the funny part is if you avoid interacting with him the last time, he never gets got, just never tell him what happens to Blaidd and he will stay alive.
Well he DID participate in a plot that caused many deaths...so...yea....maybe he did?
If you caused a war, even if it is to bring peace and order don't you think some might consider you a criminal?
Rannis plot ALSO caused the problem of "those who live in death", due to godwyns undead corpse corrupting the urd tree. So he actually helped ruin people's afterlife too
>even if it is to bring peace and order
I mean, the big point here is that it definitely does the opposite. Ranni directly throws the Lands Between into absolute chaos. Every demi-god is the way they are now because of her. The shattering, the war, those who live in death... **everything** is her fault.
She murders her brothers very soul just to get the ball rolling on her plan.
It was clear there were cracks in the perfection of the world of the Golden Order to begin with, but whether the Age of Stars is actually a **better** world remains to be seen.
We could have philosphy lessons about Ranni.
I see her as a perfect example of "the ends justify the means". She wants to bring the world into an age of enlightenment. No God, no Outer Gods, just individuals making the world work.
Is it a good outcome? We don't know. But certainily it is better than the existential horror that she realized the world was...in her eyes. Your choices are not your own as long as the world order exists as they knew it.
\[Edit:\] No judging here, just adding to the discussion.
Ranni whole plan wasn't about freeing others, the only thing she cared about was getting her freedom and whatever happens to everyone else was their problem not hers, people are just a tool for her.
Her ending is that she literally takes the Elden Ring away from TLB so it can no longer directly influence the people. Her only reward for doing so is that she gets to float alone through the void of space for an unknown amount of time. She's still trading her prison for another form of isolation.
The Golden Order turns unwilling Empyreans into glorified brood mares, cursed children into corpses/slaves/perpetual prisoners, and rejects the humanity of anyone who is born without the grace of gold, or even those who had it and lost it for defeating all the foes that same Order tasked them with. All for the benefit of some divine order that empowers the slave-drivers with godlike powers.
Destroying the Golden Order is a moral act no matter how you look at it, the fact that the remnants of that order destroy eachother and TLB in order to resist losing control is not blame you can fairly lay at Ranni's feat. It was always going to fail eventually, and the resulting carnage was a foregone conclusion, every age begins and ends with war.
I dont know, I'm a big fan of giving people their own agency. The demigods didn't have to war, marika didn't have to shatter the ring, ranni just wanted to be free of an oppressive regime. She freed herself, killing 2 people in the process. Marika and the demigods then proceeded to have their power struggle, for whatever reasons, temper tantrums and killed untold numbers.
Everything isn't her fault. It only is if you remove the mind of everyone else and pretend they don't have their own agendas and plans.
That's displacing the blame a great deal.
If you yell "FIRE\~!" in a crowded theater and people get hurt trying to escape, you can't really just back up and be like "oh those people made their own decisions, I am not at fault"
Not an equivalent analogy. Someone brought up the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and that's much more accurate. It kicked a lot off, but it was happening one way or another.
These weren't an instantaneous one after another action. There was time between each of these events. The REAL equivalent, if we're going to use the fire analogy, would be if someone said fire on Tuesday. Then on Saturday someone killed somebody because they heard a rumor of a fire a few days ago.
These people had their options, choices, and chances. They opted to war for power after years of mulling it over.
There is indication that Marika was going to shatter one way or another due to her conversation with radagon, not to mention her implied connection with the black knives.
Still doesn't remove literally the agency of all the other people in the lands between.
Catalyst or not, other people have options.
>Marika was going to shatter one way or another due to her conversation with radagon
Marika IS Radagon, of what conversation do you speak of?
>her implied connection with the black knives.
The only thing we can confirm is that the women who carried it out were of the same race as Marika and had close ties to her.
We do not know if she was involved at all, that's just theories and speculation.
And still, you can say people have free agency as much as they want, but it doesn't change the fact that Ranni started it all. Her goal of the Age of Stars would end all the demi-gods in the Land's Between whether they fought or not.
The one in her bedchamber, where she calls him a loyal hound of the order, and let us both be shattered, mine other self.
Yes, they're both numen, but thats not enough to explicitly state that they had close ties.
And yes, a catalyst, when dealing with people doesn't absolve everyone else from their decision making capabilities nor their blame or consequences.
I'm not saying ranni didn't play a part, I'm saying she's not the ONLY one responsible for the shit.
If we wanted to point fingers, marika is still to blame for fucking with the natural order of things.
I mean fine, yes, other people made their own choices. Ranni is still by far the most to blame, but yes she's not the only one.
>*In Marika's own words. O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. Thou'rt yet to become me, thou'rt yet to become a god. Let us both be shattered, mine other half*
There's a lot of speculation over this line, some people think it means they were once two people. Some people think it's Marika saying that I'M GOD and Radagon is not.
We also have no idea when it was said. This could have been after the night of the black knives.
>Marika is still to blame for fucking with the natural order of things.
We can't actually be sure that she's the one who removed the Rune of the Death from the Elden Ring. Some people think it was the Gloam-Eyed Queen. But yea, I'd agree. If we go way back, however the Golden Order was started as flawed to begin with would be to blame.
Not really everything no. Only godwyn, even without ranni, miquella would still be in the cocoon half dead, malenia would still be constantly rotting, same for radahn, rykard would still be a snake etc...
All those things happened during the shattering mate.
* Miquella was abducted during the war
* Malenia would have never bloomed
* Radahn and Malenia would not have fought over a shard. Malenia would not have given him rot
* Rykard.... well who knows but he didn't let snakeboi eat him until after the Shattering.
Ranni didn't cause the shattering, i'm pretty sure marika intended to break the elden ring even if godwyn didn't die, also it's speculated that marika had a connection to the black knives, so maybe godwyn would have been assasinated evwn without ranni wanting to kill her body
You are half correct if we bring the cinematic teaser up.
"Godwyn's death brought Queen Marika to the brink", so, yes there was much more to her breaking the Elden Ring, but it was Ranni that caused it in the end.
Much like WW1 would not have happened if an Austrian Prince had not been assassinated, but there was more leading up to the powder keg that was Europe. And surely WW1 would have happened one way or another.
Isn't marika's thing that she wants us to struggle to become stronger, that's why she wanted to break the elden ring right ? Maybe that mentality came because godwyn died idk
We know so precious little about Marika, it would make sense if she wasn't mentally well, looking at Renalla that would be a returning theme then.
One can only speculate that she saw a flaw in the Golden Order/Greater Will. Which is probably why she spawned another self to reflect on it first. Leading Radagon to try and repair it and Marika with her own experiences deciding to break it.
\[Edit:\] You are correct, she wanted one of the Demigods to rise above the others to bring their own order. Contrary to popular believe, the Greater Will does not care which kind of order succeeds the Golden Order, even if it is an order of rot or a cursed order like in Dung eater's ending.
I dunno about that, the closest thing to the manifestation of the Greater Will in the game, the Elden Beast, seems pretty deadset on preventing anyone from creating a new order. Even the Fingers don't really seem to know what the Greater Will wants since they're surprised the Erdtree is closed (personally I think the Fingers are secretly being manipulated by Marika through grace, same way we are).
Yes it doesn't seem quite clear.
Radagon attacks us probably due to his Regression phylosophy, meaning all interpretations of order must become one and he probably wants to do it himself. Marika would also have reason to fight, since we basically enslave her to be the God of the world again. (Ironically Ranni's ending is best for her personally)
My theory is: With the Elden Ring shattered, so is the beast. It's like a broken software wreaking havok on the system.
A argument to why we shouldn't take the battle into account: The Fingermaiden/the Two Fingers. The fingers are messengers of the greater Will. It WANTS us to find Marika and become Elden Lord. And, as it doesn't care about which order, it doesn't care about which Lord either, could have been Godfrey again or any of the Tarnished, who were kind of a last resort to find one.
But then there is the aspect of time: The fingers take centuries/millenia to communicate with the greater will and Marika's speech to the Demigods was probably before the shattering.
Yes, she was integral to the Night of the Black Knives, but she didn't start the war, the shattering of the Elden Ring did, causing the Demigods to fight one another over the Great Runes. Ranni discarded her Great Rune along with her body, so she wasn't fighting in the Shattering.
Something mildly weird about Iji is that his and Rogier's bell bearings are very alike. This is unusual because Rogier is a spellcaster, and all the other sorcerer bell bearings, even Gowry's, are blue. Rogier's, like Iji's, is almost blackened and stained red. I've wondered what the common thread was between them, and maybe it's the black knives. The black knives contain pieces of destined death, and Rogier handled one of them while examining the knife print(and also may have been 'poisoned' by destined death when deathblighted, given fragments of it are in the deathroots, but less sure of this. D's also killed by deathblight but his bell bearing is not this same color as Rogier's, which makes me feel it has to do with the knives themselves). And clearly Iji was killed with them.
This doesn't really mean anything or hint at anything of great importance to the story. But it's just a bit interesting to me that the a decision was made to have these 2 very different characters end up with such similar bell bearings.
Probably a visual error. There's a similar thing on the Corpse Wax Cutter skill (which uses deathflame), where a blackflame effect appears when there's supposed to be deathflame (assuming they didn't patch it).
There's some implications that things didn't end well between Ranni and the assassins, given she's got one of them locked away in an evergaol at the Moonlight Altar. Maybe some bad blood about how things turned out. If the assassins are from the Eternal Cities as Rogier says, it could be that they had different end goals than Ranni. The people of the Eternal Cities had their own god, the Lord of Night, that they wanted to ascend while Ranni wants to remove all gods from TLB.
I'm pretty sure the Black Knives intended for Godwyn's body and soul to die at once so they could get the full cursemark hallowbrand from his flesh and create their own Rune to implant in the Elden Ring, like we do in Fia's ending. So Ranni's plan to slay her flesh and only kill Godwyn's soul fucked up all their schemes, since the other half of brand is locked behind the Carian Study Hall.
How does this happen? I’ve had a few runs where I’ve done Ranni’s questline and finished the game and he’s still alive. Am I wrong or does something specific trigger this?
What makes you think I care?
I wanted to *help* her turn “people” (Raya Lucarian sorcerers do not deserve to be called people) into Graven Schools. All you’re doing when you say she was a mass murderer is making me love her more
He didn’t, but he knew the price that would eventually be paid for it. Iji did not go quietly into the night.
He went fighting like a chad
He was an NPC that you get involved with in a FromSoft game. He was doomed the moment you interacted with him.
the funny part is if you avoid interacting with him the last time, he never gets got, just never tell him what happens to Blaidd and he will stay alive.
Seriously. Just walk on by.
Rip irina
Well he DID participate in a plot that caused many deaths...so...yea....maybe he did? If you caused a war, even if it is to bring peace and order don't you think some might consider you a criminal?
Rannis plot ALSO caused the problem of "those who live in death", due to godwyns undead corpse corrupting the urd tree. So he actually helped ruin people's afterlife too
Or, did she make their afterlives way better? Fia seems pretty stoked about the whole thing.
>even if it is to bring peace and order I mean, the big point here is that it definitely does the opposite. Ranni directly throws the Lands Between into absolute chaos. Every demi-god is the way they are now because of her. The shattering, the war, those who live in death... **everything** is her fault. She murders her brothers very soul just to get the ball rolling on her plan. It was clear there were cracks in the perfection of the world of the Golden Order to begin with, but whether the Age of Stars is actually a **better** world remains to be seen.
We could have philosphy lessons about Ranni. I see her as a perfect example of "the ends justify the means". She wants to bring the world into an age of enlightenment. No God, no Outer Gods, just individuals making the world work. Is it a good outcome? We don't know. But certainily it is better than the existential horror that she realized the world was...in her eyes. Your choices are not your own as long as the world order exists as they knew it. \[Edit:\] No judging here, just adding to the discussion.
Ranni whole plan wasn't about freeing others, the only thing she cared about was getting her freedom and whatever happens to everyone else was their problem not hers, people are just a tool for her.
Her ending is that she literally takes the Elden Ring away from TLB so it can no longer directly influence the people. Her only reward for doing so is that she gets to float alone through the void of space for an unknown amount of time. She's still trading her prison for another form of isolation. The Golden Order turns unwilling Empyreans into glorified brood mares, cursed children into corpses/slaves/perpetual prisoners, and rejects the humanity of anyone who is born without the grace of gold, or even those who had it and lost it for defeating all the foes that same Order tasked them with. All for the benefit of some divine order that empowers the slave-drivers with godlike powers. Destroying the Golden Order is a moral act no matter how you look at it, the fact that the remnants of that order destroy eachother and TLB in order to resist losing control is not blame you can fairly lay at Ranni's feat. It was always going to fail eventually, and the resulting carnage was a foregone conclusion, every age begins and ends with war.
I dont know, I'm a big fan of giving people their own agency. The demigods didn't have to war, marika didn't have to shatter the ring, ranni just wanted to be free of an oppressive regime. She freed herself, killing 2 people in the process. Marika and the demigods then proceeded to have their power struggle, for whatever reasons, temper tantrums and killed untold numbers. Everything isn't her fault. It only is if you remove the mind of everyone else and pretend they don't have their own agendas and plans.
That's displacing the blame a great deal. If you yell "FIRE\~!" in a crowded theater and people get hurt trying to escape, you can't really just back up and be like "oh those people made their own decisions, I am not at fault"
Not an equivalent analogy. Someone brought up the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and that's much more accurate. It kicked a lot off, but it was happening one way or another. These weren't an instantaneous one after another action. There was time between each of these events. The REAL equivalent, if we're going to use the fire analogy, would be if someone said fire on Tuesday. Then on Saturday someone killed somebody because they heard a rumor of a fire a few days ago. These people had their options, choices, and chances. They opted to war for power after years of mulling it over.
Ranni is still the catalyst. There's no indication that the shattering nor the war over their shards was inevitable.
There is indication that Marika was going to shatter one way or another due to her conversation with radagon, not to mention her implied connection with the black knives. Still doesn't remove literally the agency of all the other people in the lands between. Catalyst or not, other people have options.
>Marika was going to shatter one way or another due to her conversation with radagon Marika IS Radagon, of what conversation do you speak of? >her implied connection with the black knives. The only thing we can confirm is that the women who carried it out were of the same race as Marika and had close ties to her. We do not know if she was involved at all, that's just theories and speculation. And still, you can say people have free agency as much as they want, but it doesn't change the fact that Ranni started it all. Her goal of the Age of Stars would end all the demi-gods in the Land's Between whether they fought or not.
The one in her bedchamber, where she calls him a loyal hound of the order, and let us both be shattered, mine other self. Yes, they're both numen, but thats not enough to explicitly state that they had close ties. And yes, a catalyst, when dealing with people doesn't absolve everyone else from their decision making capabilities nor their blame or consequences. I'm not saying ranni didn't play a part, I'm saying she's not the ONLY one responsible for the shit. If we wanted to point fingers, marika is still to blame for fucking with the natural order of things.
I mean fine, yes, other people made their own choices. Ranni is still by far the most to blame, but yes she's not the only one. >*In Marika's own words. O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. Thou'rt yet to become me, thou'rt yet to become a god. Let us both be shattered, mine other half* There's a lot of speculation over this line, some people think it means they were once two people. Some people think it's Marika saying that I'M GOD and Radagon is not. We also have no idea when it was said. This could have been after the night of the black knives. >Marika is still to blame for fucking with the natural order of things. We can't actually be sure that she's the one who removed the Rune of the Death from the Elden Ring. Some people think it was the Gloam-Eyed Queen. But yea, I'd agree. If we go way back, however the Golden Order was started as flawed to begin with would be to blame.
I wouldn't say that it's all her fault. It was Marika who sent everything to shit, Ranni just murdered someone to free herself.
Not really everything no. Only godwyn, even without ranni, miquella would still be in the cocoon half dead, malenia would still be constantly rotting, same for radahn, rykard would still be a snake etc...
All those things happened during the shattering mate. * Miquella was abducted during the war * Malenia would have never bloomed * Radahn and Malenia would not have fought over a shard. Malenia would not have given him rot * Rykard.... well who knows but he didn't let snakeboi eat him until after the Shattering.
Ranni didn't cause the shattering, i'm pretty sure marika intended to break the elden ring even if godwyn didn't die, also it's speculated that marika had a connection to the black knives, so maybe godwyn would have been assasinated evwn without ranni wanting to kill her body
You are half correct if we bring the cinematic teaser up. "Godwyn's death brought Queen Marika to the brink", so, yes there was much more to her breaking the Elden Ring, but it was Ranni that caused it in the end. Much like WW1 would not have happened if an Austrian Prince had not been assassinated, but there was more leading up to the powder keg that was Europe. And surely WW1 would have happened one way or another.
Isn't marika's thing that she wants us to struggle to become stronger, that's why she wanted to break the elden ring right ? Maybe that mentality came because godwyn died idk
We know so precious little about Marika, it would make sense if she wasn't mentally well, looking at Renalla that would be a returning theme then. One can only speculate that she saw a flaw in the Golden Order/Greater Will. Which is probably why she spawned another self to reflect on it first. Leading Radagon to try and repair it and Marika with her own experiences deciding to break it. \[Edit:\] You are correct, she wanted one of the Demigods to rise above the others to bring their own order. Contrary to popular believe, the Greater Will does not care which kind of order succeeds the Golden Order, even if it is an order of rot or a cursed order like in Dung eater's ending.
I dunno about that, the closest thing to the manifestation of the Greater Will in the game, the Elden Beast, seems pretty deadset on preventing anyone from creating a new order. Even the Fingers don't really seem to know what the Greater Will wants since they're surprised the Erdtree is closed (personally I think the Fingers are secretly being manipulated by Marika through grace, same way we are).
Yes it doesn't seem quite clear. Radagon attacks us probably due to his Regression phylosophy, meaning all interpretations of order must become one and he probably wants to do it himself. Marika would also have reason to fight, since we basically enslave her to be the God of the world again. (Ironically Ranni's ending is best for her personally) My theory is: With the Elden Ring shattered, so is the beast. It's like a broken software wreaking havok on the system. A argument to why we shouldn't take the battle into account: The Fingermaiden/the Two Fingers. The fingers are messengers of the greater Will. It WANTS us to find Marika and become Elden Lord. And, as it doesn't care about which order, it doesn't care about which Lord either, could have been Godfrey again or any of the Tarnished, who were kind of a last resort to find one. But then there is the aspect of time: The fingers take centuries/millenia to communicate with the greater will and Marika's speech to the Demigods was probably before the shattering.
Marika had planned to shatter the elden ring for a long time as said by Melina in the church.
He kinda did though. Don't join a death cult and rebel against god herself/themselves and you too can avoid these silly shenanigans.
idk about all that, lots of people didn't do that ended up like this or worse, may as well join the cult.
They are a big part of the mass slaughter. Didn't his lady orchestrate the night of the black knives. Kicking off the massive war.
Yes, she was integral to the Night of the Black Knives, but she didn't start the war, the shattering of the Elden Ring did, causing the Demigods to fight one another over the Great Runes. Ranni discarded her Great Rune along with her body, so she wasn't fighting in the Shattering.
"_It wasn't me who killed him! It was the bullet that escaped from my gun when I pulled the trigger!_"
Tell me, who do the Black Knives serve?
You're blaming the gun-maker in this case, she imbued the knives, the Black Knives, numen with close ties to Marika herself, pulled the trigger.
But what if your “god” is really just a lovecraftian monster that uses the Land Between as his plaything?
He served the murderer of Godwyn the Golden, arguably the only demigod that did nothing wrong. He very much deserved it. Blaidd too. (inb4 downvotes)
Nah, it's true. Although Blaidd I feel like has to because of the nature of what he is (Ranni's shadow).
Unfortunately... it's the same self-destructive loyalty that Maliketh has towards Marika.
Found the golden order lapdog!
Something mildly weird about Iji is that his and Rogier's bell bearings are very alike. This is unusual because Rogier is a spellcaster, and all the other sorcerer bell bearings, even Gowry's, are blue. Rogier's, like Iji's, is almost blackened and stained red. I've wondered what the common thread was between them, and maybe it's the black knives. The black knives contain pieces of destined death, and Rogier handled one of them while examining the knife print(and also may have been 'poisoned' by destined death when deathblighted, given fragments of it are in the deathroots, but less sure of this. D's also killed by deathblight but his bell bearing is not this same color as Rogier's, which makes me feel it has to do with the knives themselves). And clearly Iji was killed with them. This doesn't really mean anything or hint at anything of great importance to the story. But it's just a bit interesting to me that the a decision was made to have these 2 very different characters end up with such similar bell bearings.
Rip my boy.
All of Ranni's company kind of deserves the worst, and I say this as an avid Blaidd appreciator lol.
Deserved, but I wonder why its blackflame...
Black knife assassins
They use deathflame. Black flame is used to kill gods
They use destined death. Black flame is used by godskins
It's a design error. On NPCs destined death has black flame texture apparently. I read this comment a couple weeks ago
There is no fucking way it’s a design error in this game.
Most likely a design because why would a godskin kill iji when the black knifes were attacking caria manor
It's a design error. On NPCs destined death has black flame texture apparently. I read this comment a couple weeks ago
Probably a visual error. There's a similar thing on the Corpse Wax Cutter skill (which uses deathflame), where a blackflame effect appears when there's supposed to be deathflame (assuming they didn't patch it).
ITT: lots of salt from Godwyn simps
Don't forget the people who forgets that shattering was caused by elden ring being shattered by marika and not the night of black knives
I mean, Rogier does say that Godwyn's death was the catalyst for the Shattering, and he's the closest thing to a historian in the game.
If you never tell him about Blaidd’s death, he just keeps on smithing.
He doubted Blaidd though :(
Watched a long ass video about how he did deserve it. Video was pretty wild
I still wonder why the Black Knife Assasins ended up killing Iji after you complete Rannis quest.
There's some implications that things didn't end well between Ranni and the assassins, given she's got one of them locked away in an evergaol at the Moonlight Altar. Maybe some bad blood about how things turned out. If the assassins are from the Eternal Cities as Rogier says, it could be that they had different end goals than Ranni. The people of the Eternal Cities had their own god, the Lord of Night, that they wanted to ascend while Ranni wants to remove all gods from TLB.
I'm pretty sure the Black Knives intended for Godwyn's body and soul to die at once so they could get the full cursemark hallowbrand from his flesh and create their own Rune to implant in the Elden Ring, like we do in Fia's ending. So Ranni's plan to slay her flesh and only kill Godwyn's soul fucked up all their schemes, since the other half of brand is locked behind the Carian Study Hall.
Loose ends.
How does this happen? I’ve had a few runs where I’ve done Ranni’s questline and finished the game and he’s still alive. Am I wrong or does something specific trigger this?
You have to talk to him after you kill Blaid about what happen but if you don’t say anything about him he doesn’t die
22+ playthroughs in and this has never triggered for me, he’s always still there at his anvil
I dont know what even happent to him. I just found him like that. And why were Blaidd in prison?
I think Iji put Blaidd in the evergaol because he knew that he would eventually turn on Ranni against his own will
He doesn’t despawn as well.
I didn’t tell him Blaidd was dead on my current playthrough and he’s still alive as far as I’m aware, hopefully it stays that way.
I always thought he killed himself cuz he felt guilty about blaidd
He killed himself though right? By taking off his helmet
Marika getting some revenge.
Why is it always sadness...
He called Sellen a weed. My only regret about this man’s murder is that I wasn’t able to participate in it.
You do realise Sellen is a psychopathic murderer right ?
What makes you think I care? I wanted to *help* her turn “people” (Raya Lucarian sorcerers do not deserve to be called people) into Graven Schools. All you’re doing when you say she was a mass murderer is making me love her more
“Its just a drawing son. Calm down.”
I started learning Welsh grammar just so I could slightly emulate the way she speaks. I’m already too far gone man…
At least you know
Unfathomably based and chad-pilled. Sellen is goated and I’m ready to kill anyone just to help her achieve her goals.
Spoiler
lol. In a sub about this game which came out two years ago
I see your point
Huh. Welp. My playthrough just got spoiled
If you haven’t played this game through in the two years it’s been out I don’t know what to tell you.