The true reason we are guided by the Greater Will

[Joe_Mayo]

Only the Greater Will is a God. When the Lords of the Lands between appropriated the title of god, the Greater Will guided them to their destruction. Their destruction includes guiding us to be Elden Lord. As a "Tarnished" we are inherently less inclined to call ourselves god.

The Elden Ring (The Order of Life) was a gift from the Greater Will and Removing Destined death from the Elden Ring and attempting to create a new order (The golden order) is an affront to the Greater will and an attempt to fabricate godhood.

Like Giddeon the all knowing said, "a man cannot kill a god". He is correct but we are not fighting gods.

More to come.
Praise the Greater Will, Praise the Elden Ring.
I will answer all questions and debunk the old misbegotten theories.

[Lord Bob]

Originally posted by Joe_Mayo:

Only the Greater Will is a God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLikP6BDH5w

There's also the Formless Mother, the Twinbird who is an envoy for a nameless outer god, the Sealed God of Scarlet Rot, the Frenzied Flame, possible also the Dark Moon, the Blood Star (might be connected to the Formless Mother), the Fell God, an unnamed ancient Dragon God with Placidusax being it's envoy, and probably more I just couldn't recall right now.

edit:
Whatever it is that resides within the Lands Between, it seems to be the driving force behind all those outer gods to compete against each other so they can call it their own.

[vamirez]

You are aware that the Greater Will is also an invading entity that eats souls, yes?

[Joe_Mayo]

@Lord Bob
Sealed God of Scarlet Rot, Dark Moon, frenzied flame, the Blood Star/formless mother, fell god(is just fire) are Forces of nature personified like Earths Thor, Rah, Poseidon. It's the Lands between version of paganism.
In a world that has abandoned the Greater Will and is in so much turmoil, cults have formed around these false idols.
Unnamed ancient dragon god is speculation for content. Placidusax is an envoy for the Greater Will.

@Vamirez
Golden order blasphemous propaganda. The Greater Will doesn't eat souls, it has a purpose for every soul after the soul leaves the body. Removing destined death from the Elden ring has interrupted the Greater Wills plan as the Souls of the land between are stuck in their mortal bodies until they can be released in a way they were not originally destined.

@Anyone
I can go into more details on any point if you have specific questions. I don't want to post a TLDR going into crazy detail on every aspect.

[Old Captain Yon]

B-but why do we kill the embodiment of Great Will? Tarnished is then akin to a chudjack who decimates all cringe and democrats, only to behead Trump in the end? (pardon my french) GW was never a benevolent deity, as all others actually (Deathbirds even are depicted as malevolent by those who served them), to small people. It's not about god vs THE BETTER god, but about "man" vs all gods/cosmic powers/whatever. We defeat them and then we become the lord.

[Joe_Mayo]

@Old Captain Yon
It's the GW final test of our will. It is in fact, the only test the GW actually gives us. The rest of our journey is spent slaying pretenders.

[Old Captain Yon]

Originally posted by Joe_Mayo:

@Old Captain Yon
It's the GW final test of our will. It's the only test the GW actually gives us. The rest of our journey is spent slaying pretenders.

It does make sense if you don't take one ending into account, y'know, THAT one. Cuz then the greater will is kinda fcked, at least in this world. Not to mention the Ranni ending whose sole purpose was, well, to get rid of GW's influence. My opinion is, that GW just doesn't care. In battle with EB we see many trees, and what if each tree is a world? Like, every player's world etc, kinda endless dimensions. And EB is, quite literally, just a housecat that has one task, and that is to protect Elden Ring. Look at it's grab attack - it is exactly what happened to rebel queen Marika when she shattered the ER. But still, just a single-minded dog, which we slay. And then proceed to kick GW out of the world (in some endings)

[Greywander]

Religion is a tricky topic when it comes to Japanese media. Elden Ring takes place in a medieval fantasy setting, so it draws some obvious inspiration from Christianity. But the Japanese don't have the same cultural context that westerners do, and they sometimes miss the point of the finer aspects of western religions (we do the same for eastern religions). Organized religions that are secretly corrupt are common tropes in every culture, but it seems like it's more of a Japanese thing to make God himself a malevolent entity.

Like, imagine a western game with heavy Buddhist influence where the Buddha analogue turns out to be evil. It would probably seem very strange and nonsensical to an eastern audience, but most westerners wouldn't see the problem with it.

So I don't really know if the Greater Will is supposed to be malevolent or benevolent or ambivalent. It seems mostly ambivalent, willing to accept any order (even a cursed order like the Dung Eater ending) so long as there is order. I'm not really sure where killing the Elden Beast fits into things either. Isn't the Elden Beast also the Elden Ring? Does killing the Beast not destroy/damage the Ring? Perhaps killing the Elden Beast allows Marika to reign supreme and not be held under the sway of the Greater Will.

[Joe_Mayo]

@Old Captain Yon
Can't just give any old chap good with a knife title Elden lord. You want to be the next Envoy, you gotta earn it from the Big guy.

Some Tarnished stray from the Greater Will on their path. All creatures do posses a lesser will after all. Which is why a test is necessary.

[cybercybercybercyber4]

Originally posted by Joe_Mayo:

@Anyone
I can go into more details on any point if you have specific questions.

ok. What happens if in multiplayer the blue phantom stays with irina while you give irinas letter to edgar?

[vamirez]

Originally posted by Joe_Mayo:

@Vamirez
Golden order blasphemous propaganda. The Greater Will doesn't eat souls, it has a purpose for every soul after the soul leaves the body. Removing destined death from the Elden ring has interrupted the Greater Wills plan as the Souls of the land between are stuck in their mortal bodies until they can be released in a way they were not originally destined.

Ok, I see what kind of thread this is ;) Have fun.

[Joe_Mayo]

Originally posted by cybercybercybercyber4:

Originally posted by Joe_Mayo:

@Anyone
I can go into more details on any point if you have specific questions.

ok. What happens if in multiplayer the blue phantom stays with irina while you give irinas letter to edgar?

That cannot happen. So nothing of nothing is nothing.

[Despiser]

Originally posted by Greywander:

Religion is a tricky topic when it comes to Japanese media. Elden Ring takes place in a medieval fantasy setting, so it draws some obvious inspiration from Christianity. But the Japanese don't have the same cultural context that westerners do, and they sometimes miss the point of the finer aspects of western religions (we do the same for eastern religions). Organized religions that are secretly corrupt are common tropes in every culture, but it seems like it's more of a Japanese thing to make God himself a malevolent entity.

Like, imagine a western game with heavy Buddhist influence where the Buddha analogue turns out to be evil. It would probably seem very strange and nonsensical to an eastern audience, but most westerners wouldn't see the problem with it.

So I don't really know if the Greater Will is supposed to be malevolent or benevolent or ambivalent. It seems mostly ambivalent, willing to accept any order (even a cursed order like the Dung Eater ending) so long as there is order. I'm not really sure where killing the Elden Beast fits into things either. Isn't the Elden Beast also the Elden Ring? Does killing the Beast not destroy/damage the Ring? Perhaps killing the Elden Beast allows Marika to reign supreme and not be held under the sway of the Greater Will.

That's a pretty big leap from organized religions to Elden Ring. While there is some inherent inspiration that's natural (has to be based on something after all), I wouldn't read to much into it. Every creative work does it. Tolkien drew upon Christianity, Nordic mythology and a slew of other divine or spiritual beliefs but nobody ever questioned the relationships because it's not sensitive unless you are implying a tangible connection.

[Joe_Mayo]

Originally posted by Despiser:

That's a pretty big leap from organized religions to Elden Ring. While there is some inherent inspiration that's natural (has to be based on something after all), I wouldn't read to much into it. Every creative work does it. Tolkien drew upon Christianity, Nordic mythology and a slew of other divine or spiritual beliefs but nobody ever questioned the relationships because it's not sensitive unless you are implying a tangible connection.

Thank you,

I'm not trying to send things off the rails here, just a lore discussion.

[Greywander]

Perhaps I misinterpreted the OP. It kind of sounded like he was projecting real world religious views onto the game, particularly with calling the Greater Will the only God and that it punished the blasphemous pretenders to godhood. The argument I was trying to make is that, despite any parallels, you can't just treat the Greater Will as equivalent to the Christian God. I find such parallels to be dubious, as there's often a critical aspect that's missing or different, and it completely changes the nature of the parallel. The Lands Between isn't Narnia.

But yeah, I think the Greater Will is more ambivalent. It's greatest concern seems more to be that order of some kind, any kind, exists, and not how that order affects the people of the Lands Between.

I've seen a suggestion that the Greater Will is actually not an "outer" god, as in, a foreign god, but is the "native" god of the Lands Between. If so, then there's an argument to be made that, ambivalent or not, it's still best to adhere to the Greater Will and oppose the outer gods.

Another interesting facet is that the "outer" gods don't seem to come from outer space. They all seem to exist as a physical presence within the Lands Between (in stark contrast to the Greater Will, which has no physical presence). The god of rot is buried under the Lake of Rot. The Fell God is embedded in the Fire Giant (and may very well perish when we slay the giant). Not much is known about the Twinbird or Formless Mother, but it's not hard to imagine that they, too, exist somewhere within the Lands Between. When Mohg nihils, he's sticking his trident through a portal to wound the Formless Mother, and I think bloodflame is the Formless Mother's blood, so she has to be somewhere.

[Madao]

who says the "outer gods" aren't just different parts of the Greater Will?
"all roads lead to me" kinda thing.