calebcarrick6608: I didn’t need to go to work anyway
dangregoire: One of my favorite parts of new From Software content is just watching the community explode with creativity. My entire algorithm has been taken over my S.o.t.E. lore and I love it.
sebastianmoscoso9404: Its a crime we dont have a crucible knight spirit ashes
Martedamm: I think you forgot about Ymir's dialogue telling us the universe basically began with some sort of big bang " great rupture far across the skies" and that people are themselves made of stardust, just like in our real world, and hence all are children of the greater will. So the current candidate for the "one great" is definitely the state of the universe/matter/existence before this rupture happened and it's far more likely theory than any other, so it should be definitely mentioned in the video.
maxderrat: Hey dude! Great video as always! BTW, I wanted to point out a nice little environmental detail to you. If you look on the ground in both the Divine Lion Dancing Beast arena and the area where you fight Radahn/Miquella, you'll see a design that seems to echo that civilization's perception of the Crucible. It's an intertwining spiral, along with the colors of red, gold and black. In the spaces between the spirals is a flower.

The flower is one representation of the Crucible, as we know from the DLC's newest Aspect of the Crucible incantation. The black contrasted with the red/gold represent the blending of opposites within the Crucible, in a quasi-alchemical way. The black represents the prima materia, which is the beginning of the alchemical process, while red/gold represent the end (red = philosopher's stone, gold = other primary goal of the alchemists).
WEARESOSLIMEY: A crazy thing I realized is the hornsents god did come back in a way radahn is a lion he's also horned from using mohgs body and his helm has horns. The thing I wanna know is was it planned that way?
tengrin9489: The definitive soulsborne lore expert is back.
jackross5698: BRO...

The Old Finger-reader Crone under the Two Fingers will wait thousands, if not tens of thousands of years to hear from the Greater Will (through the Fingers).
=
The Old Crucible Crone under the Divine Beast (which are a symbol of Two, like the Fingers) have waited tens of thousands of years for the Crucible God to answer her prayers through the Divine Beast.

There might be more parallels between the Crucible and the Greater Will than we initially thought
RicAdbur: I think it's more likely that Hyetta's dialogue describes the literal dawn of time - Elden Ring's equivalent of the big bang - prior to which no meaningful way of measuring or describing anything existed. The three fingers philosophy is that existence itself as we know and experience it was a mistake from the very moment it began, because existence implies some amount of suffering. This would have taken place long before there was an Elden Beast or a Lands Between for it to fall upon. This also seems to be corroborated by Count Ymir's description of how the world came into existence.

As for the crucible stuff, I think people take it far too literally. I don't imagine there was ever a literal object or tree known as The Crucible, but rather that it's just a more general nature worship philosophy that venerates the origin of life at some nebulous point in the distant past, interpreted by various different cultures over the course of history in some different ways and some similar ways, each building off their predecessors in one way or another, much like with real world philosophies. The Hornsent may just be the Roman equivalent to Elden John's Dynasty's ancient greece equivalent, or something similar. The Hornsent probably all have horns because their culture values horns and so they self-select for that trait in the same way the Golden Order culture select against that trait.
Zard1212: In the latest patch Emperyan grandam was changed to hornsent grandam. Likely fixed a mistake.
Slavvin_Gavin: There has been a lot of speculation around the Marika section of the Story Trailer, some people think it’s a snake skin like the one outside Bonny Village, others think it’s the body of the Gloam Eyed Queen, but I’ve got a different theory.

If you look closely at the trim, there appears to be buttonholes running up the edges, so that makes me think it could be the garb of a Hornsent of significant importance (due to its proximity to the divine gate)

Now what could Marika be pulling out? I think it’s physical, tangible Grace, Grace of the crucible. As we know the crucible’s grace was a bronze colour, not to mention the spells used by Hornsent Inquisitors are golden.

So my thinking is that Marika is harvesting Grace to present to the Divine Gate as an offering and the roar we hear reminds me of the sound the Elden Beast makes in its Cutscene.

Just a theory I haven’t really seen anywhere but I take with a ginormous pinch of salt as one missed item description could totally upend this theory.

Great Video as always Smough!
funguy398: I just finished the video about Messmer, and now Hornsent dropped.
What a timing!

Is there a connection between Hornsent and ancient Rauh? Can't wait to find out
shaunflinn1002: Yes! Time to draw and listen to THE BEST Elden Ring lore.
aureldumont: Been checking YT daily for an upload from you. Thank you!!! Now to try to resist watching this until I'm off work....
florin-alexandrustanciu5643: Mad respect for still warning about spoilers, I cant believe I saw almost 10 thumbnails with the name of the last boss day 2 after release...
dr_regularlove: The Lamenters scream "Hellraiser reference" at me. Their horns have grown to pierce their eyes, inflicting a state of bliss borne out of exquisite pain. Lamenter is a reference to the Lament Configuration.
noamias4897: That thumbnail is sick. What an art piece
NoEnemies-08: I really like how every party in fromsoft lore is two-dimensional, and it's not just a generic good or evil party
AMoss248: Yesssss I've been looking forward to you covering this. Their lore was my favorite part of the DLC
nigeltownley7472: Something neat to do with spirals: Every object in our universe spins at some regular rate, and some angle (until acted upon) and if you map the travel of our solar system through space with galactic spin, it leaves behind a spiral pattern.
Cajun_Seasoning: so weird knowing everyone who's commented rn hasn't finished watching the video yet, we're all watching at the same time
Gatchu137: I think the "One Great" is a state in which everything was originally joined together, with the "Greater Will" being the sentient nature of the One Great.

That's why it would be normal to refer to them as one in the same, like Hyetta does. Pre-seperation, it's the "One Great," but post-seperation, it's the "Greater Will," because now that everything has separated from it, it can no longer be called the One Great. This might also be why it can't directly meddle with the Lands Between, because it's only the will that remains.

The crucible is hard to visualize, but I think it's referring to the same concept as the One Great. If all life was originally joined together, it would have been before the One Great split into diverse life. What the "crucible" is referring to, is the fact that life all shared a single source, and can thus sprout horns, wings, and other features that are indicative of their shared roots. I don't think the crucible is a real thing, it's a metaphorical crucible of life, like a primordial ooze.

Conversely, I think the frenzy ending is the exact same thing as what the term "crucible" refers to. All life being re-joined back into a single melting pot. But obviously, the Greater Will split apart with the intent of life being diverse, and created the Elden Ring as a mechanism for that life to govern itself. So that's why the flame of frenzy is treated as the ultimate evil, not because it's inherently a bad thing, but because it's the antithesis to what the Greater Will wanted in the first place.
bigsundays9058: As a hornsent, personally, I could never forgive Marika
XIII_Vanitas: The item descriptions of the Crucible Knight sets explicitly state that "the crucible of life is the primordial form of the Erdtree".

In multiple interviews Miyazaki explained how the Erdtree represents the Elden Ring and the rules of the world and we even see how its appearance changes based on which greater rune we use to mend the Elden Ring.

The Gilded Greatshield item descriptions tells us that "the red tinge in the gold coat mirrors the primordial matter that became the Erdtree". All crucible knights' armors also have a red tinge.

We know that Marika created the Golden Order by removing the Rune of Death from the Elden Ring (Enia's dialogue and Mending Rune of the Death-Prince item description).

The Rune of Death has a red tinge and a black core. The Black Flame of the Godskin, which is black and white, is what's left of their incantations after the Rune of Death is sealed within Maliketh.

Seems pretty clear to me that the Crucible isn't just an abstract concept, but the physical manifestation of the Elden Ring in the form of the Erdtree before Marika manipulated it. The removal of the Rune of Death stripped it of its red tinge and left it pure gold, giving rise to the Golden Order.
monsieurdorgat6864: Amazing, as always! Three thoughts to consider:
1) the Church of the Bud probably was instead dedicated to the plant aspects of the Crucible, like the Crucible Bloom. It's implied in Romina's rememberence that she imparted rot into these buds - corrupting them with the essence of the outer god that, as stated in the bud description, wasn't there before. Her motivation was probably preservation against fire, and revenge, since her plants were particularly weak to fire. Her church was probably the primary base from which the Hornsent excavated the ruins.

2) It's implied that the sacred bloody flesh is normal meat that's soaked in the formless mother's blood. The meat isn't the special part, just the blood. Tiny detail!

3) I think that the jar folk in the Lands Between were not made there, but rather escaped the shadowland gaols or were released when their melding into a novel person (as opposed to a screaming amalgm) was completed. Clearly they do more than deliver the dead to minor erdtrees, since we also see them living lives in Raya Lucaria, hanging around Stormveil, and even camping out the Caria Manor cliffsides. I am more inclined to interpret that Marika tried to free many jar folk (even making their poaching illegal), letting them live independent lives as warriors or simple villagers, because her experiments to separate them failed. Alexander and Jar Bairn have no intent of rejoining the Erdtree's roots, instead living lives as warriors for their own sake. And I think this is what Marika had to come to terms with - she couldn't undo what happened to her people, and the next best thing is to give the newly born jar folk (who only seem to remember fleeting glimpses of their former lives - see Jar Bairn's misinterpreting of what a "potentate" is) new lives and freedom to go where they pleased. I like to think that the jars in Raya Lucaria are trying to become sorcerers, but it explains why we find them absolutely everywhere.
SHARK_TASTIC: This hornsent video got MY HORN extended to the MAX
shazbot322: one thing i thought of that i havent seen anyone else mention is the idea that the hornsent may have manually built the gate of divinity. considering how they were seemingly obsessed with the prospect of divinity (per the curseblade armor, the revered spirit ash, and the multitude of mummified monks in belurat) and the wanton cruelty leveled at the shamans (using the pots purely for capital punishment doesnt make sense to me). it all makes me think they may not have had a single god at all, but were in the process of making one, similarly to the nox but Marika managed to swoop in and steal it some how (the gold braid mentions the grandmother, so marika may have learned about the gate from grandam)
Gigawolf1: *Hornsent Grandam, iirc the item that referred to an Empyrean Grandam got changed recently (haven't double checked that so take it with a grain of salt)
juliantheapostate2506: Smough, as a fellow Scotsman I have to ask, why must you remind us that our week of summer has failed to materialise ?
SheynePonem: i actually think the theory of marika being a successful creation of the jars holds some merit. why would there be statues of her everywhere and why would her actions be labeled a „betrayal“, if they hadn’t revered her prior? i absolutely love this theory and it also explains why marika can blend with radagon or shed him from herself. she is an amalgam of other beings
daniell1483: Pretty fascinating that the Shamen were once a persecuted people under the Hornsent. I can't help but wonder how much the persecution of Marika's people played into her motivation to first seek godhood and later the crusade against the Hornsent.
ronaldsegrest3464: When you talked about how dancing was a form of communication with the divine, it made me think of The Blind Warrior. Its movements are like a dance, and it was taught by a fairy/sprite.

We also learn that being blinded is a certain boon (Lamentor's Mask) and could have even enhanced his "communion" with an outer god.
TheFeralFerret: Worth noting the 'empyrean' grandam is no longer called that, as it was deliberately patched out. She's now just hornsent grandam.

Aug 21 2024

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