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Elden Ring Lore | Radagon of the Golden Order

SmoughTown

457,090 views

Radagon Second Elden Lord; The Champion of the Golden Order and one of the most pinnacle mysteries of Elden Ring's Story. Marika is Radagon...but why? and how? In this Lore Video we discuss Radagon's history, his meaning and his relationship to Marika and the Elden Ring.

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Editor: Creators Studio - https://creatorsstudio.co.uk/

Intro: 0:00
Radagon's Origins: 2:20
The Immortal Rebis: 25:57
King Consort: 40:07
Fading Faith: 46:41
The Golden Order: 55:42
The Schemes of Radagon: 1:10:10
The Misbegotten: 1:19:06
The Red Wolf of Radagon: 1:22:55

This is an extremely expansive video that not only discusses the Radagon but also covers the following subjects: Marika, The Elden Ring, The Golden Order, Golden Order Fundamentalism, The Erdtree, Maliketh, Gurranq, The Crucible, Godrey, Hoarah Loux, Ancient Dragons, Empyreans, Shadowbound Beasts, Blaidd, the Red Wolf of Radagon, Moonlight Altar, The Carians, Ranni, Rennala, Radahn, Rykard and much more!

Shout out to Lokey for their insights and translations.
Lokey's Abyssal Archive: https://www.abyssalarchive.com/

Subscribe to my second channel: @smoughburgh
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REFERENCES

Tarnished Archaeologist 'Creeds of the Erdtree': The 3 Creeds of the Erdtree | Elden Ring A...

Tarnished Archaeologist On the Omen and Misbegotten: The secret histories of Omens and Misbegot...

Ziostorm 'Elden Ring is an Allegory for Alchemy': Elden Ring is an Allegory for Alchemy

Zullie the Witch 'Little Mistakes': Elden Ring - Little mistakes

Quelaag 'The Elden Ring Keeps Me Up at Night': The Elden Ring Keeps Me Up At Night

Last Protagonist on the Greattree and Golden Order: Elden Ring Lore ─ The Greattree, the Cruci...

Garrulous Goldmask on Radagon: Radagon is Elden Ring’s True Antagonist

SmoughTown on Marika: Elden Ring Lore | Queen Marika and the Erd...

SmoughTown on Night of the Black Knives: Elden Ring Lore | Night of the Black Knive...

SmoughTown on the Gloam-Eyed Queen: Elden Ring Lore | Gloam-Eyed Queen and The...

Learn Religion Article on Alchemy by Catherine Beyer: https://www.learnreligions.com/alchem...
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CREDITS

Commission Thumbnail art by Sami: Twitter: 00oSamio00

Thumbnail layout by BrightSparkIV: Twitch: brightsparkiv

Please subscribe for more future Elden Ring Lore content!

Follow me on Twitter: Twitter: SmoughTown

Images used from Fextralife Wiki: https://eldenring.wiki.fextralife.com
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Soundtrack is Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Sekiro, King's Field and Elden Ring

I do not own the rights to Elden Ring, all rights to FromSoftware

#eldenring #eldenringlore #gaming

20 Comments

@SmoughTown Creator 3 years ago Pinned

Thank you everyone for checking out my video on the Champion!

Let me know your thoughts below

@TuffCatTV 2 years ago

Miquella: "so how come i never see you and mom in the same room together"
Radagon: "haha i'll tell you when you're older"
Miquella, cursed with eternal youth: "..."

@jamescannon4186 3 years ago

Absolutely loved realizing the main theme of Elden Ring also happened to be Radagons very theme. It made my jaw drop realizing he truly was the center of it all.

@daniell1483 3 years ago (edited)

Radagon is such a mysterious person. I'm personally of the opinion that he is purely created from Marika. It reminds me a lot of how Athena supposedly arose out of Zeus' mind fully formed, so he called her his daughter. With all the parallels between Marika and Athena, I think Radagon is this same idea at play, but the roles reversed. A male divine persona arose out of Marika's mind, possibly to serve her purposes as a tool in addition to being her husband.

@gabriellecollier8127 3 years ago

Marika: You're not a God, plus ratio, plus you're a dog, plus I'm shattering the Elden Ring.

@igorengel7801 3 years ago

It's also interresting to look at Radagon from an alchemical lens further than the rebus - the traditional four stages of Magnum Opus seem to parallel Radagon's journey:

- Starting from Marika, the mercury, the Nigredo, Radagon is formed
- His marriage to Renalla, the lunar queen has mutltiple parallels to Albedo, which is associated with purification (consider the Celestial Dew ritual), the moon, and the feminine
- Citrinitas, the transition from silver to gold corresponds to Radagon's return to the golden order, his marriage to Marika. It is also associated with abandonment of the lunar light.
- Radagon never reach Rubedo stage, and it is what Marika is mocking in the bedchamber speech - they never reach their final union, never become a single being, Radagon never becomes god.

It gets kinda complicated because, I don't think alchemy usually considers two different feminine parts, but Radagon has Marika and Renalla playing this role at different parts of the journey, but it does seem like there's a correspondance. 'hero aspires to be complete' is also a very alchemical phrase.

@titaniumteddybear 3 years ago

If Radagon was a "simple laborer" then he couldn't have bound the Royal Houses together through marriage. You're 100% right.

@miomio6890 3 years ago

19:56 On Radagon's importance: if he is created after the war with the giants,Radagon would have had years to accrue military esteem and status. Even if he didn't, if he was appointed to be the leader of the campaign, the head of the host by Marika, that would've been enough (if he were a champion before the War this would've been easier). That he's in the same position as Rennala assumes that their social rank was also similar. By this point Radagon could've made quite a name for himself serving the FO.

@jessetroy7761 3 years ago

I think it’s really interesting how Radagon and Marika sort of started out with similar or same views, but as time went on and Marika began to rebel more against the Greater Will Radagon didn’t, which really shows how different they were even though they shared a body. And also how Radagon can be considered an antagonist in the way he protects an order that is clearly crumbling, and how he seals the erdtree with the thorns, and how he may have deceived Gideon into trying to stop us when he tried to gaze into marikas will, but instead found Radagons. All very compelling, great video as always!

@Littlelostmusic 3 years ago

For the hammer you described in the beginning - I always thought it might be referring to Hewg as the labourer who rebelled. And that him rebelling was what resulted in Marika “cursing” him (seems to be a thing she can do based on what we know of the last fire giant). Of course, Marika had other motives for what happened with Hewg.

@darkarchonisme 3 years ago

Marika's nox association also ties her to the mercury queen concept very firmly

@INVICTVS_REX 3 years ago

My theory on Radagon’s origin has always centered around Marika’s slaying of the Fell God of the giants. I always speculated that perhaps a fraction or sliver of the Fell God’s essence attached itself to Marika in retaliation, forming a new identity within her. But that’s just my theory, it may be easily disproved.

@pyrrha579 3 years ago

My theory is that Marika had split herself into two, her original self and the parts of her that she deemed “negative” as to give herself more freedom. Divesting herself of her devotion to the golden order as I think it’s said in the lore that she begins to lose faith in the golden order and the greater will, along with the red hair that she was cursed with by the last fire giant. Radagon is still a part of Marika but has yet to “become her” as she sends him away to marry Rannala. But when Marika sends Godfrey away, it makes sense that she would need to bring Radagon back to herself as she plans to destroy the Elden Ring. Being able to control Radagon to a certain extent to keep him from preventing her from shattering it. They become one again when he returns to her and becomes second elden lord, which could be seen as a metaphorical marriage, the union of two beings becoming one again. Not sure if any of this makes sense I just always saw Radagon as being split from Marika for a time before he comes back and they join together once again.

@Bellcchi982 3 years ago (edited)

I've been really looking forward to this video. Radagon is easily my favourite character in Elden Ring. I remember I was enthralled by all the mystery surrounding him since the very first time I heard of him from Miriel. And no matter how many times I see it, I always get goosebumps when we finally get to face him. Especially as he raises up his hammer and turns his head towards us

@BENIS8D 3 years ago

SmouGeoff is such a nice guy that he puts a spoiler warning on his 91 minute lore video about Elden Ring, love it dude ❤

@Entobrad 1 year ago

What if its even worse than all this? In shadow of the erdtree, we know Marika seduced and betrayed someone. We know Radagon shares a liniage with the giants. What if Marika seduced a giant and killed him (explaining the giant eye in the trailer she pulls the string from), and became pregnant. When she passed through the gate of divinity, Radagon also passed through and grew into a god within her, fusing with her. Not only is Radagon Marikas consort and father to her children, but also he is her son.

@violetbliss4399 3 years ago (edited)

I have always had the feeling that Marika is full of regret, that she wants out of her situation. The way I interpreted Radagon was that at some point (maybe god ascension?) she became two halves, no doubt in part inspired by yin yang or even farther back than that in the real history. What I think happened is that while her first attempt to break the Elden Ring once in her regret was partially successful, Radagon then became her effective gaoler because that part of her could not resist the influence and instead became a weapon against the Marika half, and a new de facto tool. So Marika's plot is essentially orchestrated for us to remove the greatest threat to her freedom/oblivion/reincarnation (who knows), but of course we may also influence what happens.

I have no idea if this really fits, but I never really had the feeling it was a benevolent relationship in Marika/Radagon. Not like a "ah hah! I am secretly two people, plotting to get ahead!" or "We're a power couple!", it just never rang right to me. Particularly, I think both the shattering as well as her ultimatum to the demogods seem designed to create chaos where randomness can be sown. Order rules, so how else can she hope to achieve anything other than by chaos?

@GasDude1011 3 years ago (edited)

I personally believe he was his own person and agreed to become one with Marika in order to fulfill one of the two fundamental laws, regression.

@RossAshmore 3 years ago

The Marika/Radagon mystery at the core of Elden Ring is fascinating to me. Two of the most influential and prominent figures being shrouded in such mystery was such a good narrative and design choice!

@precisecalibre6986 3 years ago

I wonder if perhaps Radagon is a manifestation of some sort of curse bestowed upon Marika once she had the fire giants put to the sword. Like a revenge curse that forced her to split off into another person's cursed with the red hair of the beings she had exterminated.