Elden Ring's new story trailer is hiding something

Everything in this trailer makes so much sense...  is probably what I'm going to say in about a month  

when the DLC is out. When we look back, this  trailer will explain everything, but right now  

I've got so many questions, especially about this  scene in particular. Here we're being teased with  

what is clearly one of the most important events  in this universe. And while the truth is right  

in front of us, it's impossible to make complete  sense of it yet. They're taunting us. I hate it.  

I love it. Let's break it down. So this trailer  comes in three parts. There's the beginning where  

gold arose and shadow was born. Then we see the  war that followed with Messmer reducing a city and  

its citizens to ash. Finally, we see Miquella near  the current age, and he's been preaching a hidden  

truth about the beginning To his followers.  "Miquella the Kind spoke of the beginning.  

The seduction, and the betrayal. An affair from  which gold arose. And so too was shadow born. To  

start, This is Queen Marika. The bracelet, And  these armbands, They're an exact match for her  

jewelry and this piece of artwork. But what is  happening here? The first shot we see is Marika  

pulling what looks like hair from what looks like  a corpse. The hair seems easy to explain. I think  

these are runes of the Elden Ring. Compare these  threads to the ones that you see in this cinematic  

where the Elden Ring was being repaired. This  is Marika's Hammer and its description reads:  

The hammer partially broke upon shattering the  ring, becoming splintered with rune fragments.  

And obviously these threads are very much the  same as the rune threads here. So I think Marika  

is essentially looting runes from a corpse, maybe  somewhat similar to what we do in the actual game.  

Please bear in mind that from this point forward,  a lot of this is speculation. However, even if  

this speculation is wrong, I think this is still  a really good opportunity to talk about and become  

familiar with concepts that will likely show up  in the Land of Shadow one way or another. So yeah,  

here goes. I don't think these are just any runes,  nor do I think this is just any corpse. The thing  

this mass first reminded me of was the attire of  the godskin enemies. It's really similar in color,  

tone, and the thick folds really remind me of  skin and fat. What's more, we can see horizontal  

stitching at the edges, which brings to mind  the Godskin Stitcher, which is a weapon that  

references the creation of the Godskin attire,  which is peeled and then stitched together from  

God's skin. And considering Marika's hand alone  is bloody, it's not bloody further up, clearly,  

she's reaching into something visceral. But what  is she doing here? Obviously it's too early to say  

for sure, but I do want to comment specifically  on the shape these threads are making. It's being  

pulled into a downward arc, which is a really  potent symbol as it relates to the Elden Ring.  

So there are two downward arcs on the Elden Ring.  One is here at the bottom, which is explicitly a  

Rune Arc. It's a basin in which the blessings of  the Elden Ring pool. But the more relevant arc,  

I think, is here at the top. This arc creates  a symbol that is iconic to Marika. It's seen on  

her scarseal and in her crucifixion at the end of  the game. And now again in the trailer here and  

at the end of the trailer as well, with the gold  flowing between the two shadow trees. Something  

that the YouTuber Quelaag talked about very early  on is that Marika'a Seal seems to be a subversion  

of the Rune of Death. You would have seen the Rune  of Death after defeating Maliketh. It's something  

that was once a part of the Elden Ring, delivering  a Destined Death to all until Marika, the Eternal  

removed it and sealed it away. According to Enia,  this rune was plucked from the Golden Order upon  

the Golden Order's creation, and indeed, Marika's  age became defined by its defiance of death in  

all things. So it is that I wonder if the Rune  of Death has anything to do with the subverted  

symbol of Marika we see here. Understanding the  Rune of Death is important also, because it has  

a lot to do with the godskins. Now I'm at risk of  going too far down a tangent That could be built  

on a false premise here, but if this is Godskin we  see in the trailer, then it really could have huge  

implications for what's happening in this scene.  So let's entertain the idea that this is Godskin,  

just to see where this takes us. The leader of  the Godskin Nobles and the Godskin Apostles was  

the Gloam-eyed queen, who, like Marika, was an  Empyrean. someone chosen by the Two Fingers as  

a candidate for godhood and items describe  how she was defeated long ago by Maliketh,  

who was Marika's Shadow. So essentially she was  defeated by Marika. However, the exact nature of  

this clash is really unclear. We don't know if the  Gloam-eyed Queen and Marika were equals or rival  

Empyreans, or how or if control of the Elden Ring  was split between them. But we do know that in the  

end, Destined Death was sealed and the true power  of the Gloam-eyed Queen's blackflame was lost.  

Marika had won. So one kind of insane piece of  speculation is that this body could actually be  

the Gloam-eyed Queen's, given the Godskin and  the rune and the war that Marika won against  

her in the beginning. But this theory about this  being the Gloam-eyed Queen is entirely built upon  

the premise that this lump is Godskin, and that  premise might be false. Of all the characters we  

know in Elden Ring, I do think she's the  most likely candidate. But to be honest,  

I actually think it's more likely that this is a  character or a thing we've never seen before. It's  

a sort of tempting impulse with Elden Ring lore  to try to explain the story based on what we know,  

but the truth is that fromsoft are going  to introduce a ton of new characters and  

concepts and names that we've never even heard  of before in the DLC, and those are the things  

that will shape our new understanding of the  game. Thus, keep in mind it's just as likely  

this could be some old God We've never heard  of that Marika took runes or the Elden Ring  

from. And speaking of claiming the Elden Ring,  the soundtrack you can actually hear in this  

scene is the Elden Beasts soundtrack. The Elden  Ring became the Elden Beast, and it's something  

that we face as we attempt to claim the ring,  so maybe that's kind of what Marika is doing  

here as well. The Elden Beasts theme here  sounds really distorted, as if it's cutting  

out. I wonder why that is. Miquella the Kind spoke  of the beginning. The seduction and the betrayal.  

"Seduction and betrayal" is certainly par for  the course for Marika, Who has a history of such  

things. Rennala in particular comes to mind. She  is a champion who was seduced by Radagon, who is  

also Marika. Their marriage with Rennala settled a  war that Marika couldn't win. After which Rennala  

was abandoned by Radagon/Marika and left broken.  Marika wins again,. So I wonder if this seduction  

and betrayal that the trailer mentions could  have been applied to the Gloam-eyed Queen or some  

other rivals in the past as well? The next line  does call it an "affair". The wording makes it  

sound so scandalous, "an affair from which gold  arose." So could Marika have used Radagon to play  

that seductive trick twice? For that to be true,  Radagon would need to have been one with Marika  

since the beginning. And actually, Marika's torso  is a bit more masculine here than I expected.  

Better evidence though here is the hair. If you  look closely, you can see a strong reddish tint  

to Marika's hair, particularly at the back here.  But to be honest, I think it's more likely that  

the trailer is talking about Marika's seductions  and betrayals in a more general sense. The Erdtree  

and the Golden Order are inherently very seductive  concepts After all. It was advertised as an age of  

endless bounty and endless life. But that was  a lie, and the truth is surely more sinister,  

Clearly. So where is this place? On the border  of two worlds apparently filled with corpses  

and viscera? It's almost as if this mountain of  corpses is making up some sort of gate. From our  

perspective, you can see a golden sky within,  and a gloam colored sky without. And presumably  

the reverse would be true if you were to look in  from the other side. At first I thought this dark  

world might be the Land of Shadow, and that light  world might be the heavens or something like that,  

and that the Lands Between could be named "The  lands Between" because maybe it grew out of the  

border of these two places. Is that even possible?  Alternatively, this could be the Land of Shadow  

and the Lands Between could be the golden world  beyond. What do you guys think? So here comes the  

next crazy theory. What if this towering structure  is the Erdtree in its primordial form? It would  

make sense for the Erdtree to have been grown on  some border between worlds. It appears in both  

worlds After all, Golden in one, and shadow in the  other. The biggest piece of evidence for this idea  

is that the primordial form of the Erdtree is also  known as the Crucible, where primordial life was  

blended together. We know that the Crucible is  what became the Erdtree's vital energies. Now,  

we've never seen the physical form of this  Crucible, but we do have a few hints as to  

what it might look like. The first comes from  the gilded Greatshield, which states that the  

red tinge in the gold coat mirrors the primordial  matter that became the Erdtree. There's also a  

greatsword of a crucible night that has a red tint  that exemplifies the nature of primordial gold,  

said to be close in nature to life itself. Lastly,  red mushy root resin shows up at the Erdtree's  

own roots, and this towering structure  does feature a very red blending of life,  

What with all the viscera here. So could the  Crucible literally be a blending of lives that  

gave rise to the Erdtree? In the end here, all we  really know for sure right now is what the trailer  

literally tells us. And it's that this affair,  this beginning, gave rise to gold and shadow  

and that a war would follow sometime after. "What  followed was a war unseen. One that could never  

be put to song. A purge, without grace or honor.  The tyranny of Messmer's Flame. This part of the  

trailer is a little bit easier to explain.  Here we see Messmer's forces marching within  

this castle that we saw disintegrating in the  previous gameplay trailer. It's a bloodbath here,  

and it looks like Messmer's forces experienced  very little in the way of resistance. Perhaps the  

residents of this place weren't expecting  or prepared for a purge at all. Messmer  

stands over the battlefield, directing snakes of  red black flame below. If you need to learn more  

about who Messmer is, then I recommend you check  out our previous news video, which speculates  

more deeply on his character. But suffice to  say, he is a character that is considered to  

be on equal footing to the other demigods and  children of Marika. That's the official quote,  

and he's almost certainly a child of Marika,  given his dialog in the previous trailer. "Mother,  

Wouldst thou truly lordship sanction, in one so  bereft of light?" In this new trailer, we see  

him purging this part of the Land of Shadow, at  least in an act of what they're calling tyranny,  

presumably on behalf of his mother, who wanted  no songs sung about this land or war. Earlier,  

we speculated that Messmer might have been  specifically a child of Marika and Radagon's  

union, considering his red hair. And while I still  think that's likely to be true, I don't think we  

speculated on when Messmer would have likely been  born. So let's do that now. As far as we know,  

Radagon only made his first public appearance  in the Liurnian Wars and only had children  

with Rennala and then again with Marika after he  abandoned Rennala. However, I'm not sure it makes  

sense for Messmer to have been born that late in  the timeline, since it seems likely the purge took  

place much earlier in the timeline at a point  that followed the beginning. So what if Messmer  

was born outside of wedlock, so to speak? What  if Marika/Radagon conceived Messmer on their own,  

ages ago? In this early age, Marika might not  yet have had Godfrey to fight her wars for her,  

but it seems she did have Messmer. In this context  It might have been a brilliant political play to  

use Messmer to usurp the Land of Shadow in his  tyranny, and then essentially lock him away in  

this veiled land to rule. Maybe this solved quite  a few problems all at once, especially considering  

how blasphemous Messmer would have been to  Marika's rule in the Lands Between. Though again,  

this is just speculation. As expected, The  Wicker Men march on Messmer's side and we'll  

have to fight one, as seen here in the gameplay  trailer. A recent tweet states "the sordid sins  

of war still walk the realm of shadows, even as  their victims search fruitlessly for recompense."  

The brunt of Messmer Army consists of extremely  well disciplined, masked soldiers wielding spears,  

led perhaps by these knights in black and gold  trim. They look a lot like this Knight fought in  

the gameplay trailer. In the next scene, we see  the Lion Dancer smashing aside two of Messmer's  

soldiers before it confronts Messmer himself.  In the shot to follow, we see the flame he's  

conjuring in response to this assault, followed by  three large impaled bodies. As you might already  

know, the Lion Dancer is actually made up of three  bodies. And so the implication here is that these  

are the three bodies with long cloaks that were  puppeteering the Lion Dancer in the previous  

scene, before Messmer killed and impaled them. Now  is a good time to note that many on the receiving  

end of the Messmer's purge have what look like  omen horns. The creature on the stairs has them  

too, and its robes look a lot like the ones  worn by these enemies in the previous trailer,  

Who also have horns. As discussed at length in  previous videos. Those with omen horns can be  

linked to the Primordial Crucible and the Crucible  talismans make it clear that horns and other such  

aspects were once considered signifiers of  the divine. It seems this was a culture and  

an idea that Marika wanted to stamp out, since  she probably had new ideas about what should  

be considered heavenly. This is probably why the  almost genetic reappearance of omen horns during  

her era was seen as a bad omen, to her at least.  Maybe these horns were an element of the truth  

hidden beneath the surface, coming back to haunt  her. The only one without horns that we see on the  

receiving end of Messmer's Flame is seen here,  a feminine figure who seems to be holding some  

sort of undulating blade. Is this a spiral weapon  like so many others in Elden Ring, or is it maybe  

a sort of banner? Anyway, she's the last in this  video's long list of atrocities for now. Next,  

let's talk about Miquella, who seems intent  on bringing the truth to life. "And so Kindly  

Miquella would abandon everything. His golden  flesh, His blinding strength, Even his fate.  

But we are not deterred. We choose to follow. Will  you walk with us?" One question I'm curious about  

the answer to in the DLC is how did Miquella  become aware of what happened in the beginning  

with Marika? My answer for now is that Miquella  is quite like Marika in a couple of ways. For one,  

he's considered to be an Empyrean with the  wisdom, the allure of a god. Maybe he's quite  

capable of thinking like one. Another similarity  is that Miquella literally tried to grow his own  

Erdtree watering it with his own blood since it  was a sapling. What if this gave him an insight  

into how such trees were supposed to grow? And if  we're right about this being the Crucible, perhaps  

Miquella realized the sheer amount of blood  that would have been required for the Erdtree  

that already exists. So out of everyone, Miquella  could probably figure it out. A few items actually  

consider Miquella to be a genius, and he's  called a prodigy, so his ability to puzzle out  

the truths of this universe make good sense. In  the face of these truths, He abandoned everything,  

and these sacrifices clearly have a purpose.  We don't understand that purpose just yet. But  

take these scenes, for instance. These markings  left behind are in the shape of a great rune,  

something that Miquella would have had. And  surely these are Miquella's own great runes that  

he's leaving behind. Presumably for us. At first  I thought that you might be able to rest at these,  

like, sites of grace, but in a recent promotional  image, it's been revealed that Grace still exists  

in the Land of Shadow. The previous trailer  says that Miquella is awaiting his promised  

Lord. That's likely us, though it's possible  his followers each believe that it's them,  

as they're clearly following this hallowed land  that Miquella has left behind as well. And here  

they are, a veritable Band of the Hawk, presented  with this uplifting surge of music in the trailer,  

Miquella's faithful compelled to follow him.  Surely all these great NPCs aren't going to suffer  

horrific, terrible deaths. Right? Right? We've  already seen four of these NPCs in the previous  

trailer. There's the Knight, this warrior,  this tanky guy, and the masked one. Previously,  

the masked one was actually seen sleeping in what  we suspected was a swamp of Saint Trina. And since  

then, we've received confirmation from Miyazaki  that Saint Trina will indeed make an appearance  

in the DLC. And sure enough, here they are now in  the trailer, Saint Trina presented in the context  

of things that Miquella has abandoned "his golden  Flesh, his blinding strength, and even his fate."  

Considering Saint Trina is falling in this  scene, holding their arm up to the light.  

At first glance, I assumed that this is the fate  that Miquella was leaving behind, abandoning his  

alter ego. On second thought, though, we know  that Miquella is abandoning his golden self,  

so perhaps it's more likely that Saint Trina will  be all that's left. But since they're making an  

appearance, I assume that we'll get to the bottom  of things. All of this is a lot of speculation, I  

know. I feel like the closer we get to the truth,  the more questions are raised. But hopefully,  

if nothing else, I think this was an opportunity  to refresh our memory of a few things that we  

should look out for going into the DLC. But what  about after the DLC? Well, I found one other game  

that I'm interested in playing when it releases in  September. It's called an Enotria: The Last Song,  

and it's a lot of fun. The demo for this game is  actually available for free for everyone to try on  

steam, Epic games Store, and PS5 right now, and I  highly recommend you check it out and see if this  

is something that you might like. Now the devs are  the sponsor of this video, but I'm really picky  

with the souls-likes I play. You guys probably  haven't seen me advertise any others on this  

channel, so if I'm talking about it, that's  generally a good sign. First up, the game is  

really pretty. Like actually gorgeous. It's nice  playing a souls-like game that isn't super grim,  

and the vibe is just really on point. It takes  place in this really unique Mediterranean setting,  

and the environments are just enchanting,  to the point where I actually start to feel  

quite relaxed playing, even though the game  is also a tough souls like. As for the combat,  

it's solid. It's got the Dodge system from  Bloodborne, it's got the parry system from Sekiro,  

even the jump from Elden Ring. And there's this  great flow to combat where you're incentivized  

to dodge, but also to get perfect blocks in so  that you can build up your enemies stagger meter,  

and knock them off balance with a critical strike.  The thing I like most about the combat, though,  

are these abilities in the bottom right. You  charge them up by getting regular hits in on  

enemies, and then when you've charged these  abilities enough, you can unleash them to solve  

tricky combat situations that you find yourself  in. For example, if I was ever getting swarmed  

by an enemy, I would use this ability to dash  out and then back in with my secondary weapon.  

And if I ever needed to kill an enemy at range,  I could whip out a phantom crossbow or a lance  

and take care of whatever enemy was harassing me  at a distance. This flow between using regular  

attacks to charge up your powerful abilities, and  then going back to regular attacks and repeating  

that process that feels really good. In terms of  difficulty, I think I found myself dying maybe  

once, at least between each checkpoint, which  felt tough but fair. Since I know all of my deaths  

were deserved, like when I ignored these dancing  soldiers to loot an item, for example. A bunch of  

other stuff are The enemy placement is clever,  You're constantly finding new weapons and new  

abilities to try, and the level design is a lot  of fun too, It has a bunch of these little glowing  

glyphs that turn into platforming challenges or  combat challenges, and these are hidden throughout  

the level. The devs are also confident in  their product because they're letting me  

talk about anything, even criticisms. So I will  say on PC, the only criticism I have so far are  

some minor framerate issues, but I think that's  pretty normal for a game that's coming out in  

September. This is just a demo, so there's still  a few months to go, and I just think it's a great  

sign that these devs are really chill and letting  people say whatever they want, even though they're  

sponsoring them. In conclusion, I think this  is worth keeping an eye on to learn more and to  

wishlist the game or preorder or whatever, please  click the link in the description. Thanks to the  

devs for supporting this channel and thank  you for watching. I'll see you next time.