The Elden Ring Demigods as Actual Demigods (Greek)

[Mr_Blank]

After seeing resembalances between the Elden Ring Demigods and the Greek Mythos Demigods, I decided to challenge myself to see which greek gods fit the character of the Elden Ring demigods in. keep in mind I did study greek mythology for only 5 months, so I am not an expert, but what I did share today is either from the story of heracles, dionysus, zeus, the titans, the war against the titans, hera, and zeus' other children.

Radahn would be a stand in for Ares, a powerful warmonger whos lust stems from conflict and fighting.

Ranni would be Artemis, god of the hunt and the moon. Ranni has immense relation to the moon, is pretty darn smart, and one of the biggest things she did was initiate the night of the black knives, which was a literal hunt for godwyn.

Rykard would easily be a mixture of Medusa (for reasons i dont need to explain) and Hephestaus, the god of metalworking and fire. Rykard created his sword out of his warriors, but he still made it alone which counts as metalworking, and obviously he has more relation to fire than any other demigod.

Miqeulla would actually be Eirene, the godess of Peace. Miquella's main motivation of the haligtree was to create a utopia that was stronger and more welcoming to all then the golden order, and we don't really see his dark side yet.

Malenia could be a stand in for Artemis, but Ranni fit's the moon part better than Malenia. SO, I decided that Enyo, the goddess of war, fits Malenia's character a lot better.

Now Mohg is especially interesting, because there's no real mainsteam god that fits him better than it fits someone else. So. I decided that Mohg would be perfect as Dionysus. Dionysus was cast out by his mother as a baby, similarly to mohg, and spent his days after lavishing and lusting in his own glory and kingdom, as did mohg

Morgott would be a good stand in for Athena, the godess of wisdom and reason. Morgott is a diplomatic character, he only engages in combat when he absolutely needs to, and does so for reasons that he beleives in. He could just go to the streets of limgrave (like a certain tree sentinel we know) and beat the living piss out of tarnished, but only protects 2 places: the first great rune, and the erdtree itself. Athena is also seen as a powerful and unexpected warrior. similar to how most people (me included) assumed that the first boss would be a bit less difficult than the last (i still consider margit a bit easier than radagon, but not as annoyingly hard as elden beast)

Now because we know so little about him, I would actually consider Godwyn to be Tartarus, the god of the underworld pit. I can only relate the two because tartarus is related to botht he pits of tartatus, the prison, and the udnerworld pit, a death pit. Godwyn is related to both imprisonment AND death, as he was the first demigod to die, and his body still lives on despite not having a soul. Tartatus also had a song with Gaia named Typhon, who was a literal dragon. Whiile Godwyn never had a son, he is the one character other than Vyke in close relations to a dragon: Fortissax.

last of the demigod children and definetly the least, Godrick. Godrick would likely not even be a god (fittingly) and could actually be considered as the Heckatonkaries, a group of giants with 1000 hands and 1000 heads that guard the doors of tartarus, the prison of the titans. Godrick is lesser to all gods (as is the heckatonkaries) and guards the great rune he holds, and the throne of stormveil. also, Stormveil feels like a gigantic horrfiyng prison at times like tartarus, with cells, massive amounts of bodies, and limbs hanging from the ceiling (and the fact that you lose runes while there) But if you wanted to stretch, or should I say graft, a god for godrick, he could potentially be loki if you diluted loki of ALL of his smart and wit.

Finally, Radagon/Marika are Zeus. Zeus, through countless marriges, affairs, and an incident where he had sex with someone as a GOOSE, creates the majority of the demigod population, as did radagon. They also try to take control of their world by force from the people that made them. In zeus’s case, he launched a war against his father and the other titans and either killed or trapped them in tartatus. And in radagon/marikas case, the cut of the rune of death to control it, and also eventually shattered the elden ring.

Now I'm well aware Godfrey, Malekith and Renalla aren't demigods, but both of them are PERFECT stand in's for other gods.

Godfrey is a tarnished turned consort to a god and becomes all powerful, which is INSANLEY similar to the story of Heracles, a human turned god.

Renalla is suprisingly Hera, the godess of marrige. After losing the love of their husbands, or becoming jealous to one of his husbands children (hera) both these ladies go insane. In Hera's case she becomes a psycopath on the ungodly quest to ruin Heracles' life, and in Renalla's case, she becomes obsessed with rebirth.

Malekith is obviously hades. While it was Marika who cut the rune of death off of the elden ring, it was malekith who was entrusted to guard and keep destined death, similar to how hades given the underworld part of the kingdom when poseidon, zeus, and himself divided the land of the titans between them (with poseidon taking the seas, duh, and zeus taking the skies, duh.)

Also if anyone wants me to do norse, um, no, I only know stuffabout it from god of war 4 and ragnarok. I only know the greek mythos good (kinda) because I studied it in a world history class for the better part of 5 months.

[Mr_Blank]

oh and also TL;DR

Radahn=Ares
Ranni=Artemis
Rykard=Hephestaus
Miquella=Iriene
Malenia=Enyo
Mohg=Dioonysus
Morgott=Athena
Godwyn=Tartarus
Godrick= Either the Heckatonkaries or loki (minus his charm wit and smarts)
Radagon/Marika=Zeus
Godfrey=Heracles
Renalla=Hera
Malekith=Hades

You want an explanation READ IT.

[chima]

so miyazaki is such a talentless hack that he has to steal millenia old ideas? lol... then again the greeks stole their gods from egypt so i guess nobody outside of africa has anything original to offer to the world

[Mr_Blank]

引用自 chima：

so miyazaki is such a talentless hack that he has to steal millenia old ideas? lol... then again the greeks stole their gods from egypt so i guess nobody outside of africa has anything original to offer to the world

that wasn't the point of this, but if you want to call the guy whos made 8 bestselling games with unique characters and stories (apart from DS1 2 and 3 having the same worlds) then thats fine by me.

[Zebedee]

On my last playthrough was actually thinking about Frazer's Golden Bough and his ideas about archetypes. (We know now that Frazer should have laid off the opium pipe a little although there's possibly kernels of useful ideas in there too - but he's very influential in literature.) Think anyone familiar with the work will see where this would go linking fertility cults, Greek gods, ritual sacrifice, and this game.

[RubbaKeys16k]

引用自 chima：

so miyazaki is such a talentless hack that he has to steal millenia old ideas? lol... then again the greeks stole their gods from egypt so i guess nobody outside of africa has anything original to offer to the world

You definitely don’t

[GloriousZote]

This is a really bad take.

[cheetah1546]

引用自 chima：

so miyazaki is such a talentless hack that he has to steal millenia old ideas? lol... then again the greeks stole their gods from egypt so i guess nobody outside of africa has anything original to offer to the world

disagree

[Heimdall313]

Radahn is actually the most interesting demigod, imo. The comparison to Ares is reasonable, though the analysis and logic is completely off. Neither is an insane bloodlust trope. Radahn for example, is very clear in his alignment and loyalty, and idolizes the positive aspects of both Godfrey, First Elden Lord and Radagon, his father and King-Consort. Both his idols are flawed (an important characteristic in Greco-Roman mythos), with Godfrey's actual bloodlust bound by Saresh(spl?), his golden lion and shadow-beast (an aspect shared and imposed by Marika), and Radagon, who abandoned his wife and children. Radahn's death is extremely tragic, in the true sense of the word, another recurrent and important Greco-Roman characteristic. Radahn almost broke my heart when I learned more about him and gleaned a bit from his battle theme (my Latin is shabby, but it feels like those themes either have a lot of Latin-sounding vocables or the Magyari accents of the choir is throwing me off a lot). Radahn's duel against an opponent of nearly equal strength, and indisputable opposition to the "holy order" of the realm (Golden Order, the cult of Radagon at the time), ending so close as to have no real winner, is also a mythological/cultural theme seen in some Greek works, or can be seen as allegorical to a "Pyrrhic Victory" of Radahn, perhaps even the heroic, if devastating, Battle of Thermopylae (the movie "300" is loosely based off of).
I have to hesitate every time I say it, but Radahn (and to similar extent, Godfrey) is the Noble Warrior-King "archetype", in the actual and forgotten sense of each of those words. If you compare Godfrey to Beowulf, which I would, Radahn would be Wiglaf. Godwyn could be argued, but is more akin to Baldur.

Basically, a Greek mythological comparison is close (since there's obviously heavy influence) but its not complete, the epic of Beowulf for example is also present, as is some loose Germanic-Nordic (Godfrey's War against the Fire Giants, the Erdtree is comparable to Yggdrasil, the great tree with roots in the Urd-Wells). Fictional polytheistic pantheons often mix allegories and allusions to the major historical and surviving polytheistic faiths (Hellensim, Asatru, Hinduism, etc) with some creative license thrown in for flavor so its often incomplete to make a comparison to a singular mythos.

But if you wanted to stretch, or should I say graft, a god for godrick, he could potentially be loki if you diluted loki of ALL of his smart and wit.

I damn Marvel for all eternity for commercializing an actual religion and maliciously skinning it. Loki is not smart, he's not witty and funny. He's outright malicious, he is treason and betrayal in its most abhorrent forms. He is the kin-slayer, entropy, subversion, illusion, lies, and the catalyst of catastrophe. Worship a demon, it'd be more respectable.
Godrick is petty, arrogant, and weak before the other demigods. You can hear it in his (phase 1) battle theme: "TIMIDORO, TIMIDORO", where we derive the modern word "timid" from. The first word of his phase 2 theme, "TESTIMONEUM", during his infamous and admittedly epic "BEAR WITNESS" scene. He's diminutive, the runt of the litter. If anything, its a classic trope of a king's 4th son that no one cares about that got a petty estate because dad didn't barter it off to a belligerent vassal. I can't think of anything Loki and Godrick have in common beyond "fictional commercial product". If Godrick killed Godwyn, you'd have something but that was Ranni, who actually comes closer, being of no relation to Godwyn.
... Godrick is legit one of my favorite Elden demigods though, I am a battle-axe and fireballs man myself. I like him even though he's grotesque.

引用自 chima：

the greeks stole their gods from egypt

The ruling and priest classes of ancient Egypt were Greek. Egyptian and Greek mythos are more closely related than Egyptian mythos is to any sub-saharan African mythos, Turkic, or Semitic culture. I don't know why people need constant reminders of this. It's barely on the African continent, Syrians are closer to and more influential on Egyptian mythos/history/modern foreign policy/anything than the Bantu are.

[fmalfeas]

引用自 Heimdall313：

But if you wanted to stretch, or should I say graft, a god for godrick, he could potentially be loki if you diluted loki of ALL of his smart and wit.

I damn Marvel for all eternity for commercializing an actual religion and maliciously skinning it. Loki is not smart, he's not witty and funny. He's outright malicious, he is treason and betrayal in its most abhorrent forms. He is the kin-slayer, entropy, subversion, illusion, lies, and the catalyst of catastrophe. Worship a demon, it'd be more respectable.
Godrick is petty, arrogant, and weak before the other demigods. You can hear it in his (phase 1) battle theme: "TIMIDORO, TIMIDORO", where we derive the modern word "timid" from. The first word of his phase 2 theme, "TESTIMONEUM", during his infamous and admittedly epic "BEAR WITNESS" scene. He's diminutive, the runt of the litter. If anything, its a classic trope of a king's 4th son that no one cares about that got a petty estate because dad didn't barter it off to a belligerent vassal. I can't think of anything Loki and Godrick have in common beyond "fictional commercial product". If Godrick killed Godwyn, you'd have something but that was Ranni, who actually comes closer, being of no relation to Godwyn.
... Godrick is legit one of my favorite Elden demigods though, I am a battle-axe and fireballs man myself. I like him even though he's grotesque.

If people really, really feel compelled to compare a character in Elden Ring to Loki, I'd say it's Marika/Radagon.

Marika's words at the churches make it plain that she basically willfully engineered everything to make the world a neverending and pointless power struggle between her children and descendants in a desperate bid from them to not be written off as sacrifices.

Her biggest issue with what Ranni did, really, seems to be that it put real death on the table, which could end her horrific little reality show. And thinking about it, if Melina *is* the Gloam-Eyed Queen, that would mean Marika had Maliketh destroy her in order to take Death off the table for good. Which would /not/ contradict anything Melina tells us...it would just mean that she's not telling us that she's the boogeyman of the Gods, and she's 'burned and bodiless' because she almost put an end to Marika's atrocity hour.

That's the kind of horrors Loki would inflict upon the world. Kinda like how he popped out a god-eating wolf and a world-crushing snake, and then allied with the Jotunbrund and Surturbrund to annihilate all worlds.

[CourtesyFlush09]

stopped reading after you equated Radahn to Ares (hint: ER's real Ares has a giant lion on his back).

[Wild]

引用自 chima：

so miyazaki is such a talentless hack that he has to steal millenia old ideas? lol... then again the greeks stole their gods from egypt so i guess nobody outside of africa has anything original to offer to the world

Miyazaki? NEVER!
Also...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/11b3fb5/the_heirloom_talismans_are_based_off_of_a_real/

[Weedsmell]

引用自 CourtesyFlush90：

stopped reading after you equated Radahn to Ares (hint: ER's real Ares has a giant lion on his back).

i thought the same but godfrey is not called a demigod in the game's lore, so i let it slide

[cridus]

maliketh*

rennala*

[Mr_Blank]

引用自 CourtesyFlush90：

stopped reading after you equated Radahn to Ares (hint: ER's real Ares has a giant lion on his back).

Valid comparison I just think that because Godfrey is a tarnished turned demigod’s consort that he lines up more with Heracles, and radahn, who also is a warmonger known for battle is ares.

[fmalfeas]

Feel like I should point out that a Demigod is half-god, half-mortal. A lot of the entities in the list are full gods or just mythic figures. Though Heracles has the odd distinction of being a Demigod who ascended to full godhood...*AFTER* he murdered his wife and kids in a fit of rage because he decided his wife must have been sleeping with a centaur.