Spoilers - Lore Discussion - Is this the worst lore DLC From has made?

[Chris1]

Let's talk the ending boss reveal - Radahn of all people. They ret-conned Malenia saying "promised cohort" to Radahn in their battle, something that has no other reference or hint in the base game. All the most likely theories for why Malenia was fighting Radahn involved her assuming he kidnapped Miquella, or some problem with Radahn holding back stars preventing Miquella from achieving his victories.

This is also somewhat tied into the Amber Starlight, which is found directly in front of a statue of Miquella/Malenia.

St Trina? She apparently is a manifestation of Miquella's love and is left in some cave in the shadow realm. How does that jive with all the other St Trina content, including her proselytizing around the lands between? What is up with St Trina basically killing people who imbibe nectar?

The entire concept of the shadow realm, why did Miquella even need to ascend to the shadow realm? Why is Messmer related and locked there and why did Messmer seal Miquella? These are all children of Marika and yet the story trailer implies these events kicked off Marika's ascension to god-hood, so she was having these kids before that? The timeline doesn't make any sense.

IMO it would have been much cooler if they at least left corroborating hints of all of this in the base game so they could point to a cohesive and consistent narrative, but it's almost like they left everything so intentionally vague and without context that they could do whatever they want in the DLC and just call it a day.

All throughout the DLC I got strong vibes of "they are just making this stuff up and not even trying to make sense" and it kind of ruined the base game lore for me.

[Chris1]

And if Radahn agreed to be the consort, why not just, you know, take him like he took Mogh? Why nuke him with rot first? And leave Malenia completely in the dark, guarding an empty tree, for no reason?

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by Chris1:

And if Radahn agreed to be the consort, why not just, you know, take him like he took Mogh? Why nuke him with rot first? And leave Malenia completely in the dark, guarding an empty tree, for no reason?

Yeah, the only possible explanation for this would be Radahn wasn’t on board with this, and instead oh Mohg being the crazy stalker, Miquella is the crazy ex girlfriend sending someone to stab you for rejecting you.

Otherwise it makes no sense sending Malenia to kill him, because if they were all on board none of their actions make sense

[CourtesyFlush09]

I kinda agree. There are still so many unanswered questions that I feel Miyazaki and his team intentionally left up in the air for people like Vaati to figure out. It just feels lazy.

For example, unless I missed something, did we finally figure out how Marika was able to create a male version of herself that could live independently from her?

[Valthejean]

Originally posted by CourtesyFlush09:

I kinda agree. There are still so many unanswered questions that I feel Miyazaki and his team intentionally left up in the air for people like Vaati to figure out. It just feels lazy.

For example, unless I missed something, did we finally figure out how Marika was able to create a male version of herself that could live independently from her?

I think that’s just kinda nebulous mythology god shenanigans. In Norse mythology, Loki turns himself into a mare and gets pregnant. In ER, Marika and Miquella get alter egos of the opposite sex, so I just kinda assume that’s something the gods/demigods can do

[Lunar Shower]

Originally posted by Valthejean:

Originally posted by CourtesyFlush09:

I kinda agree. There are still so many unanswered questions that I feel Miyazaki and his team intentionally left up in the air for people like Vaati to figure out. It just feels lazy.

For example, unless I missed something, did we finally figure out how Marika was able to create a male version of herself that could live independently from her?

I think that’s just kinda nebulous mythology god shenanigans. In Norse mythology, Loki turns himself into a mare and gets pregnant. In ER, Marika and Miquella get alter egos of the opposite sex, so I just kinda assume that’s something the gods/demigods can do

How exactly, unsure, but realistically I think we got one of our best possible examples of how it might happen due to the dlc, namely Radagon is likely to Marika what St.Trina is to Miquella, an aspect and alter ego of their whole self, as unless I'm mistaken, Marika would have had to take many of the same steps that Miquella did to become a god, abandoning pieces of herself before taking part in the divine gates ritual ultimately as seen in the trailers, though she may have also had other means to do so given her ties to the Greater Will, or at the very least The Fingers.

[mpcgannon]

I thought Godwyn was going to disco-walk in like Jesus and be a spectacle fight. Pretty much damned if you do ( kill him proper in the DLC ) damned if you don't ( death root spreads ). It would have been a neat, self contained package.

[Omni37]

Im glad im not the only one who thought that this lore was quite disjointed from the main game. I am losing my mind reading the elden ring lore reddit and anyone bringing up valid criticisms against the lore go "you just don't understand the lore" or other snarky things. Like the ♥♥♥♥ with Radahn feels so slapped on just to bring him back. Oh there is the supposed promise that was apparently very important to the story and the whole reason why Malenia and Radahn fought, but just happened to leave it out or any clue of it in the base game, and whatever Malenia said to Radahn surely was ALWAYS what was revealed in the dlc cause its not like the can just make her say whatever they wanted to fit the dlc right? Like it feels soooo disjointed and lacks any foreshadow or narrative logic

Like Radahn should have been Godwyn cause of base game connections to Miquella's character, and also interesting tie-ins to the eclipse and the haligtree statues or something to do with souls and "reviving a lord and putting a soul in a vessel", but people just write it off now and say he's "dead-dead, resurrection would never work cause it failed get over it".

If that the case Radahn's soul should also be destroyed cause we kill him and when we released the rune of death, everyone that died should be dead now especially now the Erdtree burned, but we can still fight him after we burn the tree so only an assumption without evidence could explain why Rahdans soul survived like canonically its before the burning or Miquella grabbed it before that or some bs. Gameplay wise I know that it would be annoying to make a new character to access the dlc to go before the burning of the tree, but ingame it doesn't make sense. Also its so weird how no npc from the base game or anything reacts to such a big plot of this dlc, like the mother of the fingers being the one behind them all along, but can't tell anyone bout that i guess. I can go into even more of things not making sense, but i have gone on long enough. Hope more theories come out that explain in a logical way cause right now the dlc feels like its just slapped on with no thought.

[Kain]

Originally posted by Buurt:

The lore is great.... it has like million things going on alone map wise.....
Its one of the best DLC's design and lore wise and everything else.
The main story lore overall is always weak, but 80% of the lore isn't even found out about yet.
The whole map design has lore reasons and what else.....
Only reason to say the lore is weak is when you don't even know about 90% of it

Or I
I could say the reason you like the lore is because you guess 90% of it.

I think the lore in Souls games have interesting elements and small little stories and a mysterious World, but it has so many holes regarding what is is going on and why that, that you can watch 3 different lore YouTubers and see 3 different theories.

That's not to say it's good or bad, the game is deliberately being ambiguous and it does it right, but judging someone for not understanding the plot is funny to me, since no one does, maybe not even 70%. I have trouble agreeing that in a game where so much of the known understanding is pure conjecture that someone really had a tangible high ground, even Vaati gets a lot wrong that he has to correct himself.

[CourtesyFlush09]

Originally posted by Omni37:

Like it feels soooo disjointed and lacks any foreshadow or narrative logic

Do you think it's because George RR Martin wasn't involved with the DLC at all? That's my only logical explanation.

I mean, From themselves are really good at lore (as evidenced by the Souls games), but SotE seems so disjointed from the base game that it feels like it was the direct result of Miyazaki being unable to read Martin's mind.

[LuckyCheshire]

Originally posted by CourtesyFlush09:

Originally posted by Omni37:

Like it feels soooo disjointed and lacks any foreshadow or narrative logic

Do you think it's because George RR Martin wasn't involved with the DLC at all? That's my only logical explanation.

I mean, From themselves are really good at lore (as evidenced by the Souls games), but SotE seems so disjointed from the bases game that it feels like it was the direct result of Miyazaki being unable to read Martin's mind.

It was stated that the DLC lore is just more of the stuff that GRRM left for them when he was hired for the base game that they didn't get to use yet. And that there's still plenty more. So he wasn't directly involved, but it's still all his stuff. Except for the stuff that was obviously changed that doesn't make any sense.

[.]

Nah the lore is solid but there are still holes that can be filled. Maybe From will do another DLC

[CourtesyFlush09]

Originally posted by LuckyCheshire:

Originally posted by CourtesyFlush09:

Do you think it's because George RR Martin wasn't involved with the DLC at all? That's my only logical explanation.

I mean, From themselves are really good at lore (as evidenced by the Souls games), but SotE seems so disjointed from the bases game that it feels like it was the direct result of Miyazaki being unable to read Martin's mind.

It was stated that the DLC lore is just more of the stuff that GRRM left for them when he was hired for the base game that they didn't get to use yet. And that there's still plenty more. So he wasn't directly involved, but it's still all his stuff. Except for the stuff that was obviously changed that doesn't make any sense.

Huh, well ♥♥♥♥ me then.

[sudokuyourselfnow]

Originally posted by Buurt:

The lore is great.... it has like million things going on alone map wise.....
Its one of the best DLC's design and lore wise and everything else.
The main story lore overall is always weak, but 80% of the lore isn't even found out about yet.
The whole map design has lore reasons and what else.....
Only reason to say the lore is weak is when you don't even know about 90% of it

Good job defending Miyazaki's storytelling. We will approve the transaction for your work. Expect to see your payment by 2-3 working days.

[Omni37]

Originally posted by CourtesyFlush09:

Originally posted by Omni37:

Like it feels soooo disjointed and lacks any foreshadow or narrative logic

Do you think it's because George RR Martin wasn't involved with the DLC at all? That's my only logical explanation.

I mean, From themselves are really good at lore (as evidenced by the Souls games), but SotE seems so disjointed from the base game that it feels like it was the direct result of Miyazaki being unable to read Martin's mind.

Tbh i don't think GRRM had as much of a an impact with the story as people think cause if i remember when he talks about its very bare bones in very basic plot summary of the elden ring and the shattering and all that. Everything else that came after that basic plot i think Miyazaki and his writer wrote the details and everything else so i don't really think Martin had anything to do with the dlc unless there something im missing cause if he was there is a lot of foreshadow and literary devices that Martin is known for in his books cause if he did i would have felt these plot narratives would have been clues in the base game and also we know there was lot of story lines and quest cut from ER so it doesn't seem he wrote the entire story like some people think.

[Wheee333ee33e3e]

These games lore are paper thin excuses to design grosteque monsters for boss fights. So is the rest of the map and everything else.

I actually wouldn't mind if elden ring was just 50 consecutive boss fights in different rooms, instead of constantly looking at YouTube for locations of skooma tree fragments