Sorceress Sellen

[SereneYeti]

Can anyone explain why she turned into a giant ball at the end of her quest? I really liked he as a character and while confusing i enjoyed her quest. It really bummed me out for her to pledge her loyalty to me and then i rest and head back and she's suddenly some stupid f*cking ball with no reason whatsoever...

[SIR RETARDUS]

She broke a taboo like her masters, and then share their fate, maybe even worse, because I think she did more than both of them.
Basically, she overestimated her abilities, then realized that she's just a bucket, who tried to contain a power bigger than the ocean.

[Týr'el]

Perhaps she asked Rennala for a rebirth, to be a pure mage and get rid of any faith.

[Crowley42]

I think Sellen turning into one of those big balls is a metaphor for people who learn everything in their life from others while never creating anything new themselves. She's a conglomeration of those masks, signifying the knowledge and of all the great sages before her, but she lost any sense of individuality, she didn't pursue the primordial current like Azur or Lusat and ended up being nothing more than the sum of her parts.

[Eruyaean]

Well, considering Sellen was Banished from the Academy for Studying forbidden Magic and therefore wanted to replace Rennala as Head of the Academy to research the Primeval current ("Finally i can return to the Academy. To expel the Carian royal family, and restore the primeval current"). My best guess isthat she thought she got rid of her ("Do you see this? The Queen of Caria is no more"), but massively underestimated Rennala, who then came back and handed her a Royal asswhoopin'

[Lucifer_]

There's so many questions. Like why was rennala not there after you kill jerren? Then sellen is all chipper when you talk to her and says something about re-uniting azur and lusat but then becomes a giant ball along with them and sounds like she's dying or something. And then rennala comes back. Wtf. There's open ended story telling and then there's just random garbage. This might be leaning more towards the latter.

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Lucifer_:

There's open ended story telling and then there's just random garbage. This might be leaning more towards the latter.

To me it feels like being a character in a story, but not any of the main characters. So most of the time you only see side stuff happening rather then the real meat of the plot.

[stompie5]

Originally posted by Týr'el:

Perhaps she asked Rennala for a rebirth, to be a pure mage and get rid of any faith.

You can't survive rebirth without a specific rune

[SereneYeti]

I would accept what happened to her if we got a proper explanation or at least had some reasoning behind what happened. But as people have stated it just kinda happens with no reasoning or anything (at least that the player sees and knows.) I think i could have accepted this happening more if we were given actual examples of this happening or reasoning behind why it happens instead of it just kinda happening. But currently it just kinda feels like the story went that way because someone thought it was cool.

[vamirez]

My impression was (and this was implied in her dialogue) that she was banished for practicing forbidden magic. Then she came back and took over. When she was able to do whatever she wanted she went down this forbidden path, full of hubris, and quickly became this thing. The same seems to have happened to the other wiz-balls you find - this probably happened more often before the Carians took over the academy and outlawed that crap. After her transformation Rennala returned and took over again - the new Sellen-ball cannot do anything against that.

[SmallGespenst]

Given that Sellen is referred to as "The Graven Witch" she probably got kicked out of the academy for trying / making Graven Schools in the past, also her line against Jerren where she tells him to "join the School" is probably an indication she's presently making one. probably using Lusat and Azur, given that she was trying to bring them back to the academy. also the fact that she doesn't transform until you've found Lusat lends some credence to that. I feel like she was probably consumed by her own "School" while attempting to pursue the Primeval Current.

[Majere]

There're some very deep lore-dives in Elden Ring, and we're only just beginning to see them. In Sellen's case, there seems to be some connection between Primal Glintstone sorcery and the stars, and the stars are connected with the meteors and gravity magic. Gravity magic is the domain of Astel and the various Lords (with the greatswords, such as the Alabaster Lord and Onyx Lord). It seems that when tapping the very most powerful sorcery, mages encounter some force they're not prepared to handle, and Sellen shows us the results. It's not likely to be a coincidence that all of the most powerful mages (Azur, Lusat) are basically immobile and incapable of speech when we find them, and remember Lusat's staff is found at another Graven School.

[vamirez]

Or to sum it up: "The dwarves dug too deep."

[Kurnauskis uwu]

Originally posted by TheCaptainGhost:

You neede to take side of Jarren and finish off that abomination

But that locks u out of the best armour ingame

[♔V3RD1CT]

Originally posted by SereneYeti:

Can anyone explain why she turned into a giant ball at the end of her quest? I really liked he as a character and while confusing i enjoyed her quest. It really bummed me out for her to pledge her loyalty to me and then i rest and head back and she's suddenly some stupid f*cking ball with no reason whatsoever...

Have you met the gem mage yet? So as the story will kinda shine a light on, experimenting with gem magic somehow caused this form of leaving the mortal vessel, and it seems very clear to me story wise that at some point in gem magic you eventually become more gem, natural type of stone resonating magic then human.

Seems the obvious reason for this is that at some point the hypothetical refraction, power in which the gems are required becomes far too great for a mortal body. Eventually they must ascend into a form that assists in the growth of gem power.

Having seen the gem wizard now, and seeing the others in castles had become entirely stone orbs of multiple consciousness, (guessing that by all the faces,) tells me this is prob true.

[Last Place (Makeaton)]

Before the room where you fight red puppers, you can go to the left and pick up a talisman that explains it.

Its normal for Graven sorcerors to just squeeze more sorcerors into a magic ball to help with casting more powerful spells and such.