Thank you everyone for watching my dissection on the Night of the Black Knives!

Would love to hear your thoughts below!

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I wish Rogier had more lines of dialog and lore to tell us. His voice actor and much more friendly demeanor than Ofnir's makes him one of my favorite characters.

Brother knows so much about these games he could teach souls lore at a university

Something awesome about Godwyn I’ve noticed - many people have pointed out how he’s kind of a fungal essence spreading rot throughout the erdtree, but the fact that he has a giant growth under Stormveil is critical to me because it’s the windiest place in The Lands Between and presumably that’s spreading his spores further and further, maybe even to Farum Azula and that’s how he showed up there

I always felt shattering the Elden Ring was an act of suicide. Radagon spent much time trying to convince Marika to keep going, to keep being the God-Queen. But when she had lost so many children, her beloved son Godwyn’s corpse became an infectious pestilence of undeath, when her daughter was wasting away with Scarlet Rot, these things broke her steadily over time until she couldn’t handle it anymore.

I always felt that Marika was meant to be different from Gwyn and other figures who ruled their worlds. She broke her world because it was the only thing that could kill her, because she suffered so much in between promising the Tarnished’s return to claim the Elden Ring, and tasking Hewg to make a weapon that could kill her.

I wonder if Iji could have been the one who carved the other half of the rune into Ranni, and that is the reason why the black knife assassins go after him. Someone had to do it for her since it was on her back, and it seems that the rest of the black knives were out doing their murders. If they really had no idea about Ranni's secret plot to shed her body, then it had to be someone in Ranni's circle and it seems unlikely Blaidd could do it and I get the idea that Ranni would not allow herself to be  in such a moment of weakness with that creep Seluvis (she never seems to full trust him, or at least know he's a scheming dingus)

I think the line about the assassins being close to Marika is a bit of a red herring and a bit of the truth; to hint at Marika being the one to introduce Ranni and the future assassins.

Marika and Radagon were married before the Night of the Black Knives, making Ranni's position elevate from being a champion's daughter to a princess. As you mentioned, noble ladies in this position were often given ladies-in-waiting to serve as their attendants and assistants. At the time Ranni became a princess, she was not just the only princess of the family, but she was also the only Empyrean; thus, Marika likely handpicked Ranni's court ladies. Further, makes sense that she would choose other numens for her daughter's court; perhaps as a way to influence Ranni away from the Dark Moon occultism and bring her back to her numen roots (as, since Radagon and Marika are of the same body, all of Radagon's children are part-numen as well). Unfortunately, Marika miscalculated--either she overestimated how much other numen liked the status quo, or she underestimated how deep Ranni's convictions were. Whether these numen were already gearing up to murder a demigod or if Ranni influenced them is up to interpretation, but at the end of the day, it's the numen that Marika picked for her daughter's ladies-in-waiting who became Black Knife Assassins.

8:50 also when you use the ash of war of the golden epitaph you can see Miquella's sigil, the description is definitely referring to him

One question about godwyn is "How did he start spreading death root?"  I believe that nobody understood what was happening on the Night of the Black Knives.  In the aftermath someone, probably a relative like Marika, took Godwyn to the roots of the Erdtree in order to give him an erdtree burial and reincorporate his soul.  His body, being unable to die due to the incomplete curse, started the process of erdtree burial, but since he couldn't be killed his body started to spread like an infection in order to protect itself.  It ends up all over the lands between spreading through the erdtree's vast roots leading to the vast propagation of deathroot we see today.  People probably only realized that he was soulless after they put him through erdtree burial.

One of my favorite safe files is the one where I get to the point where I have Mini-Ranni in my back pocket. So that she has to watch as I go all Lord of Frenzied Flame and undo everything she was trying to do.

No, you rich twat, THIS is how you defy the fingers.
It is BIG and LOUD and HOT!

Another fantastic video.

I have always wondered why Ranni would have to specifically kill Godwyn the Golden to get rid of her Empyrean flesh. Couldn't it have been anyone? And why kill so many other demigods as well? But after watching this video I think I finally got it.

What would people think, if Ranni just abandoned her empyrean flesh? I don't think that could be interpreted as anything other than her rebelling against the Greater Will. But by having multiple demigods killed, she can essentially play it off as her just being another one of the victims. By then helping to hunt down the assassins and even imprisoning their leader, she can even earn a good deal of goodwill.

I believe the Eclipse was some kind of plan or prophesy for the death and rebirth of Godwin. This plan was interrupted by Ranni when she slew her own corpse, splitting the curse of death in half.

‘Your comrade remains soulless’ - this line shows Miquella did not intend his brother to become that which lives in death. He wanted Goldwyn to die a true death and perhaps be reborn as a dark inversion of a soul 9:26

Shoutout to you, Hawkshaw, Quelaag, Zullie and of course our boy Vaati for consistently helping me understand hidden nuance in this incredible game. I especially love that you allow us to make our own assumptions about what could be going on, and still manage to educate me MASSIVELY. Props to you and the entire Soulsborne lore community.

I feel like not enough ppl talk about how the black knife leg armor and the nox's are the same, just without the cloth skirt and dyed black.

I really wish they would release a version of GRRM's mythos. I like to think it's something similar to the style of "Fire & Blood". Kind of a recounting of history as told by an ancient noble. I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

57:14 I wonder if Ranni is so heavily stating that it was she that stole the death-rune just because the opposite is true? I think it was Sinclair Lore that mentioned how it would make sense that Rykard is closest to Marika, giving his roll as Praetor. If it was something that would make this whole thing even more shattering for Marika that would make sense right?  elden ring theories sound much better in my head on sleepless nights than they look here lol (hope i make sense, english isn't my first language)

I have been making my own theory about this night and Marika's involvement in it. I dont think Marika killed off her own son, she's calculative, brutal at times but not so much that it would be in her character for her to do this. For example she did not kill the children Radagon and Renala made, and even though she is Radagon and vice versa. These children of Renala and Radagon couldve been seen as bastards and as such a threat to throne and/or her children. But she didnt do a thing except maybe telling Radagon to come back (basically stop fucking around); so to eventually kill off her own son in some weird grand scheme where she loses all her power and her freedom to accomplish exactly what? Nah that does not seem reasonable.

What is very interesting though is Marika's reaction to the death of Godwyn. She is devastated, so devastated in fact to the point she says fuck all of this and shatters the elden ring. Some of you might think: well DUH, she lost her first born son so its natural feels that way. And whilst this is a pretty damn good reason to be devastated you have to remind yourself she is a God. The threath of death towards her children is something she mustve realized to moment she conceived them, even before that! So for her to lose a child (having prepared herself for such an eventuality) and still be devastated tells me, something more is going on.

So what could possibly be more hurtful than losing your own child? Well, how about figuring out that your chld got murdered by one of your other children! The milion dollar question obviously is: what did Marika actually know? Did she know it was Ranni? I think there's a good chance she did.

Consider what we know, we know the black knives killed Godwyn, but how do we know this? Cause the game tells us, so it makes sense that this information is also known by the demi gods and such (hence the making of the torch so such a thing could never happen again). So if the demi gods knew this, and off course by extention Marika too. They must've caught some of them, maybe all of them died maybe not. And Marika having close ties with the numen and by extention these black knives, mustve either pieced the pieces together herself or found an unlucky black knife still alive and tore the answers out of her.

What's also interesting is, Ranni's body is still at the same place where she killed herself, that seems off, doesnt it? They managed to give Godwyn a proper burial but not Ranni? Now again, this could tie in with the fact that she is a bastard. OR Marika/Radagon figured her out and thus did not give a fuck about her.

Marika now armed with the info she has, realizes that the game has begun. There will be a lot of infighting and death to come and eventually one of her children will come on top. But she doesnt want any of this, so she shatters the elden ring, gives a great rune to each of her children. Tries to alert her children of what's yet to come (her speech about becoming a god, and if they dont they'll become sacrifices). And after that gets imprisoned by the greater will.

Ever since Marcia gave her speech to the Godfrey and the tarnished about them returning to the lands between, rage war and brandish the elden Ring. That is the definitive  words of some that expects the ring being shatter in the future and not some that believe the golden order will last forever. Not sure how far into the future Marcia planed or if she take actions as things happened but clearly their were many thing that didn’t go to plan.

I also herd some refer the diolog from the finger reader near godwyn sounding more like she is lemmenting the fact he failed to die a true death but instead lived in death, almost as if the diologe was hidding, at least in the two finger circle, Godwyn was expected to die but for some reason his fate was not fulfilled (keeping in character for Ranni not wanting to have her fate decided by the two fingers) (fate is no longer in the stars, but the fingers can still weave it). Would like some one to double-check that diolog to see if that is true in both English and Japanese.

Here's somethign that pops into my mind from the writing standpoint - Ranni's fast and blunt confession on everything relating the Night of the Black Knives, repeating several times that "I did it all, it was me" reminds me of a writing trope of a character overemphasizing their fault because of their guilt. Ranni's is a cold character, but she shows sadness and melancholy often in her dialogue, she's not beyond emotions completely. I think while she went onto this cruel plot to free herself, I think she regrets or feels ashamed for the sorrow it brought to others, specifically Godwyn. It could be just another stepping stone on her way to freedom from the Two Fingers, there's no real reason to think anyone could've predicted Godwyn becoming the Prince of Death and creating Those Who Live in Death. After all, there are several soulless demigods in the game in the Walking Mausoleums but only Godwyn mutated into that - probably because of his Erdtree burial which backfired horribly. If she knew thats' what would happen, not giving information on how to prevent it to anyone through her many agents seems like pointless cruelty. That's all my speculation, based on the impressions of Ranni's dialogue and character, it reminds me of a character who stepped on a cruel path which caused unwanted side-effects, but keeps going because stopping now wouldn't fix anything, and would only make those sacrifices and losses meaningless. I'm sure you've seen that trope before. Also, if her dialogue only means that she stole the rune personally, that would be kind of strange - the stealing of the Rune is wide known, but it takes some effort from a scholar to learn of Ranni's name. So either she stole the rune in complete secret from Malekith himself which would be incredible, or he kept secret that it was her for no reason.

I really like this kind of long form content, granted it's obviously long and a lot to take in, but it's really nice to watch on long days where it feels like you have nothing to do, also there's a lot of thought and lore implications given with no drawbacks to ideas cause there no 15/20 min time-frame to work under, and even if you can't finish the video in one sitting(at least for me) it give me something to look forward to after I get finished with a busy day. Love your content man, can't wait to see more!