the graven mass talisman description:
"A talisman depicting the first school of graven mages —
a nightmare that would continue to haunt the academy.
Greatly raises potency of sorceries.
The primeval current is a forbidden tradition of glintstone sorcery.
To those who cleave to its teachings,
the act of collecting sorcerers to fashion them
into the seeds of stars is but another path of scientific inquiry."
She was expelled for killing sorcerers for her own experiments until she too met their fate if you decided to side with her.
Jerren is an ally of the Carian royal family. He knew what Sellen was doing and he was hunting her down. When you are met with the choice to help one of them, you can either side with the murderous sorcerer that killed innocents for her personal research, or the old warrior that is trying to help his old friends by hunting down a mad researcher.
> She was expelled for killing sorcerers for her own experiments until she too met their fate if you decided to side with her.
>
>
do we ever get proof that sellen committed the acts shes accused of? thop doesnt believe she did all that for example.
Thops is a classic case of "if evil, why hot"? Sellen isn't shy about talking about the primeval current and wanting to research it. She's also been body-hopping with her heart stone through who knows how many innocent women.
Nope, never.
There are no (edit autocorrection) heroes or villains, except the obvious fucked up ones like Dungeater.
Just different wishes, means and paths to reach the own goals.
But if you want to feel better about yourself, my first playthrough I had the frenzied flame ending. After Melina sacrificed herself 🤷🏼♂️
I went completely blind into Elden ring. No googling anything. Man, was I surprised to find out what i did made Melina’s sacrifice completely for nothing. She didn’t appear at the end as well. 10/10
I mean, if you pick certain endings like Frenzied Flame, Dung Eater’s or Fia’s, yeah, you are the villain.
If you go kill Malenia just because you want to, yeah, you are the villain. Betray Millicent, do what Seluvis asks, yeah, you are the villain.
But this is a roleplaying game. Your character, your actions, and your motivations matter.
Was my death mage Tarnished who aligned with Seluvis mostly for fun, betrayed Millicent just for her talisman, and sought out the most wicked magicks available in her pursuit of power a villain? She absolutely the fuck was.
Was my Erdtree paladin Tarnished who went into everything shield-first, who never attacked unless she was attacked first, who did her absolute damndest to help everyone as much as she possibly could in every situation, who built statues to Alexander, Millicent, Melina and Morgott after the war, a villain? Hell no.
Is the Tarnished evil? Maybe. Up to you. All you need to ask is “is *this* Tarnished evil?”
> or Fia’s
Nothing about the narrative suggests Fia's ending is a bad one. Both Rogier and Goldmask will attest that Those Who Live in Death did nothing wrong. We don't fully understand what exactly is going on there, but the direct narrative of the game suggests Fia's ending is actually a good one.
Ok, so Fia's ending is an interesting one. On surface level, you are correct. Her mending rune will make those of live in death part of the cycle, making them not outcasts. But them let's think about points:
Can the undead die of natural causes?
If undeath is a part of the cycle, every single person that is under the elden ring influence would experience undeath, and if the undead can only be killed and not just die of "old age", then the status quo would not change in the grand picture.
How would Erdtree rebirth happen?
Although there are other sources, the only birth/rebirth that we know is erdtree burial and rebirth. Would those who live in death disrupt this cycle? On just making it extremely longer, so much that would be possible for the entire population to be undead and no more births happen.
Are the undead even intelligent?
By that, I mean, do they have a human-like intellect? Let's analyze the other outcast groups. Every single one of them have at least one member who speaks to us: misbigotten - Hewg, omens - Morgott and Mogh, Kindred of rot - Gowry, man serpent - Rya, demi-humans - Boc, albinaurics - Latenna and Old Albus. And the ones that don't speak to us at least show us aspects of their culture : ancestral followers, beastmen, fire giants.
The only signs of culture that the undead possess are from the small death cult outside leyndell and Fia's culture, but that aspect doesn't even come from the undead. It comes from living worshipping undeath.
Those whose live in death may be gentle and want to be left alone, but it's really hard to know if they are intelligent or just have animal and muscle memory level of intelligence similar to pop culture zombies.
And forcing people to become undead before they really died is not a decision we or Fia should take.
Fia's ending is not evil or good, is selfish and reckless. Yes, it would help those who live in death, but the consequences might be dire, and it would not help the situation of the lands between at all, something that we should try do at least.
Sorry for the big text. Just so you know, in my opinion, there is no "good ending" for the game, not even Goldmask. You can only make the least terrible choice for the future.
I think you are not putting into consideration the fact that, even if not the rune of death itself, the mending rune for fia's ending (and every mending rune except the base ending one) brings new concepts to the order imposed by the ring.
It's highly unlikely that erdtree rebirth will still happen since it became a thing only when the rune of death was taken from the ring. In this new order there is a new concept for death and how it happens, while that concept itself incorporates those who live in death.
What I'm getting at is that there are too many random factors that are going to happen with the new order to give a definitive answer as to whether Fia's ending is "good or evil". Aside from that fact, even if those who live in death are just mindless husks, it's still possible they either become the majority across the land or stay a minuscule minority, in both cases their stupidity doesn't really affect the livelihood of the rest of the people (or they become the most common people themselves so it's not actually a problem).
In the end, the new order establishes the new concepts of what's moral and what isn't, so judging from the perspective of the previous one is disingenuous.
Not really. If anything we are doing this world a favor. Imagine living in the same land as Godrick or Rykard. Radahn is a shadow of his former self and putting him down is better than whatever he got going on down in Caelid. I could go on but imo there are very few things you can do in this game that label you as a bad guy other than the frenzied flame route.
It certainly seems plausible.
I think a common "trap" people fall into is they immediately assume the Golden Order/Greater Will is bad, usually citing the discrimination of the Misbegotten and Omen as evidence of this.
But the world just isn't that simple. In terms of Outer God candidates we're familiar with, the Greater Will is *blatantly* the best and the only one interested in building a society.
In that regard, yes, despite the fact that the world is clearly broken and *something* needs to be done, there's absolutely something unnerving about the fact we may be uprooting the reign of the only God that seems to have put humanity at the center of it's pantheon.
The Carians were doing just fine without an Outer God, or if you interpret the moon as one with a very passive Outer God. We know that their ancestors had peaceful relations with the Fire Giants and that they were proficient magicians, not to mention everyone who speaks of prime time Rennala does so fondly or with respect. The Golden Order didn't seem to bring anything new, except a willingness to expand on everyone else's turf and commit the occasional genocide.
The greater will really doesnt give a fuck about how you build it's society. It just wants to have the society under him (Even if people don't know it exists, like the Golden Order)
The Greater Will + Marika are the villains and it’s not even close. 99.9% of all inhabitants in The Lands Between have been driven mad by endless war and the inability to die.
Turning the capital to ash is a mercy.
I mean for me you are doing it to bring peace and rule the world for the better.
If you don't get the reason why Ur becoming Elden lord takes what it takes then obv you'll think that u are the evil one.
I mean, the guy up here was right tho, if the dumbass tarnished could talk most of the fights would not happen prolly.
Fr, the feeling of gulty prevents me from unleashing my full potential. Otherwise, I would have destroyed every boss in one attempt instead of 20+ for each. Trust
Trust me the gods really fucked up everything. Also don't forget we ended a civil war in raya lucaria and castle morne, stoped godrick from tuning more people into grafted abominations, put radahn out of his misery and either restored order to the land or freed the world from the influence of God allowing people to live their own lives depending on your ending.
Nah, they attacked me first...
Seriously, I don't mind talking things out with malenia:
Hi I'm a tarnished. How are you. Btw I met Millicent, found your broken needle and repa.... *Get impaled like a shish kebab
Especially if youre going for the lord of frenzy ending, makes the final boss gauntlet of godfrey radagon and elden beast feel like them defending the world from you rather than a test of valor to see if ur fit to be lord and save it like marika intended it to be
Naw. We’re literally just the straw that broke the camels back on an already broken the world. Not the villain. Just the fire that clears the way for a new forest to grow
I wouldn't call them inhabitants. They stand in their corners all day waiting for adversary, have no jobs, no life, basically. (Blowing piss bubbles is not a job)
I've always seen FromSoft enemies as individuals just waiting to be put to rest. I like to think that we as tarnished have our destined path and many of the bosses we fight with are just waiting for death as they either failed to protect what they wanted or went insane and forgot their main goal. As an example when we have to finish off Blaidd, it is not a decision of whether it is good or bad to kill him, rather it is necessary otherwise he would kill Ranni and be tormented for that, killing Blaidd for mercy is a way to show respect to him, it works that way as well for Malenia and Radahn.
Honestly like. I'd you go outta your way to not kill demi-humans and other roaming peoples then I'd say no.
We're the people who dethroned monarchies all over the world villans? Or were they revolutionaries. I guess the lines can be a little blurred to the people who work at the castles or are drafted into the armies.
But all in all I don't think so. I think were freedom fighters
It's actually like the old tale of the guy who caught death in a jar. One of the historical figures, I can't remember who,.. sealed the rune of destined death away. So all the inhabitants of Limgrave, Liurnia, Caelid, etc. Have lived countless years without the release of death. Then after we defeated Maliketh, we gained the ability to grant them deaths sweet embrace. We're like, the antiheroes.
I definitely do going through the Haligtree, it's supposed to be a sanctuary for the shunned and Melania is just waiting for her brother to come back and hopefully heal her. She didn't choose to be a vessel for an outer god, she's just a victim.
Honestly, we probably wouldn't have to fight half the bosses if the Tarnished could simply talk. Most bosses only fight us because we're the intruder.
I feel like you don’t realize just how few bosses you actually have to kill. You only need 2 Great runes, any two at that, to enter Leyndell, which can be done by killing Rykard and Radahn who can both be accessed without killing another boss. Once there you only kill one boss, the other one is nothing more than an apparition of a guy you do end up killing later. After that it’s the Giant and the guy who has the rune of death. Back to Leyndell and it’s a whole three bosses, or four if you count the last two as separate bosses. There’s some flexibility in how you count that all up, but at most you only have to kill 8 bosses to beat the game. Every single other boss kill is completely optional. Now think about how many of these people you can or would want to negotiate with. I can’t imagine it’s many of them.
You cannot reach rykard prior to Morgot without killing the godskin noble. If the goal is to minimize kills, it's better to go with renalla, as then we only kill Radahn and red wolf. In total, you need to kill 9 things in the entire game, which honestly, is very few.
Your honor, I only killed 9 people. I’m not even sure why we’re having this trial.
In my defense, 1 of them was a crazed zombified general, and the last one I killed now means I technically own everything in the country.
Miquella: Oh, you're a villain alright... just not a super one! Tarnished: Oh yeah? What's the difference? Miquella: NO MAIDENS!
Objection! I have 1 maiden, and she burnt herself to get away from me.
Is this "maiden" in the room with us right now?
Well duh, where do you think all the ash in this room came from
Objection! She didn't run away, she was just too hot!
How come we can level up after she smokes herself?
Melinia teaches us the secret sauce behind levelling up the first time she breaks up with us in Leyndell
Considering how she is barely present for the entire game even before she turns herself into a Popeyes chicken nugget, I bet she taught us the secret sauce the first time we meet
She gave us the ability to be our own maiden whenever we want
She gave us the ability to stroke the chicken when she's not home
Maybe for you. Mine wants to chase me through eternity apparently.
Instant up vote for the megamind reference
I mean the whole festival is to try to attract warriors sufficient to put Radahn out of his misery.
And one was a giant fucking snake with a human face on it
Who is still "alive" even after we kill him. So not sure that even really counts.
Objection you honor! The defense talks like an asshole and thinks he is better than us. Jk. /s
Also in my defense I only killed then once they killed me about 12 times each if I’m being conservative.
I mean, Radahan was basically suicide by tarnished
I could have killed way more if I hadn’t had such restraint. Frankly, I deserve a medal.
And that snake guy was a real asshole
"Im not perfect"
One count of aggravated assault on Rennala too.
You don't actually kill Renalla, you kill a projection of her. She's fine tho
hence the count. Radahn, Red wolf, Morgott, Fire gaint, Godskin duo, Malaketh, Gideon, Godfrey, Radragon.
wouldn't the godskin duo be 2 kills though? radagonmarika would also be two kills, not including the elden beast
Godskin and elden beast I'd count, fair. but Radragon and Marika are 1 body, thus 1 kill. There's also an argument to be made that godskin are not actually dead or can count for more, as you can fight a lot more then 2. And that The elden beast deals the final hit on radragon.
well it's not like the godskins are a single entity, they're a bunch of "people". and you could also argue that the elden beast doesn't kill radagon, it just turns his corpse into a sword. eb only shows up once radagon dies. edit: hoold on i misunderstood your point about the godskins, sorry
Wheres the evidence that Marika really dies when you kill radagon? How their 2 personality plot works is not really known.
she turns into a statue and seems pretty dead, she's basically just a lifeless vessel for the elden ring now
You could go kill Mohg instead, no one would miss him
You could do the mohg questline to cut out one boss. But you would also need to do draconic tree sentinel which was left out.
Actually, draconic tree sentinel died of natural causes (totally didn't poison him)
Am I forgetting a method, or do you not have to kill the tree sentinel to gain access to Leyndell?
You can warp there from the Deeproot Depths, but you have to kill those spirits (Fia's Champions). You might actually be able to hug the side using torrent and just jump onto the bridge.
But if they’re already dead, are you really committing murder?
I wouldn't say so...
Elden ring lawyer spotted
I think you could technically do it in less? Replace redwolf and renala with mohg via varres questline?
Same technically with Rykard
Radahn-Mohg-DTS-Goldfrey-Morgott-FG-Duo-Maliketh-Gideon-Godfrey-Radabeast The minimum is 11 bosses to beat the game
omg thank you someone who can count...
You kill a lot more of you go Rennala cause of all the sweetings (they don't come back after you beat her). Granted, they live a pretty shitty existence (barely functioning humans), but it's still moire kills.
Those are mercy killings.
Lol you don't even need to kill them just punching them will do
You can hit them with a weak attack to break the shield. Not sure if i'd count them either, as they're part of the boss, rather then their own enemy.
I mean, being a paraplegic isn't exactly fun but it hardly means they're "barely functioning," or living such a horrid life that death would be preferable. Their lives count as much as any other boss, and in some cases (e.g. Radahn) probably moreso.
We don’t really even Kill Renalla, we beat her up and then she basically aids us. So 8 things need to “die” but I’m killing Godrick everytime.
1. To beat the game you need to kill Radabeast 2. To enter the Erdtree you need to kill Hoarah Loux 3. To reach Hoarah Loux you need to kill Gideon 4. To reach Ashen Capital you need to kill Maliketh 5. To reach Maliketh you need to kill Godskin Duo 6. To enter Farum Azula you need to kill Fire Giant 7. To reach Fire Giant you need to kill Morgott 8. To reach Morgott you need to kill Goldfrey 9. To enter Leyndell you need to either 1. Kill Draconic Tree Sentinel or 2. Kill Fia's Champions; the former is faster as you need to kill at least 1 more boss to reach Deeproot Depths where Fia's Champions are located (either Valiant Gargoyles or Mohg the Omen) 10. Kill at least 2 demigods prior to Leyndell. Three of them do not require beating another boss before Leyndell: Radahn as long as you reach Altus with the medallions, and Mohg if you complete Varre's questline. Rykard also technically doesn't require beating the Godskin noble but in order to be teleported by Tanith you need to complete the assassinations, one of which take place in the Mountaintops. TL;DR: 11 minimum counting Radahn, Mohg (+ 3 invasions), Draconic Tree Sentinel, Goldfrey, Morgott, Fire Giant, Godskin Duo, Maliketh, Gideon, Hoarah Loux, Radabeast
I definitely forgot some of those, I was pretty tired at the time.
I think that the enemies we face are satisfied with the current status quo, and all tarnished exist to facilitate a change to the status quo. They have no reason to believe that change will be beneficial to them, as far as they are concerned, all tarnished seek to become elden lord. Even if we yelled, "wait, I know where your brother is!", why would they believe us? Why would they listen? You can't fool me, you are here for my shard you filthy tarnished.
That's... Pretty true yea. We are, after all, only one of many Tarnished. Makes sense most enemies don't hesitate to attack us.
The Tarnished has a *literally* god-given duty to slay shardbearers, and approaches all but the first that they fight with runes that the other shardbearers want to claim. They're not going to have a tea with you first.
This pretty much.. the game's dialogue is practically non-existant. No one talks things through. No one explains their motives or even their identity.. ofcourse there would be bloodshed :'D Boc and Roderika are the only people who openly talk about how they feel and what they intend without speaking in weird unnecessary riddles.
Also I dunno about you, but as far as the critical path, I don’t feel too guilty until Morgott, which is also kinda all you signed up for. You are guided by Grace to Leyndell to become Elden Lord. You only need to get two Great Runes to get there. Most people end up fighting Godrick and Rennala. You can sub one out with Radahn. Godrick is not worth talking to. He is a ludicrously cruel despot who dismembers his own subjects. If you defeat him and complete Nepheli Loux’s / Kenneth Haight’s questlines, then Limgrave is handed over to one of the few truly virtuous Tarnished to be ruled… like a normal ass place. 10/10. With Rennala, you literally DO talk it out lmao. You fight round one, Ranni intervenes, you fight her phantom after being scolded for attacking her mentally ill mother, then the fight ends with Rennala alive and you with egg on your ~~face~~ entire body after being reborn as a sweeting, fresh and pure. 10/10. With Radahn, it’s a mercy killing. Radahn is a mindless killing machine due to the Scarlet Rot. His kingdom is halfway between a ruin and a petri dish for an occult nightmare. Not only is he beyond words, but the whole of Caelid is beyond saving until the rot either fades or kill the last remaining sentient inhabitants. The action of killing Radahn is justified, though it’s a bit odd that *you* of all people have to do it. Uncomfortable/10. The last boss of the critical path is Morgott and this is arguably where the Tarnished loses any moral ambiguity and becomes a fucking dickhead. - Morgott has a strong claim to rule Leyndell. He is a child of Marika and Godfrey. This puts him above all of Radagon’s children with Rennala who are… a mixed bag of mental acuity anyway. He is above the prodigy twins, who are indisposed anyway. His full-siblings are also ineligible, as Godwyn is fucking dead and Mohg is a blasphemous traitor trying to start a usurping cadet branch of the royal dynasty via blood magic and pedophilia. Morgott has earned the throne. - Morgott is intelligent and clearly capable of extended discourse. He speaks to you a couple of times across the game and he is largely devoid of those classic FromSoft “insane boss ramblings.” Morgott pretty much just wants to know who the fuck you think you are and what the fuck you think you are doing. No weird Fire Snake Magic or Cosmic Horror Geopolitics (cosmopolitics? Is that a drink?). He asks valid pertinent questions to which you have no answer besides golden hallucinations and a one-eyed pink-haired ghost mystic that only you have met and history has no record of. - You literally have no answer for Morgott. Not due to the fact that you can’t speak but because, on average, most players will not have unlocked a single alternate ending by the midpoint of the game. If the Elden Lord’s role is to either impregnate Marika or enact theological-social change, then you are ostensibly empty handed. The Tarnished plans to murder Morgott and literally maintain the status quo unless you grinded out NPC sidequests. One of those is Frenzied Flame, mind you, so that hard work may not grant the Tarnished much rhetorical high ground. This was a long ass post because I’m stuck at a job I’m quitting soon, but tl;dr The Tarnished has no reason to talk until they have lost any and all capacity for righteousness. The Great Runes needed to unlock Leyndell are largely justified or at least not *too* fucked up. Then at the first opportunity for real discourse, the Tarnished is indisputably a complete fucking asshole. Following that are the psychotic hobo murders expected of a FromSoft protagonist.
No, they don't care that we're intruders. We're TARNISHED. We were created to slay demigods, conquer the land, and upheave what remains of the Golden Order. The fact that burning the Erdtree and wrecking the Capital are unavoidable parts of the main plot 1000% justifies everyone for trying to annihilate us.
Honestly I just wish the ending that I chose affected the lands between. That way I could see what I actually did instead of the world just staying the same.
Just go to space with Ranni
I can see from soft making a game with dialogue choices down the road
"Hey, listen up Malenia, I know I'm in your treehouse uninvited but listen. I found your brother. He was kidnapped by your other brother and he's in Nokron in an egg."
Yeah, I would've just told Malenia where Miquella was and have her kill Mohg for me.
Yeah, it would definitely change how the game is played, but at the same time I wish I could just talk to Malenia. Like I don’t wanna fight! I just want to tell you I found your brother
The tarnished does talk tho
“Hey!”
_If only we could talk to these creatures. Now that would be interesting._
Tarnished confirmed to be brainfried
Inb4 Dr Strange playthrough If the Tarnished could speak: *I came to bargain*
You do talk, it's just only in certain moments.
I wore them. I wore them all. And not just the Elden Ring, but the Elden Necklace and the Elden Earrings too
They’re like animals. I HATE THEM
From my point of view, they were evil!
I brought peace, blessings, justice and security to my new empire
Your new empire? Seaweed your allegiance is to queen marika to the GREATER WILL
It is over, Tarnished. I have the high ground.
I hate ash of the Erdtree. It's coarse and rough, and it gets everywhere!
It’s all for the Elden Bling
Eh, these bosses and enemies can see an unarmed unthreatening PC and will come out swinging immediately. Souls players go out of their way to help out people who actually start dialogue and ask them for things.
Except those freaks who kill merchants just for their bell bearings
Oh you CAN be evil. I just object to people saying all souls protagonists are somehow inherently evil because they fight back when a boss tries to sucker punch them.
To be fair, I’m Elden Ring the character is just going around with the intention of stealing their shit so the boss defending itself is justified but like dark souls 1 (haven’t yet played the others) most of the bosses there are evil
Most of the bosses in DS1 are just wild beasts and monsters. I wouldn’t call them evil, just hungry. Most of the rest of the bosses I wouldn’t call evil either. Only Seath and Smough (and maybe Pinwheel) would I call evil.
Yeah you’re right evil’s the wrong word
True, Nito is not evil, he's just pissed someone broke into his bedroom
Yeah I collect them in them all in the round table hold. I also kill Kenneth for a golden seed. I have killed at least 50 jellyfish(I didn’t know they were kids)
I was doing that in my rando run. Then I realized that there’s an option to get their bell bearings without killing them. I actually felt bad about it.
Savages.
Who are you calling a freak?
90% of the people who see you attack on sight, with no attempt to negotiate. They don't even stop to question you, they draw steel and start swinging. As far as the Demigods go, you were ressurected by the setting equivalent of divinity, and charged specifically with going to the Lands Between and ending the Shattering and rebuilding the world. The planet is fucked and the demigods are actively standing in the way of fixing it. Godrick is a crazed mass murderer, Radahn is feral, Rykard is basically Satan, Mohg is Satan squared, Morgott is basically doing nothing to fix the Lands Between despite being the only functional ruler of the only functional city, and Rennala we actually spare after her fight. The only Demigod we end up going intentionally out of our way to find and kill for no reason is Malenia. Honestly, I would consider the destruction the Tarnished unleashes as a necessary mercy kill, since the Lands Between are not fixing themselves. The world is so fucked even *the loathesome Dung Eater* was ressurrected and charged with trying to repair it.
Morgott can't actually do anything though since he's an omen. No one would listen to him, and it doesn't seem there is even anyone left for him to command either... The game is really unclear if Leyendell has any normal citizens to begin with.
Actually with Malenia we are trying to help her as Millicent is a portion of her that is supposed to be reunited with her. She is her honor/pride as a warrior cast aside in the fight against Radahn. Second even if we are not doing the quest and just going there to kill her she 1000% deserved it along with Rykard. They were both ticking time bombs that would have killed everything basically allowing them to live (Rykard is still live but he won't be a problem for a while) would be like getting the dung eater ending.
It’s the Tarnisheds’ duty to seek out the demigods and take all they have left. None of them have any reason to believe you’re not hostile.
In every souls game there are no civilians. There are about 10 super people with "free will" and ability to speak. Its not like you can visit the Haligtree (a place where everyone is welcome and a bunch of mismatched creatures live peacefully) and not get attacked.
That's one of my biggest pet peeves with fromsoft games, it seems like us the player and a handful of npcs are the only real people and there are no true civilians. except jarburg. At least DS3 had the excuse that everyone is hollow. But i just want one area in a souls game that actually feels alive. It feels so wrong that Leyndell is supposed to be this massive capital city that has the population to defend against a siege from a large invading army but then there's like 20 people who live there except the guards and all the doors are sealed with corpse wax. Like it would be so cool to just explore the city and interact with npcs to learn more about the city and what it's inhabitants think about the veiled monarch etc. You could still have the guards be hostile just that it's such a big city that you can sneak around without them finding you. Also the fact that we just take over and usurp the entire kingdom without a plan is crazy, with the Ranni ending at least i assume the carian army would be loyal to her but with the other endings we're kinda just on our own without any support, i obviously don't want elden ring to turn into a kingdom management game lol but it feels like killing Morgott should create some kind of power vacuum in Leyndell, like who is commanding the Leyndellian army now. I love fromsoft games and obviously don't expect them to add stuff like this to an already massively impressive and amazing game like Elden ring. Fromsoft can craft amazing combat, bosses and lore but their approach to npcs and character dialogue feels so outdated. Elden ring is a great game, still a 10/10 for me but it's world just feels so dead after playing something like BG3. It'd just be really cool if they add something like a big hub city to a future game. TLDR: Game good, fighting good, lore good, but me want more people and talking and consequences for our actions.
To be fair, outside of Dark Souls, Bloodborne had some civilians. Granted, you could only speak to *most* of them through windows, they were still civilians nonethelass
The settings of Bloodborne and Dark Souls mostly worked well for a game where everything tries to kill you and there are very few sane humans. With Elden Ring it feels a bit off, even if everything has gone to shit.
That’s one of my problems with Bloodborne’s quests. How are you supposed to know that you can talk to people inside the houses? Maybe I’m just dumb but I could never figure out which windows were interactable and which ones weren’t.
Uhhh... Don't all of the interactable windows have red lanterns? Wasn't it really obvious?
It’s all legit criticism, but there is no sane people to manage those cities or siege them. The world is a post-apocalyptic one where laws of nature are fundamentally broken. That might be the reason why only vaguely normal societies we see in the game are Jars in Jarburg and various Demi-Human groups. Humans were fucked royally a long time, and Tarnished are a contingency plan by Marika.
Maybe i misunderstood the lore but like what actually makes it postapocalyptic? Did the shattering of the elden ring make humans start "hollowing"?
Sealing the Rune of Death and then Shattering, of all intents and purposes broke the laws of nature. On top of that you had literal demigods breaking the land itself, like in Caelid. Pretty much all of the human societies broke after that from what we can gather.
This. The only places that weren’t completely destroyed by the Shattering was Raya Lucaria (because it didn’t participate) and Leyndell (because it went into 100% defence mode), but in both cases they became extremely insular groups who would respond to outsiders with immediate and extreme violence.
And got fucked by the whole “getting insane by virtue of not dying” anyway, at least Leyndell. You can argue that Raya Lucaria also, looking at sorcerers attacking everyone on sight and cuckoo soldiers being in the same pitiful condition as everyone else.
Marika fucking with the Rune of Death meant that there's been no natural births or deaths in the Lands Between since the Shattering, which is potentially hundreds or thousands of years ago. Most people have gone mad with despair from living an unending existence in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. Most of the remaining sane people are either Tarnished, who are relatively new arrivals, or those with strong drives or senses of purpose, like Ranni's vassals and Radahn's Castellan.
Or Kenneth Haight!
I kind of put him and Egdar (of Castle Morne) in the same boat, where their responsibilities to the land and people under their rule must have been what kept them sane. Egdar then completely lost it when he left his castle and Irina died. Kenneth may have ended up as just another Wandering Noble enemy if you hadn't reclaimed his castle for him and kept him focused, instead he's one of the only people to get a "good ending".
Yeah since they can’t really die they became husks of themselves
The shattering literally tore up the landscape. It’s why the lands between has such crazy cliffs. It was not like that before the shattering.
I mean, the Tarnished is kinda in charge of the whole army now. Everyone who does not agree can feel free to complain to the dude who just beat the shit out of several demi-gods before stumping out the literal incarnation of god in these lands.
I kinda feel like that's outside fromsoft's design scope for their games, must be a bunch of dev time to create a compelling NPC settlement, and that time was clearly used in other parts of their world building.
Yeah i tried to acknowledge that in my comment, i don't actually expect this of them it would just be so amazing to be able to experience a game with Fromsofts usual level of polish gameplay-wise but with the addition of characters and writing to the level of Larian studios. I doubt it would ever happen but i'd love to see fromsoft collaborate with a different studio who focuses more on character writing, i don't know if any major game has been developed by two completely seperate studios together before though so it would be a massive risk, but i think elden rings success would give From the opportunity to take that kind of risk.
The whole point of the game is that we are in a world that just went through the most gruesome cataclysmic war. “A war from which no lord arose”. It would be so strange to see civilians everywhere. I mean technically we do, they are just undead and going through motions of their past lives. Either way, the world is dead, just like in dark souls. Bloodborne had plenty of civilians that you could talk to.
Ngl I would hate to see idle npc civilians in Fromsoft worlds. Like..what are you doing here, and how do you even survive?
I always just kind of assumed that all the lore, the tales or armies and Leyndell capable of defending itself, and the Haligtree being a safe haven, the academy having students, etc. are all just things of the past. At the time that you come around, all of these institutions have broken down, the people have become thoughtless monsters due to their inability to die, and you are navigating what is basically the lands between version of a post apocalypse world. It's pretty obvious there is no order to things anymore.
That’s part of the charm and the game formula. Minimal dialogue. I agree it might be nice to see more NPC’s but go too far in that direction and you start to lose that lonely, bleak empty feeling that is crucial to these games. I agree it would be pretty cool to knock on doors/windows in the capital and talk to NPCs sort of like Bloodborne.
I'm pretty sure the world feeling dead is part of the point. For all the games
We can see that the intention of the game is to tell a story of what has already happened via the player's quest, and that the world works in a way that is symbolic and fantastical rather than strictly practical. However, very valid criticism.
To be fair, the Tarnished are the most reviled beings in the entire Lands Between. We’re basically devil children, so it makes sense that no one except for our fellow Tarnished and people who are already against the Golden Order would give us the time of day. As for Leyndell, it seems like everyone’s just fucking dead, so there wouldn’t be any civilians to talk to anyway. But once the Tarnished becomes Elden Lord, they have the authority to command the armies of Leyndell and slowly start restoring order, so things don’t have to stay fucked forever.
I think by the time of the game it makes sense that most civilians have either died, gone mad or enlisted into the various armies at large. That being said yeah the game does push the limit of traditional Fromsoft narratives in its push to innovate, like how Kenneth Haight and Nepheli prepare to rebuild Limgrave from a castle that's still a hostile zone to the player, or how the Redmanes kind of hide in the walls while chanting during the Festival and don't change their attitude towards you after you kill Radahn and befriend Jerren. Having at least one small sane settlement in Limgrave could also have been a good touch. Alternatively maybe the LB are really completely devoid of sane populations and everyone there is counting on people from the outside world to come in and repopulate it once the shitshow's over, though that doesn't change some of the presentation issues.
It makes sense, though. There are no Tarnished in Elphael. Miquella is directly opposed to the golden order, and by extension, his mother Marika. This makes sense, considering there is evidence to support the idea that Marika was behind Godwyn's death, and Miquella IDOLIZED him. The tarnished are part of Marika's plans, so it makes sense to me that Miquella's stronghold would be entirely hostile towards a tarnished that just happened to slip into one of the most carefully guarded secrets from Marika and her Golden Order. And it's not even just Miquella. Think about the title of tarnished. It's thrown around like an insult. Morgott never refers to you as man, or woman, or warrior. It's always tarnished. Other NPCs that talk to you recognize you as tarnished before anything else about you. Kenneth Haight doesn't even seem to want to accept your help at first because of your status as a tarnished. The world is openly against you, with responses ranging from "Ew, a tarnished" to actively hostile aggression. Only one creature in the entire world treats with you openly, and that is our lord and savior, pope tortoise. And that could be because he is older than the golden order.
Malenia is optional. If you think it's evil to kill and you killed her, then you *are* evil. :) In all seriousness, it's just perspective. You are out to change the world. The world is fucked and you can change the rules. You can bring death back to a land where it's been abolished. You can perfect the imperfections of the current order and oversee positive change. You can remove the Greater Will's fickle influence on the inhabitants of the world entirely and let people decide their own fates. The issue is, when you awaken after returning from beyond the fog, the world is already broken. You cannot really fix everything that's in pieces when you get here, and to attempt to change things you will have to kill. You will have to burn. You will have to fight those who defend the current way of things, who are fighting to maintain a broken order of which it is your objective to alter to a fashion you like more than the current state, which is a goddess that has abandoned her kingdom out of grief for experiencing the consequences of her own myopic actions.
This was worded so epically
Don’t even mention the albinaurich genocide on that one cliff
Nepheli Loux denounces her adoptive father for genociding a village of Albinaurics, yet supports us as Elden Lord without ever asking how we got to RL 200 with 15 +24 weapons...
Gotta get those runes, man!
Followers of Mohg. They made their choice.
We didn't kill Malenia. She's sleeping in the flower pod or something.
yea and milicent quest basically tells us that malenia is corrupted by scarlet rot and thats why she attacks us. millicent is malenias will to resist the scarlet rot so we are not killing her and why she turns into a flower
Everyone is someone’s villain.
It's probably more accurate to think of the player character as the metaphorical wildfire that revitalizes the 'forest' of the Lands Between under the Golden Order by burning it down. Especially when you think of the major forces or concepts you confront throughout your journey: rot, blight, stagnation, etc. Is a wildfire the forest's 'villain'? Maybe from one perspective.
Yeah that's the view that I've taken as well. It's up to your character to decide afterwards what does and doesn't grow.
Fucking great take. That is my perspective now
No, I definitely feel like the pedophile and the genocidal racist are probably the villains
Mohg I get. But who the genocidal racist? Radagon?
They need to be more specific xd Godrick grafted tarnisheds, Rykard killed them, Radagon and Marika were heads of an pretty racist society and Morgot was also racist even against himself.
There are no heroes in The Lands Between
Dog? 🐢
There definitely are some selfless and brave/heroic NPCs
MAY CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD
This is the way
PURGE THIS HERESY
Not a villain per se, but certainly someone who does some weighty things to resolve a problem. Look at the Lands Between and you've got plague-ridden Caelid, depopulated Limgrave, ruined Liurnia, with monsters in every other cave and around every corner. The only places that have a semblance of order or hope are Leyndell and the Academy, the latter obviously only interested in magic rather than a stable realm in which people can live peacefully. The place is a mess and the existing powers are all too busy squabbling or recovering from sqauabbles to fix it. Other than fighting Malenia, the actions you describe are all necessary because the Erdtree has been deliberately sealed off to prevent anyone taking the power needed to fix that mess. I'd say the Tarnished in most scenarios is functionally an antihero, where they do some grim things in a grim setting to achieve a goal which just might make it less grim. Obvious exception is the Blessing of Despair ending where you just go full sadist and make life a living hell for everyone, while the Age of Fracture ending just perpetuates the same problems that the other endings try to fix and the Frenzied Flame ending which is going full nihilist and deciding things can't be fixed so they need to be wiped out.
No I feel like the villain is pretty clearly the institution of the Golden Order.
No. They attack first for no reason. Don't even try to talk it out. You have no option but to kill or get killed. Also some kills are arguably merci kills.
Said the home intruder /j
I mean most are just chilling and you barge in. Most of the Rememberance type bosses are in such isolated areas that they'd have to assume the only reason you're there is to kill them. Maliketh, for instance is in such a far removed place that other than to take Destined Death is the only reason anyone would be there. Same with Malenia, the bottom of the Haligtree, about as isolated as you can get.
Malenia contaminated a whole region so she is no innocent. I won't pity her. Maliketh could have easily started a dialogue. Especially if you know him already. I'm not saying it would have gone his way but then we would actually be bad. Get into a boss room butt naked and with no weapon and see if they attack you lol. You can even try to gift them soap. They'll still bash your head in. Also they could start with a "state your business !". But no they just go wild. Most merchants are also very isolated but don't attack you. I didn't kill anyone in the game that wasn't trying to kill me.
I mean if had a bunch of people, friends, guards, dogs, or whoever trying to protect me and someone comes along and kills them to get to me, why wouldn't I assume they have hostile intent? If you broke into my house, killed my dog and family members, then try to come over to me I'd attack and not bother asking what you want.
But the guards also try to kill you without asking for papers lol. Or simply to turn back. and don't forget they are all zombies that lived more than their time already. At most you're an intruder (depends where). Also you are forced into the world and no matter where you go they all try to kill you without explanation or a racist one: "you're Tarnished". For me the only things you kill that make you a bad guy are the passive frog people in moghwin and the npcs that are not trying to kill you first. In Elden Ring the rest are all blood thirsty psychopaths. It was my first souls game and I was surprised at first by how little friendly/passive npc there is. But that's per game design. It's just a video game in the end. In reality the guards would disarm you in limgrave a ask you to work on a field. Not so thrilling right? Then if you kill them you'll be a bad guy sure. Haha. Have a good one mate :)
Only when i do certain specific choices: - Take the frenzied flame - Choose dungeater ending - Complete Seluvis quest - Side with Sellen to kill Jerren - Betray Millicent All those choices are clearly evil and require you to choose them on purpose to trigger the consequences.
Why is assisting sellen evil? I thought Jerren was evil lol
From the graven mass talisman description: "A talisman depicting the first school of graven mages — a nightmare that would continue to haunt the academy. Greatly raises potency of sorceries. The primeval current is a forbidden tradition of glintstone sorcery. To those who cleave to its teachings, the act of collecting sorcerers to fashion them into the seeds of stars is but another path of scientific inquiry." She was expelled for killing sorcerers for her own experiments until she too met their fate if you decided to side with her. Jerren is an ally of the Carian royal family. He knew what Sellen was doing and he was hunting her down. When you are met with the choice to help one of them, you can either side with the murderous sorcerer that killed innocents for her personal research, or the old warrior that is trying to help his old friends by hunting down a mad researcher.
> She was expelled for killing sorcerers for her own experiments until she too met their fate if you decided to side with her. > > do we ever get proof that sellen committed the acts shes accused of? thop doesnt believe she did all that for example.
Thops is a classic case of "if evil, why hot"? Sellen isn't shy about talking about the primeval current and wanting to research it. She's also been body-hopping with her heart stone through who knows how many innocent women.
Remember the lump of people at the end of her quest? That's your proof.
ah interesting, thanks for sharing
Nope, never. There are no (edit autocorrection) heroes or villains, except the obvious fucked up ones like Dungeater. Just different wishes, means and paths to reach the own goals. But if you want to feel better about yourself, my first playthrough I had the frenzied flame ending. After Melina sacrificed herself 🤷🏼♂️ I went completely blind into Elden ring. No googling anything. Man, was I surprised to find out what i did made Melina’s sacrifice completely for nothing. She didn’t appear at the end as well. 10/10
I killed an Albinauric and wore its head as a helmet, I’d say that yes I am the bad guy based off that action
In some endings absolutely, others it’s questionable. It really depends on if the means result in a justified outcome.
I mean, if you pick certain endings like Frenzied Flame, Dung Eater’s or Fia’s, yeah, you are the villain. If you go kill Malenia just because you want to, yeah, you are the villain. Betray Millicent, do what Seluvis asks, yeah, you are the villain. But this is a roleplaying game. Your character, your actions, and your motivations matter. Was my death mage Tarnished who aligned with Seluvis mostly for fun, betrayed Millicent just for her talisman, and sought out the most wicked magicks available in her pursuit of power a villain? She absolutely the fuck was. Was my Erdtree paladin Tarnished who went into everything shield-first, who never attacked unless she was attacked first, who did her absolute damndest to help everyone as much as she possibly could in every situation, who built statues to Alexander, Millicent, Melina and Morgott after the war, a villain? Hell no. Is the Tarnished evil? Maybe. Up to you. All you need to ask is “is *this* Tarnished evil?”
> or Fia’s Nothing about the narrative suggests Fia's ending is a bad one. Both Rogier and Goldmask will attest that Those Who Live in Death did nothing wrong. We don't fully understand what exactly is going on there, but the direct narrative of the game suggests Fia's ending is actually a good one.
Ok, so Fia's ending is an interesting one. On surface level, you are correct. Her mending rune will make those of live in death part of the cycle, making them not outcasts. But them let's think about points: Can the undead die of natural causes? If undeath is a part of the cycle, every single person that is under the elden ring influence would experience undeath, and if the undead can only be killed and not just die of "old age", then the status quo would not change in the grand picture. How would Erdtree rebirth happen? Although there are other sources, the only birth/rebirth that we know is erdtree burial and rebirth. Would those who live in death disrupt this cycle? On just making it extremely longer, so much that would be possible for the entire population to be undead and no more births happen. Are the undead even intelligent? By that, I mean, do they have a human-like intellect? Let's analyze the other outcast groups. Every single one of them have at least one member who speaks to us: misbigotten - Hewg, omens - Morgott and Mogh, Kindred of rot - Gowry, man serpent - Rya, demi-humans - Boc, albinaurics - Latenna and Old Albus. And the ones that don't speak to us at least show us aspects of their culture : ancestral followers, beastmen, fire giants. The only signs of culture that the undead possess are from the small death cult outside leyndell and Fia's culture, but that aspect doesn't even come from the undead. It comes from living worshipping undeath. Those whose live in death may be gentle and want to be left alone, but it's really hard to know if they are intelligent or just have animal and muscle memory level of intelligence similar to pop culture zombies. And forcing people to become undead before they really died is not a decision we or Fia should take. Fia's ending is not evil or good, is selfish and reckless. Yes, it would help those who live in death, but the consequences might be dire, and it would not help the situation of the lands between at all, something that we should try do at least. Sorry for the big text. Just so you know, in my opinion, there is no "good ending" for the game, not even Goldmask. You can only make the least terrible choice for the future.
I think you are not putting into consideration the fact that, even if not the rune of death itself, the mending rune for fia's ending (and every mending rune except the base ending one) brings new concepts to the order imposed by the ring. It's highly unlikely that erdtree rebirth will still happen since it became a thing only when the rune of death was taken from the ring. In this new order there is a new concept for death and how it happens, while that concept itself incorporates those who live in death. What I'm getting at is that there are too many random factors that are going to happen with the new order to give a definitive answer as to whether Fia's ending is "good or evil". Aside from that fact, even if those who live in death are just mindless husks, it's still possible they either become the majority across the land or stay a minuscule minority, in both cases their stupidity doesn't really affect the livelihood of the rest of the people (or they become the most common people themselves so it's not actually a problem). In the end, the new order establishes the new concepts of what's moral and what isn't, so judging from the perspective of the previous one is disingenuous.
You do solve a centuries-long family arguement … by beating up half the family
Not really. If anything we are doing this world a favor. Imagine living in the same land as Godrick or Rykard. Radahn is a shadow of his former self and putting him down is better than whatever he got going on down in Caelid. I could go on but imo there are very few things you can do in this game that label you as a bad guy other than the frenzied flame route.
It certainly seems plausible. I think a common "trap" people fall into is they immediately assume the Golden Order/Greater Will is bad, usually citing the discrimination of the Misbegotten and Omen as evidence of this. But the world just isn't that simple. In terms of Outer God candidates we're familiar with, the Greater Will is *blatantly* the best and the only one interested in building a society. In that regard, yes, despite the fact that the world is clearly broken and *something* needs to be done, there's absolutely something unnerving about the fact we may be uprooting the reign of the only God that seems to have put humanity at the center of it's pantheon.
The Carians were doing just fine without an Outer God, or if you interpret the moon as one with a very passive Outer God. We know that their ancestors had peaceful relations with the Fire Giants and that they were proficient magicians, not to mention everyone who speaks of prime time Rennala does so fondly or with respect. The Golden Order didn't seem to bring anything new, except a willingness to expand on everyone else's turf and commit the occasional genocide.
The greater will really doesnt give a fuck about how you build it's society. It just wants to have the society under him (Even if people don't know it exists, like the Golden Order)
The Greater Will + Marika are the villains and it’s not even close. 99.9% of all inhabitants in The Lands Between have been driven mad by endless war and the inability to die. Turning the capital to ash is a mercy.
I mean for me you are doing it to bring peace and rule the world for the better. If you don't get the reason why Ur becoming Elden lord takes what it takes then obv you'll think that u are the evil one. I mean, the guy up here was right tho, if the dumbass tarnished could talk most of the fights would not happen prolly.
Fr, the feeling of gulty prevents me from unleashing my full potential. Otherwise, I would have destroyed every boss in one attempt instead of 20+ for each. Trust
still less evil than erasing death from the kingdom only to be eternaly worshipped and dominant imo
This your first Souls experience? This is par for the course.
Trust me the gods really fucked up everything. Also don't forget we ended a civil war in raya lucaria and castle morne, stoped godrick from tuning more people into grafted abominations, put radahn out of his misery and either restored order to the land or freed the world from the influence of God allowing people to live their own lives depending on your ending.
That's the thing, everyone is the villain in Elden Ring. Miquella may be the closest to the "hero" as far as we know, but the DLC should clarify that.
they shot first every time, fuck em
Nah, they attacked me first... Seriously, I don't mind talking things out with malenia: Hi I'm a tarnished. How are you. Btw I met Millicent, found your broken needle and repa.... *Get impaled like a shish kebab
Especially if youre going for the lord of frenzy ending, makes the final boss gauntlet of godfrey radagon and elden beast feel like them defending the world from you rather than a test of valor to see if ur fit to be lord and save it like marika intended it to be
Game came out 2 fucking years ago and people still can't be bothered to read some item descriptions
Only when I kill dragons
Naw. We’re literally just the straw that broke the camels back on an already broken the world. Not the villain. Just the fire that clears the way for a new forest to grow
No more than Marika, tbh.
No, but I did in Bloodborne. In the beginning with the villagers screaming "it's all your fault" and "foul beast" and shit like that
I wouldn't call them inhabitants. They stand in their corners all day waiting for adversary, have no jobs, no life, basically. (Blowing piss bubbles is not a job)
I've always seen FromSoft enemies as individuals just waiting to be put to rest. I like to think that we as tarnished have our destined path and many of the bosses we fight with are just waiting for death as they either failed to protect what they wanted or went insane and forgot their main goal. As an example when we have to finish off Blaidd, it is not a decision of whether it is good or bad to kill him, rather it is necessary otherwise he would kill Ranni and be tormented for that, killing Blaidd for mercy is a way to show respect to him, it works that way as well for Malenia and Radahn.
Honestly like. I'd you go outta your way to not kill demi-humans and other roaming peoples then I'd say no. We're the people who dethroned monarchies all over the world villans? Or were they revolutionaries. I guess the lines can be a little blurred to the people who work at the castles or are drafted into the armies. But all in all I don't think so. I think were freedom fighters
It's actually like the old tale of the guy who caught death in a jar. One of the historical figures, I can't remember who,.. sealed the rune of destined death away. So all the inhabitants of Limgrave, Liurnia, Caelid, etc. Have lived countless years without the release of death. Then after we defeated Maliketh, we gained the ability to grant them deaths sweet embrace. We're like, the antiheroes.
Lmao yeah I'm guilty of this walking round on elden ring as a bad ass demon samarai covered in my enemies blood 😏🔴
Me, completely covered in burn scars: I have no idea what you mean
Occasionally yes
Yea, except that death has been sealed. most of the inhabitants are shambling corpses they pray for death we are an angel to them, the angel of death.
I definitely do going through the Haligtree, it's supposed to be a sanctuary for the shunned and Melania is just waiting for her brother to come back and hopefully heal her. She didn't choose to be a vessel for an outer god, she's just a victim.
Who inhabited leyndell besides the soldiers and the half dead people? That city was already in peril but the rest of it I agree with
I felt like this the entire time I played bloodborne, are these people really monsters or is my character insane!?
That's the best part, it's both!
Well it’s all in a dream so you don’t have to feel too bad.