SpookeyGael: I'd actually never realized that the reason the mausoleums wander might be to essentially prevent decay/stagnation from taking hold through restless movement, like how a rolling stone doesn't gather moss or flowing water doesn't accumulate impurities.

1senhart: Crackpot theory: when we crack off the horrible screaming faces on the mausoleum legs, we're not damaging the mausoleum, we're keeping the deathblight at bay for a bit so it can sit down and rest

kasp7674: I also want to add, that the soulless demi gods might be "unwanted" by Marika, simply because she didn't want them to get an Erdtree burial.

alexanderhenriquez9354: I really like your take on the mausoleums. If we consider the soulless demigods akin to nuclear waste that cant be safely disposed by normal means, it would explain the need to create these golem-like automatons to both prevent their death from infecting the roots and to entomb them in a way, giving them the closest thing to a burial they can have.

In the time of the deathbirds, they wouldve just burned the tainted corpses of the soulless demigod, but in the world of the eternal, everything seems to stick around in one way or another

jatt7109: Unexpected but very welcome

Proxy1199: Babe new Ratatoskr just dropped

kimlee6643: The theorists bestir themselves... we're getting closer...

Ziostorm: I think it’s also a possibility that Godwyn was placed there knowing what would happen, as a means of bringing down the Erdtree, thereby being replaced by the Haligtree as the supreme order of the land. There are some odd connections between Ranni, Miquella, and the black knives that could point to some grand scheme, but it’s all super circumstantial. The connection between the sun and destined death is super fascinating though, there definitely seems to be a correlation there given that the mausoleums rest at certain hours of the night

_ariosto1519: They keep Tarnished from vandalizing the headless bodies just to get an extra item from bosses

PrivateInvestigatorIRL: I never considered Miquella being involved with the wandering mausoleums, but it makes sense. As time goes on it seems Miquella has his hands in almost everything behind the scenes

shinyhydreigon7257: I've had a thought for a while now that the Walking Giant Fire Brazier enemy from the DLC trailer is akin to the Walking Mausoleum's. I've thought this because in a promo picture, it is seen walking alongside multiple knights in armor, that alone reminded me of the Walking Mausoleum. But after hearing your idea that Walking Mausoleums are a way of storing the dead Demigods as they cant be put into the ground, it has me thinking, what if the Giant Fire are used to cremate their enemies, specifically so they cannot be buried and returned to the Erdtree. We already know Fire is sinful to the Golden Order.

Something to think about.

Coypop: This neatly makes sense of the Weeping Peninsula Ghost's dialogue about "Marika's unwanted child" in the Mausoleum, the interred demigod isn't allowed to return to the Erdtree, hence "unwanted".

Galamoth06: As an empty husk with a soulless interior and a bad case of restless leg syndrome, I very much relate to the wandering mausoleums. The only main difference is that they sleep regularly.

BaalFridge: The first time you hear a wandering mausoleum in the distance and ride up to it realizing its massive scale is an amazing experience.

It feels so eldritch, slowly walking and ringing, every single one of its steps generating a small earthquake.

And when you finally get the courage to hit it and risk being squashed, you don't even see a health bar.

Being next to that huge bell as it chimes would probably instantly shatter eardrums.

Everything about the wandering mausoleums' design is incredible.

We barely have any lore on them but what we can piece together fits so well into the story's themes that we don't need more.

robertwalton434: I always thought “But now, Ensha is slain and gone. Finished, forevermore.” is a weird way to say “Ensha is dead.”

mrreemann8313: Just a thought on the eclipse and what we infer potentially - Hawkshaw's theory of Colour in Elden Ring video proposes that Black and White shades have a temporal effect - I believe black is one stygian moment of eternity - darker colours are more potent, but their effects are shorter lived and so pitch darkness becomes a condensed moment of time. Infinite potency, infinitely short, yet lasting eternally in the moment. You will never escape the darkness, you will forever be trapped in the dark. That single, dark, moment - forever.

White is a moment spread across eternity - as colours get brighter, their effects are not so potent, but they last longer. Brighter and brighter, until pure white - a single moment stretched to infinity like too little butter across too much bread.

Both shades eventually erase whatever colour they might have been - black drowns the colour in the abyss, while white thins it out until it fades into oblivion.

The colours of the eclipse are none, it is colourless. All that is left is the shades of black and white. Eternity in both it's forms, that block any other kind of colour, any kind of influence. That's how I see it - the Eclipse is a clearly separate but unified joining of black and white, to defend against Deathblight's gold-flecked grey miasma.

While I can't really think of much else to examine - I do think it's worth noting how the eclipse's colours may fit into Hawkshaw's theory of colour, and what information we can glean from viewing the game through its lens.

garrulousgoldmask: I always thought that Godwyn had to die a "true death" before he could be brought back to life. So the Golden Epitaph and Castle Sol could still be part of Miquella's plan.

Godwyn is also called "the golden bough" by the Finger Reader in the Deeproot Depths, which is a very clever allusion to the anthropology classic of the same name that covers ritualistic regicide and preserving/transferring royal souls.

That's a good point to BOLO about Ensha—he's exactly the type of minor FromSoft NPC who could have a much more substantial role in the DLC.

xhinoteque: that was an amazing intelligent observation, Ratatoskar. Keeping them away from the ground. Probably Miquella was the first to noticed that too

ryankeith2712: Can’t wait for the Elden ring lore to start pouring in now because the dlc is so close!

aldrichunfaithful3589: this isn't entirely related, but i think we've been thinking about destined death in the wrong way. the way we see it affect the lands between seems very much like a plague and maliketh wields it like some kind of weapon, which makes us assume it's some kind of corruption that shouldn't be there, but we need to keep in mind that the rune of death is supposed to be part of the elden ring. marika removed it in an attempt to remove death from her order, and to prevent the eventual death of the order itself, but what she didn't account for is that death is a natural part of life. all people will eventually die, and all things will eventually come to an end, that's why it's called destined death. so when godwyn died and started spreading deathroot everywhere, sure that seems like a bad thing, but it's worth mentioning that only a small fragment of the rune of death was being reintroduced since most of it was still contained within maliketh. my theory is that those who live in death only exist because of that, there's enough destined death in the world to partially kill people but not enough to kill them properly, and the real problem isn't that death is being unleashed it's that most of it isn't. when the player kills maliketh we're unleashing the rune of death just like godwyn, the only two differences are that corpses aren't running around and that we unleashed all of it rather than just a little bit, and while there's not enough evidence to prove that those things are related it's still worth thinking about. i don't think i need to go into miyazaki's feelings about immortality since he's been talking about it for five games now, but i don't see anyone making these connections which i think is missing a crucial point, we're not supposed to have a world without death and rulers aren't meant to be eternal. things only got better in the lands between when marika stopped being eternal, the order came to an end, and when death was reinstated as a natural part of life

May 20 2024

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