I Need To Check With All The NPCS Just To Make Sure, But…

It is weird. Zelda lore in general is just kinda a nightmare. For example Zelda is apparently the descendant of Sonia and Rauru but the game literally makes no reference to a child of the two existing up until and after the point where Sonia is killed.

Even as a stand alone BOTW/TOTK have a lot of little weird inconsistencies. Hell, there's really no way to know whether I'm actually right about this or not because the games seem to just pick and choose when they're pulling from previous lore and when they're doing something different.

Like, with the existence of Fi and Zelda's goddess power, I think It's safe to assume that an event similar to skyward sword happened in lore, meaning that ganon could have demise' curse. But at the same time, like you said the origin of hyrule has been rewritten and we're in an entirely different timeline so it's entirely impossible to tell just how much of the pre established stuff actually plays into it. (Though I do personally believe that Demise is cannon in BOTW/TOTK due to the immense amount of power the secret stone was able to grant Ganondorf despite them only being able to enhance someone's innate abilities and not grant them totally new ones)

Thinking about how despite all the suffering Leonard has gone through, he never abandoned Radahn. He never left or stopped carrying him around. And even after all of this time he’s still just as willing to fight by his master's side as he was during the shattering. Leonard isn’t some poor old steed forced to carry a giant, and I think his actions in the fight paint a very particular picture. The first opportunity he gets in our fight he fucking charges at us, the two move so harmoniously that it’s sometimes hard to remember that they’re two separate entities. I wouldn’t be surprised if he enjoyed combat just as much as Radahn tbh.

Thinking about how despite being driven mad by the scarlet rot and long since having lost his mind, Radahn never stopped using his gravity magic to make himself lighter for his steed. How he’s gone so far that he’s cannibalised both his enemies and allies but never laid a finger on Leonard. How despite being a hulking mindless beast, the frail creature eternally beneath him doesn’t seem to have any injuries. He’s definitely exhausted and starving but he’s doing surprisingly well for himself for a steed that has seen multiple Radahn festivals and the battle of Aionia, especially when compared to how many injuries Radahn himself has.

The two of them were inseparable until the very end.

Kinda ridiculous how every member of the pines family has “selfishness” as a key part of their character but Mabel is the only one that frequently gets attacked by the wider community for it.

Like, Ford found out he essentially created a universe devastating weapon and his top priority was to hide his blueprints for it instead of just destroying it because even though it was a tool of mass destruction it was still his research and life's work.

Stan is... Well Stan, a running joke in the series is him being a massive con-man and thief, and while it was for altruistic reasons, he was still willing to risk the universe's safety by reactivating the portal to get Ford back.

And Dipper is constantly willing to risk other people's happiness and safety for a chance of impressing the ones he looks up to. He manipulated time to get a shot at impressing Wendy, hurting Mabel and getting Blenden falsely imprisoned in the process. He used the size-changer thing to grow taller than Mabel because he was upset she was taller than him and literally raised the dead and almost got everyone killed to prove to the agents that he was telling the truth.

To reiterate my first point, each and every member of the pines family is incredibly selfish in one way or another, but that doesn't make them bad people, it just makes them people. So maybe we shouldn't be too mad at one character specifically for showing traits that they all have.

I know promised consort Radahn is quite a controversial reveal but I honestly think it works really well. Miquella and Radahn were inherently tied together from the very beginning of the game's story, with Malenia and Radahn’s fight to the death. The game put so much emphasis on this battle over every other fight in the shattering that looking back now, knowing what we do, it’s kinda weird that not a lot of people really suspected that there was anything deeper behind the most influential battle in the shattering.

No one really stopped to ask why Melania, sister and blade of kindly and benevolent Miquella would be leading a war march across the entirety of the lands between to challenge Radahn. Why she was so desperate to defeat him that she was willing to release the scarlet rot and possibly destroy herself to take him down. Why the cleanrots and the redmanes hate each other to such a degree that even in death, they still continue to fight. Why Miquella was reaching upwards to the Aionian battle ground when we encountered his body.

I think there was always history between these 3 characters in the game. Not enough on its own to come to the conclusion that Radahn was Miquella’s desired consort, but certainly enough to get you wondering just what was up with them that caused the events to transpire the way they did.

Monster hunter wilds spoilers

Thinking about how there’s a possibility that Guardian Arkveld had Deviljho DNA in it.

It’d explain why it had this inherent, powerful desire to eat that other guardians lacked, to the point that it was able to teach itself how to with no outside influence and why when it did learn how to, it just couldn’t control itself.

And even if Guardian Arkveld lacked a digestive system like the other Guardians (which is unlikely because that food has to go somewhere and also unlike the other guardians it has/or grew reproductive organs), there’s a very real possibility that it would still suffer that same ravenous, environment destroying hunger that Deviljho possess.

There's also the fact that Guardian Arkvelds battle theme literally contains segments from Deviljho's own theme. This may just be hinting towards the thematic similarities between the two, but personally I think it could be read either way.

If this is true then... Holy fuck Wyveria really created the most aggressively violent and angry creature they could. Giving a monster Deviljho's aggression and ceaseless hunger with the ability to fly, tussle with every other apex predator in the area and with no way to satiate that hunger due to not physically being able to eat. They basically created a monster that's only goal is to kill everything it sees without need for rest or even stopping to eat.

Zoh Shia is their equal dragon weapon, but Arkveld strikes me as their attempt to create something that will kill as much stuff as quickly as possible.

It's so unfair that they dropped Nightreign halfway through the game awards because there was no way I'd be able to pay attention to the rest of the show after that reveal 😭😭😭

From the moment the trailer dropped my memory of everything afterwards becomes more and more of a blur.

After a copious amount of time looking into the topic, cross referencing interpretations and reading item descriptions I think I've finally solidified my stance on the nature of the whole "Radagon is Marika" twist.

As far as I'm aware, it seems that Radagon and Marika used to be the same individual before being split apart for some reason. Enia says how all the demigods are direct descendants of Marika, which would only really be possible if Radagon was a part of Marika from the beginning. Even while split apart he would still be Marika to a certain extent. This goes even further with the fact that Radagon gifted Rennala with a great rune when he was leaving to become elden lord, which is something he'd only have access to if he was part of Marika.

The story doesn't work if they used to be two separate people who somehow became one, which was what I originally believed to be the case. It only works if they were the same and got split at some point.

The thing I'm puzzled on however is when were they split apart and why? And when and how did they remerge into one being with two minds?

I'm also curious about how Radagon, despite being Marika wasn't a god himself.

The line "Thou'rt yet to become me. Thou'rt yet to become a god" has stumped me for the longest time, and continues to do so because it seems to imply the idea that the two aren't the same individual split into two... But everything else does seem to imply that.

Is it a Millicent/Malenia situation? Where part of Marika was shed and became its own person? If so then why?

At this point I'm sort of at a loss and would love to hear the opinions, so what do you guys think?

Radagon and Rennala’s marriage is so fucking funny to me and I am shocked people don’t bring up the absolute absurdity of it more often.

I mean, this man strolls into Liurnia looking to invade it with presumably an entire army, gets his ass absolutely handed to him by Rennala and like 10 dudes, proceeds to propose to her (possibly on the spot)! And she says yes!

And then they get married by a turtle!

Tbf there are also a couple other things that link Marika to the black knives. Notably the fact that the group seem to have aligned themselves with the GW in some way after the shattering, due to them hunting down Ranni’s squad after she goes after her fingers (her baleful shadow is even kitted out with the same destined death powers, which shouldn't be possible if they weren't specifically given it by someone) and the one guarding the throne room in Leyndell.

On top of this the item description for the black knife set not only says that the black knives were all Numen women but specifically mentions that they had close ties with Marika.

Then there's the question as to how Ranni even got to farum azula to steal from Maliketh in the first place, which could very neatly tie into the grand and as of now unexplained "betrayal" that Marika commited against Maliketh.

There’s also Melina, who is one of Marika’s own children who uses the very distinct black knife fighting style if summoned for the Morgott fight. Since she's also technically a numen woman she's also in the running as a black knife candidate.

One of the things that has always vexes me is how people made the assumption that Marika the Eternal had some hand in the Black knife plot that killed Godwyn. The reasoning? Because the Black Knife assassins happen to be the same race as her, Numens.

Gee it's not like an entire civilization of Numen exist or anything, it's not like the player character can choose to play as a Numen or anything???

There are literally no other facts that link them outside of race. Yeah it is true that Marika was delving deep into the meaning of the order to find flaws with it, but if you knew your boss was making constant plans to replace you with some other candidates then what else would you do but question how they work??

All in all, there is no definite facts that line up either way, but I prefer to keep to the belief that Marika's shattering of the Elden Ring was an act of grief and loss of faith with the death of one of her most prominent children rather then something out of pure malice. I also support the theory that as Ranni was being groomed to take on Marika's role as the new goddess of the Erdtree, Godwyn was being groomed to take on the role of Elden Lord. It would explain why he was chosen specifically for her plot, and why she seemingly shows no remorse for his 'death.'

Not that Godwyn was seemingly a bad individual as far as in game lore goes. He was pretty much the Ned Flanders of Leyndell before he got merc'ed.

One thing I’ve been thinking about recently that I just cannot get out of my head is why Marika shattered the elden ring? I mean, it’s all well and good to just say “Oh it’s because she was driven mad by the death of Godwyn of course” but I just don’t think that’s quite right. Not only does it feel weird to assume the shattering was just some spur of the moment decision done in an emotional outburst when it was very clearly planned in quite a lot of detail but it also doesn’t really add up with the timeline since Godfrey was presumably sent out of the lands between long before Godwyn died and that seems to be a massive part of what Marika’s plan was.

I think I’ve come up with a semi possible alternative reason as to what could have driven Marika to destroy her own order.

Ok hear me out here.

What if she instead betrayed her order because of what happened to her omen children? I mean, think about it. They are still her children after all and she had to abandon both of them as infants to a life of hell because the greater will (or the golden order, could be both) doesn’t like Omens.

We know that the GW was a pretty controlling (and rather petty) god when it was in power so it definitely had the ability and motive to strong arm Marika into doing things she wouldn’t want to. Even if she did want to keep the twins with her, what choice would she have had with that sort of being looming over her head 24/7?

Imagine how much that would destroy your faith in a system. Her own children, subjected to a life of pain and ridicule because of the way they were born all because her god (or society) says so.

I find it hard to believe that she wouldn’t at least have some conflicted feelings over the whole ordeal.

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I think the biggest evidence I have here is the fact that the omen twins were not only gifted greatrunes upon the rings shattering (something only granted to Marika’s offspring) but Morgott was even ‘given grace’, which is something Marika has a lot of control over.

Even after being born omens and being abandoned early on in their lives Marika still considered them enough of her kin to be given a chance in the shattering race. Now you could argue that them getting their greatrunes was just a happy accident but I really don’t think the same could be said about Morgott being grace given. That seems like a very conscious decision.

We can even see that Godfrey himself had some sense of fondness (or at least respect) for Morgott from the way he holds and speaks to him in his opening boss cutscene, is it really so out of the question that Marika may have felt the same?

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TLDR

What if Marika having to abandon her Omen children because of the greater will and golden order was the catalyst that began her plot to shatter the ring and end her own order?