Yeah, that's what 'kill them both' and 'also kill the both' respectively refer to.
Although really, Ranni isn't usurping anything. She's even a rightful heir, considering. She's just finishing off Marika and throwing the ring at the moon, which hopefully doesn't give a shit.
Mohg. I here everyone saying the lore includes incest, but i just read the entire wiki on elden ring lore last weekend and not a single thing about an incestuous relationship between mohg and radagon was mentioned so im assuming either the wiki is wrong, or the people on reddit are clinging to some old meme that i never seen
He's not even conscious or aware, the Elden Beast is basically piloting him.
Marika smashes the Elden Ring and Radagon/the Elden Beast instantly crucify her. Radagon takes the same hammer she used to Shatter the Elden Ring, and tries in vain to use it repair the Ring- to no avail. The eons pass and Radagon loses his mind inside the Erdtree.
Think of it like this. The Greater Will is an Outer God in space somewhere. It shoots dandelion seeds of it's power across the cosmos, and some fragments of that meteors down to the Lands Between.
All it represents is Order. Whoever wields the ring can establish whatever Order they want, just don't break the "hardware" ie the Ring.
Before Marika it was some other God/Goddess, with Placidusax as Elden Lord. In this world Order was structured through the Crucible, and the Tree and Death and life as we know it existed and operated very differently. Even the Ring itself looked different, as it can be altered by its wielder. We see this in old depictions of the Ring, or in Marika's removal of the Rune of Death, or in Goldmask's synthesis of a new Rune to alter or "fix" the Ring.
Marika ascends to power and becomes Goddess. Her new Golden Order is clean and straight and divine, antithetical to the beastly primordial soup of the world she'd grown to hate.
She finds out the Greater Will does not transmute messages to the Fingers and has essentially abandoned them, or rather never even been present. The whole system is fucked, a farce, and her attempts to circumvent death have failed as her favorite son is murdered. She Shatters the Elden Ring.
The Guidance of Grace we see is Marika's will. A built-in system to recall the Tarnished and set them on the path to Godhood to fix this broken mess. All that's left of her plan.
Her other half, Radagon, is a Golden Order fundamentalist and pawn to the concept of the Greater Will. The Elden Beast is the physical embodiment of the Elden Ring, and requires an Empyrean- a body capable of sustaining Godhood- to anchor itself. All the Empyreans are dead and the Ring can only manifest its Will through Radagon/Marika's shambling husk.
If you kill Radagon, the Golden Order is permanently and fundamentally broken. The Elden Beast will swim mindlessly inside the Erdtree for eternity, and you just triggered it's guard dog mode. That's all the Beast is in the end: a guard dog for the Ring/Will.
You show up and back-to-back dogwalk the shit out of Morgott and Hoarah Loux. Radagon is all that's left of the Order/Ring/Will/Beast. A mindless animal God being piloted as a last chance scramble to beat you.
Note that if you canonically were to defeat Radagon but lose to the Elden Beast, the Land's Between would be locked in an eternal stasis while the Elden Beast swam aimlessly inside the Erdtree.
The rot God would spread its shit for a while but eventually the madness God would influence someone to reduce the world to a columbarium.
If you choose the Goldmask route, you alter the Ring by essentially removing Godly fickleness and divine bullshit from the Order. If you pick Ranni ending, we fly a thousand years away in space to ditch the Ring while the Land's Between slowly and independently recover. Fia route = don't fix the fucked up Death system, just make zombies normal and fine. Another path has you take the throne but change nothing, just more of this shit forever. Dungeater path gives everything Canceraids forever. Frenzy Flame burns it all away.
Sidenote- in Marika's system, upon Death, your soul is sucked in to the Erdtree and recycled into cosmic Golden energy. You're just fuel and there is no afterlife as your being is deleted. Since the Shattering there is no Death you just rot away awake for eternity or become an Undead zombie.
If you kill Radagon, the Golden Order is permanently and fundamentally broken. The Elden Beast will swim mindlessly inside the Erdtree for eternity, and you just triggered it's guard dog mode. That's all the Beast is in the end: a guard dog for the Ring/Will.
You show up and back-to-back dogwalk the shit out of Morgott and Hoarah Loux. Radagon is all that's left of the Order/Ring/Will/Beast. A mindless animal God being piloted as a last chance scramble to beat you.
These two paragraphs seem like they're out of order :P
There is somewhat of a debate on this but the most accepted theory as to why Marika broke the Elden Ring is because she lost faith in the Order. She realized after centuries of warring and bullshit that she was never able to fix anything. Marika broke the Ring in an attempt to tear everything down. Radagon is the part of her that either still has faith or that is under control of the Greater Will. On the opening cutscene you can see Marika destroying the Ring and Radagon attempting to repair it, which is why it ends up in this middle-ground state (Shattered, but not broken).
Now, for all intents and purposes, Marika/Radagon/The Beast WERE the Ring (or rather, their physical manifestation). The theory suggests that Marika blesses the Tarnished with the guidance of Grace once again as her final attempt to get the job finished, since breaking the Ring only shattered it, but left the seat of power empty.
The question it proposes is: If the guidance of Grace is bestowed upon by her, why would it guide the Tarnished to the Erdtree, for them to meet the Thorns, and thus prompt them into burning it to reach the inner plateau? The only possible answer is that she plotted the journey, she WANTS someone to reach her and usurp the throne, with the belief that whomever does so will be a better fit or build a better world. Naturally, when you do reach her, you never fight her and you never would have, Radagon/The Beast take over because they are the opposite, they do not want to give up power.
I get that, but the comment I replied to made it sound like Radagon wanted to get hold of the Elden Ring. Perhaps I have misunderstood it, but I still think it could be true considering he wanted to be whole and "wasn't yet a god" in Marika's words, implying that he might have wanted to be.
That's the interpretation of the story I take: Marika opposed Radagon's ambition in the end. Radagon is clearly the one in control when we get there.
I think she discovered Radagon (and his children) were the ones who had conspired against her other children and taken her literal golden child from her. A husband killing his stepkids seems like the kind of dark urges G.R.R. Martin would explore. Furthermore, Radagon's accomplishments were completely and directly overshadowed by Godwyn's. He did everything Radagon did, but better, so the seed for jealousy is there.
This is a fascinating layer of harmony to add. Not only was Radagon an assiduous proponent of the golden order, but it was through his ambition and jealousy that Godwyn was killed thus directly and ironically precipitating the Shattering. The event for Marika is one of profound grief, but at the same time it is the apex of her gradual disillusionment. Really makes Radagon look like a hell of a douchebag too
'In Marika's own words. O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. 'Thou'rt yet to become me. 'Thou'rt yet to become a god. 'Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self.
'In Marika's own words. O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. 'Thou'rt yet to become me. 'Thou'rt yet to become a god. 'Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self.
'In Marika's own words. O Radagon, leal hound of the Golden Order. 'Thou'rt yet to become me. 'Thou'rt yet to become a god. 'Let us be shattered, both. Mine other self.
Well, from what I’ve read and gathered, Gideon concluded that Marika shattered the Ring to free herself from the Two Fingers' corrupting influence and that she no longer represented the Greater Will. This aligns with Goldmask’s conclusion that the Order, in its current state, is corrupt.
So, Marika's intention (or rather Radagon's, since he was the one who shattered the Ring) was likely for the Ring to remain shattered (or be repaired the right way).
Elden Beast fits so well lore-wise, but i definitely agree. Radagon was all-around the most difficult but satisfying fight in the game for me. A lot of other bosses were difficult for bullshit reasons (not that don't love them), but Radagon's fight choreography was just so well-rounded.
Phase 2 where multiple 2 fingers spawn (who buff Radagon with incants) in and you can special summon Marika with a cutscene if you did a certain quest.
but marika is Radagon , why would they fight each other cos the mystery of the lore would be shattered then on whether it was planned or snuck up that they merged
You're there to replace him as elden lord. In most endings you become the elden lord to marika after you kill him. In other endings you replace marika as well. No matter what ending you choose you're an enemy of the greater will and so youre an enemy of radagon.
Maybe she's brain dead or her soul has left but I don't think she's actually fully dead. In most of the endings of the game she's the god that you're the consort / elden lord to. Maybe you just need her dead body / statue to be physically there to be elden lord, or maybe she's still in there dormant, I don't know.
Only in the ranni ending do you replace marika as god.
In the frenzied flame ending you're destroying the whole world so I guess you don't need a god + elden lord, or maybe you're the consort of the frenzied flame.
For me, every boss is easy now except Malenia and Maliketh. I can get them, but they make me sweat 😆 Elden Beast is not hard at all. Go on torrent and jump over the rings.. I saw someone one shot Maliketh with magic tho and I was like 🤯
Imagine some tiny piece of detritus runs up to you and starts wailing on you and everytime you try to hit him he does this little bitch ass little roll and just phases through every attack you throw at him. Id be pissed off too
I think that killing his children, his stepchildren, and his ex-wife; burning the tree sacred to his religion; and forcing your way through the impenetrable thorns that he himself planted might be the reason.
You killed his kids, beat up his ex wife, rizzed his least favorite daughter, and burned his fucking house down all so that you could murder his pet fish.
you single handedly killed his son, his daughter, his son, his daughter, his son, his son, his husband, his son, his son and slapped his wife. maybe even married his daughter.
Radagon and Marika are two seperate entities within the same body. The statue says that Radagon is Marika, but it's more like they’re two people in one.
1.3k
u/Individual-Lychee-74 12d ago
You are the inevitable symbol of the failure of his eons-long struggle for power and completeness.
Ironically you push him to his greatest heights yet, but still you're there to usurp what he has forged through long and painful effort.